House to take up Armenian resolution despite Bush

So, what is the point, Steny? This happened 90+ years ago!! The people at fault are no longer alive. Or is this just another Demoncrap ploy to damage the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan and the general War on Terror?
And you Loons were taking me to task cause I said the Leftists and most Democrats were Al Qaeda's greatest allies. Thank you Steny and Ms. Pelooooozi for proving me right once again!

Bush should read an interesting book titled 'Forty Days of Musa Dagh'.
He might lose a little of his 'moral relativism' on the matter.

"This happened 90+ years ago!! The people at fault are no longer alive."

The Holocaust happened 60+ years ago, and the people responsible are no longer alive, yet you seem to think it is a very big deal when the President of Iran denies the Holocaust.

My grandfather was the only member of his family to escape the genocide... As his entire family and village were burned alive, he was able to escape and worked his way across Europe, earning the money for his passage to the U.S. by diving for coins flung off the decks of tour boats in Greece.

The only shame here is that the Turkish government has not been forced to acknowledge this atrocity sooner.

It's funny that the Republicans on this message board don't even realize that this has been a GOP issue in the past, and that Armenians in the US have mainly supported the GOP, and that th last president to kill this bill was Bill Clinton when he put the squeeze on the GOP congressmen who were ready to introduce it on the floor.

Hilarious!

I am a Turkish American Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran and this is how I receieve appreciation. So you are claimin that Turks put Armenians into concentration camps. this is an absolute lie. to compare holocaust to Armenian killings? it is stupid! the question is lets say we were in war with mexico and texans were fighting against us to get independence. what would we do? wat would we hve done? what we did to american indians, to japanese? why are they not called "genocide"??????

ka-

What we did to the Native Americans was Genocide. That is shamefully, but completely, true.

It is a very cheap ploy to keep bringing up holocaust comparisons.

When talking about the Jewish Holocaust people do not bring up other episodes because it is able to stand on its own two feet.

This use of association arises because the Armenian claims are too weak and have been and will be called into question by historians of extremely high repute.

The continued use of a Hitler quote that was discredited at Nuremberg 60 years ago to pull off this sentimental coersion is the sort of dishonesty that will keep historians revisiting this matter and pointing out the discrepancies. Yes, I am aware that Armenians will claim that Bardakjian sourced this quote beyond contention, but when one follows his trail they find the same documentation that was rejected in favour of two authenticated versions of the same speech.

Indeed, the historians that dispute the genocidal intent of the Ottoman leaders are often excellent historians like Bernard Lewis and Gilles Veinstein - not the crackpots that deny the Holocaust.

As for Musa Dagh - it is a novel, not a history book. Its German author Werfel, according to a friend of his Amateau, expressed regret at having written it once he learned that the documentation he had based it on were found to have been forgeries by the investigating British.

Incidentally, I have taught in Turkey for 2 years and have encountered many people who have relatives that were slaughtered by Armenian militias during the uprising or the invading Russian army they joined.

The important thing to note is that this was the first genocide of the 20th century. It was the model for the Holocaust. Hitler stated in defense of his plan "Who remembers the Armenians" That should be proof enough to remember all genocides.

Acknowledgement is also a major part of the healing process for a group.

As for Democrat vs Republican, Reagan was a major supporter of acknowledgement. It was also Clinton who asked that we not knowledge the issue in the 90's. The true issue is not to have the U.S. bullied around by Turkey and their geographic and pretend democracy. Armenians are being jailed and killed in Turkey by a government and its people that still harbor resentment to the Armenians.

The U.S. must stand up for a group of its citizens that have given so much to this country after loosing their own lands.

Bush said that this will hurt turkey relations but what he fails to see that this is not about relations or allies, its about HISTORY BEING MADE RIGHT.
And for you ka, and the rest of the Turks, take of your blingfolds and face the truth. The Young Turks movement DID killed thousands of innocent Armenians - their genocide is one that to this day (92 years after) is not forgotten.
Till this is made right, we will never forget.

