The Armenian Story has Another Side

By Norman Stone, a historian and the author of "World War I: A Short History"

All the world knows what the end of an empire looks like: hundreds of thousands of people fleeing down dusty paths, taking what was left of their possessions; crammed refugee trains puffing their way across arid plains; and many, many people dying. For the Ottoman Empire that process began in the Balkans, the Crimea and the Caucasus as Russia and her satellites expanded. Seven million people -- we would now call them Turks -- had to settle in Anatolia, the territory of modern Turkey.In 1914, when World War I began in earnest, Armenians living in what is now Turkey attempted to set up a national state. Armenians revolted against the Ottoman government, began what we would now call "ethnic cleansing" of the local Turks. Their effort failed and caused the government to deport most Armenians from the area of the revolt for security reasons. Their sufferings en route are well-known.Today, Armenian interests in America and abroad are well-organized.

What keeps them united is the collective memory of their historic grievance. What happened was not in any way their fault, they believe. If the drive to carve out an ethnically pure Armenian state was a failure, they reason, it was only because the Turks exterminated them.For years, Armenians have urged the U.S. Congress to recognize their fate as genocide. Many U.S. leaders -- including former secretaries of state and defense and current high-ranking Bush administration officials -- have urged Congress either not to consider or to vote down the current genocide resolution primarily for strategic purposes: Turkey is a critical ally to the U.S. in both Iraq and Afghanistan and adoption of such a resolution would anger and offend the Turkish population and jeopardize U.S.-Turkish relations.Given this strong opposition, why would Congress, upon the advice of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, make itself arbiter of this controversy? What makes the Armenians' dreadful fate so much worse than the dreadful fates that come with every end of empire? It is here that historians must come in.

First, allegedly critical evidence of the crime consists of forgeries. The British were in occupation of Istanbul for four years after the war and examined all of the files of the Ottoman government. They found nothing, and therefore could not try the 100-odd supposed Turkish war criminals that they were holding. Then, documents turned up, allegedly telegrams from the interior ministry to the effect that all Armenians should be wiped out. The signatures turned out to be wrong, there were no back-up copies in the archives and the dating system was misunderstood.

There are many other arguments against a supposed genocide of the Armenians. Their leader was offered a post in the Turkish Cabinet in 1914, and turned it down. When the deportations were under way, the populations of the big cities were exempted -- Istanbul, Izmir, Aleppo, where there were huge concentrations of Armenians. There were indeed well-documented and horrible massacres of the deportee columns, and the Turks themselves tried more than 1,300 men for these crimes in 1916, convicted many and executed several. None of this squares with genocide, as we classically understand it. Finally, it is just not true that historians as a whole support the genocide thesis. The people who know the background and the language (Ottoman Turkish is terribly difficult) are divided, and those who do not accept the genocide thesis are weightier. The Armenian lobby contends that these independent and highly esteemed historians are simply "Ottomanists" -- a ridiculously arrogant dismissal.Unfortunately, the issue has never reached a properly constituted court. If the Armenians were convinced of their own case, they would have taken it to one.

Instead, they lobby bewildered or bored parliamentary assemblies to "recognize the genocide."Congress should not take a position, one way or the other, on this affair. Let historians decide. The Turkish government has been saying this for years. It is the Armenians who refuse to take part in a joint historical review, even when organized by impeccably neutral academics. This review is the logical and most sensible path forward. Passage of the resolution by the full House of Representatives would constitute an act of legislative vengeance and would shame well-meaning scholars who want to explore this history from any vantage point other than the one foisted upon the world by ultranationalist Armenians.

Australia celebrates Turkish migration

"Australia celebrates Turkish migration 10 August 2007 • Media Center » Video Immigration News About 30,000 people from the Turkish community in Australia are celebrating a 40 year agreement on migration to Australia this month. In October of 1967, Australia and Turkey signed a bilateral agreement on 'assisted migration', said Assistant Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Teresa Gambaro."

More:Australia celebrates Turkish migration

Double Standards of the French & EU (Another Example)

Dear Friends,

The below article highlights another example of the double standards and hypocrisy of the French and EU member States in general. The Algerian Genocide is a factual one, unlike the fallacious Armenian Genocide claims. Whilst the idiot Nicolas Sarkozy President of the hypocritical and terrorist nation of France, ( I remind you of the Greenpeace Bombing in a friendly State New Zealand by the French Secret Service which ended the life of an innocent person who was in effect murdered by the French Government sanctioned operation) refuses to apologise for the Algerian Genocide. However, he wants the Republic of Turkiye to apologise and recognise the fallacious Armenian Genocide claims. In fact, although having the appearance of espousing to a liberal democracy, with fundamental tenets such as freedom of speech, the French want to jail anybody that denies the "Armenian Genocide" claim, even though there is mountains of evidence against any such claim. In fact there is no evidence whatsoever, that the Ottoman Empire had any intent to exterminate in whole or in part of it's Armenian population. On the other hand France occupies and systematically murders 1.5 Million Algerians in order to control another nation and refuses to apologise, this just goes to prove how dishonest, hypocritical, and narcissistic EU politicians are.

Have a read of the below article

Ataman

Sarkozy tells Algeria: No apology for the past
Tue Jul 10, 2007 9:16AM BST


ALGIERS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy, due to start a one day visit to Algeria on Tuesday, defended his refusal to apologise for colonial misdeeds saying leaders should focus on the future and not "beat their breasts". Algeria, France's largest trading partner in Africa but also its touchiest former overseas possession, has long demanded that France apologise for killings during 132 years of colonial rule which ended with independence in 1962 after an eight year war.Sarkozy, reiterating a long-held position, told Algeria's El Watan and El Khabar newspapers: "Young people on either side of the Mediterranean are looking to the future more than the past and what they want are concrete things."

"They're not waiting for their leaders to simply drop everything and start mortifying themselves, or to beat their breasts, over the mistakes of the past because, in that case, there'd be lots to do on both sides." Sarkozy is due to arrive at about 11 a.m. British time on his first visit outside Europe since his election to the presidency in May. The Maghreb, a zone of French commercial influence, is traditionally the first destination outside Europe for newly elected French presidents. He will meet President Abdelaziz Bouteflika before flying on to Tunis to meet Tunisian President Zine al Abidine ben Ali.

Sarkozy's aides say he will explain his as yet vague plan for a Mediterranean Union -- a formal partnership involving southern European countries and their North African neighbours.
Sarkozy told the newspapers he was not against examining the past but this needed time and was a two-way process. "Certainly there were a lot of ... sufferings and injustices during the 132 years France spent in Algeria. But that wasn't all there was. I'm for a recognition of the facts but not for repentance, which is a religious notion that has no place in relations between states." Some 1.5 million Algerians died in the 1954-1962 war of independence, according to the Algerian government.

Algeria and France delayed the signing of a friendship treaty, that was due to be approved at the end of 2005, following the passage by France's National Assembly in February 2005 of a law referring to the "positive role of the French presence overseas, especially in North Africa".Former French President Jacques Chirac repealed the law but that did not end the row.

Sarkozy said he had an ambitious roadmap to boost ties in trade, investment, energy, security, movement of people and he was ready to go "further" to build military cooperation and was "very open" to more arms sales to Algeria.

ARMENIAN NAZI COLLABORATION

ARMENIAN NAZI COLLABORATION

The spelling should be "Armenische"

This page will examine the Armenian enthusiasm for the Nazi cause. Many loved the association from 1935 on, as Der Fuehrer continued to rise in power. This appreciation stemmed in no small part from the Armenians' pride in being an Indo-European, "Aryan" people.

Naturally, not all Armenians were sympathetic. Brave journalist Varian Fry, with the aid of fellow Americans in Europe, saved two thousand Jews, for example. And many Soviet Armenians fought against the Nazis, as Germany invaded the Soviet homeland in 1941.

There were also many Armenians in the Caucasus region who joined the Nazis, hoping for Armenia to be freed from the Soviet "yoke." But there were also Georgians and Azeris who did the same, probably not realizing they would be substituting one tyrannical master for another. These Armenians, as far as I'm concerned, are off the hook.

What this page hopes to spotlight are the European Armenians, mainly the Dashnaks, who voluntarily joined Hitler's massive machine of oppression. (Of course, there will be a crossover with the Asian Armenians from Transcaucasia.)

Why is this important? Because a lot of these Armenians, deemed not good enough for the front, were assigned backwater duties to police occupied regions. That meant Nazi-Armenians had a good hand in the carrying out of the Final Solution. The irony should not be lost upon any genocide-minded individual who sanctimoniously and mindlessly equates the Armenians' genocidal myth with the very real Holocaust.
Yet another historical fact: a fact that for years has been deliberately forgotten, concealed, and wiped from memory — the fact of Armenian-Nazi collaboration. A magazine called Mitteilungsblatt der Deutsch-Armenischen Gesselschaft is the clearest and most definite proof of this collaboration.

