So I guess they think it happened, eh?

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This even though he opposes the resolution. Interesting. (Since it’s a resolution, there’s nothing to veto, but apparently he’s chosen not to pressure House Republicans to oppose it.)

Update: Here’s why. The Democrats, including Pelosi, are doing it for him.

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It now goes to the House floor, where Democratic leaders say there will be a vote by mid-November. There is a companion bill in the Senate, but both measures are strictly symbolic, and do not require the president’s signature.

It should be noted that Bob Dole was the first member of Congress to put forward a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide. He was badly wounded in WWII and nearly died. His life was saved by an Armenian doctor in Chicago who survived the genocide, and who told Dole about it. Dole never stopped trying to get the genocide recognized and has been awarded by the Armenian community for his efforts.

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A Congressional committee votes tomorrow on whether to recognize the Armenian genocide. Adam Schiff (D-CA) from the heavily Armenian area of Glendale / Pasadena is a primary sponsor of the bill. Meanwhile Jane Harman (DINO-CA) has done another of her usual flip-flops to the conservative side by now opposing the bill she once supported.

Turkey is an ally of Israel and the US, which explain much of the opposition to the bill. Let’s hope it passes.

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Systematic participation of doctors in state terrorism began with the Armenian genocide in Turkey in 1915. Medical personnel were directly involved in the killings, often participating in torture. Behaeddin Shakir and Mehmet Nazim established extermination squads staffed by criminals.The Armenian genocide provided the template for the Nazi holocaust, leading to the most notorious example of medical complicity in state abuse.

This from an article on the sickening history of doctors and MDs being used to torture and maim those who a regime wishes to destroy, a bloodstained history that continues to this day in the United States and elsewhere.

From a 2004 article in the New England Journal of Medicine

There is increasing evidence that U.S. doctors, nurses, and medics have been complicit in torture and other illegal procedures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. Such medical complicity suggests still another disturbing dimension of this broadening scandal.

The article helps explain why the medical care at Gitmo is world class. It’s not out of concern for the detainees but quite the opposite. It’s so their medical history can be used to break them.

[doctors] have turned over prisoners’ medical records to interrogators who could use them to exploit the prisoners’ weaknesses or vulnerabilities.

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The PM of Canada warned Turkey for criticizing the Canadian government policy of recognizing the Armenian genocide, saying this would not help in normalizing relations.

In Britain, 133 parliamentarians voted support for the Armenian genocide resolution.

In the United States, Congress remains mostly mute on the matter. Because while of course the US decries genocide in the strongest of terms, too many in Congress say, maybe it wasn’t really a genocide because only a mere 1.5 million were exterminated. It depends how you define the term, they slither in evasion. Besides, darn it, Congress laments, the US might need Turkey to exterminate the Kurds, should the need arise, plus they are allies of Israel. So, sorry all you Armenians, Congress does feels your pain, but politics is politics, and you are expendable.

Inspirational, aren’t they?

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It’s long past time that the US Senate does the same. Make former Senator Bob Dole happy.

Bob Dole’s life was saved in WWII by an Armenian MD who survived the genocide and who told him about it. When Dole became a senator he brought forth a resolution every year to recognize the genocide. It was always voted down. But he kept trying any way, and thus played a major role in getting the word out.

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More than 90 years after the Armenian genocide, the U.S. is deadlocked in a humiliating linguistic debate.

The L.A. Times has an excellent backgrounder on why D.C. still refuses to call it genocide. The primary reason is they don’t want to upset Turkey where they have an air base, among other things. No matter that this makes a mockery of stated US goals to end genocides elsewhere. and invites charges of massive hypocrisy.

So in February 2005, while speaking in California, [former ambassador to Armenia John Marshall] Evans said: “I will today call it the Armenian genocide. I think we, the U.S. government, owe you, our fellow citizens, a more frank and honest way of discussing this problem.” For that remark he was recalled from his post so that Washington could get back to the business of evading the historical truth.

It’s important to note that previous presidents. Bill Clinton included, also refused to recognize the genocide, and for the same slimy reasons.