For those of you who believe that it wasn't a genocide or that the historians should decide whether it is or isn't, perhaps you might consider the informed opinion of the INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GENOCIDE SCHOLARS which unanimously affirms the Armenian Genocide. Here is a recent letter sent by them in regards to this current resolution:

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GENOCIDE SCHOLARS

October 5, 2007

The Honorable Tom Lantos, Chairman
The Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member
House Foreign Affairs Committee
US House of Representatives

Dear Chairman Lantos and Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen:

We write to you as the leading international organization of scholars who study genocide. We strongly urge you to pass H. Res. 106.

In passing this resolution the US Congress would not be adjudicating history but instead would be affirming the truth about a genocide that has been overwhelmingly established by decades of documentation and scholarship.

Truth of the Scholarly Record

It is disingenuous of the government of Turkey to use the red herring of a “historians’ commission,” half of whose members would be appointed by the Turkish government, to “study” the facts of what occurred in 1915. As we have made clear in our Open Letters to Prime Minister Erdogan (6/13/05 and 6/12/06), the historical record on the Armenian Genocide is unambiguous. It is proven by foreign office records of the United States, France, Great Britain, Russia, and perhaps most importantly, of Turkey’s World War I allies, Germany and Austria-Hungary, as well as by the records of the Ottoman Courts-Martial of 1918-1920, and by decades of scholarship. A “commission of historians” would only serve the interests of Turkish genocide deniers.

The abundance of scholarly evidence led to the unanimous resolution of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Turkish massacres of over one million Armenians from 1915 to 1918 was a crime of genocide.

America’s Own Record

The Joint Congressional Resolution recognizing and commemorating the Armenian Genocide will honor America’s extraordinary Foreign Service Officers (among them Leslie A. Davis, Jesse B. Jackson, and Oscar Heizer) who often risked their lives rescuing Armenian citizens in 1915. They and others left behind some forty thousand pages of reports, now in the National Archives, that document that what happened to the Armenian people was government-planned, systematic extermination—what Raphael Lemkin (the man who coined the word genocide) used in creating the definition.

By passing this resolution, the U.S. Congress would also pay tribute to America’s first international human rights movement. The Foreign Service Officers and prominent individuals such as Theodore Roosevelt, Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, and Cleveland Dodge, who did so much to help the Armenians, exemplify America’s legacy of moral leadership.

The parliaments of many countries have affirmed the fact of the Armenian Genocide in unequivocal terms, yet H. Res. 106, a commemorative, non-binding resolution, has faced opposition from those who fear it would undermine US relations with Turkey. It is worth noting that, notwithstanding France’s Armenian Genocide legislation, France and Turkey are engaged in more bilateral trade than ever before. We would not expect the US government to be intimidated by an unreliable ally with a deeply disturbing human rights record, graphically documented in the State Department’s 2007 International Religious Freedom Report on Turkey. We would expect the United States to express its moral and intellectual views, not to compromise its own principles.

The Armenian Genocide is not a controversial issue outside of Turkey. Just as it would be unethical for Germany to interfere with the historical memory of the Holocaust, we feel it is equally unethical for Turkey to interfere with the memory of the Armenian Genocide. Elie Wiesel has repeatedly called Turkey’s denial a double killing, as it strives to kill the memory of the event. We believe the US government should not be party to efforts to kill the memory of a historical fact as profound and important as the genocide of the Armenians, which Hitler used as an example in his plan to exterminate the Jews.

We also believe that security and historical truth are not in conflict, and it is in the interest of the United States to support the principles of human rights that are at the core of American democracy.

Sincerely,

Dr. Gregory H. Stanton
President
International Association of Genocide Scholars

EXECUTIVE BOARD:

President,
Gregory Stanton
Genocide Watch

First Vice-President,
Steven Leonard Jacobs
University of Alabama

Second Vice-President
Alex Hinton
Rutgers University

Secretary,
Marc I. Sherman
Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem, Israel

Treasurer,
Jack Nusan Porter, Newton, MA

ADVISORY COUNCIL:

Joyce Apsel
New York University, USA

Peter Balakian, USA
Colgate University, USA

Ben Kiernan, USA
Yale University, USA

Daniel Feierstein
U. of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Charli Carpenter
University of Pittsburgh, USA

Henry Theriault
Wellesley College, USA

Immediate Past President:
Israel W. Charny
Institute on Holocaust & Genocide, Jerusalem, Israel

ka - there have been quite a few American Armenian Marines who have died for this war. Armenians are Chrisitians and have melted into an American pot unlike your muslim nation that predominantly despises us.