The magazine was first published in Berlin in 1938 during Nazi rule of Germany and continued publication until the end of 1944. Even the name of the magazine, which implies a declaration of Armenian-Nazi cooperation, is attention-getting. This magazine, every issue of which proves the collaboration, is historically important as documentary evidence. It is a heap of writing that should be an admonition to world opinion and to all mankind.

To give specific examples of actions; In May 1935 the Armenians of Bucharest attacked the Jews of that city, while the Greeks of Salonika attacked the Jews in the August of the same year. During World War II, Armenian volunteers, under the wings of Hitler's Germany, were used in rounding up Jews and other ''undesirables'' destined for the Nazi concentration camps. The Armenians also published a German-language magazine, with fascist and anti-Semitic tendencies, supporting Nazi doctrines directed to the extermination of 'inferior' races [1]. This is confirmed by Armenophile , Christopher who admits that the Armenians collaborated with the Nazis. According to him, members of the Dashnak Party, then living in the occupied areas, including a number of prominent persons, entertained pro-Axis sympathies.

A report in an American magazine went so far as to claim that the Nazis had picked on the Dashnaktsutiun to do fifth-column work, promising the party an autonomous state for its cooperation. Walker goes on to claim that relations between the Nazis and the Dashnaks living in the occupied areas were close and active.

On 30 December 1941 an Armenian battalion was formed by a decision of the Army Command (Wehrmacht), known as the 'Armenian 812th Battalion'. It was commanded by Dro, and was made up of a small number of committed recruits, and a larger number of Armenians. Early on, the total number of recruits was 8,000; this number later grew to 20,000. The 812th Battalion was operational in Crimea and the North Caucasus. (These are the dates and numbers given by Walker).

A year later, on 15 December 1942, an Armenian National Council was granted official recognition by Alfred Rosenberg, the German Minister of the occupied areas. The Council's president was Professor Ardashes Abeghian, its vice-president Abraham Giulkhandanian, and it numbered among its members Nzhdeh and Vahan Papazian. From that date until the end of 1944 it published a weekly journal, Armenien, edited by Viken Shant (the son of Levon), who also broadcast on Radio Berlin.

The whole idea was to prove to the Germans that the Armenians were 'Aryans'. With the aid of Dr. Paul Rohrbach, they seemed to have achieved this as the Nazis did not persecute the Armenians in the occupied lands [2]. "Members of the Dashnak party living in the occupied areas, including a number of names famous from the period of the republic, adopted a pro-Nazi stance." [2]

"Wholly opportunistic the Armenians have been variously pro-Nazi, pro-Russia, pro-Soviet Armenia, pro-Arab, pro-Jewish, as well as anti-Jewish,
anti-Zionist, anti-Communist, and anti-Soviet - whichever was expedient." [3] Sources: [1] Turkkaya Ataov: Armenian Extermination of the Jews and Muslims, 1984, p. 91. [2] C.J. Walker: _Armenia_ London, 1980, pp. 356-8. [3] John Roy Carlson (Arthur Derounian), _Cairo to Damascus_ Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1951, p. 438.

The Armenian-Nazi Collaboration in WW II

To validate a spurious genocide allegations, the Armenians curry favor with the Jewish people, and manipulate the Holocaust tragedy to gain some undeserved recognition from this uniquely Jewish experience. Historical evidences point to a devious Armenian collusion with Hitler to exterminate the Jews during WW II. Today, no matter how much the Armenians try to conceal this heinous episode from the public knowledge the Armenian conspiracy with Hitler is in the history books — indelibly. Soon it will be in the public conscience too.

In early 1930s, when Hitler ascended to power, he began cultivating the Armenians to use their long-standing and strong anti-semitic feelings in his plans and policy. The Armenians, through their publications, radio broadcasts and meetings supported and cheered the Nazis on their attacks on Jews. Alfred Rosenberg, who was to become later Hitler's Minister of the Occupied Territories, declared that the Armenians were Indo-European, or Aryans, which honored them and put them in the same league with the Nazis. In Hitler's foreign policy the Armenians fitted very nicely too. Hitler's future invasion plans of Russia provided a golden opportunity for the Armenians to liberate what they considered to be "Historic Armenia" from the Soviet as well as the Turkish rule.

Drastamat Kanayan

The short-lived Armenian Republic established in 1918 in the southern Caucasus by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (The Dashnaks) was conquered by the Russian Bolsheviks in 1920, and ceased to exist. This time, the Dashnaks saw a good opportunity in the collaboration with the Nazis to regain those territories. To that end, on December 30, 1941 they formed a battalion of 8,000-strong known as the "812th Armenian Battalion of Wehrmacht" under the command of Drastamat Kanayan, a seasoned guerrilla leader who had fought against the Turks in the Eastern Turkey before and during the Turkish War of Independence following World War I. Later, he became the supreme commandant of the Armenian army in the short lived Armenian Republic, and in 1920-1921 he organized a wide-spread genocide against the Azeri and the Turkish populations in the region. This is documented in the book World Alive by the U.S. Naval officer Robert Steed Dunn who was an eye-witness to those Armenian atrocities.

Lieutenant Dunn was the Intelligence officer of Rear Admiral Mark L. Bristol, the American High-Commissioner in the region and also a de facto American Ambassador in Turkey. Between 1919-1921 Lieutenant Dunn travelled extensively with Dro and his army in the region, and both made several contacts with the Russian Bolsheviks, the Turkish and the Armenian National forces. With this historical perspective, this new task assigned to Dro by the Nazi leadership after a quarter of century later seemed to be a break to fulfill his dream of conquest.

This alliance alarmed Turkey and the Turkish Jews. The British Ambassador in Ankara reported to London that "The Armenians [in Turkey] are extremely fruitful ground for German activities, and these non-Muslim elements with their pre-Kemalist [i.e. Ottoman period] mentality are always viewed with mistrust by the Turkish authorities."

(Public Record Office, Foreign Office document: F.O 371/ 30031/ R5337)

This infamous 812th Battalion later developed into a so-called "Armenian Legion" of 20,000-strong with the efforts of Alfred Muradian, a German-Armenian, and by Armik Jamalian, the son of the Arshak Jamalian, the Foreign Minister of the short-lived Armenian Republic. The troops of this Legion were trained and led by the SS and its Security Division S.D., and they joined the Nazi Einsatz Gruppen in the invasion of the Crimea and the North Caucasus. These Armenian Battalions rendered valuable services to the Nazis as police units for internal security duties in the occupied territories. It was their duties to round up the Jews and the other "undesirable" elements, and organize the death marches to the concentration camps.

Pursuing those familiar utopic dreams, and shrewdly manipulated by the Nazis, the Armenians foolishly tied their lot to Hitler, and praised him lavishly in the Armenian-language daily Hairenik on September 17, 1936: "... and came [to power] Adolph Hitler after herculean struggles. He spoke to the racial heart strings of the German, opened the fountain of his national genius..."

Then, in August 19, 1936 the same daily Hairenik published the following:

"Sometimes it is difficult to eradicate these poisonous elements (the Jews) when they have struck deep root like a chronic disease, and when it becomes necessary for a people (the Nazis) to eradicate them in an uncommon method these attempts are regarded as revolutionary. During a surgical operation the flow of blood is a natural thing. Under such conditions dictatorship seems to have the role of a savior."

Armenian volunteers in NAZI Wehrmacht swear loyalty to Führer The daily Hairenik dated August 20 exposed the following bigotry:


"Jews being the most fanatical nationalists and race-worshippers, are compelled to create an atmosphere of internationalism and world-citizenship in order to preserve their race. As the British use battleships to occupy lands, the Jews use internationalism or communism as a weapon..."

Er 25, 1936, Hairenik Weekly, an English language organ of the Armenians (edited in Boston) denounced Zionist aims, and adopted a strong anti-Jewish and pro-Arab view, and printed the following:

".. the type of Jews who are imported to Palestine is not anything to be proud about. Their loose morals, and their vices... and on top of all, their communist activities were the cause of most of the Arab criticism."

The August 9, 1935 issue of the Hairenik Weekly published a vitriol about "the Jewish controlled film industry", then ascribed the massacres of the Jews by the Greeks and Armenians in Salonica to the Jewish love of gain.

The May 10, 1935 issue of the Hairenik Weekly quoted the vice-Mayor of Bucharest, Romania as saying: "The Armenians have helped us Romanians not to become slaves of the Jewish elements." Romania was one of the foremost anti-Semitic country where the hatred for the Jews reached hyperbolic dimensions.

