White House warns against Armenia resolution

[K. A. Pital]

Neglience can lead to mass murder too, but that would be classified as democide.

However, if the Turkish government officials indeed spoke or noted in any documents that they were willing to go destroying Armenians, there's no excuse and this action is a genocide.

[Elfdart]

They knew about logistics, they knew about supplies, they knew Kurds were raiding and killing the Armenians, and they knew they were in a position to correct and put a stop to it. They just didn't give a shit.

That's it, that's all that matters. Peroid. Full stop, end of sentence.

Ah, so the US is guilty of genocide for failing to intervene in Darfur then?

If Darfur was part of the United States and American soldiers and death squads were responsible for the killings, yes. Bad analogy, Beowulf.

[K. A. Pital]

If Darfur was part of the United States and American soldiers and death squads were responsible for the killings, yes. Bad analogy, Beowulf.

Note that Turkey, not only aimed to kill Armenians within it, but also those outside of it, as noted by the witnesses of the German Command Staff.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The definition of genocide explicitly states that for genocide to have taken place, there must have been premeditation.

If the statements of Turkish politicians provided earlier in the thread are correct, there was.

They aren't, but Elfdart never concedes and pretends he is never defeated.



P.S. Crown, the reason I do not "get" this issue is because I possibly happen to realize just precisely how hard it was for a government to exercise any effectual control over most things in its territory in a period before radios and CCTV.

Furthermore, one thing you'll find in history is that events of comparable magnitude and severity happened about a thousand times over in the past five thousand years. Now, in watching all of the LOTR movies, I frankly ended up kind of board, but there was one scene at the start of the second where that village was getting massacred where I actually cried. Why? It was powerful in a sense because of it immediacy and commonness to me. There was something people had suffered as a regular threat in their lives for the whole history of human agriculture.

And that, perhaps, is why it is not so much of a big deal for me. Who now, after all, remembers the Gauls? For two thousand years Caesar has been lauded as a great statesman, general, and orator. Yet he killed a million and enslaved a million to pacify Gaul. And I can name a half a dozen similar events just in late Roman history, or, choosing a location, perhaps a half-dozen in Anatolia.

And so I put Armenia in the proper place: One of a long line of atrocities which are so utterly fundamental as a part of the human condition, all carried out in more or less the exact same way. The modern industrial holocausts later in the century stand out from this by their grotesque and all-encompassing efficiency. No longer could the woman or boy at least gain salvation and a chance at a better life later by throwing themselves at the feet of the invaders and submitting to slavery rather than death; the Nazis succeeded in taking, perversely, the humanity out of mass murder. And that is why I do not wish to use terms surrounding their acts lightly to describe events of the old sort.

As for Rwanda, the legal definition is in fact met. We're not asking for written proof here, just evidenciary proof, to make it exactly clear. In that sense, I must say that you're wrong in typifying what I'm saying. And no, the simple facts of the case don't lend it in and of itself. So many moderns do not realize the simple difficulty of communication in the 19th century, let alone earlier; some of these events, quite simply, happened a week's dispatch ride over vicious terrain from the nearest telegraph line.

[K. A. Pital]

They aren't, but Elfdart never concedes and pretends he is never defeated.

The General Command Staff was rather unambigious that Turkey wants to destroy Armenians, as far as I know, and so were the Turks when discussing the Armenian matter with them. If that isn't clear as intent, what is? A meticulous planning document like Hitler's "General Plan OST"? Sorry, but you can have intent, and action, without creating precise plans, but just by giving low-level orders to kill and having the higher vague goal thus fulfilled.

Yet he killed a million and enslaved a million to pacify Gaul.

Turks killed to destroy Armenians. A difference, I guess.

And so I put Armenia in the proper place: One of a long line of atrocities which are so utterly fundamental as a part of the human condition, all carried out in more or less the exact same way.

No. Not "the same way", not with "same goals". If the goal is the annihilation of an ethnic group, that amounts to genocide.

