BY HENRY D. ASTARJIAN M.D
Shame on you Hillary, shame on you! If this is too harsh or impolite, it is not unprecedented in politically correct situations. You used it to highlight a lie, or distortion of facts by the Obama camp during the recent Democratic Primaries. In doing so you set an example for us ordinary human beings who revolt against lies, distorted facts, cover-ups, or obstruction of justice. That much to justify my outburst to which my late mother would have objected, she would have told me “Shame on you for being impolite and for daring people in government”. But thank the almighty God we live in these United States, not in Turkey where, until this moment, a comment like that would have subjected one to the tenets of article 301 justifying criminal trial for insulting Turkishness.
Shame on you Hillary for reneging on your promise to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide as Genocide not some “Tragic events of WWI”.
Shame on you for exploiting the memory of one and a half million martyrs; you knew that signing the pledge to recognize the Genocide is essential in winning the Armenian vote, so you signed it.
Shame on you for cheating a million Armenian-Americans, your fellow citizens, with false promises you made during your campaign.
When you made that iron clad promise to recognize the Genocide, you knew, or you should have known, the situation in your NATO ally Turkey. You knew or you should have known from your husband’s tenure that it is a sensitive subject to deal with. You knew from your husband’s tenure how he Bill Clinton blocked a Scheduled Congressional vote, one minute before Speaker Dennis Hastert was to put the issue to vote.
If you knew then, when you made your promise, what you know now then you have credibility problem, if you did not know, then you were ignorant, you should have known as a potential world leader, and you should not have made the false promise.
I believe that you knew then, what you know now. I believe that in your heart and mind, there is no doubt that your pre-election stance is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You know that Ottoman Turkey, the precursor of present day Turkey, systematically executed a plan designed by Germany to ethnically cleanse Turkey of all Armenians, not sparing the Assyrians and other Christian population, either.
I believe that you know, but rationalize based upon advice you have received from your State Department, that if you accept the truth, which you believe in, that would offend Turkey which would then react with unforeseeable retaliation with untold consequences. Your decision to fight vigorously to block the vote in congress is motivated by fear, not the United States interest. If you feel that by siding with Turkey in the matter of the Genocide you will win them over, then think again, you will be huddling a porcupine!
If you have not seen or read reports about it, I can send you excerpts of Prime Minister Erdogan’s speech where he proudly announces that present day Turkey is the inheritor of Ottoman Turkey (Except, of course what pertains to the Genocide). Turkey is not only a Muslim country, but a fanatic Islamist country (Middle East Quarterly-Winter 2009) which is making inroads in solidifying its position in the Islamic world.
TRT (Turkish Radio and Television) just launched a complete TV station in Arabic to spread the Caliphate Islamic doctrine.
Turkey just struck a $5 billion energy deal with Iran, and Erdogan, in a recent meeting with Angela Merkel stated Turkey’s refusal to participate in blocking Iran, should the United States, and its allies impose one.
In this week’s visit to Germany he demanded establishment of a Turkish high school in Germany. In a U-Tube video, Erdogan is seen in a religious rally in Munich accompanied by his mentor Necmettin Erbakan, and Abdulla Gul supporting the Naqshbandi Sheikh Qubrusi who after exciting the hot audience with religious fervor, and promising struggle for Islamic victories “Everywhere”, exclaimed “Who needs America”?
Kemal Ataturk’s doctrine of democratic secular Turkey is on its last breath; Kemalism is almost dead, being replaced by fanatic Islamism. Erdogan’s government has arrested retired and active duty top brass of the military for plotting to overthrow his government.
Human rights violations are well known to the world. And finally Erdogan’s anger against Israel is public now, it reflects a deeper feeling for being humiliated by Israeli boarder authorities who have made him wait for 20 minutes. Had that been in Turkey they would have been tried for insulting Tuekishness. Of course Erdogan’s opposition to Israel is also to side with the Arabs.
