Its a very naeive and emotional piece.

While it may be difdicult to acknowledge that turkey has been supporting terrorism since the Syrian condlict’s inception, it is this that fundementally underlies RFs position.

Just hope your husband is one of the dew turks who actually admits what turkey is doing.

You better start asking how Russia became so big? How many countries and nations were invaded for Russia to stretch on two continents? How many non-christian nations disappeared after Russian invasion? How many German woman were raped (like 100 000) upon arrival of Russians? Who committed genocide of 60 million Russians in Siberia? I’ll give you a hint – he wasn’t Turk, he was Russian! What was Russian warplane doing on TURKISH southern border? Would Putin dare fly his warplanes along US southern border?

@I’m not taking side here…we can come to a better understanding of what happened.

In actual fact, there is no equivalence. To come to a better understanding of what happened, you must look at the whole picture and not just at singular episodes. The “whataboutism” of a few Turk civilians killed in war, in comparison with centuries of massacres and oppression only tries to mitigate guilt. By all accounts, Turkey was the aggressor in WWI and its war objectives were to eliminate the Christian populations from the Ottoman Empire.

Thank you very much.

Hi, Seraphim. I managed to stumble upon the notes prepared by the International Association of Genocide Scholars in support of their 2007 resolution:

Hey, OJ. Just wanted to give you a bit more of a preview on Ch. 8, as, based on your previous comment, it appears you may be leaning towards the argument that the war in Iraq was for oil. Here’s what our truth-telling professors have to say:

Got Tuesday evening the Walt and Mearsheimer book.

Glad to hear it, OJ.

I am concentrating on Chapter 2. “Israel: Strategic Asset or Liability�

W&M try to prove that the huge transfer of Wealth from the USA and the West to the OPEC nations, was caused by the large US weapons support for Israel in the 1973 war.

It gets better. Wait till you get to Chapter 8, “Iraq and Dreams of Transforming The Middle East,” you’ll get to the heart of what M&W try to prove:

Israel’s enthusiasm for war eventually led some of its allies in America to tell Israeli officials to damp down their hawkish rhetoric, lest the war look like it was being fought for Israel. In the fall of 2002, for example, a group of American political consultants known as the Israel Project circulated a six-page memorandum to key Israelis and pro-Israel leaders in the United States. The memo was titled “Talking about Iraq� and was intended as a guide for public statements about the war. “If your goal is regime change, you must be much more careful with your language because of the potential backlash. You do not want Americans to believe that the war on Iraq is being waged to protect Israel rather than to protect America.�

Good Night and “Long Live Reagan’s Memory�

Good Night, OJ and “Long Live Eisenhower’s Memory”

@Greek speaking Muslims are not usually considered as forming part of the Greek nation.

You prove my point. It was not that “Greeks” the Turks persecuted, but the Orthodox ones.

Geo,

Got Tuesday evening the Walt and Mearsheimer book.

Not easy reading.

I am concentrating on Chapter 2. “Israel: Strategic Asset or Liability”

W&M try to prove that the huge transfer of Wealth from the USA and the West to the OPEC nations, was caused by the large US weapons support for Israel in the 1973 war.

At that time I read that the boycott was successful , because in 1971 the USA ceased to be self-sufficient as an oil producer.

Pray tell me, where is OPEC now, after American shale oil returned us to self sufficiency.

Remember even Ronald Reagan succeeded in forcing oil prices (adjusted for inflation) to their pre-boycott level.

Enough for this evening.

Will get back later.

Another W&M point: Support for Israel caused the Arab states to turn toward the Soviet Union.

So? Much good it did them.

Good Night and “Long Live Reagan’s Memory”

sf

@Every nation can make historical claims on foreign lands as rightfully theirs.

So, I wonder how do you view the Palestinian problem in that perspective? Their claims on the land are contested by “a number of historians”. Jews are the overwhelming majority in Palestine.
But the Greeks were combining majority with antiquity and uninterrupted living in Anatolia.

@Precise demographics are further obscured by the Ottoman policy of dividing the population according to religion rather than descent, language, or self-identification

This is poppycock. Greeks were exclusively Orthodox Christians.

Maybe you two should lock yourselves in a rubber room and figure out who as between you is the last slippery fish. The victorious Grand Inquisitor could then start a brand new blog, and not allow comments from anyone else.

All this bickering, about somebody’s last post not being the last post,
reminds me old joke in the USSR before Gorbchev’s “perestrojka”.

Party organizer (“partorg”) asks a gentleman (evidently, a Communist party member):
— Why did not you attend the last party meeting (“partsobranie”)?
— Oh, if I new it was the last one, I would definitely attend it.

I actually lived there at the time,
and while not being party member, enjoyed very much the joke.
I still was there at the time of the last party meeting.
The above is not to claim, whether old times were better or worse.

A journalist asks centenarian, whether life was better
before 1917 October Revolution, of after it.
— Sure, before it was better.
— But why?
— Before 1917 I had full erection (“shishka stojala”).

Good luck to all the discussants.

Geo, you promised that the previous was your final post on this thread. Do not get drawn back into discussion by this character claiming that you were dishonest! He is like a fish on the dry land out of his own depth, but he is also a slippery fish. I call such people the shape-shifters, you can never pin them down, they will keep saying that they said what they did not say and claim that they did say what they did not.

For example, I reread the whole confrontation on who pushed this MIT (Turkish Intelligence) propaganda article through and realized that this shape-shifter implied that he did not, but then he refused to state this definitely when I challenged him to do so (he just claimed that Unz is the editor). Don’t you see the huge similarity between him and his “Russian” girl, another shape-shifter? Faux humanitarianism for profit is the only guiding philosophy, just like the R2P neocon team bombs people to save them. He is a prototypical ideologue for hire, just another “intellectual” making a career and wealth on peoples’ misery and dying, the world is just full of them. Did you ever see his photo?