A bill to recognize the genocide is in Congress and looks like it could pass. But Democrats in their usual timid manner have delayed the vote until after the upcoming April 24 anniversary of the event. Goodness, they wouldn’t want to do anything rash, we’re only talking about the slaughter of 1.5 million people here.

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“For those who aren’t aware, there was a genocide that did take place against the Armenian people. It is one of these situations where we have seen a constant denial on the part of the Turkish government and others that this occurred. It has become a sore spot diplomatically.” - Barack Obama

April 25 will mark the 92nd anniversary of the Armenian genocide, which will be marked by commemorations worldwide.

Several governors have declared the day to be a remembrance of the genocide and 40 states have recognized it, as has the New York Times. It is long past time for it to be recognized officially by the US government, despite D.C. troglodytes who would ignore the deaths of 1.5 million rather than offend Turkey.

More. Armenian-Genocide.org

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A Swiss court found a Turkish politician guilty Friday of denying that mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 amounted to genocide, the first such conviction under Swiss law.

It was a token fine and a suspended jail sentence but still, this represents a major step forward in recognizing that the Armenian genocide happened.

A modern mockery. Los Angeles Times editorial.

Ankara’s outdated laws to protect ‘Turkishness’ only bar free speech and hold the nation up to ridicule.

U.S. policy is out of sync with the truth, former ambassador to Armenia says.

John Marshall Evans, the former U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Armenia, did something that none of his predecessors in the State Department ever dared. He called the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottomans in 1915 a “genocide.”

For using that word, Evans said, he lost his job.

Via listserv from Appo Jabarian, Publisher of USA Armenian Life.

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Turkish nationalist, leader of the Turkish Labor Party Dogu Perincek will stand trial in Switzerland. The legal proceedings launched over violation of Swiss anti-racist law on the Armenian Genocide denial may cause tension in the Swiss-Turkish relations.

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Rep. Adam Schiff, D-CA has introduced a bill (HR 195) asking President Bush to recognize the Armenian genocide.

However, US officials more worried about Turkish feelings than genocide.

Armenian Americans are more insulted by the offensive attitude of the Bush administration toward the Armenian Genocide than they are by Turkey’s refusal to acknowledge it.

LA City Council votes to support Schiff’s resolution.

It’s been a long time coming and it’s a long time overdue. The US government needs to officially realize and recognize the Armenian genocide happened.

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By Appo K. Jabarian (via listserv)
Managing Editor / Executive Publisher
USA Armenian Life Magazine

As several world political, religious and other civic leaders condemn the January 19, 2007 Turkish premeditated murder of an innocent Armenian journalist Hrant Dink (1954-2007), many optimists expressed hope that as a result, a blanket positive change will take place in what is now Turkey. They believe that Dink’s assassination will automatically result into a positive change.

Other observers anticipate that the original perpetrators and their denialist descendants will continue their genocidal campaign in denialism with an unpunished deadly devotion to keeping the loot: the forcibly occupied Armenian lands of Western Armenia and Cilicia, and the Greek lands of Constantinople, Smyrna, Troy, Pontus and Northern Cyprus.

Setting my disagreements with the late fellow journalist Dink aside, I consider him as the newest Armenian martyr of the Armenian Genocide. Yes, we did have our disagreements, yet we were in complete harmony with the noble goal of seeing a transformed Turkish society that would ultimately atone itself by genuinely repenting its 1915-1923 genocidal crime against the Armenian nation; by making honest amends to the Armenian people.

When this writer had asked him during his October 2006 visit in Los Angeles about his position on the issue of the Turkish-occupied Armenian lands, Dink had swiftly replied: “I’m living on these lands.” In my opinion, that is one of the root reasons why the extremist Turks have encouraged a young Turk to annihilate Dink. The Turkish “Deep State” is more concerned with losing much more than their monopoly of power. They are fearful of “losing” their loot from the Armenians: the historic lands of Western Armenia and Cilicia, and personal and real properties confiscated from the Armenians.