Starting in the summer of 1942, a twenty-five year old Armenian by the name Suren Begzadian Paikhar organized and led the Armenian National Socialist (Nazi) movement called Hossank (Lightening), which gained a considerable following among Armenian youth in German-occupied Europe and to some degree in Turkey too. On December 15, 1942, these Armenian-Nazis and their supporters in Germany coalesced into the Armenian National Council under the direction of professor Ardeshir Abegian, and the vice-president Abraham Chulkandanian, and several old Dashnak guerillas, like Vahan Papazian and Karakin Nezhdeh, who were the veterans of the Turkish wars in the Eastern Anatolia after the World War I. Blessed by Alfred Rosenberg, this organization spew forth anti-Semitic and racist vituperations through the broadcasts of the Radio Berlin, and their weekly journal Armenian, published until the end of 1944, and edited by Viken Shant, son of the another well-known Dashnak leader Levon Shant. Suren Begzadian Paikhar and some Hossank followers worked as commentators/ announcers in the French and Armenian radio services of the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda under Goebbels. In those programs Paikhar was usually introduced as the Fuhrer of the Armenian people. (Patrik von zur Muhlen, Zwischen Hakenkreuz und Sowjetstern - Dusseldorf, Droste, 1971, pp. 105-106)

The Armenian general Karekin Nezhdeh also founded the racist Armenian Tseghagron movement, through which the Armenian youths flocked to the SS and the other elite Nazi military forces. (Karekin Nazhdeh by James Mandalian - The Armenian Review I, 1958)

Other Armenians living in France and Germany joined the 58th Panzer Corps, and the Ostlegion of the Wehrmacht's 19th Army, based in Lyon, France. The Dashnaks and the Hossank Armenian-Nazis worked closely with Admiral Canaris, who was the chief of the the German Military Intelligence (Abwehr), and his principal agent Hans Pickenbrock, the chief of the Branch No: 1, who was in charge of spying to obtain military information, as well as with Dr. Paul Leverkuhn, a key agent in Istanbul and the Director of the Istanbul Substation (KO-Nebenstelle) of the "War Organization Middle East" (Kriegsorganisation Naher Osten) from July 1941 until August 1944. This organization administered a major Nazi intelligence network, not only in Turkey but throughout the Middle East. The Armenian nationalists actively worked in those Nazi organizations to hunt down the Jews, and cooperated with Reichspropagandaleiter in spreading the Nazi propaganda in Turkey and in the Middle East. In these efforts they enlisted the support of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was a close ally of Hitler.

During the early years of World War II, Germany was sweeping through the Western Europe, and all the prognosis for the outcome of the war were in favor of Germany. As the Armenian ethics always dictate fawning on the victor, they calculated — or, miscalculated — that it was about time to commit themselves entirely to Hitler's victory. They summarily formed a "provisional" Armenian government as a dress rehearsal for their soon-to-be-realized aspirations. However, in 1943 the fate of the war began shifting from Hitler to the Allies. The Armenians, the perennial political chameleons, summarily renounced their allegiance to Germany, and did an about-face, this time groveling before the Allies.
From Armenophile Christopher J. Walker

"...Nevertheless there remains the incontestable fact that relations between the Nazis and Daschnaks living in occupied areas were close and active. On 30 december 1941 an Armenian batallion was created by a decision of the Wehrmacht, known as the Armenian 812th Battalion. It was commanded by Dro, and was made up of a small number of committed recruits, and a larger number of Armenians from the prisoners of war taken by the Nazis in their sweep eastwards. Early on the total number was 8000; this number later grew to 20,000. The 812 th Batallion was operational in the Crimea and the North Caucasus. A year later, on 15 December 1942, an Armenian National Council was granted official recognition by Alfred Rosenberg, the German minister of the occupied areas. The Council president was Professor Ardasher Abeghian, its vice-president Abraham Guilkhandanian and it numbered among its members Nzhdeh and Vahan Papazian. From that date until thje end of 1944 it published a weekly journal, Armenian, edited by Viken Shantn (the son of Levon) who also broadcast on Radio Berlin... What was the motive for the collaboration in the occupied areas ? It is possible to see it as a purely vengeful desire to retake Armenia from the Bolsheviks..... There is in the untutored mind a tendency to class Armenians and Jews together (offensive to both peoples); and the malevolent paranoia of the Nazis might have manifested itself against Armenians as well as Jews. Hence it was important to prove to the Nazis that the Armenians were Aryans. With the aid of Dr. Paul Rohrbach they seem to have achieved this. The Nazis did not persecute Armenians, just for being Armenians, in the occupied lands..."

The preceding is from Christopher J. Walker's "Armenia —The Survival of a Nation," page 357, para 2.

When will Governments do something about the unfettered power of the Mass Media

Dear Friends,

When will Governments actually do something about the unfettered power of the Mass Media. It appears that Politicians only speak out against the media when it is close for them to retire, otherwise even the Politicians are afraid of the immense power the Media Corporations wield. Have a look at what Prime Minister Tony Blair has stated now that he is about to retire and compare that with our previous article about what former Justice Brian Sully said about the Media in Australia.

Regards


Blair attacks media 'beast'

13 June, 2007

British Prime Minister Tony Blair defended his legacy on Tuesday, including the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and rounded on the media for acting like a "feral beast", ripping reputations apart.

Blair, who is due to stand down on June 27 after a decade in power, insisted he would not apologise for his backing of US military actions after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

"I don't mean to sound obstinately unapologetic, but I do remain of the view that an interventionist foreign policy in today's world is the only sensible one for us," he told reporters.

The British leader, who has led his Labour Party to three consecutive election victories, saw his poll ratings seriously hit by the war in Iraq and his close alliance with US President George Bush.

Blair said he would leave historians to work out whether Iraq would forever cloud his legacy.

"We will debate this and I will debate our foreign policy for a long time," he said.

But in outspoken comments on the media, he warned of a "dangerous" trend towards sensationalism which he said was a consequence of the growing competitiveness of broadcast, press and online media.

"Today's media more than ever before hunts in a pack. In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits. No-one dares miss out," he said.

And he asked: "Is it becoming worse? Yes. In my 10 years I've noticed all these elements evolve with ever greater momentum.

"I do believe this relationship between public life and media is now damaged in a manner that requires repair," he told a seminar at the headquarters of British media giant Reuters.

"The damage saps the country's confidence and self belief; it undermines its assessment of itself, its institutions. And above all it reduces our capacity to take the right decisions in the right spirit for our future."

Blair was widely criticised, in particular during his early years in Downing Street, with being obsessed with media "spin" - or getting good headlines - at the expense of substantive policy.

The British leader admitted this may have been the case after he led New Labour to power in 1997 after nearly two decades in opposition.

"We paid inordinate attention in the early days of New Labour to courting, assuaging, and persuading the media," he said.

"In our own defence, after 18 years in opposition and the, at times, ferocious hostility of parts of the media, it was hard to see any alternative. But such an attitude ran the risk of fuelling the trends [I am now lamenting]," he said.

But later on he realised that he needed to approach the media with "greater distance and realism than we did in the early days".

At first "I was a bit, wanting to be all things to all people, and then as I got into the job (I) realised that decisions had to be taken, and that in the end you can't please all the people all of the time".

Reflecting on his time in power, he added: "Indeed you're doing quite well if you please some of the people some of the time. Occasionally I think it was none of the people any [of the time]," he joked.

AFP

Turks Unfairly Remain a Hated People

The Ottomans experienced their highest point of strength during the 16th century, as Turkey was trampling across Europe gaining victory after victory. As the Ottoman soldiers pushed into new areas of the continent, the Europeans increasingly became fearful of the Turks. Yet, . . even after the Ottoman Empire lost its great status and became the "Sick Man of Europe," a hatred and dread for the Turkish people remained. This was a lingering of ethnic and religious loathing against a people of unknown background; It was a vile revulsion by Christians against the Muslim Turks-a people that did not profess a belief in their man-god. "The Turk is a great barbarian," stated 16th century German humanist John Adolph Muelich. In the German language, türken ("to Turk"), still means "to hoax, to deceive."

The 18th and 19th centuries witnessed Christian missionary adventurers roving the Orient probing for new victims to entice into their fold. In addition, Western intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals traveled to Asia in search of undiscovered ancient worlds, and throughout their voyages into Ottoman lands, wrote profusely about the Turks-the less than human savages. In an early account about Palestine, an American wrote that the Turkish army provides a "severe beating" to its new soldiers, including those which were "sick." He documented that "some of the new recruits die" and that "the whip of soft, flexible, stinging leather, which seldom leaves the Turkish officer's hand, was never idle."

