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Posted on February 3 at 12:16 a.m.
@"Hakan". The scholarship is divided over the depiction of the events as a genocide, furthermore, the definition of a CRIME is not the job of scholars but that of courts! If we are to arbitrarily describe any act of injustice we think was a crime as such in LAWS, without any court trial or verdict, then where do you think this society is really going? And doing so through political trickery, under the influence of special interest groups, using resolutions drafted by ethnically-affiliated legislators. So, if we have one day a Turkish-American political influence in this state, shall we have to reverse all these resolutions? Is this what justice and fair teaching of history is about?
On Armenian Genocide Not Legally Founded
Posted on February 2 at 9:41 p.m.
@Ken Volok, but no one calls the massacre of Heugenots a genocide, a narrowly defined act of crime, and then seeks teaching it as a fact in schools. No one seeks, as they tried in France, to punish people for challenging this one-sided charge of crime. AB 659 is not only an insult to Turks, Kurds and other Muslims who equally suffered during World War I. It's the beginning of an insult against the very freedom of speech and thought that we as Americans enjoy. Again, the denial of "Armenian genocide" term does not constitute the denial of the extent of suffering of Armenian people. The terms is simply unfair and unjust.
Posted on December 21 at 1:15 a.m.
Ken Volok, you failed to answer a single argument brought forth disputing the Armenian allegations, instead just keeping on pointing fingers at Turkey and asking it to set an example. Turkey already sets an example by being a civilized nation unlike Armenia, by not practicing racism unlike Armenia. As indicated before not a single Turk lives or can visit Armenia without fear to his/her life, Armenians visit and live in Turkey freely. Isn't this a clearest indication which side is genocidal and hateful?
On Not Genocide
Posted on December 16 at 10:18 p.m.
Ken Volok, talking about freedom of speech and otherwise, why not check the deplorable state of human rights in Armenia: http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/fr... and http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/...
"More than three years after deadly street clashes between police and opposition protesters left 10 individuals dead, there has been no meaningful accountability for the excessive use of force by law enforcement. The government decriminalized libel, but drastically increased financial penalties in civil libel suits. Authorities continue to restrict freedom of assembly. Torture and ill-treatment in police custody persist and the government has failed to effectively investigate a troubling number of deaths in custody and non-combat deaths in the military."
Is that any better than Turkey? Or perhaps, you think that the failed unconstitutional legislation in France, to punish denying the alleged "Armenian genocide", is a contribution to freedom of speech?
How does lack of "genocide" recognition prevent Armenia from ceasing ethnic cleansing and occupation of neighboring country, treating its own citizens with better rights so that they don't flee the country en masse as they do, and from becoming a civilized country?
Posted on December 14 at 2:43 p.m.
Ken Volok, because it was NOT a genocide, exactly as the article articulates. And trying to pass it as one by petty political lobbying or using own ethnic legislators, instead of fair and open debate of historians, is dishonest.
Indeed as a California taxpayer I reassert that instead of deceiving hard-working Americans, Mr. Achadjian and his kinds should take time to educate own community, instead of teaching them to be cave Turcophobes since childhood by false historical narrative, help to prevent them from ending up as credit card or Medicare fraudsters. Stealing from elders' healthcare is immoral and should be your concern too, Ken Volok, if you are truly a taxpayer,
Posted on December 13 at 5:19 p.m.
What is about the Turkey's treatment of Kurds? The fact that 8 Turkish Presidents had Kurdish heritage, do you mind Kurdish political parties and elected MPs in Turkey's Parliament now, or perhaps, you prefer having a terrorist organization like PKK, denounced by Kurds themselves, to determine their fate. And where are the Kurds in Armenia one shall ask? How about Armenia's treatment of Azeris or Turks on its territory? Can people with Turkish passport travel to Armenia as freely as Armenians can to Turkey?
Posted on December 13 at 4:24 p.m.
Ken Volok, it is customary for people who just want to hear what Bernard Lewis properly called "the Armenian version of history", to immediately accuse anyone opposing their view of being "Turkish embassy on mad spin cycle". Did Turkish embassy organize the Armenian-American defrauding of Medicare too? Or maybe Turkish embassy asked Serzh Sargsyan, now President of Armenia, to sign off on a sale of conventional weapons to Iran that killed an American soldier in 2008? Huh? Where is your answer to that?
I am here to surprise you, Ken Volok, that I am just a concerned California taxpayer, who seeks to make sure that the elected officials in our legislature prioritize issues of concern for this state, not the racist agenda of their ethnic brethren and country of origin across the ocean. That is not what they are elected for. No one authorized Mr. Achadjian to host a controversial foreign figures from the Armenian-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region as officials in California Assembly, USING our tax money. Is that what voters in Santa Barbara County voted for? Enough is enough after all, this is America, not Armenia.
And seriously, review your facts. Armenians did not comprise a majority in any single province of the Ottoman Empire prior to World War I. Yet their radical party, Armenian Revolutionary Federation, sought to carve out an Armenian state using the pretext of Russian advance in Eastern Anatolia. And on the way, ARF also sought to eradicate non-Armenian population. This same goal has been achieved in present-day Republic of Armenia with 0% non-Armenian population after ethnic cleansing of all Turkic and other Muslim subjects from Armenia proper. And look who is talking about a genocide.
Posted on December 12 at 3:41 p.m.
What the Armenian government does today to Azeris, that is occupation of fifth of their homeland, forced expulsion of 800,000 people in an ethnic cleansing campaign, horrific war crimes cutting the bellies of pregnant Azeri women and poaching eyes of children in Khojali in 1992, should also be called genocide then. Along with lying to America, calling interethnic conflict a genocide against the law, then supplying weapons to Iran (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2...), defrauding Medicare (http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-...) and getting billions in aid from American taxpayers by dirty politics. California is not Armenia, time to serve all constituents and not just one ethnic group.
Posted on December 12 at 3:05 p.m.
It is interesting to observe some comments claiming that a biased narrative "can be legally called genocide" without any court process. Isn't that itch to blame those "damn Muslim Turks", without any interest in their story, called prejudice and racism? The total number of Ottoman Armenians estimated per census before World War I was 1.4 million. Looks like some total figures of "relentless massacres" allegedly committed exceed some 2 million killed, while over 8 million Armenians live around the world today. Where did those people come from, if everyone was killed? Is mass relocation of people within state borders (Syria was part of Ottoman Empire), to prevent them from cooperating from invading enemy forces, called "genocide"? Darn, we must have committed a genocide by doing that to Japanese Americans during World War II here in America!
Get your story straight, folks, faking numbers only defames the memory of innocent people (Armenian and Turks), who perished in this mayhem. What's ridiculous is that with burning economic problems and huge unemployment in the state, our SECOND bill in the new legislature is to recognize the Armenian narrative as genocide. Is this a priority right now, one shall ask Mr. Achadjian? Does he serve the electorate in California or some fans in Armenia?! Why not run for Armenia's parliament then, instead of bringing age old bias to California? Why not be concerned about those fellow Armenian-Americans who defraud our Medicare system for billions of dollars, steal healthcare from our elderly people, why not focus on educating them?