View one. Obama broke his campaign promise. This YouTube makes it clear. Samantha Power (who is a new mommy today -- congrats to her) -- said Obama would speak truth to power. Obama himself said he'd use the word "genocide." And he didn't. He needs Turkey too much.
View two, courtesy of reader Bruce Johnson:
Most analysts see Obama as capitulating on the Armenian issue due to real-world foreign affairs. I see it differently. If you watch Obama's behavior patterns in the controversial arenas (torture, anyone?), he seems doggedly determined to not let emotionally charged issues (however valid) derail far more important agendas.In the case of the Armenian genocide, Turkey and Armenia are making real, substantial diplomatic progress on their relationship, and the Turkish prime minister has acknowledged the role of historians in reaching some type of conclusion (however complex). While I realize that Obama does not mind dodging a bullet for now, I also believe that he is even more reticent to inflame passions and risk setbacks while the Turkish and Armenian governments build new bridges. The real question is, "What action (or inaction) at this moment will help us reach the goal (Turkish-Armenian rapprochement) in the shortest timeframe and with enduring results?"It's the same, I believe, with the torture issues. It's a huge moral issue, it must be dealt with, but the costs of settling it "right now" would put many important national goals in serious risk of failure. How would history judge the Obama administration if he settled everything on the torture front quickly and thoroughly, but lost the small window of political momentum where financial reforms, health care reforms, entitlement restructuring, new energy policies, etc. wasted away to the Washington purgatory they've been in for generations?
Marc,
I am going to have to disagree with your reader. Obama has made several decisions where there has been no or little positive benefit, while those same decisions have had costs that are measurable. And torture is one of them.
It is very clear from the reporting coming out of the intelligence agencies that they are feeling burned by the release of the memo's, and their morale has suffered. Obama has also antagonized some key members of Congress, and put them on the defensive (see: Pelosi, Nancy) for the past week. And all this while Pakistan burns.
He didn't need to release the memo's in order to affect change (done second day in office), or to stimulate debate - if you remember, Obama and McCain both made statements about torture throughout the campaign. In fact, the resulting moral equivalence from Obama was "tortured": CIA policy to kill suspected terrorists with Predator strikes is OK; CIA operatives who use "enhanced techniques" did bad but are not culpable; technocrats who write memo's about said techniques are "morally wrong" and potentially culpable; and Congressmen who knew and OK'd said techniques are untouchable.
By the end of the week, his policy had effectively become, "torture is important, but we should drop it." Huh?? If you want to drop it, then why release the memo's in the first place?
This is a case of Obama doing something that I think was fulfilling on a emotional level for himself and many of his supporters (and if you believe the report in the Washington Post today, this was partially motivated by spite towards Cheney). However, whether due to hubris, naivete, or over confidence, Obama and his team failed to realize two things: they would have a tough time containing this; and they would have little gain at high cost.
The release of the torture memo's was not a case of Obama in thoughtful, moderating, cost-benefit, focused mode - although they are sure trying to reframe it with another wheelbarrel full of manure. Apparently, they are putting out the message today that Yoo doesn't matter. Well, if Yoo doesn't matter, why did Bybee?
No, the release of the memo's was all about placing satisfaction and spite above positive gain, and that is why they are so eager to change the subject now.
Politicians, as a rule, do not change the subject when there is something to be gained by staying on the same topic. It has become a loser, and they know it.
I think Armenia is just a case of Obama doing what is expedient in regards to Turkey, rather than placing any principled focus on other issues.
Let's Get real here, why would any nation live with their Minority for hundred of years and suddenly turn against them,actually during the Ottoman Empire when they were the rulers would not be easy er for them to do away with Armenians then, but why all of a sudden when the Empire was in their weakest moment to do this, well l tell you why,
Armenians took up arms and sided with Russians to gain their won province like others who got under Russia,for the Russians they want to do away with Turks and get access to Mediterranean sea and they still do so does the Americans and Americans who had Turkey in their side they enjoy it today ,NATO allied Turkey,instead Russian allay Armenia,Turks had no choice but to deport Armenian killer, many Armenians who did no killing stayed behind and still today living in Turkey,1,5 million get real here,total population was 1.5 million ,1 million came to US 300,000 went to Syria how who come up with this numbers ,do you know what it takes to kill 1,5 million,Turks were fighting 5 fronts and still won and Armenians were another front with in,
you just do not wake up one morning and decide to deport 1.5 million if there was no thereat,Armenians even sent man to Greek army to fight Turks, and Russian army,what you call that but an ENEMY.let's get real here,
Thank you
Before you can "get real" you need to have all the information and stop making baseless statements. Turkey did not "suddenly turn" against Armenians. Before the 1915 genocide of the entire Armenian population of the entire Ottoman Empire (that's Western Armenia and other parts of Anatolia), there were numerous massacres of Armenian populations. Most notable and largest of these were the 1894-1896 massacres by Sultan Hamid as a result of which as many as 300,000 Armenians were killed, enslaved, forcibly converted to islam. Then, in April of 1909, the new Ittihadist government in Istambul orchestrated the Adana massacres of Armenian as a result of which 30,000 Armenian died. So, stop the nonesense with the peaceful coexistence. Also, by 1915, Armenian were the largest Christian minority in the Ottoman Empire. The rest had liberated themselves from the "wonderful rule" of their turkish masters. This is why Turks turned on them, to prevent Armenian from liberated themselves from foreign occupation, dominion, and endless massacres.
