For many years in American media, the Indian was portrayed as the savage "bad guy." Certainly, native Americans hardly had anyone speaking on their behalf, and it was natural for the public to unquestioningly accept a one-sided version of events. Finally, as the indisputable truth became reported more and more (especially following the1960s publication of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee), the real version of this historical conflict became widely accepted. Ironically, the formerly accepted "good guy" side was revealed to have been the actual dishonorable ones (having broken every treaty) and the ones significantly engaged in heartless slaughters, coupled with, at times, campaigns of systematic extermination.
For nearly a century, the Western World has wholeheartedly accepted that there has been an attempt by the Ottoman Turks to systematically destroy the Armenian people, comparable to what the Nazis committed upon the Jews during World War II. Many Armenians who have settled in America, Europe and Australia (along with other parts of the world, known as "The Armenian Diaspora") have clung to the tragic events of so long ago as a form of ethnic identity, and have considered it their duty to perpetuate this myth, with little regard for facts... at the same time breeding hatred among their young. As descendants of the merchant class from the Ottoman Empire, Armenians have been successful in acquiring the wealth and power to make their voices heard... and they have made good use of the "Christian" connection to gain the sympathies of Westerners who share their religion and prejudices.
Turks characteristically shun propaganda, and have chosen not to dwell on the tragedies of the past, forging ahead to build upon brotherhood — not hate. This is why the horrifying massacres committed upon the Turks, Kurds and other Ottoman Muslims by Armenians have seldom been heard. When such reports are heard, Westerners can be callously dismissive... Turkish lives are apparently as meaningless to them as Indian lives were to most early Americans.
(...)
This web site will present evidence — mostly from Western sources (not easy to supply, as few Westerners cared about seeking out the truth back then... a situation which has barely improved with the passage of the years) — in as impartial a way as possible*, so that visitors can make up their own minds. (Assuming, of course, that the visitor is not beyond hope and not totally brainwashed, like most genocide-obsessed Armenians and their supporters... everything is a "lie" with them, no matter what the source.) Was there an Armenian Genocide? None of us who are rational and reasonable can say with absolute certainty.
However, all we can rely on are cold, hard FACTS. Certainly, Armenians were killed as a result of massacres... often by their Muslim neighbors, in reprisal for the murderous acts committed by the Armenians (when they sided with the Russian enemy in hopes of carving out their own independence); but anybody who calls acts of massacres a "genocide" doesn't know the meaning of the word. (At least the way most of us perceive the meaning, as with what Hitler did to the Jews; the legal definition of genocide is essentially meaningless, and can be applied to almost any conflict.) If a genocide is how you like to describe what happened to the Armenians, then you need to refer to what American soldiers committed in My Lai as a "genocide."
Ironically, if anyone acted genocidally, with the intention of systematically wiping out people because of their ethnic or religious identity, it was the people who are traditionally accepted as the victims of this conflict. Another irony is that while Armenians have been doing their utmost to portray Turks as Nazis (in an effort to equate themselves with Holocaust victims, the one group best known to have fallen prey to genocide), Turks did their best to save Jews during World War II... while European Armenians actively supported the Nazi cause.
Since the Turkish perspective is attempting to undo nearly ninety years (and well beyond) of the unopposed one-sided view that has permeated Western minds, also having to contend with charges of "revisionism" and "denial"... defensiveness unfairly becomes part of the picture. While the aim of this site is to present mostly impartial views to get people to question what they have unthinkingly accepted, what this entails is that the Turks are put in the uncomfortable position of having to prove a negative — a difficult, if not impossible task... on the order of attempting to prove God does not exist. The issues are whether there was a state directed policy of extermination (that is, genocide... with the provision that there must be intent — backed up by tangible, no-buts-about-it evidence — as defined by the 1948 United Nations rule... and also whether Armenians constituted a political group, unprotected by another article from the U.N. Convention on Genocide)... and whether the Armenians and other minorities were the sole victims of massacres.
