Sen. John Kerry on the Armenian Genocide by Karniyarikyan

Sen. John Kerry on the Armenian Genocide by Karniyarikyan
Jun 26, 2008
http://www.anca.org/assets/pdf/misc/062408_ambnomination/KerryYovanovitch_Responses.pdf

P.S. please don't come back and tell me that Kerry is in the pocket of the 'powerful armenian lobby'

To: Karniyarikyan
Same stuff different person. Changes nothing. The article refuses to acknowledge joint struggle between Ottoman Turks and Ottoman Armenians in an armed rebellion scenario.

The repetitive nature of this argument is rather cumbersome and without any kind progress to a mutual reconciliation process. As soon as Armenians begin acknowledging as whole the hardships and mass deaths inflicted on Ottoman Turks there maybe some hope. Until then, Armenians will paste a document with their source and argument and the Turks will do vice versa. However, the only side acknowledging mass deaths in part afflicted upon the Armenian people, are the Turks. Whereas Armenians continue to struggle with the notion that they were the only ones that suffered, and were the sacrificial lambs to the allied success.

The story is different in Turkey, and it's more of a mutual embracing one. The story there is that BOTH people were subjected to imperial interests of the great powers. Thus, both suffered immensely during the course of the war.

Turkey has gained a lot of positive political and social momentum in the past month. This is in part parallel to the recent success of the Turkish state in excelling at all attributes. Even their recent success in Euro 2008 has swayed opinion and interest in Turkey. The little things add up at the end of the day. While the Turks make themselves more attractive to the world in many methods and occasions, Armenians are still stuck on one thing. Their "lost lands" and genocide claims to acquire retribution, restitution and in many propaganda posters, revenge.

Shant, it is better that Armenians take a break from their claims and start realizing the battle for global opinion on the matter is slipping from Armenian grasps. We have witnessed numerous countries in the past six months rejecting the Armenian claim. Politically and legally, the Turks seem evidently on top of everything for once.

Take care Karniyarikyan.

By Karniyarikyan
The Turkish denial machine is hard at work.

To: Karniyarikyan
"The repetitive nature of this argument is rather cumbersome and without any kind progress to a mutual reconciliation process. As soon as Armenians begin acknowledging as whole the hardships and mass deaths inflicted on Ottoman Turks there maybe some hope. Until then, Armenians will paste a document with their source and argument and the Turks will do vice versa. However, the only side acknowledging mass deaths in part afflicted upon the Armenian people, are the Turks. Whereas Armenians continue to struggle with the notion that they were the only ones that suffered, and were the sacrificial lambs to the allied success."

Read it over and over again. Until you realize I'm denying nothing.

by Karniyarikyan
"Until you realize I'm denying nothing."

This reminds me of Yovanovitch's responses. So you're not denying the Genocide, but you refuse to recognize it?

Very clever. What I don't understand is what the middle-ground is in a situation where you don't deny something, but you don't admit it. To me, this situation is a dichotomy.

To Karniyarikyan
Have you even read the paragraph? Or did you just decide to cut out the part that you think you can turn into a straw man?

Read it again:

"The repetitive nature of this argument is rather cumbersome and without any kind progress to a mutual reconciliation process. As soon as Armenians begin acknowledging as whole the hardships and mass deaths inflicted on Ottoman Turks there maybe some hope. Until then, Armenians will paste a document with their source and argument and the Turks will do vice versa. However, the only side acknowledging mass deaths in part afflicted upon the Armenian people, are the Turks. Whereas Armenians continue to struggle with the notion that they were the only ones that suffered, and were the sacrificial lambs to the allied success."

No, it's a mere fact you refuse to acknowledge equal devastation Turks and Armenians experienced. That does not constitute as genocide in a civil conflict between two people.

I'm acknowledging your losses, as you should mine that simple. There is no concept of dichotomy going on here, it's straight forward one way fact. No splitting of hairs, no need for the splitting of hairs. Turks and Armenians suffered equally. Thus it cannot be labeled as genocide because you, John Kerry, Obama, etc, said so.

Let's face it, going from door to door in California trying to garner Christian votes is perhaps the weakest form of proving a fact. Especially, when the Muslim world is not so popular in America. Many American-Armenian organizations have practiced this method and continue to practice. Mean while it is you who call my murdered ancestors, murderers. Is this the kind of logic that will lead us to mutual reconciliation?

May the truth set you free Karniyarikyan.

To: Karniyarikyan
"please don't come back and tell me that Kerry is in the pocket of the 'powerful armenian lobby'"

It is what it is, has been created and written about by Armenians. Deal with it.

We can cut and paste too... but the author of this article is a historian, a U.S. military hero and someone who has actually bothered to research the issues.

The Armenians and Ottoman Military Policy, 1915 by Edward Erickson

"This article examines the threats to the logistics and security of the two Ottoman armies that were directly affected by the Armenian insurrection-the Ottoman 3rd Army in eastern Anatolia and the Ottoman 4th Army in Syria and Palestine. A further army, the 6th, in Mesopotamia, was indirectly affected because 100% of its logistical resupply chain ran though the other two armies. All three armies were in contact with the enemy in 1915 and the collapse of any one of them would have had a catastrophic effect on the national security of the Ottoman Empire.
...
Encouraged by the successful insurrections and independence of the Serbs, Bulgars, and Greeks, dissident Armenians in the Ottoman Empire formed revolutionary committees, both in secret and in public, a formula that had worked especially well for the Christian peoples in the Balkans. There were several outbreaks of Armenian large-scale violence before the First World War (notably in 1894-96 and 1908-09).
...
The Armenian revolutionary committees were instrumental in the arming of the Armenian community in eastern Anatolia. In July 1914 the Ottoman consulate in Kars intercepted a telegram outlining the smuggling of 400 rifles into the Eleskir valley. Other intercepted letters sent by the Dashnak committee (predominant among the numerous Armenian nationalist committees of the time) requested weapons from the Russians. That summer the British Foreign Office also tracked similar numbers of military rifles being smuggled into Trabzon.
...
The Ottoman army soon became aware that regiments of expatriate Ottoman Armenians in the Russian army were mobilized and were conducting war-training exercises. Indicators of potential violent intent accumulated as Ottoman authorities found bombs and weapons hidden in Armenian villages.