Even if some Armenians were to rebel, your logic suggests that a genocide of the entire population would be normal. I am guessing you are Turkish because you clearly have a genocidal mentality. Finally, as a result of your genocidal ancestors, the Armenian population of what is today Turkey, went from 2.2 million in 1915 to 40,000 today. Also, today, no Armenians live in their ancestral homeland of 4000 years. The 30,000 are concentrated in Istambul, as hostages of modern turkish fascism.
Turkey is a peaceful and peacekeeping country. Burning Turkish flag, claiming Turkish land, lying about the history, assassinating Turkish people, these can't be coming from a peaceful nation. There is vast amount of evidence of what Armenians did during those times. You can learn all about it from Turkish archieves which is open to everybody. I am suspicious about what you learn from Armenian archieves because nobody has access except from them. If you already know the truth and still lying that is a shame. If you don't know the truth, you can learn it. It is open to you too.
No, Turkey is an agressive genocidal state that to this day tramples the rights of its minorities. Stop lying about your archives. The turkish archives have been heavily purged and are only partially open, the part that is not harmful and does not elucidate the truth about turkey's genocidal past. No one claims "Turkish lands" since turkish lands are in the Altai area and central Asia. Every inch of today's "Republic of Turkey" is stolen from Armenians, Greeks, slavs and Arabs.
The overwhelming majority of historians and ALL genocide scholars are unanimous about the fact that turks and turkey are a bunch of genocidal murderers. Only the corrupt pseudo-scientists who are on the payroll of the turks deny the genocide. I suggest you read more and stop believing the lies that your government has been feeding you for the last 94 years.
ML your statements are historically inaccurate and unsupported:
1. Armenians were not allowed to live in peace for hundreds of years. Remember that Turkey did not exist until the 11th century, while Armenia had been there for at least a millenium before that. Armenians, being the original inhabitants of the land, being ethnically and religiously very different from Turks, were considered a "problem" since the time of the Seljuk conquest of the area. Armenians were deported, killed, discriminated against quite regularly throughout the history of the Ottoman empire. You do not have to look very far, just research the massacres of the 1890's, and you will find plenty of evidence that the "Armenian problem" was systematically being addressed with force.
2. Just as there were Jews who ran to Europe or America during WWII and some even took arms to fight against Germany, it does not IN ANY WAY justify the attempted annihilation of them by the Nazis. The same applies to Armenians, even if some of them defected to Russia, it does not IN ANY WAY justify the mass deportations and murders of more than a million people.
3. Your numbers are completely skewed: First, there are barely 1 million Armenians in the US today, and that is 90+ years LATER, so when you factor in population growth and added immigration from the former Soviet Union during the past 20 years, your claim that 1 million Armenians went to the US in 1915-18 is absurd.
4. Yes, we do know what it is like to kill 1.5 million people. Germans did that, and much more, and they were ALSO fighting on multiple fronts. Armenians were NOT an additional front - women, children, elderly and unarmed citizens do not constitute a front. They were taken by surprise and slaughtered in their homes and streets, herded into their own churches and burnt (the first "gas chambers", there are even records in German archives of German officers taking note of this, and these same officers were then involved in the Nazi concentration camps twenty-some years later), they were marched to their deaths, etc. - none of which takes much military power.
5. There were a good number of courageous and decent Turkish citizens who helped, hid, protected their Armenians friends, neighbors and even strangers, and helped them survive. Those same citizens were then prohibited from speaking the truth - a practice which still continues in modern-day Turkey, where people are arrested for speaking about the Armenian genocide.
What you wrote in your comment is the propaganda that has been fed to Turkish children for several generations and has been repeatedly reinforced at every level. It is laughable and tired, it has NO basis in history and the MOUNTAIN of historical evidence, which includes countless documents in US, German, even Turkish archives (although most of the documents in the Turkish archives have been systematically destroyed) negates what you have posted.
In fact, you may not even realize, but initially in 1922-1926, the new Turkish government was set to PROSECUTE the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide, but the political tide of nationalism was a bit too strong (this was in the Turkish archives). This information has been consistently hidden from Turkish citizens.
Many Turks believe that Armenians harbor great hostility towards them. Perhaps, some misguided Armenians do, but they are a small minority. Most Armenians realize that modern-day citizens of Turkey are not only not complicit, but are also suffering because they are being denied the truth. I cannot in good conscience be surprised or frustrated by your comments, you have simply grown up hearing those same tired phrases over and over and over again. You have never even had the opportunity to ask questions, to look at the evidence, to do research, because even the slightest effort to question the official denial poisition of Turkey could have landed you in jail.