In a popular 19th century British travelogue, the Protestant author calls the Turkish people both "savages" and "cunning misbelievers." In this same volume, the office of the Sultan is referred to as "faithless." The author writes, "The Turks abated nothing of the cruelty in which their race has always taken in delight." This Christian author also uses the term "stubborn." The term stubborn is one that was frequently used by Christians against non-Christians. It is essentially a slur, which dictates that there is something wrong with the non-Christian for not accepting the Christian faith. We repeatedly see the use of the word stubborn used against the Turks, as well as the Jews for not believing in Jesus. This word has been employed by Christian missionaries both in centuries past, as well as present. Hugh Latimer, the chaplain to King Henry VIII wrote in one of his sermons, that the Turkish people were not only stubborn, but he wrote, "It is a great ignominy and shame for a Christian man to be bond and subject unto a Turk." Reformist Martin Luther himself wrote extensively about the "Turkish problem" and considered the Turkish people "servants and saints of the devil." Turkish people were so vilified and associated with negativity, that the term Turk was (and is) itself used as a slur, even when not talking about Turkish people.

"The world must also recognize that the Republic of Turkey, although principally a nation made up of people born into the Muslim faith, is not an Arab nation with discordant goals and attitudes like those that fester inside the Arab world."

The Republic of Turkey is a nation that over the past sixty years has become a truly modern nation. And as their society seeks entrance into the European Union, it continues to struggle because of persistent age-old negatives. For Turkey to be viable as a member state of the EU, the civilized world must expunge old stereotypes. The world must also recognize that the Republic of Turkey, although principally a nation made up of people born into the Muslim faith, is not an Arab nation with discordant goals and attitudes like those that fester inside the Arab world. In April of 2007, when over one million Turks marched in the streets against a potential pro-Islamic Turkish government-we were once again assured that Turkey remains a free and modern nation.

As Turkey aims to enter the EU, the other major obstacle it faces, are claims by the so-called Armenian genocide lobby. Because the Turks deny there was an organized attempted genocide against the Armenians, Turkey remains a villain among international political circles. This begs the question, why should the modern government of the Republic of Turkey accept blame for the result of warfare between the Ottomans and the Armenians anyway? And, since it has been established that this was a brutal and tragic war, and that both sides suffered greatly, why are the Armenians fostering a political claim? Even without answering these questions, the never ending ranting by the Armenians against the savage Turks has fallen upon the ears of the Western world and has been responded to in knee-jerk fashion. The Armenians have not only gained the support of the Christian world, but also the main stream Jewish establishment. Even when esteemed historians with no Ottoman or Turkish allegiance, such as the late Prof. Stanford Shaw (UCLA), Prof. Bernard Lewis (Princeton University), and Justin McCarthy (Univ. of Louisville), all agree that the so-called Armenian genocide was no genocide, the Christians continue to support their fellow Christians, and the Jews-as usual, blindly support the self-declared victim.

It is the erroneous Jewish position that remains the saddest truth in this whole matter. Without deep investigation or analysis, the secular Ashkenazim that make up 99% of the Jewish establishment have emotionally and completely sided with the Armenian Christians against Turkish Muslims. If you are part of the Jewish community, and you outwardly go against this thinking, you risk losing your employment, being censured or risk marginalization by the bully establishment; it is for this reason that almost no Jewish organization has visibly come out to counter the forged claims of the Armenians. Recently, a (Jewish) US Congressman spoke at a pro-Armenian rally in New York City, where he claimed the Jewish people "all supported" the recognition of the alleged genocide; this was not the first time a Congressman spoke out on the issue, nor the first time a Congressman was mistaken.

In 1989, as Armenian lobbyists were making headway in the Congress for the US to recognize their genocide claim, Los Angeles based Rabbi Albert Amateau (1889-1996), an orthodox rabbi, attorney and social activist, told that as a young man in Turkey, he was mistakenly considered a Christian because of his French name. Because of this, Armenian students felt that they could freely discuss their membership in Armenian secret societies around him, and openly discusses their active participation in secret military exercises to prepare themselves for military duty in their planned subversive war against the Ottoman Empire and nation, in alliance and collaboration with Tsarist Russia. In a sworn statement, Amateau told that he was:

…Amazed that intelligent and politically astute gentlemen, such as Senator Robert Dole, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, and others…have been importuned to sponsor [a] resolution without any proof of the veracity of the Armenian claims...They have been duped to believe the Armenian allegations as true.

The Jewish establishment should not allow their communal emotions dictate their responses. They must realize that because a group of Armenian Christians accuse Turkish Muslims of committing genocide, it does not mean that it actually happened.

Combining a lack of knowledge of Ottoman and Balkan history with the deeply entrenched pro-victim attitude existing on modern university campuses, allows the leftist university professors to continue to teach that the Armenians experienced a genocide. As stated earlier, even though there was a war between the (now long gone) Ottoman Empire and the Armenian people-and we know it was a universal tragedy-there is no reason to blame the government of the modern Republic of Turkey. War, is war-one side wins, and another loses. Because there is no Sultan to defend himself against Armenian allegations, does not mean that those allegations are now established as factual.

Western cultural arrogance combined with a limited world-view contributed toward the initial hatred of the Turkish people, and their subsequent slanderization over the centuries. British Professor Richard G. Cole summarized the problem in one sentence; he wrote in 1972 that a stereotype of the Turk was, "frozen into print culture in the late 15th and early 16th century and remained there." Today, in 2007, Christian elitists with pro-European attitudes and a hatred for all Muslims, remain focused against the Turkish people.

Turks do not deserve to wear the title of savage or ethnic cleanser. Historic descriptions of the Turkish people are remarkably biased and inaccurate and remain a blight among all decent and civilized people. Modern society must scrub away the vestiges of a lingering harmful and unfair typecast.

© Shelomo Alfassawww.alfassa.com

Armenian Massacres: New Records Undercut Old Blame

Dear Friends,

Here is another Western Scholar that has seen through the fallacious Armenian Genocide allegations. Have a read of what he has stated and then look at www.tallarmeniantale.com to see how he has replied to Dadrian.

Cheers
Ataman


Armenian Massacres: New Records Undercut Old Blame Reexamining History
by Edward J. Erickson
Middle East Quarterly Summer 2006

The debate about the World War I deportation and massacre of Armenians in eastern Anatolia has become more contentious with time. Opponents of Turkey's European Union accession treat the Armenian question as original sin. Yet much of the historical debate upon which politicians pass judgment is tinged more by polemic than by fact. Nine decades after hundreds of thousands of Armenians—and millions of others—died during World War I, it is important to dig down into the archives to show what the historical record really says.

There is little argument that many Armenians perished during World War I, but there remains significant historical dispute about whether Armenian civilians died in the fog of war or were murdered on the orders of the Ottoman government. More specifically, the debate about whether or not there was a genocide of Armenians rests upon three pillars: the record of the Turkish courts-martial of 1919-20 during which the new Turkish government, formed following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, tried and hanged some Ottoman officials for war crimes; documents produced in the Memoirs of Naim Bey, an account allegedly written by an Ottoman official claiming to have participated in the deportation of Armenians;[1] and the role of the "Special Organization" (Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa), somewhat equivalent to the Ottoman special forces.

Recently, two researchers have debated the nature of the World War I Armenian massacres and, more specifically, the role in the massacres by the Special Organization and the group's relationship to a Prussian artillery officer known in the records only by his last name, Stange.[2] The first, Vahakn Dadrian, director of Genocide Research at the Zoryan Institute for Contemporary Armenian Research and Documentation, wrote that Stange was the "highest-ranking German guerilla commander operating in the Turko-Russian border," one of several "arch-accomplices in the implementation of the massacres," and a Special Organization commander.[3]

Dadrian argued that the Ottoman government diverted the Special Organization units to deportation duty in rear areas where they became the principal agent in the Armenian massacres. He bases his claims against Stange on secondhand German reports of massacres in Stange's area of operations and uses controversial testimony from the 1919 Istanbul courts-martial proceedings to support his claim about Special Organization redeployments. Since that time, many parties have taken Dadrian's assertions at face value. [4]

Last year, however, Guenter Lewy, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts, challenged Dadrian's findings on the grounds that Stange was neither a Special Organization guerilla leader nor did his unit operate in the area of the massacres.[5]
In history, details matter. Given the importance that contemporary officials place on the events of nine decades past, clarifying Stange's operations is critical to the current debate. In this regard, the official 27-volume Turkish military history of the World War I campaigns, while seldom utilized in Western scholarship, is a valuable tool.[6] The volumes are not readily accessible to university researchers; they are only available at a single military bookstore on a restricted Turkish army compound in Ankara. Far from the politicized debate surrounding the massacres, these histories shed light on nitty-gritty details such as which officers and units were deployed where and when. Within the set, the Third Army histories help flesh out Stange's wartime record. [7] They were published simultaneously to Dadrian's 1993 article and so should not be dismissed as a Turkish response to Dadrian's work. They also provide an important source of information which Dadrian, genocide scholars, and other historians of the period have not yet taken into account.