...the Nazis succeeded in taking, perversely, the humanity out of mass murder.

Armenians could neither save themselves by "submitting to slavery", since Turkey just wanted to get rid of them. Period. Just like the Nazis wanted to get rid of all lower races. The difference was that Nazis were ready to attack everyone around them to make that come true, not just "clean their own territory".

And please don't tell me that Talaat's style of speech was ambigious, or that the documents used at trials were forgeries - neither of that is even remotely true.

[Adrian Laguna]

They knew about logistics, they knew about supplies, they knew Kurds were raiding and killing the Armenians, and they knew they were in a position to correct and put a stop to it. They just didn't give a shit.

That's it, that's all that matters. Peroid. Full stop, end of sentence.

Some of the deaths, at least, were not inevitable. There literally was nothing the Turks could do to stop them. The Ottoman Empire lost over 3 million non-Armenian civilians in the Great War. This is, at the very least, 15% losses. I think it is reasonable to conclude that those deaths would have been prevented had the Empire the ability to do so. Which means that at least 15% of the Armenian losses are not criminal in nature. When you consider that most of the Armenian population had the misfortune of being away from areas of strongest Ottoman control, that said areas were also largely very close to the front, and that Armenian losses do not distinguish between civilians and partisans, higher proportions can be accepted as par the course of warfare. That is, incidentally, the official Turkish position on the matter. Their Ministry of Culture acknowledges 300,000 dead Armenians out of a population of 1.3 million, which gives us 23% losses. They do, however, tacitly acknowledge the possibility of up to 600,000 dead, or 46% losses, which amounts to a tacit acknowledgement of the possibility of crimes having been committed after all.

Having said that, I wish to clarify some things to avoid confusion. I am not agreeing with the Turkish Ministry of Culture's figures, or their conclusions, both which are suspect for obvious reasons. I pointed them out because they are interesting. Nor am I contesting that crimes were committed, and a tremendous amount of death and suffering occurred directly because of deportation orders issued by the CUP dictatorship. However, the fact remains that a significant proportion of the Armenian losses occurred because there was a war on and not as a consequence of action on the part of Turkish authorities. I think it important to remember, when talking about logistical issues, that the whole dammed place was a massive cluster fuck.

[K. A. Pital]

How do Turkey's own civilian losses excuse the situation? And praytell, do you really think anti-partisan warfare excuses genocide? It didn't work for the Nazis, and I doubt it will work for the Turks.

[Thanas]

The General Command Staff was rather unambigious that Turkey wants to destroy Armenians, as far as I know, and so were the Turks when discussing the Armenian matter with them. If that isn't clear as intent, what is? A meticulous planning document like Hitler's "General Plan OST"? Sorry, but you can have intent, and action, without creating precise plans, but just by giving low-level orders to kill and having the higher vague goal thus fulfilled.

To further support your point, Stas, I once again raise the numerous statements of german officials.

Both german ambassadors wrote that turkey had the specific intent to exterminate the armenians. Heck, they even wrote "ausrotten".
The german military attachees said the same thing.
The german high command wrote about the same thing.
Numerous german officers said that the turks clearly wanted to exterminate the armenians.

Somehow, Turkey's closest ally, which is all too accustomed to the horrors of warfare and partisan warfare, gets delusional and believes that Turkey is trying to eradicate the armenians. Right. Obviously, they all were drinking too much beer.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Somehow, Turkey's closest ally, which is all too accustomed to the horrors of warfare and partisan warfare, gets delusional and believes that Turkey is trying to eradicate the armenians. Right. Obviously, they all were drinking too much beer.

They even served beer in the empire that claimed be the Caliph of the Islamic world?

This is hardly unique. The Kurds suffered a similar fate later, and there was a drastic fall in the Greek population in Istanbul. The term "turkishness" took on very xenophobic leanings.

[The Yosemite Bear]

something about rome, and don't seperate an Irishman or a German from his beer...

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

something about rome, and don't seperate an Irishman or a German from his beer...

Probably within the German Embassy grounds?