Notoriously, Nancy Pelosi's sudden urge to get this resolution passed has little to do with history and everything to do with lobbying by Armenian-American voters in her distirct and neighboring districts held by California Democrats.

Of course the Turks massacred the Armenians during World War I. Everybody outside of Ankara acknowledges that.

But the question is, should the U.S. government officially go on the record as saying this? Why go out of our way, at this moment, to irritate a Middle Eastern ally? Isn't this resolution contrary to the Democrat/Obama goal of talking nice-nice to Middle Eastern countries?

Philip,

The Armenian issue is not too weak to stand on its own…it is unfortunately not well known. Most history books do not include the Armenian Genocide not because it is untrue, but because of the pressures of the Turkish government.

Turkish professors also speak of the Armenian Genocide. Professors such as, Taner Akçam, and Fatma Gocek have discussed the Armenian Genocide numerous times and have been threatened by Turkish citizens to keep their mouths shut.

Let us not forget what happened to journalist Hrant Dink earlier this year.

It is unfortunate that the Turkish government refuses to teach their citizens about the Armenian Genocide. It is important for Turks to know exactly what happened.

Also, the Armenian Genocide fits all 5 categories of the definition of genocide according to the Convention on the UN Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Sure, it’s been 92 years since the Armenian Genocide, but perhaps, if the world was not silent then, the Jews would not have to suffer from a Holocaust and perhaps we would have learned from history to not allow it to repeat today in Sudan.

"So, what is the point, Steny? This happened 90+ years ago!! The people at fault are no longer alive."John D.

Looks like not just liberals practice 'moral relativism', hey?

"But the question is, should the U.S. government officially go on the record as saying this? Why go out of our way, at this moment, to irritate a Middle Eastern ally? Posted by: bruce | October 10, 2007 3:51 PM"

More conservative 'moral relativism'!
Jean Kirkpatrick must be rolling in her grave!

"Isn't this resolution contrary to the Democrat/Obama goal of talking nice-nice to Middle Eastern countries?"

Hey, this would be Bush policy!

Go to Google and enter H. Res. 106 and S. Res. 106 and read what the Resolution states. Both the House and Senate Resolutions are almost identical.

HD

To jack-

"ka - there have been quite a few American Armenian Marines who have died for this war. Armenians are Chrisitians and have melted into an American pot unlike your muslim nation that predominantly despises us.

Posted by: Jack | October 10, 2007 3:38 PM "

I dont even consider myself muslim so you can back off... this really shows me what kind of person you are! What was the topic about again? racism! crystal clear who is racist here

You doubters: Read the first chapter of Samantha Power's "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide, 2002. It is vital to acknowlege historical truths such as our own country's treatment of Native Americans and our failures with respect to the Armenians.

How about a resolution saying that the murder of 20 millions of native americans was also a genocide?

the armenian genocide is not only matter of historical recognition by turkey, but also full material and territorial reparation , and this is exactly why the so called modern turkish rulers are in hysteria of denial.

People do not know one major thing about the region that this so called genocide happened in. There were 4 different backgrounds in the area Azeris, Armenians, Turks, and Kurds. Azeris say they were killed in 1918 by Armenians. And Armenians say they killed by Turks and Kurds in 1918. Kurds say they were killed by Armenians and Turks in 1918 . Turks say they were killed by Armenians and Kurdsin 1918. So it seems to me this was a fight for eastern Anatolia. Not a genocide! It was fight for land. Everyone at that time was declaring independence during WWI like in Balkans,Arabia and North Africa. There is significant evidence to show that Kurds, Azeris, Turks, and Armenians live there side by side how come no one recognizes this. Turks and Armenians weren't the only one living there in fact today some Kurds still live there.