In a January 22 article titled “A ‘Trabzon Legend’ Gave The Orders To Kill Hrant Dink,” the Turkish daily Hurriet wrote: “Yasin Hayal, the man now suspected of giving the orders to 17 year old Ogun Samast to murder journalist Hrant Dink. His ultra-nationalist rhetoric focused on what he perceived as ‘enemies of the state,’ and he told the disaffected youth who spent time with him that it was ‘their duty’ to see to the punishment of those who ‘insulted Turkey.’ … Hayal reportedly admitted ‘I gave the gun and the money to Ogun Samast. I am angry at the things which are happening in this country. The state is doing nothing to the people who are against Turkey. Which is why I gave Ogun this job. He carried out his duty successfully, and he helped rescue Turkey’s honor.’”

In a January 23 article titled “Armenia haunts the Turks again,” Hugh Pope of the Los Angeles Times wrote: “Dink, who was repeatedly threatened by such nationalists, was left unprotected, but not just by the Turkish police. Bad laws, malevolent prosecutions and a growing nationalist hysteria helped create a lynch mob atmosphere. What killed Dink, in short, is the Turkish republic’s inability to deal with the Armenian issue — the charge that its predecessor state, the Ottoman Empire, killed 1.2 million Armenian men, women and children in a genocide that began in 1915.”

Even the succeeding and currently ruling Turkish Republic under Mustafa Kemal continued its predecessor Ottoman Turkey’s genocidal campaign killing additional hundreds of thousands of innocent Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and Arabs, and others.

Pope continued: “Official Turkey is stuck in a rut of denial. Discussing the great omissions on the subject in Turkey’s public education remains taboo. Efforts to open archives and to ‘leave it to the historians’ lead to dead ends, partly because a scholarly debate won’t assuage diaspora Armenians who demand formal acknowledgment of the genocide, and partly because of Turkey’s anti-free-speech laws — most notoriously Penal Code Article 301, with its catchall penalties for ‘denigrating Turkishness. ‘ ”

There is righteous Turkishness embodied by individuals like Orhan Pamuk, Ahmed Ertegun and others that deserves to be honored. And there is brut Turkish denialism that needs to be condemned and discouraged.

There are genuine followers of Turkish Holy Islam that are worthy of our respect, because they are the conscience of humane Turk in the very footsteps of their forefathers who saved many Armenians from annihilation, and undoubtedly would have done everything to protect and save Dink’s life.

And there are those Turks who masquerade as “nationalists”, yet they are usurpers of Armenians’ lands, and desecrators of the Armenian churches and mutilators of the truth, just like those denialist leaders in Ankara and elsewhere who have been doing everything to intimidate Dink and others into silence through acts of repression and deadly denialism - just like it happened on Friday January 19 in front of Dink’s Agos weekly offices; an act that cut short an “agos” (water furrow) for truth, democracy and justice.

[tags]Hrant Dink[/tags]

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A reader comments in our post Honoring Hrant Dink

Hrant Dink was an honest intellectual,a man of dignity, a father of three children, a man who has been raised in an orphanage and endured the difficulties of life in an early age.

As a Turk I do not view him from his ethnic origin but as a dignified man who put his views bravely (some of which I disagree)

We are all deeply affected by his death. I happened to be in Istanbul that day and witnessed many people with tears in their eyes.

Let his soul lie in peace.

A 17-year-old has confessed to the murder. His father says “he couldn’t have done this alone.”

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There have been large demonstrations in Turkey and vigils in Los Angeles to honor the memory of Hrant Dink, Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor who was murdered yesterday. He was a leader in the movement to have the Armenian genocide recognized as such in Turkey, something which got him a six month suspended sentence for insulting “Turkishness.”

Because, you see, it’s illegal in Turkey to discuss the genocide.

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Given the draw of Sylvester Stallone, the movie could easily push recognition of the Armenian genocide onto the front pages.

Stallone says that the flick will be “an epic about the complete destruction of a civilisation. (But) talk about a political hot potato. The Turks have been killing that subject for 85 years.”

Thank you, Rocky.

This issue, recognition of the genocide, is neither left nor right. It’s been a long time coming. But it finally looks like recognition will soon be a mainstream issue.

It should always be noted that Bob Dole, both as a senator and afterwards, has for decades worked towards recognizing the genocide. His life as a WWII soldier was saved by an Armenian doctor who survived the genocide and told Dole of it.