Ottoman Irregular Forces in Eastern Anatolia

Analyzing the events of 1915 requires an understanding of the Ottoman military for, too often, treatments of the period confuse units and muddle Ottoman military terms.[8] Between 1914-18, there were five groups of Ottoman military and paramilitary forces engaged on the Caucasian front. The Ottoman regular army was a uniformed conscript force led by professional officers who were trained in conventional military tactics and who responded to military discipline and orders. It fought on all Ottoman fronts during the war.
Assisting them were the jandarma, a paramilitary gendarmerie or rural police force trained to military standards and led by professional officers. Every province had at least one mobile jandarma regiment and also numbers of static jandarma battalions.[9] The Ministry of the Interior controlled the jandarma in peacetime but, with the Ottoman mobilization on August 3, 1914, command passed to the Ministry of Defense.

In addition, there was the tribal cavalry (aşiret, formerly the hamidiye). In 1910, the Ministry of Defense integrated the twenty-nine tribal cavalry regiments into the regular army. Used as both conventional cavalry and for internal security duties, members were mostly Kurdish and Circassian, poorly disciplined, and led by tribal chieftains.[10] However, in the army reorganization of 1913, these regiments were reclassified as reserve cavalry (ihtiyat süvari) regiments of the regular Ottoman army.

The gönüllü, paramilitary volunteer forces, allowed Turks and Islamic ethnic groups living outside the Ottoman Empire to join the war effort and fight together.[11] These were often poorly led and armed but organized into units so that they could assist the regular army in both combat and non-combat operations. During World War I, most volunteers serving in the Caucasus were "Greek Turks," "Caucasian Turks," Laz, or Muslim refugees from the European provinces such as Macedonia or Epirus lost in 1913.[12] By definition, the volunteers were not released Ottoman convicts.

The Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa or Special Organization, a multi-purpose special volunteer force led by professional officers, was equivalent to a modern special operations force. It sought to foment insurrection in enemy territory, fight guerillas and insurgents in friendly territory, conduct espionage and counterespionage, and perform other tasks unsuited to conventional military forces. While many histories suggest the Special Organization received orders from the Committee of Union and Progress or the Ministry of the Interior, the archival record suggests that the Ministry of Defense commanded the Special Organization during World War I.[13]
Finally, there were numbers of non-military groups operating in Anatolia during the war. These non-military çeteler (which may be translated as bandit, brigand, insurgent, or guerilla groups depending on context) were local groups not subject to centralized command and control. Çeteler was a catchall term that was used by both the Ottomans to describe insurgents and authentic criminal bands and also by foreign observers to describe groups of killers, whose origins were often unknown.

The Stange Detachment

Where then did Major Stange fit in? Shortly before the outbreak of World War I, the German Kaiser charged General Otto Liman von Sanders to lead a military mission to the Ottoman Empire to assist in rebuilding the Ottoman army after its defeat in the Balkan wars. Liman von Sanders assigned Captain Stange, a Prussian artillery specialist, to command the Erzurum fortress artillery.[14] Stange was a conventional military officer with no special knowledge of guerilla operations. His assignment to the Ottoman Third Army in Erzurum reflected his mainstream skills. He occupied his time working on the defenses until the outbreak of war offered him the chance to lead troops against the Russians.

According to the original Ottoman war plan, the Third Army was ordered to stand on the defensive in the Caucasus while the bulk of the Ottoman army concentrated in Thrace.[15] However, in early September 1914, a revised campaign plan directed the Third Army to conduct offensive operations in the event of war. When war broke out between Russia and the Ottoman Empire on November 2, the Ottomans were actively planning a winter offensive in the Caucasus. The plan called for the three army corps of the Third Army to encircle the Russian army at Sarakamiş with a supporting operation on the Black Sea flank between Batum and Ardahan, in modern day Georgia.[16] There were no regular Ottoman army combat units on the Turco-Russian frontier from the Black Sea south for about 100 kilometers for this supporting attack. Nevertheless, Ottoman border forces pushed across the frontier and, on November 22, closed in on the Russian town of Artvin.[17] Flushed with success, on December 6, the general staff ordered the Third Army to push onward toward Ardahan.[18] It was in this capacity that Stange entered the scene. Ottoman strategists committed every available Third Army division to the Sarakamiş offensive. The Third Army headquarters ordered Stange to take command of the Eighth Infantry Regiment, two artillery batteries, and the Çoruh Border Security Battalion.[19] This newly organized force was designated the Stange Detachment (Ştanke Bey Müfrezesi) and ordered to take Artvin while the rest of the army moved toward their main objective. None of the troops were trained in guerilla or unconventional warfare. Against light opposition, Stange pushed forward and took the town on December 21.
At the same time, other Ottoman forces were operating in the area. Bahattin Şakir, a high-ranking member of the governing Committee of Union and Progress, commanded the Special Organization force, which had infiltrated its forward units near Batum to foment an uprising among Laz and Turkic peoples inside the Russian Empire. In addition to this mission, Şakir ordered Ziya Bey, an artillery major commanding the Special Organization men on the ground in Russia, to encircle and destroy çeteler that included a number of Armenians.[20] The Special Organization also attacked regular Russian army units, capturing four officers and sixty-three Russian soldiers in late November.[21] One Turkish source also mentions a large force of volunteers operating in the Çoruh River valley under Yakup Cemil Bey.[22] Another Turkish source asserts that Yakup Cemil's detachment was a Special Organization force composed of çeteler.[23] In this bitter internecine fighting, many civilian Turks, Armenians, and other local ethnic groups were massacred indiscriminately.[24]

With so many different units and organizations operating in the area, there was bureaucratic wrangling over how to unify the command as the Sarakamiş campaign approached. In the end, Stange took command of the entire force—regulars, border security battalions, volunteers, and the Special Organization. However, the Special Organization and volunteers continued to receive their orders from Şakir, who wanted to retain control of the operation while Stange answered to the X Corps commander, in whose sector he operated.[25]

On December 22, the X Corps and Third Army ordered Stange, the Special Organization, and the volunteers to converge separately on Ardahan. The Special Organization, now locally commanded by Captain Halit Bey, cooperated and joined the advance.[26] Despite bad winter weather, these forces began to encircle the city on December 29. Because Stange controlled neither the Special Organization nor the volunteers, he sent coordination copies of his own detachment orders to Halit, who passed these on to the adjacent volunteers.[27] This was a clumsy arrangement, and there is no indication that the Special Organization and volunteers reciprocated. The result was an uncoordinated attack on Ardahan. Stange's detachment suffered heavy casualties[28] while Special Organization and volunteer losses were light.[29] The Ottomans failed to hold the city for long. In early January 1915, the Russians retook the city with bayonet assaults. Over the next month, the Ottomans conducted a fighting retreat back toward Artvin.

At the end of January 1915, Şakir consolidated some of the Special Organization units into a Special Organization Regiment (Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa Alay) commanded by Halit.[30] This regiment was assigned nine officers and 671 men.[31] Halit also gained control over a group of volunteers known as the Baha Bey Şakir Force. Subsequently and because of the deteriorating tactical situation, Şakir ordered the Special Organization Regiment to cooperate with Stange in defensive operations along the border. Additionally, a smaller Special Organization detachment commanded by Riza Bey conducted operations around Murgal, northwest of Artvin. Istanbul also sent Stange about 1,600 replacements. Fighting was hard, and the Ottomans were pushed back. On February 16, three Russian infantry and two cavalry regiments, Cossacks, and an Armenian battalion attacked a rear guard of Halit Bey's Special Organization soldiers.[32] The Special Organization fought well and covered Stange's regulars as they retreated.