So what is Washington afraid of? How did Turkey retaliate against France, when France, one of 30 some countries, accepted the Genocide? Turkey withdrew its ambassador for a few weeks, then returned. Is that a dear price to pay for holding a high moral ground?
President Obama, our 4/15 is your and our 9/11, you have sent our loved ones thousands of miles away in harms way to seek justice and punish the criminals of al-Qa’ida; is our peaceful, disciplined, political request from our own government to recognize the Genocide more stringent than that? Why not let a democratic process take its course in Congress? Why block an up and down vote in Congress to resolve this matter once and for all?
Mr. President I am not Elie Wiesel, I do not have his noble mission, nor do I intend to elicit sympathy. Like him and you the intent is to implement justice. By your and Hillary’s blocking the Genocide recognition vote in Congress, does not serve justice. I reject the notion that in politics there are only interests, not justice. It is easy when both meet, but it is difficult when they are separated, but we have to do what is right.
I believed in you, Mr. President, and I still do; even during the hotly contested Primary when Dr. Rice was debating Hillary’s representative in Manchester’s Saint Anselm College, I autographed my book for you addressing you “Mr. President”. My request of you Mr. President is to be true to your intellect, true to your conscious, true to your promise, which you made during the campaign in concrete statement, and with true belief. I believe you have not changed your conviction as you have reaffirmed it unofficially several times.
You may rationalize by saying “What can I do? It is not in the United States interest to alienate Turkey, Turkey is a NATO ally, we need Turkey’s cooperation in implementing our policies in the region, we can’t offend them, the Genocide happened almost a century ago”. Mr. President that is a deviation from the moral high road you believe in. Turkey is a weak, untrustworthy ally if it does not face its criminal past.
In pursuit of your agenda Mr. President, you argued that, depriving some 46 million people of basic health care “Is not right”, letting al-Qa’ida commit its crimes and remain unpunished is not right.
Now I say Mr. President, blocking a vote in congress to recognize the Genocide is not right, please let it come to the floor!
Hillary: Go to Der Zor. And stay there.
This guy spews pure hatred. Don't be around him too much.
Dr. Henry Astarjian: Very well said. My father's two of four paternal youngest uncles in Van Province deceitfully were concripted to Turkish Ottoman army with 100 of them from our Vllage Sevan, Archak Region, to fight the enemy, Russia, but soon they were put on a hill and shot to death one by one. I name them Arshak Garabetian, 20years old, was married and had a todler son Nerses, who later during deportation with our family priest, in his Priesthood Costume, a Bible in his hand, taking care little Nerses who was boarded on a muile, unfortunately were seperated from the family of whom my Grandfather, the oldest brother, was replaced as Head of the Village (Rais) in Turkish, all the wealth of the family was loaded on the mule where Nerses was placed, they were attacked by criminal Kurdish bandits whom the Ottoman Turkish government released the most dangerous Kurd bandits and were given a green light to kill Armenians no matter who from pregnant women, babies to young & old. The Uncle Priest was killed and little Nerses, who's father was shot in the army as I mentioned hardly 4 years old was kidnapped to Iraqi Kurdastan until he was in his early teenage years he was helped by another kidnapped Armenian older then Nerses who by chance met while working as shepherd for the Kurdish family in Dhok, Iraq runaway to Syria looking for his remaining two uncles Armenak, the Rais, my grandfather and Vartan my fatherr's uncle, who had one todler girl and his wife was pregnant during the deportation, was spared as he had already served his term luckily was not reconscripted. The youngest uncle of my father, Hovagim, 18 years old who was engaged to be married, no news about his fiance or her family, no news re: Arshak's wife as well, their names are unknown to us till today. My grandfather was called to the Ottoman Sultans was intorogated whereabout the 136 young men of Sevan Village, telling him that he hid them in the hills, my grand, Armenak, the Rais, courageously told them I have no knowledge whereabout them, on his statement, my grandfather was severely beaten, thank