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Hrant Dink, an Armenian-Turkish newspaper editor who had received death threats from nationalists for questioning Turkey’s denial of an Armenian genocide, was shot in the head and killed today.

Emphasis added.

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Stepan Haytayan is the grandfather of Serj Tankian, the lead singer of System of a Down. Haytayan is a survivor of the Armenian genocide where 1.5 Armenians were slaughtered by Turks in 1915.

The band has made a documentary about it, Screamers. It deals with the genocide and the continued refusal of many to accept that it happened.

Official movie website

Documentary feature examining why genocides keep occurring — from the Armenian genocide in 1915, to the Holocaust, Bosnia, Rwanda and now Darfur — through the eyes and music of the Grammy award-winning rock band ‘System of a Down,’ based in Los Angeles, whose members are all grandchildren of genocide survivors.

Successive Presidents and corporate interests have conspired to turn a blind eye to genocides as they are happening – whether it be Iraqi Kurds in the 80s, Rwanda in the 90s or Darfur today. After the Holocaust, we may say ‘never again’ — but we don’t mean it.

YouTube video, with System of a Down live.

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As well they should. The French parliament voted yesterday to make it a crime to say the Armenian genocide did not happen, just like Germany already does with their law banning Holocaust revisionism.

Both atrocities happened. To pretend they didn’t is beyond sick. Turkey says, well, it wasn’t genocide because it wasn’t planned by the state, a statement highly disputed by others. They do not deny that hundreds of thousands, maybe a million, Armenians were killed.

Some history. A soldier was injured in WWII. An Armenian doctor put him back together, and told him of the genocide. When that soldier became a senator, he put forth a resolution each year to recognize the genocide. It was always defeated, but he kept trying. His efforts helped considerably to get the truth out.

Bob Dole had no problem calling it genocide.

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The French parliament has voted to support a law that criminalizes denying the Armenian genocide happened. The European Commission attacked this saying open dialogue is needed about Armenia in Turkey, a potential EU member.

Yet Turkey has already made it illegal to discuss the genocide. In Germany, saying another genocide, the Holocaust, didn’t occur is also a crime. So, such laws are already on the books. So why the bizarre insistence there must be debate about something which obviously happened? especially when the perpetrator nation already specifically forbids such debate. Either both nations can have such a law (even if their intent is opposite) or neither can, but not just one and not the other.

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Bill Paparian, former mayor of Pasadena CA, is running for the House as a Green. Something is happening. His campaign is getting major traction, interest from the media, and the buzz is definitely building. This will not be the usual Green campaign where the candidate gets 5% of the vote, rather Paparian will get considerably more votes than that - you read it here first.

He’s strongly antiwar, and this is the primary theme that is resonating among voters. The Pasadena / Glendale area has one of the largest Armenian populations anywhere (including Armenia) and as a bloc, is strongly antiwar. Yet, even Republicans can be antiwar too. The current issue of USA Armenian Life has a front page photo of Paparian with Bill Holderness, a notable Republican who now opposes the war and supports Paparian.

I was involved in the Green Party for a while. More than a few had been Republicans before becoming Greens, so it shouldn’t be surprising when a highly visible local Republican supports a Green candidate.

In the aftermath of the Armenian genocide, Arabs in the surrounding areas opened their hearts to Christian Armenians and aided them when they needed help the most, a generosity Armenians have not forgotten. Armenians thus see Arab culture as the highly developed civilization that it is (indeed, during the Dark Ages in Europe, it was Arab culture that kept civilization alive in the West.) Armenians, who live in many countries in the Middle East, tend to oppose imperialism there, whether it be U.S. or Zionist. Local Armenians, many who emigrated from Lebanon, have picked up on Paparian’s message, and he’s been appearing on Armenian cable TV virtually every night.

Bill Paparian, a friend (I’m his webmaster too), is the real deal. Strongly progressive, he opposes the Iran and Afghanistan wars, saying bring the troops home now, and stop the torture too. If you live in the area, this is the campaign to get involved with.

Paparian for Congress

[tags]Bill Paparian[/tags]

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