Choose Truth Over Propaganda

2 
The term \\\"genocide\\\" is a well defined crime. The definition was given at the international \\\"Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide\\\" after the Second World War, approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations and adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the U.N. General Assembly on 9 December 1948. Entry into force: 12 January 1951. (See http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/text.htm#II) 
 
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide  
Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the U.N. General Assembly on 9 December 1948.  
Entry into force: 12 January 1951. 
 
Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:  
(a) Killing members of the group; 
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; 
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; 
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; 
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.  
The word ‘INTENT’ is of particular importance in Article II. Article II states “…committed with intent to destroy…”. That is, ‘Intent’ must be proven for genocide to be proven. It is my understanding that ‘intent’ has never been proven in the ALLEGED Armenian genocide.  
Here is what some world renowned historians have to say on the topic of ‘intent’ in this case: 
- Guenter Lewy (author, historian, and a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts ) has to say on the topic of ‘intent’ regarding the ALLEGED Armenian genocide ( The Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2005, Volume XII: Number 4 http://www.turkishembassy.com/II/II.htm ) 
 
“…Historians do not dispute these events although they may squabble over numbers and circumstances. Rather the key question in the debate concerns premeditation. Did the Young Turk regime organize the massacres that took place in 1916? 
 
Most of those who maintain that Armenian deaths were premeditated and so constitute genocide base their argument on three pillars: the actions of Turkish military courts of 1919-20, which convicted officials of the Young Turk government of organizing massacres of Armenians, the role of the so-called \\\"Special Organization\\\" accused of carrying out the massacres, and the Memoirs of Naim Bey[3] which contain alleged telegrams of Interior Minister Talât Pasha conveying the orders for the destruction of the Armenians. Yet when these events and the sources describing them are subjected to careful examination, they provide at most a shaky foundation from which to claim, let alone conclude, that the deaths of Armenians were premeditated.”  
 
Professor Lewy goes on to detail why the sources are ‘shaky’ and concludes: 
 
“The three pillars of the Armenian claim to classify World War I deaths as genocide fail to substantiate the charge that the Young Turk regime intentionally organized the massacres. Other alleged evidence for a premeditated plan of annihilation fares no better.” 
 
In an interview with Selçuk Gülta_l1, journalist for ‘Zaman’, Published: Monday, April 24, 2006 :  
 
Q: Though you reach a figure of 642,000 Armenians killed in 1915-16, you argue that there was no intention to wipe out the Armenian race. Is lack of intention on its own sufficient not to call the incidents genocide?” - Selçuk Gulta_l1 
 
A: …”According to Article II of the Genocide Convention of 1948, “intent to destroy” is a precondition of genocide. A large number of dead alone is not sufficient. Thus, for example, collateral casualties of an aerial bombing do not constitute genocide, no matter how large the number of victims. There exists no evidence that the Ottoman regime had intent to destroy the Armenian community.” – Prof. Lewy 
 
Dr. Bernard Lewis (Princeton University; Best expert on Islamic Empires and Ottoman Empire in the United States) Le Monde, 2002 
 
\\\"There is no evidence of a decision to (Armenian) massacre. On the contrary, there is considerable evidence of attempt to prevent it, which were not very successful… In 2006 he re-iterated this point, arguing that \\\"the issue is not whether the massacres happened or not, but rather if these massacres were as a result of a deliberate preconceived decision of the Turkish government,\\\" and that \\\"there is no evidence for such a decision.\\\" 
 
…”However, when you brought up the question of \\\"genocide\\\", you imply that there was a deliberate policy of extermination, to annihilate systematically the Armenian nation. This is very doubtful. The Turkish documents prove an action of relocation, not extermination.”  
Dr. Norman Stone (British historian of modern Europe, especially Central and Eastern Europe, served at the University of Oxford) 
“…The fact is that there is no proof of ‘genocide’, in the sense that no document ever appeared, indicating that the Armenians were to be exterminated. There is forged evidence…” 
 
These are but three world renowned historians who believe that the term ‘genocide’ is not applicable in the case of the tragedies that befell the fate of the Armenians in 1915. Among the many other well-known historians who do not name the 1915 civil war a genocide and are against calling these events a genocide are Justin McCarthy (University of Louisville), Heath Lowry (Princeton University), Gilles Veinstein (College de France), Stanford Shaw (UCLA), J.C. Hurewitz (Columbia University), Roderic Davison (Central European University), Jeremy Salt (University of Melbourne), Malcolm Yapp (University of London) and Rhoads Murphey (University of Birmingham). 
On May 19, 1985, 69 scholars from various American universities sent a letter to the U.S. House of representatives opposing the House Joint Resolution 192, which defined the events of 1915 as genocide. On April 23, 2001, 120 Turkish Academics, signed a declaration in support of the letter sent by their American colleagues.  
The letter states in part : 
“ Statesmen and politicians make history, and scholars write it. For this process to work scholars must be given access to the written records of the statesmen and politicians of the past. To date, the relevant archives in the Soviet Union, Syria, Bulgaria and Turkey all remain, for the most part, closed* to dispassionate historians. Until they become available the history of the Ottoman Empire in the period encompassed by H.J. Res. 192 (1915—1923) cannot be adequately known.  
 
We believe that the proper position for the United States Congress to take on this and related issues, is to encourage full and open access to all historical archives, and not to make charges on historical events before they are fully understood. Such charges as those contained in H.J. Res. 192 would inevitably reflect unjustly upon the people of Turkey, and perhaps set back irreparably progress historians are just now beginning to achieve in understanding these tragic events.  
 
As the above comments illustrate, the history of the Ottoman-Armenians is much debated among scholars, many of whom do not agree with the historical assumptions embodied in the wording of H.J. Res. 192. By passing the resolution Congress will be attempting to determine by legislation which side of a historical question is correct. Such a resolution, based on historically questionable assumptions, can only damage the cause of honest historical enquiry, and damage the credibility of the American legislative process.”

Guest