For the record, and so that we can "get real", as you say, I am able to type this today because my grandfather and grandmother, who were 12 and 13 in 1916 and met while running for their lives, were taken in, hidden and protected by a Turkish family (who took extraordinary risks to save those Armenian children). My grandfather had survived because he had been visiting a friend in another town, so was away from home when his family was murdered. He found the dead bodies of his family members when he returned home. Only his youngest brother had survived, he was 7, he had been wounded and had been so terrified by what he had seen that he had lost his ability to speak. The youngest brother never recovered from his wounds, he was unable to sleep at night because of nightmares, was constantly crying, was unable to hold down much food. He died less than a month later, in the home of the Turkish family. According to my grandfather, the Turkish family cried for him as for their own, they were heartbroken at seeing the child's suffering. My grandmother had survived because she hid in the barn when her parents and siblings were marched out of their home. She witnessed her father being bludgeoned to death and her mother's throat being slit, and she was never able to speak about what happened to her brothers and sister (she could not speak their names without breaking down in tears, even 50 years after the fact). My grandparents' families were not politically involved, they were peaceful, sucessful farmers, they never harmed anyone, their only crime was quite simply BEING ARMENIAN.
This is nothing more than a Money campaign to Make modern day Turks pay to Armenians restitution's ,it is history,like many other histories of the world,if you go back 100 of years than no one belongs to no where,all the way to Mesopotamia, and if the west force this upon the Turks just because Armenians are under a cross than it is a different agenda,
than USA do not belong to Americans, Mexico doesn't belong to Mexicans,Pakistan belongs to new Delhi,Japan belongs to China,
and Australia belongs to Aubergines,that's why l say get real here
when come to civil wars and killings,let see
millions of American Indians just 250 years ago,millions of Algerians by French, and many others, l have no time to count them here ,it is a history ,and that's why l say get real
it is a shame that a nation like Armenia just 17 years ago killed and massacred thousands of Azerbaijani people took their land,it was condemn by United Nations
Armenians form their unity by hating Turks,like Harant Dink said it A poison in their blood
you need to move on, you are not going to mobilize the christian world to black mail Turkey,if any one attempt to destroy Turkish people reciprocation's will be very grave as they hold nuclear weapon, yes they do you may not know it but they have it so if this campaign going that rout l assure you it will not be very pretty for any one,
you guys need to build your economy and stop the hate, it is spilling over to our children and that it self is dangerous let the dead lie as dead or it will be more dead,
that's why l say get real and you should,
Thank you again
Is it true, that during the course of this discussion, that you ML, have ceased to deny the Genocide?
It seems that you are now saying, the Genocide was OK, because America, Australia... all did it before? Well if you are looking for examples, the armenian Genocide is probably closer (in terms of numbers and efficiency) to the Nazi Holocaust. Or does your country deny that as well?
Also the countries you mention, America, Australia + France, do not deny atrocities or have laws to enforce a one-sided view on events. In fact, Australia made a public apology for the wrong doing they caused to the Aborigines.
So Turkey's real reason for not accepting the Genocide is fear over paying some sort of compensation to the Armenian people? That is good to know.
Also, why is it that the Turkish government has to prevent freedom of speech (Article 301) when the Genocide is concerned? Surely if you had nothing to hide, what would your country fear from an open and frank debate?
"like Harant Dink said it A poison in their blood"
You also quote out of context, Dink did not say that! He was saying Armenians should commit their energy to independent Armenia and not "let hatred of the Turks poison their blood."
In fact, this statement meant that he faced a trial for violating article 301, for merely suggesting that Turks were poisonous!
So you think that it is better to ignore the past atrocities, and not learn from the mistakes of history? Just sweep it under the carpet, yeah?
"reciprocation's will be very grave as they hold nuclear weapon, yes they do you may not know it but they have it so if this campaign going that rout l assure you it will not be very pretty for any one,"
So lacking further arguments to the voice of reason, you make childish threats?
You really are an idiot.
I would like to know where you get these ideas of the Armenian genocide being widely acknowledged and why your parents and/or whoever else teaches you of this idiotic nonsense which has absolutely no basis of fact.
First off, only 21 countries acknowledge the the events during WWI in the ottoman empire, which consisted of rebellions and attempts to overtake the Ottoman land for the Armenians through massacres of ottoman turks by armenian rebels (ARF), and defensive measures taken by the turks, which ended in blood being spilled on both sides, as a genocide.
Not only is this a very insignificant number, as every established country recognizes the holocaust, except iran and almost every country recognizes the bosnian massacres in the 90's. Further more, the countries who do recognize the genocide have overwhelming populations of armenians(politics much?)
Secondly, if armenia who have been constantly pursuing such an attempt to have their so-called "genocide" recognized for 94 long years, are so passionate in having others recognize this false claim, why do they not A. Open their archives and B. Take the matter to international courts. The two most profound and justifiable ways of proclaiming such a so-called armenian genocide are constantly being purposely ignored by the Armenians and the armenian government as they know they have no basis for fact and CANNOT HONESTLY AND JUSTLY prove the events claimed to have happened by the armenian diaspora.
Face it, there is no evidence to prove of this so-called "Armenian genocide" and so armenians like you gather around and lobby for your false cause to have it recieve recognition and form organizations and groups that have no basis for fact, which disgust me as there really have been genocides which need to be recognized.