On March 1, 1915, the Russian army launched a major attack to restore the frontier, pushing back Stange, the Special Organization, and the volunteers. In reaction to what appeared to be a disastrous retreat, on March 20, the X Corps reorganized the Ottoman forces on the northeast frontier, forming the Lazistan Area Command (Lazistan ve Havalisi Komutanlıgı) [See Table 1].[33] By this time, Şakir had left Erzurum, and Stange finally received unitary command over the regular army unit as well as the Special Organization and volunteers. Stange immediately set about coordinating a defense with a combined force of 4,286 men, six machine guns, and four cannon.[34]

Table 1
Lazistan Area Command - March 28, 1915
Lazistan Detachment
No. of Men
1st Btln, 8th Infantry Regt
306
3rd Btln, 8th Infantry Regt
581
Mountain Btry, 8th Field Artillery
192
Machinegun Company
97
Engineer Company
140
Cavalry Platoon
30


Trabzon Jandarma Regt
No. of Men
Trabzon Jandarma Btln
400
Rize Jandarma Btln
450
Giresun Jandarma Btln
330
Hopa Hudut (Border) Btln
330


Special Organization Regiment (Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa Alay)Zia Bey BtlnAdil Bey BtlnMuhsin BtlnSalih Aga BtlnIbrahim Bey BtlnVeysel Efendi Detachment 1,430 men (in total)
Source: TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı, Kuruluş 12 (Organizational Chart 12)
The Third Army sent Staff Lieutenant Colonel Vasıf to be Stange's chief-of-staff in the expanded command[35] while Stange collected supplies, engineers, and cavalry from the Third Army Lines of Communications Command. In addition, the military mobilized all men in the Trabzon vilayet (province) between the ages of 17-18 and 45-50 while a Special Organization unit from Istanbul joined the Lazistan area command's Special Organization regiment.

Stange reorganized his augmented command into field forces and static forces. The field forces, which held the defensive lines against the Russians, were composed of the 8th Infantry Regiment, the Trabzon Jandarma Regiment, and the Special Organization Regiment.[36] The static forces, which were responsible for rear area security, were composed of the Riza, the Trabzon, and the Samsun Jandarma regiments. On April 14, 1915, Stange had over 6,000 men assigned to his command.[37] Table 2 shows Stange's revised command arrangements.

Table 2
Lazistan Area Command - 15 April 1915
FIELD FORCE

Lazistan Detachment
1st Btln, 8th Infantry Regt3rd Btln, 8th Infantry RegtMachinegun Company
Trabzon Jandarma Regt
Giresun Jandarma Btln Amasya Jandarma BtlnHopa Border BtlnMachinegun Company
Special Organization Regt
Ziya Bey Btln Adil Bey BtlnMehmet Ali BtlnIbrahim Bey BtlnVeysel Bey BtlnMachinegun Company
Field Force Troops
Two artillery batteries (8th Artillery), Engineer Company, Cavalry Platoon


STATIC FORCE



Rize Jandarma Regt
2 jandarma btlns
Trabzon Jandarma Regt
3 jandarma btlns(probably reconstituted from recalled men)
Samsun Jandarma Reg
4 jandarma btlns

Source: TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı, Kuruluş 13 (Organizational Chart 13)
These arrangements solidified the Ottoman defense, which by mid-April was successfully holding a line about ten kilometers west of the prewar Ottoman-Russian frontier. They also show a return to a conventional military organizational architecture, mirroring the organization of regular Ottoman infantry divisions in 1915, which contained three regiments each with a machine gun company. A general support element of artillery, engineers, and cavalry augmented the regiments.[38] The field force was, practically speaking, staffed and organized as a regular infantry division. This reflects Stange's conventional background and the tactical necessity to put an effective and standard defense on the empire's northeast frontier. The tempo of fighting dropped, and the front remained stationary until early 1916. Throughout this period the Special Organization Regiment remained on the line and engaged in conventional defensive operations.[39] In late January 1916, the recently promoted Major Halit relieved Stange; he returned to Erzurum.

Early 1916 was a period of disaster for the Ottoman strategic position in northeastern Anatolia and the Caucasus. The Russians seized Erzurum, Rize, and Trabzon. Regular army infantry divisions reinforced the Lazistan Area Command. Several Special Organization battalions in the sector were transferred to the adjacent Çoruh Detachment in May 1916 where they continued to participate in frontline duties.[40] The remaining Special Organization troops were distributed into two elements, which were designated as the First and Second Special Organization regiments and assigned to a newly-formed coastal detachment.[41]
Other Special Organization units were redeployed to the IX Corps sector on the Erzincan front near the village of Tuzla.[42] These units served directly under a provisional corps commanded by Staff Lieutenant Colonel Şevket and conducted offensive operations in conjunction with the Ottoman Thirteenth Infantry Division.[43] On June 6, 1916, three Special Organization companies were assigned to the newly formed Haçköy Detachment on the line south of Tuzla. The detachment also had an infantry battalion, two cavalry squadrons, and artillery.[44] The Special Organization continued to participate in conventional operations on the Caucasian front for the remainder of the summer. On July 29, 1916, the First and Second Special Organization regiments were inactivated and a single regiment reestablished.[45] Major combat operations in the Ottoman Third Army area began to diminish in the late summer and, by mid-fall 1916, had almost completely stopped. This was a result of both combat exhaustion and severe weather.
The published paper trail of the Special Organization formations on the Caucasian front ends in 1917, and the Special Organization does not appear in the 1918 Ottoman Caucasian orders of battle. It is unclear what happened to the Special Organization officers and men assigned to the units at that time. However, the deportation of Armenians was completed in 1916, and it appears certain that the Special Organization formations in this study remained on the front during that period.

Conclusions

Many historians find military chronicles dry and difficult to comprehend. Nevertheless, when it comes to the controversy over the fate of Armenians in 1915, they are crucial. Many contemporary historians accuse the Special Organization and Major Stange of complicity in genocide. The records, though, do not lend such accusations credence.
The official military histories of the modern Turkish Republic portray the operations of organized Ottoman Special Organization units on the Caucasian front from December 1914 through the end of 1916 as largely conventional. There is little evidence of a cover-up, especially as these histories are technical, not intended for the public, and predate the scholarly controversy over allegations of Special Organization complicity in Armenian genocide. Importantly, the official histories fully cite archival sources and often reproduce reports and orders.

Early Special Organization operations near Batum were unconventional and involved guerilla warfare operations. However, the Sarikamiş offensive provided the engine that drove the Special Organization into the arms of regular army commanders like Stange. Subsequent and perennial manpower shortages kept the Special Organization engaged in conventional military operations. From the record of unit assignments and locations on the front, it appears that the Special Organization units associated with Stange were not redeployed from the Caucasian front to deport and massacre Armenians.

Nor does it seem possible that Stange was involved in the deaths of Armenians. The modern Turkish histories show that he commanded regular army forces engaged in conventional offensive and defensive operations until late March 1915. Although he technically commanded all Ottoman forces near Ardahan in 1914, he exercised no real control over the Special Organization or volunteers. After Stange gained command of the Lazistan Area Command, he held direct command over Special Organization forces, which he employed on the defensive line in a conventional manner. In effect, from December 11, 1914 through March 20, 1915, Stange can be characterized as a detachment commander who cooperated with the Special Organization in conventional operations. After March 20, 1915, Stange was an area commander who commanded Special Organization forces for conventional defensive operations. The record demonstrates that Stange was neither a Special Organization commander, nor was he a guerilla leader. Indeed, Stange was unhappy with the discipline and training of both the Special Organization and irregular forces, reflecting his lack of authority over them.[46]
The Turkish histories do reveal an intriguing alternative possibility concerning who might have been redeployed to deport Armenians. The reserve cavalry regiments (the former aşiret or tribal cavalry) were grouped into four reserve cavalry divisions that were mobilized into the Reserve Cavalry Corps in August 1914. The tactical performance of this corps was abysmal, and its levels of discipline and combat effectiveness low.[47] Consequently, the Ottoman General Staff inactivated the Reserve Cavalry Corps on November 21, 1914,[48] and only seven of the twenty-nine reserve cavalry regiments remained with the colors in the Third Army.[49] The remaining regiments were dissolved, and "10,000 reserve cavalrymen dispersed throughout the region and returned to their villages."[50] Most of these men were tribal Kurds or Circassians and, unemployed following demobilization, many may have been attracted to the work of deporting the Armenians in the spring of 1915. Clearly, many Armenians died during World War I. But accusations of genocide demand authentic proof of an official policy of ethnic extermination. Vahakn Dadrian has made high-profile claims that Major Stange and the Special Organization were the instruments of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Documents not utilized by Dadrian, though, discount such an allegation.