God he was not dead by miracle, and let him go. But among 100 young men where my two younger great uncles were shot to death, in the piles of the bodies, luckly one relative was not killed, he pretended he is dead when the Turkish Army turned him by foot to make sure he is dead, he never moved, it was a miracle, that my father's surrogate Keri Mgo (Mgrdich) run to my grandfather's house very catiously, when the Turkish army left the tragic seen, we don;t what happened to our great grandmother Garabet's couragous wife, Yeghisabet who also was called “Yeghis”i dun (House as when her busband, my greatfather was the Rais of the village he fell from the roof at constration site he died at 35 years old before deportation, then his amazing fedayi wife, Yeghis ran the position of Rais of the village, until my grandfather. Armenak, was old enough to fill his late father's job, Rais of the Sevan village. Yeghis was a fedayi who took her rifle and went to battlefield, guarded the village day and night, but we don't know her faith!!!! My father's mother, Mariam, Armenak's wife, who had one daughter, Makroohi, and my father, Misak, eight months old when his mother, my grandmother, Mariam, died of grief which she couldn't handle witnessing her six brothers killed in front of her eyes, so my father was breastfed and cared by his uncle, Vartan's wife, Vartoohi (Nanig) who also breastfed her own son, Serop, six months older than my father, Misak, she breastfed my father first then her own son, Serop, thinking God forbid if something bad happened to her brother-in-law's son, what people would think about her, but unfortunately after a shorwhile Serop, her own son died at two years old and my father, her brother-in-law, Armenak's son, my father, Misak was saved, so my father opened his eyes the only mother he knew Vartoohi who raised him and took care of my aunt Makroohi, and while she also had her own hardly 3 years old daughter, Mariam, to look after, during deportation my aunt Makroohi was sent to Eastern Armenia with her teenage aunt Heghine, who was then put in American orphanage in Yerevan, before Heghine felt she is feeble and her death was near. During deportation, our surrogate and great uncle Vartan's wife who was taking care of my father and her daughter while pregnant, when they arrived Salmast at the North East of Iran, I think, the deportees were hungry, thirsty, feeble, dying of starvation & thirst, disease, there Vartoohi delivered her 3rd child, under a tent, a son, named AZAD, which means in English Freedom, in Armenian, Azad or Azadutuin i.e. freedom, liberty. Many losses in my both side of parents, same as every Armenian who tragically perished for no reason, a peaceful, working for living, educated, but the Ottoman Turks secretly orchestrated to get rid of all Armenians, just keep 1 to keep him in museum, besides Assyrians, Greeks, Caldeons, Syriak, ethnic cleansing of all who determined to die but not convert to Islam. What one calls this kind of attrocities, not a GENOCIDE, the true history is well know to US PRESIDENT, MR. BARAK OBAMA, who didn't keep his promise to US Armenians to officially Recognize the 1915 Armenian Genocide once he took his seat in the White House and who had more than a million Armenian voters who deligently strugled to campaign day and night to win the presidency, same as Mrs Hillary Clinton, who also promised to Armenians , to Armenian National Committee of America, she did the same thing, instead Recognizing the nothing but the truth as they make vow during the oath on Bible before takingtheir position in the White House where God is the witness. instead she publicly announces for the bill 252 not to reach to the Congress floor for a vote & Recognition for a crime towards humanity. If every Armenian writes the true history of their ancestors, can both ofyou resist the very brutal vicious, cruel, unspeakable attrocities brought upon on Armenian nation by Ottoman Turks andyet Mr. Erdogan and Mr Gul deny the fact of the crime act of their ancestors, ineasted they teach their new generation to generation that Armenians killed Turks and Islam don't kill anybody according to Guran their Holly book. The most of the tragedy that Mr. Obama and Mrs Clinton struggling to bring Turks with Armenians secretly twist the arm of our Armenian :resident Mr. Serge Sargsyan and his Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Edward Nalbandian, without referendom by Armenian nation, as the our land donot belong to these two weak leaders then but to all Armenian nation in or out Diaspora who are