my great great grandfather and his daughter died in armenian during the genocide. although the bloody time took place 90 years ago, it still happend. i understand that the current government is not responsible for the turkish past, but they should still appologize as a country. if the united states does not pass the armenian resoultion, it shows that our nation bows to other nations. we are supposed to be a nation of truth, yet we fear the outcome of identifying it. there is no better time to address the past than now. the middle east will always be under attack. to veto the resolution is only avoiding the truth and pushing the matter further away. you can not escape reality, neither can turkey

Let's get real! This is one side view. This was staged to destroy the only one of two allies in that region. The names listed under the H. Res. 106 and S. Res. 106 are simply members of the Armenian diaspora. This Res does not consider the counter claims. I am disapponted that none of these senators thought about our soldiers on the ground when signing this resolution. The support we get from Turkey for Iraq is immense. We should stop rewriting the history in our senate. We have more important and pressing issues than this.

I wonder how much Armenian American groups have contributed to politicians over the past 12 years. There is no doubt Armenians were slaughtered all while the French and British navies stood by and did nothing but no purpose is served by this vote today and Bush is right on this one, this vote further destabilises the ME now in the present day. Mr Hoyer shows an appalling lack of judgement on issues he brings to the floor, he is making Ms.Pelosi look bad, but then she could say no I suppose.

The Armenian Genocide is a historic matter. Actually it is a fact. There is evidence to prove that the genocide has happened and that 1.5 million Armenian were killed by Turkey. Just like the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust is also a historic fact. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are, if you deny a historic fact, you can only be seen as a fool. If the United States keeps denying this fact, basically we are submitting to the lies of Turkey. Is it worth denying the death of 1.5 million people and the anhiliation of an entire nationality for political alliance?

Turkey is exporting its aggresiv denial policy to USA and EU countries!

NO TO TURKISH BALCKMAIL AND LEIS NO YES TO JUSTICE ANS HUMANITY!

91 years after the Deportation to Death of the Armenians the
paranoid Turkish government – as well as all Turkish politicians of
every color – continues to practice the policy of denial with a
diplomatic ruthlessness similar to that of the Pashas responsible
for the genocide. Even if the responsibility of the genocide lies
with the government of that time, the Turkish elite of today make
themselves moral accomplices through their continual policy of
denial, and are full responsible for the destruction of Armenian
heritage in Turkey:

Moral, however, has never played a role in the Turkish politics.
Through its defamatory policy of denial, Turkey has not only ignored
all rules of decent behavior but also the very history of the
genocide. In doing this, they are merely being consequent to the
historical policies of their ancestors. Back then it was no
different: "…Once the gendarmes had killed a number of Armenians,
Faiz El-Ghussein – the former chief district administrator of
Mamuret ul-Aziz (today: Elazig) – reported, they put turbans on the
corpses and fetched Kurdish women who cried and wailed over the
dead, having been told that the Armenians had killed their people.
Then they got a photographer to take photographs of the scene. It
all then served as proof of the alleged Armenian atrocities."
Similarly, in the "modern" Turkey of today, in the schools Armenian
children are forced to write essays on how their ancestors committed
massacres of the Turks. Turkey, a land that has undertaken every
attempt to forbid the use of the word "genocide," has no
compunctions against raising a monument celebrating its own
supposed "victims of genocide" – exactly at the location where,
prior to the genocide, the international contracts had specified the
founding of Turkish-Armenia (and/or the "Armenian Provinces of
Ottoman Turkey"): At the foot of the Ararat Mountain, a holy site
for Armenians, the Turkish government has opened a "Museum of
Genocide" ("Soykirim Muezesi") to commemorate their own "victims of
genocide" and falsify history. This museum is nothing less than
targeted provocation of the real victims of the genocide.

Independent historians from around the world have long passed their
judgment on the subject. Genocide is genocide. A commission of
historians, as is suggested by Turkey, will and can not change the
facts. In the Turkish national identity, however, history is
subordinate to the primacy of the policy. After all, who cares about
historical facts? For each and every governmentally-dictated
domestic policy a history can be – and is – invented. Whether or not
this in any way serves to help the peaceful co-existence of the
varied ethnic groups on a long-term basis, however, is open to
question. Basically, the Turkish politicians are leading their own
next generation into an illness commonly known as amnesia.