Near Erzurum, Russian rifles were discovered cached in Armenian homes on 20 October. Earlier that month (prior to the commencement of hostilities) the 3rd Army had received reports of Armenians who served in the Russian army returning to the Ottoman Anatolian provinces with maps and money. There were also reports from infantry battalions concerning Armenians meetings at which large numbers of aggressively nationalist people were fathering.

In late October 1914 the 3rd Army staff informed the Ottoman general staff that large numbers of Armenians with weapons were moving into Mus, Bitlis, Van and Erivan. Ottoman military staffs at all levels were also disturbed by reports that thousands of Armenian citizens were deliberately leaving their homes in Ottoman territory and travelling into Russian-held territory.
...
War broke out on 2 November 1914. Later that month the Ottoman Special Organization and the local jandarma (a paramilitary gendarmerie) launched a bitter anti-guerilla campaign against insurgent Armenians who had crossed into the empire near Hopa and Rize on the north east frontier.
...
On 25 February 1914 the Operations Division of the Ottoman general staff sent a ciphered cable to the field armies directing them to take increased security precautions. This directive noted increased dissident Armenian activity in Bitlis, Aleppo, Dortyol, and Kayseri, and furthermore identified Russian and French influence and activities in these areas (in particular, code keys in French, Russian, and Armenian were discovered in Armenian homes in the city of Kayseri).
...
Moreover, commanders were ordered to remove any ethnic Armenian soldiers from important headquarter staffs and command centres. The final measure was probably taken in response to a report that the ARMENIAN PATRIARCHATE IN CONSTANTINOPLE WAS TRANSMITTING MILITARY SECRETS AND DISPOSITIONS TO THE RUSSIANS.

The timing of this order corresponded with information provided to the Russians from the Armenian committee in Zeitoun that 15,000 Armenians there were ready to take up arms and attack Ottoman lines of communications of the Ottoman army in Erzurum.

By mid-March 1915 the insurgent situation in the Dogubeyazit-Van region had considerably worsened. The governor of Van reported numerous massacres of isolated Muslim villagers by armed groups of Armenian guerillas.
...
There is no question that the Russians supported the Armenians inside the Ottoman Empire with money, weapons and encouragement.
...
Making things worse for the Ottomans, Armenian ceteler or guerilla bands began to interdict the vulnerable Ottoman lines of communications by cutting telegraph wires and conducting road sabotage to cut and block roads (notably along the Erzurum-Sivas logitics corridor).
...
German cables from Constantinople reported that Armenian clubs in Erzurum committed a series of political murders and that Armenians were serving as guides for the Russian army.
...
At Van the Armenian committees quickly distributed large quantities of pre-positioned weapons and revolted in concert with a Russian offensive. The insurgents were in direct contact with fellow comitteemen in the druzhiny fighting alongside the Russians.
...
The Ottoman leadership and staffs knew a great deal about the Armenian threat prior to 30 May 1915 (the date of the region-side relocation order). They knew that the British, French, and Russians were in direct contact with the Armenian revolutionary committees and were planning CO-ORDINATED COMBAT OPERATIONS against the Ottomans. The Ottomans had solid evidence of large Armenian weapons caches in key city locations.
...
[T]he Ottoman reaction was escalatory and responsive rather than premeditated and pre-planned. In this context the Ottoman relocation decision becomes more understandable as a military solution to a military problem...the Armenians were a great mlitary dangers."

About the Author:
Lieutenant-Colonel Edward J. Erickson
BA SUNY, MA Colgate University, MA St Lawrence University, PhD Leeds

Edward J. Erickson was born in Norwich, New York, USA. After military service as an infantry noncommissioned officer, he was commissioned in the Field Artillery in 1975. During his career, Ed Erickson served with the 509th Airborne Infantry Battalion, the 8th Mechanized Infantry Division, the 24th Infantry Division, the 528th Field Artillery Group, and the 42nd Field Artillery Brigade. During the Persian Gulf War, he served as the Operations Officer (S3) of the 2nd Battalion 3rd Field Artillery in the 3rd Armored Division at the Battle of Wadi Al Batin. In the latter phase of his career, he served in NATO assignments in Izmir, Turkey and in Naples, Italy as a Foreign Area Officer specializing in Turkey and the Middle East. In 1995 he was assigned to the NATO Headquarters in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he served as a Military Assistant to COMIFOR.

Lieutenant-Colonel Erickson retired in October 1997 to teach world history at Norwich High School, but was recalled to active duty in March 2003 for Operation Iraqi Freedom and was assigned as the Political Advisor to Major General Ray Odierno, 4th Infantry Division. After six months in Tikrit, Iraq, Lieutenant-Colonel Erickson returned to civilian life and now works as the Dean of Students at Norwich High School. During his military service Ed Erickson won many awards, including the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster. He is an eminent and leading authority on the Ottoman Army during the great war, a subject on which he has written widely, including two major books, Ordered To Die, A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War (2000) and Defeat in Detail, The Ottoman Army in the Balkans 1912-1913 (2003). Lieutenant-Colonel Erickson has also written The Sultan's Army: A History of the Ottoman Military, 1300-1923, published by Praeger in 2006.