Edward J. Erickson, Ph.D. is a retired U.S. Army officer at International Research Associates.[1] Aram Andonian, comp., The Memoirs of Naim Bey: Turkish Official Documents Relating to the Deportations and Massacres of Armenians (Newtown Square, Pa.: Armenian Historical Society, 1965, reprint of London, 1920 ed).[2] See Guenter Lewy, "Revisiting the Armenian Genocide," Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2005, pp. 3-12; Vahakn Dadrian, "Correspondence," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2006, pp. 77-8.[3] Vahakn Dadrian, "The Role of the Special Organization in the Armenian Genocide during the First World War," Minorities in Wartime: National and Racial Groupings in Europe, North America and Australia in Two World Wars, Panikos Panayi, ed. (Oxford: Berg, 1993), p. 58-63.[4] For example, see: Taner Akçam, Armenien und der Völkermord: Die Istanbuler Prozesse und die türkische Nationalbewegung (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1996), p. 65.[5] Lewy, "Revisiting the Armenian Genocide"; Guenter Lewy, The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey, A Disputed Genocide (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2005), pp. 82-8.[6] See Edward J. Erickson, "The Turkish Official Military Histories of the First World War: A Bibliographic Essay," Middle Eastern Studies, 39 (2003): 183-91. No library outside Turkey holds the complete series. In addition to the 27-volume coverage of World War I, there are also fourteen volumes on the Balkan wars (1911-13) and eighteen volumes on the war of independence (1919-23).[7] These two books are T.C. Genelkurmay Başkanlıgı, Birinci Dünya Harbinde, Türk Harbi, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı, Cilt I ve Cilt II (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 1993). Hereafter referred to as TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı and TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı II.[8] For example, "scum" cited in Dadrian, "The Role of the Special Organization in the Armenian Genocide during the First World War," p. 58, or "ex-convict killer bands" in Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris, The Armenian Genocide and America's Response (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2003) p. 182-3.[9] TCGB, Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri Tarihi, IIIncü Cilt, 6ncı Kısım, 1908-1920 (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 1971) pp. 133-5.[10] Ibid., pp 129-32.[11] Ibid., pp. 239-40.[12] Ibid.[13] Askeri Tarih ve Stratejik Etüt (ATASE), BDH Koleksıyonu Kataloğu-4 (Ankara: undated). First World War Catalogue, no. 4, of the military archives lists files of the Special Organization detachments, proving that these detachments were under Ministry of Defense command.[14] Ismet Görgülü, On Yıllık Harbin Kadrosu 1912-1922, Balkan-Birinci Dünya ve Istiklal Harbi (Ankara: Türk Tarıh Kurum Basımevi, 1993), p. 105; Deutsche Offiziere in der Türkei (Bonn: Militar, 1957), p. 10.[15] TCGB, Birinci Dünya Harbinde, Türk Harbi, Inci Cilt, Osmanlı Imparatorluğunun Siyasi ve Askeri Hazırlıkları ve Harbe Girişi (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 1970), pp. 212-38.[16] Fahri Belen, Birinci Cihan Harbinde Türk Harbi, 1914 Yılı Hareketleri (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 1964), p. 96.[17] TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı, Kroki 36 (Map 36).[18] "Ottoman General Staff Orders, ATASE Archive 2950, Record H-6, File 1-267," reproduced in ibid., pp. 339-40.[19] TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı, p. 349.[20] Ibid., p. 344.[21] Ibid., p. 293.[22] Ibid., Kroki 37 (Map 37).[23] Görgülü, On Yıllık Harbin Kadrosu 1912-1922, pp. 109, 111.[24] Muammer Demirel, Birinci Cihan Harbinde Türk Harbinde Erzurum ve Çevresinde Ermeni Hareketleri (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 1996), pp. 41-5; Dadrian, "The Role of the Special Organization in the Armenian Genocide during the First World War," p. 62.[25] TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı, p. 602.[26] Ibid., p. 605.[27] "Detachment Orders, ATASE Archive 5257, Record H-1, File 1-10," cited in ibid., p. 603.[28] "Detachment Orders, ATASE Archive 5257, Record H-1, File 1-12," reproduced in TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı, p. 603.[29] TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı, p. 603.[30] Ibid., p. 608.[31] "Strength Report, ATASE Archive 5257, Record H-3, File 1-4," reproduced in ibid., p. 603.[32] TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı, p. 607.[33] Ibid., p. 614.[34] "Reports, ATASE Archive 2950, Record H-3, File 1-49," cited in ibid., p. 614.[35] TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı, p. 615.[36] "Detachment Orders, ATASE Archive 2950, Record H-4, File 1-8," cited in ibid., p. 615.[37] "Strength Report, ATASE Archive 5257, Record H-4, File 194," reproduced in TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı, p. 616.[38] TCGB, Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri Tarihi, pp. 199-203, 266-72, for information on the architecture of Ottoman army infantry divisions. The Lazistan Detachment was a regimental equivalent.[39] TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı II, p. 86.[40] "Orders, ATASE Archive 3974, Record H-2, File 1-59 and 73," cited in ibid., p. 181.[41] TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı II, p. 251.[42] Ibid., p. 233.[43] Ibid., p. 240, Kuruluş 11 (Organizational Chart 11).[44] Ibid., p. 247.[45] "Strength Report, ATASE Archive 2950, Record H-58, File 1-329 & 333," cited in ibid., pp. 369-70.[46] TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı, p. 618.[47] Belen, 1914 Yılı Hareketleri, p. 116-24.[48] TCGB, Kafkas Cephesi 3ncü Ordu Harekatı, p. 311.[49] Ibid., Kuruluş 1 (Chart 1).[50] Ibid., p. 322.

Forget about Shock and Awe how about Shocked and Surprised NOT (as Borat would say)

Dear Friends,

Have a read of the article that appeared in the Boston Globe down below. Now the US Military spent thousands of dollars no doubt conducting this survey and study to find out what ? Something a school pupil would have been able to tell them from pure common sense.

Truly they never cease to amaze me.

Ataman


An erosion of battlefield ethics
10 May, 2007

US TROOPS will never succeed in stabilizing Iraq if they don't take seriously the need to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis. The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, is right to be concerned about a report released last week showing that many troops would not report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian. Petraeus said the results of the survey would require "a redoubling of our education efforts" to avoid abuses by troops in Iraq. In following up on the report, Petraeus and his superiors should also examine the role that the Bush administration's dismissive talk about the Geneva Conventions might have played in causing troops to turn a blind eye to misconduct by their comrades.
·

According to the report by the Army's own Mental Health Advisory Team, only 40 percent of Marines and 55 percent of soldiers surveyed last year said they would report unit members who killed or wounded innocent civilians. Almost as worrisome, only 38 percent of Marines and 47 percent of soldiers said non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect.

This is the fourth survey by the mental health team but the first that included Marines and explored battlefield ethics. The ethics questions, in addition to ones asked in previous surveys about the troops' mental health, were called for by General George Casey when he led the multinational force in Iraq. "We can't fix an issue unless we know about it," said Lieutenant Colonel Robert Tallman of Army Public Affairs in an interview this week.

The survey shows there is much to fix. "We can never sink to the level of the enemy," Petraeus said Monday. "We have done that at times in theater and it has cost us enormously," he said, referring to the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by soldiers at Abu Ghraib.

How serious is the military about ensuring that killings of noncombatants are reported? One test will be the steps it takes against three enlisted Marines implicated in the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians, including women and children, in Haditha in late 2005, and four Marine officers in the alleged cover-up of that incident. Unclassified documents released to The New York Times recently make it clear that officers were worried about the public relations impact of disclosing the circumstances of the civilians' deaths.Rigorous prosecution of this case will reinforce the extra ethics training that the military has introduced since it first learned of the survey results in January. Troops would also get the right message if Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who once belittled the Geneva Conventions as "quaint" and "obsolete," formally repudiated that description and acknowledged, as US military leaders have, that the conventions deserve to be adhered to -- as a protection both for civilians and for US troops who fall into enemy hands.

(Editorial by me, so they need to do the right thing not only for the civilians but JUST IN CASE THEIR TROOPS ARE CAUGHT and the bad guys can be nice to them, unbelievable. How about doing the right thing from the outset and not having any problems like not sticking your nose into some place where it is not needed or wanted. I wonder how many actual war crimes, murders, rapes have not been REPORTED ??)

Techniques the US Military uses to bring about Freedom & Democracy

Dear Friends,

Have a read of the below article, these are some of the techniques which some US Military personnel use in order to bring about freedom and democratic ideals to a Nation.

US Marine 'urinated on dead Iraqi'
10 May, 2007 - 9:49AM SMH.

Angered that a beloved member of his squad had been killed in an explosion, a US Marine urinated on one of the 24 dead Iraqi civilians killed by his unit in Haditha, the Marine testified.

Sergeant Sanick Dela Cruz, who has immunity from prosecution after murder charges against him were dismissed, also said he watched his squad leader shoot down five Iraqi civilians who were trying to surrender.

In dramatic testimony in a pretrial hearing for one of the seven Marines charged in the November 2005 killings and reported cover-up at Haditha, Dela Cruz described his bitterness after a roadside bomb ripped Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, known as TJ, into two bloody pieces.