the victems of 1915 Armenian Genocide. How dare anybody mention that Genocide never took place but for Armenian's safety or security because of the war bloody Ottoman Turkish government had to get rid from Armenians andother Christians, deporting them to hot desert or cold snowy mountains to get to Der ElZor to die of starvation, tirst & all kindof disease.. oh what a kind people the Turks are, caring just about Armenian nation, for their safety, throwing them out from their homes, killing. ra[ing, one can name it every immoral acts, why they didn't move their own Turkish nation to another country or hot deserts for their safety!!! I leave the answer of my question to readers to annalize the if it was named allegedly Genocide, Shame on Turkey and all world leaders who stand by the criminal todays Tyrkish Government who only 2 years ago killed Hrant Dink, an innocent journalist dring day time infront of his office without police protection, and yet the killer is applauded, honoured by police as a hero who still kill Armenian for nothing.. this is the moral and secularism of today's Turkish leaders!!!!!! I join with Dr. Henry Astarjian to ask Mr. Obama and Mrs Clinton do not prevent for the Bill 252 to reach the flour of the US Congress, just imagine a Superwoer give in to coward Turkey who needs US more than US needs Turkey who spends all tax payers money of U
S citizins specifically the US Armenian citizens, you cannot runawy you better keep your promisses to Armenians and formally recognize the truth of 1915 Armenian Genocide as was the Jewish Holocost for which we understand and respect what the innocent victems went through as Armenians, we tasted the bitterness before the Holocost tragically took place. By siding a criminal means given green light to repeat the same thing over and over again, please always remember awhat Hitler said in his words “WHO NOW REMEMBERS THE ARMENIANS'' thats why he had all the freedom to torture and kill millions of Polish Jews, can Jewish nation forget these atrocities a crime for nothing and I applaude for Germany who formally recognized what a sick man Hitler brought upon Jewish people, because the whole world was silent when the Armenian Genocide was taking place, so Hitler took the opportunity to act unspeakable crime… We still wittness the innocent people of Darfur going through Genocide and the world still kept silent what the criminal Tutsis have no mercy, doing what it pleases them!!!
I well and truly support H. Astarjians statements, I believe he is being too polite by asking instead of demanding
As a disgussted Australian I would have demanded from the Obama administration it is about time “TO CALL
SPADE A SPADE.”
Good for you Henry… I applaud to your just stand and I thank you sir!
Capitalism is the wage slavery of immense humanity in a politically manipulated market mechanism of artificial scarcity to perpetuate poverty and exploitation in the iinterest of the ruling class.This was the scenario when the Armenian Genocide took place and still is the world wide imposition. The political leadership in U.S. are as criminal now as the Young Turk leadership were. H. Clinton is a servant of the vested interest of U.S. capitalism, she has been delegated to take care of the business as usual no matter what the human costs are in the occupation of Iraq ,just to mention one .The Armenian political landscape is so myopic as if its been frozen in time and space.
M. Sonsuz: I wonder who is spewing pure hatred. I say it's you since you don't wish to accept the ultimate true statements of the honorable Mr. Henry Astarjian. It's high time for the Turkish government to accept the Armenian Genocide and pay reparations to the heirs of our sacred martyrs in the form of our lands, our belongings and our monies; and it is high time for the U.S.of A. to ignore Turkey's gag rule of a 95 year denyalist government and come out clean and moral and stand with the annihilated martyrs' rights and their respectable heirs “US”.
Excellent article Mr Atarjian…..but you are addressing you are article to someone who has no principles or sense of justice……anyone who believed Obama's pledge to recognise the genocide was dellusional…they never will because they are corrupt
Well put, Henry, but most likely on deaf ears !
I think Mr. Astarjian doesn't realise that it's not Turkey that worries Hillary and her fellow pyschopath's, it's Israel. Any genocide that would conflict with their genocide would cost them dearly. Honesty has nothing to do with the matter. By the way, Elie Wiesel has been proven to be a charlatan.