NO to a partnership baisd on denial of a Genocide and denail a crime aginst all humanity. USA shouldn´t in NO WAY yield to Turkish treaths and blackmails. Turkey has to face its bloody past and

Turkey is exporting its aggresiv denial policy to USA and EU countries!

NO TO TURKISH BALCKMAIL AND LEIS , YES TO JUSTICE ANSDHUMANITY!

91 years after the Deportation to Death of the Armenians the
paranoid Turkish government – as well as all Turkish politicians of
every color – continues to practice the policy of denial with a
diplomatic ruthlessness similar to that of the Pashas responsible
for the genocide. Even if the responsibility of the genocide lies
with the government of that time, the Turkish elite of today make
themselves moral accomplices through their continual policy of
denial, and are full responsible for the destruction of Armenian
heritage in Turkey:

Moral, however, has never played a role in the Turkish politics.
Through its defamatory policy of denial, Turkey has not only ignored
all rules of decent behavior but also the very history of the
genocide. In doing this, they are merely being consequent to the
historical policies of their ancestors. Back then it was no
different: "…Once the gendarmes had killed a number of Armenians,
Faiz El-Ghussein – the former chief district administrator of
Mamuret ul-Aziz (today: Elazig) – reported, they put turbans on the
corpses and fetched Kurdish women who cried and wailed over the
dead, having been told that the Armenians had killed their people.
Then they got a photographer to take photographs of the scene. It
all then served as proof of the alleged Armenian atrocities."
Similarly, in the "modern" Turkey of today, in the schools Armenian
children are forced to write essays on how their ancestors committed
massacres of the Turks. Turkey, a land that has undertaken every
attempt to forbid the use of the word "genocide," has no
compunctions against raising a monument celebrating its own
supposed "victims of genocide" – exactly at the location where,
prior to the genocide, the international contracts had specified the
founding of Turkish-Armenia (and/or the "Armenian Provinces of
Ottoman Turkey"): At the foot of the Ararat Mountain, a holy site
for Armenians, the Turkish government has opened a "Museum of
Genocide" ("Soykirim Muezesi") to commemorate their own "victims of
genocide" and falsify history. This museum is nothing less than
targeted provocation of the real victims of the genocide.

Independent historians from around the world have long passed their
judgment on the subject. Genocide is genocide. A commission of
historians, as is suggested by Turkey, will and can not change the
facts. In the Turkish national identity, however, history is
subordinate to the primacy of the policy. After all, who cares about
historical facts? For each and every governmentally-dictated
domestic policy a history can be – and is – invented. Whether or not
this in any way serves to help the peaceful co-existence of the
varied ethnic groups on a long-term basis, however, is open to
question. Basically, the Turkish politicians are leading their own
next generation into an illness commonly known as amnesia.

NO to a partnership baisd on denial of a Genocide and denail a crime aginst all humanity. USA shouldn´t in NO WAY yield to Turkish treaths and blackmails. Turkey has to face its bloody past and

Why is for Tureky so hard to accept the simple historical facts!

Presently, 91 years after the instigation of the genocide of the
Armenians, selected Turkish "historians" maintain – for their own
self-satisfaction and for the targeted deception of the Turkish and
international public – that "there was no official document ordering
the extermination." If this Turkish logic were to be followed
through, the Holocaust would also be open to question; as is well-
known, no official document ordering the extermination was ever
supposedly issued under the National Socialist Regime either. The
malicious denial of the Turkish-instigated genocide of the Armenians
and the continual demand for still more proof is a byproduct of
the "glorious history" invented by Turkish bureaucrats for
this "chosen people." This invented, glorious history declares all
civilized people who ever existed within the perimeter of today's
Turkey – no matter what their indigenous culture is or was – as
proto-Turks. Armenians, of course, do not belong to this. The
splendid history of Turkey, an artificial, eulogistic and
ideological fabrication, continues to exclude the worst and darkest
sides of Turkey's past – such as the systematic extermination of the
Armenians.