"I know it was a bad thing what I've done, but I done it because I was angry TJ was dead and I pissed on one Iraqi's head," said an unemotional Dela Cruz in a military courtroom in Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego, California.

Dela Cruz said he had earlier he watched squad leader Sergeant Frank Wuterich shoot five men whose hands were up near a car, then admitted to shooting them as they lay on the ground.

Wuterich "walked to me and told me that if anybody asked, they were running away and the Iraqi Army shot them," testified Dela Cruz.

Three Marines have been charged with murder, and four officers have been charged with dereliction of duty and obstructing the investigation.

Prosecutors contend the killings were revenge for Terrazas' death while the Marines charged say it was a clearing operation, conducted under lawful orders that had disastrous results.

The Marine Corps initially reported the deaths as a result of the bombing and a firefight with insurgents. Reporting by Time magazine in January 2006 finally prompted the Marine Corps to investigate the killings.

Dela Cruz said he was asked four times to lie about what happened in Haditha, although no one asked him about the killings for a time.

A Chicago native, Dela Cruz saw intense action in his first Iraq tour of duty in 2004. A Marine Corps News article once featured him as one of the unsung heroes of the Iraq war.

Wednesday's hearing focused on Captain Randy Stone, who served as the legal adviser for the Kilo Company. Stone, 34, is charged with violating an order and two counts of dereliction of duty in connection with the killings.

On November 19, a convoy of Marines from the Kilo Company was travelling through the town of Haditha when a roadside bomb detonated, killing Terrazas and injuring two others. Surviving Marines stopped a car and shot its five occupants, then swept through two houses, killing the people inside.

According to testimony, the five men in the vehicle were the first of the 24 victims. Dela Cruz said that after he helped Wuterich shoot the men, he went in one direction with Iraqi soldiers while Wuterich went in another direction.

Another Marine, Sergeant Albert Espinosa, testified on Wednesday that he pressed for an investigation of the killings almost immediately after it occurred in November 2005.
He testified that he was frustrated by the apparent indifference of his commanding officers. "We deserve an answer to what happened and wasn't happy with the answers I was getting," 1st Sergeant Albert Espinosa testified.

Have a look at what some Armenians will do for the Truth

Dear Friends,

I have seen this video before but it really is very emotional each and every time I watch it. Look at what an Armenian Turk has done for his country Turkey, years before the biased Western Media became so prevalent in demonising Turkey. You won't see the below video in any Western media.

Have a look for yourselves, this is what the fallacious genocide claims are doing to ordinary decent people.

Regards
Ataman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGXvUkpYoFc

A new faith for Kooris (Australian Aboriginals for Overseas readers)

May 4, 2007

Anthony Mundine converted to Islam after his manager gave him a book about Malcolm X.

More Aborigines are finding similarities between their culture and Islamic principles, writes Linda Morris.

A FLAG is soon to flutter above the troubled suburb of Redfern, proclaiming a new religious face to Aboriginal Australia. At the centre of a backdrop of equal halves of black and red, the colours of the Aboriginal people, is a yellow crescent moon and star. It's to be the symbol of the Koori Muslim Association, which will open the only Aboriginal mushalla in NSW at a shopfront location on busy Regent Street next month.

Conversion among indigenous Australians is growing, driven by the higher visibility of Islam, a rejection of Christianity as a post-colonial religion, identification with Islamic principles, and conversions in prisons where Aborigines dominate the population.

While no one knows how many indigenous Muslims there are in Australia, Aboriginal Muslims reject suggestions they are converting to the faith in droves. Some are descendants of Afghan and Baluch cameleers, North Indian traders and Malay pearl divers and have grown up in the faith.

Many converts are from cities. The boxer Anthony Mundine is the most famous of these and has become a role model. Their first contact with Islam sometimes, but not always, comes in jail, where as many as 22 per cent of inmates are indigenous Australians.

Rocky Davis, known as Shaheed Malik, converted while serving 14 years for armed robberies and other offences. It was the story of Malcolm X, the gangster and black American nationalist leader who became a convert to Islam, that first inspired Davis.

"What does Islam stand for? Islam offers a faith untainted by colonialism and racism. It is a liberating religion," says Davis. "Though the Bible said you shalt not kill, they killed, thou shall not rape, they raped our women, thou shalt not steal, they stole our land. Islam at its essence is pure. My forefathers had no army and no guns and lived in Aboriginal townships and camps. That's the difference between the Muslim and Christian faiths: one is for the oppressed and one's for the oppressor, one's for the coloniser and one for the colonised."

Peta Stephenson, a doctoral fellow at the University of Melbourne's Asia Institute, says Islam doesn't share the baggage of missionary Christianity, and has become one path by which Aborigines can affirm their pre-colonial identity.

"Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X are role models," she says. "A lot of people see Islam as an answer to the ills of Western society. For communities suffering chronic levels of unemployment or underemployment and substance abuse it might have special appeal for those wanting to break away from the statistics."

But Eugenia Flynn, an Adelaide IT worker, says it would be a mistake to think that every Aboriginal convert has come to the faith via the narrative of Malcolm X. For many of its adherents, Islam answers a spiritual yearning, and that search is something inherent in all individuals, indigenous or not, she says.

Brought up a Catholic, Flynn, 24, converted to Islam five years ago after finding in it an intense experience of God. She would be disappointed if Islam was held to appeal solely to indigenous Australians as a marginalised community.

"My issue is that people like to stereotype black Muslims as angry militants who did jail time and left behind a life of crime and violence. The more typical story is an indigenous person was searching for a spiritual way and found Islam to be incredibly liberating."

Mundine's walk to Islam came a decade ago at the end of his football playing days. Like Flynn, his motives were spiritual, not political, and his closest friends say his faith is genuinely held.

Life was good but his soul was empty, he says. He was bought up a Christian but was not overly religious. He rejected Christianity because he could not understand its complex trinitarian theology. His manager, Khoder Nasser, introduced him to Islam by lending him a book about Malcolm X.

"Islam's given me a new perspective on the hereafter and what life is about. It's black and white and pure. We've got to ask the question, 'Where are we going and why are we here?' If you have a faith and belief in God there'd be less suicide, stress and sickness. You have a feeling and a purpose, and if you will take one step He will take two steps to you. Islam is my life, it's helped every aspect of it. Every time you see my life, my sporting successes, know that Allah is the greatest."

Flynn sees "lots of similarities" between Aboriginal culture and Islam, including Islam's emphasis on modesty and the segregation of men and women. "I think a lot of people think indigenous spirituality is based around animalism but in Aboriginal culture there is a creator god, and the way I express my spirituality is through Islam. I don't see the two as mutually exclusive. For me I choose Aboriginality as my culture and Islam as my faith."

Islam has proved a neat fit for Aboriginal Australians, says Stephenson, who is writing a book on the topic.

"Islam is a very accepting religion, no matter the race, and it's reaffirming for Aboriginal people who might not find that same sense of belonging in Australian culture," she says.

"Some Aboriginal people appreciate that Islam gives them strict guidelines on how to live their lives, especially for those who have been forced to move off their lands. Traditional indigenous culture also has codes and ethics that members are expected to follow for the betterment of the community. Those identifying with Islam have not only found some direction in their life, they are following a faith that shares many cultural overlaps with their Aboriginal identity."

Although Mundine is hailed as a role model for other Aboriginal converts, he doesn't see it as his job to bring people to faith. Kinsmen who approach him about Islam are told to educate themselves. "God willing, we do see more Aboriginal Muslims."

Flynn knows only a handful of converts in her home town. Just as Flynn is strict, Mundine is relaxed about religious practice. He tries to pray five times a day, before a bout and after, doesn't wear a beard because it interferes with his boxing, and long boxing shorts and T-shirt stand for modest dress around the home. He went on his first visit to Mecca last year and hopes to repeat it one day soon, and he tries to avoid training during Ramadan.

Islam, says Stephenson, has proved a positive experience for males. "I've consistently found men who say they were once angry but having identified with Islam they come away with a sense of peace and a real need to do good in the community. Islam teaches you to be the best person you can."

Nevertheless, the NSW Commissioner of Corrective Services, Ron Woodham, has expressed fears that inmates are falling prey to Wahabism - a fundamentalist branch of Islam practised by Osama bin Laden, without sampling more progressive traditions.

Because their first encounter with Islam is not within their community, Aboriginal converts tend to adopt the ideologies of those with whom they first connect. Davis wants it to be with an orthodox interpretation of Islam.

He does not believe Islam will become a platform for black nationalism in Australia, rather one for demanding human rights. He thinks it is likely to grow in stature within the indigenous community as a cure for economic and social disadvantage. He wants to establish a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre, a support scheme for released inmates and a program in juvenile detention centres.