There is truly no point in engaging this character in any discussion, a total waste of time because he will keep shape-shifting. But he could make a good career in the ready-for-military-interventions Germany. Just like in the US before, Germany will also need ideologues for its “humanitarian” military interventions. Voila! Turks today, German imperialists tomorrow. He is riding a potent wave, can he turn it into profit?

You are displaying repulsive dishonesty here, sir.

No, sir. You are the one who is guilty of your own charge against me. I understood exactly what you wrote in that original sentence. Here it is:

“Turks, one must remember, are adept at the wholesale removal of an unwanted people. Their Armenian and Greek populations, once so numerous, are almost entirely gone. The expulsion of Greeks came in a population exchange after a Greek invasion had been repulsed, so Turks shouldn’t be blamed, but the Armenian Genocide that killed 1.5 million is a huge black stain on the Turkish soul…”

You decided to clearly indicate you considered the genocide against the Armenians as a “huge stain on the Turkish soul,” but you chose not to indicate the same sentiments about the genocide against the other Ottoman Christian minorities – i.e., the Assyrians and the Pontian and Anatolian Greeks. When I asked you to clarify your position on the crimes committed against these other minorities, by indicating whether you unreservedly endorsed the resolution by the International Association of Genocide Scholars issued in 2007, which states in part:

WHEREAS the Ottoman genocide against minority populations during and following the First World War is usually depicted as a genocide against Armenians alone, with little recognition of the qualitatively similar genocides against other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire;

BE IT RESOLVED that it is the conviction of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.

you chose not to do so. So, after challenging you on that, you now accuse me of being dishonest? No, sir, it is you who is the dishonest one.

In my opinion every human ethnicity should be painlessly annihilated before the homo sapiens infection can spread beyond Earth.

The commenters here should be prime subjects for removal.

Thanks geokat62: from an Armenian.

My anger at the Turkophile denialist is boiling over, so I will stop here: don’t want to get banned permanently from UNZ.com.
A great site.

The fact that Mr. Dinh ran to Mr. Unz looking for succor is telling.

@During its long rule, the Ottoman Empire tolerated more faiths and races within its borders than Christian ones, so it was not intrinsically prone to genocide…

This is the kind of half-truth that is most objectionable when presented in categorical terms.
The Christian Empires have been homogeneously Christian. There could not have been any “intolerance” of Muslims, simply because there were no Muslims at all to be tolerated.
Muslims conquered and subjugated the Christian lands. Their “toleration” of Christians consisted in not exterminating them all, but graciously according to them the status of Dhimmis (Giaour), second class citizens relieved from the burden of political participation in the affairs of the Ummah, permitting them to offer their lands to the conquerors, to pay exorbitant taxes, to perform heavy works, to offer their boys to become Janissaries and their girls for the Sultans and Pashas harems.

@Egged on by the Allied Powers, Greece’s attempt of grabbing land from Turks triggered the massacres

Wasn’t rather the Greeks reclaiming their lands, occupied by the Turks?

I do not deny that many Greeks were killed during its waning, most desperate days, when the survival of Turks themselves were threatened by many enemies. Egged on by the Allied Powers, Greece’s attempt of grabbing land from Turks triggered the massacres. Greece had large ambitions of its own. Of course, it is wrong whenever an innocent is killed, but when tribes and nations wage wars, innocents are routinely killed.

This will be my final post on this thread, as well.

Mr. Lindh, given your reluctance to endorse their 2007 resolution, my sense is the IAGS had someone like you in mind when they wrote this about Armenian Genocide deniers, which applies equally well to deniers of their 2007 resolution:

We note that there may be differing interpretations of how and why the Armenian Genocide happened, but to deny its factual and moral reality as genocide is not to engage in scholarship but in propaganda and efforts to absolve the perpetrator, blame the victims, and erase the ethical meaning of this history.

geokat62 – “Do you unreservedly endorse the following resolution by the International Association of Genocide Scholars issued in 2007?”

Shorter Linh Dinh – “No.”

So much for a misunderstanding!

So tell me something, Mr. Linh, why do you think the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) arrived at the conclusion that the actions of the Ottoman Turks against the other Christian minorities constituted genocide? Do you think that the association may have some inherent bias or conflict of interest? Do they do shoddy research. I’m seriously interested in learning why you have arrived at a different conclusion than they have… and why you think that you’re right and they’re wrong.

For those who haven’t heard of this organization, here is a short backgrounder:

The International Association of Genocide Scholars is an international non-partisan organization that seeks to further research and teaching about the nature, causes, and consequences of genocide, and to advance policy studies on the prevention of genocide. The association, founded in 1994 by Israel Charny, Helen Fein (its first president), Robert Melson, and Roger Smith, meets to consider comparative research, recent works, case studies, the links between genocide and other human rights violations, and prevention and punishment of genocide, information which is published in the official journal of the association. A central aim of the association is to draw academics, activists, artists, genocide survivors, journalists, jurists, and public policy makers into the study of genocide, with prevention as the end goal. Membership is open to interested persons worldwide.

In 1997 the association unanimously passed a formal resolution affirming the Armenian Genocide, and also sent an open letter to the Prime Minister of Turkey. In December 2007 the organization passed another resolution reaffirming the Armenian Genocide and officially recognizing both the Greek and Assyrian Genocides.

And finally, regarding your comment:

… so why this relentless indictment of Turks?

Perhaps the title of this article might furnish a clue.

This is my final comment on this article and this character who started jumping up and down about the insults (criticism) against the article’s author. This is not interesting any more.

If you thought that this pest will stop his bull about things he knows nothing about, you were terribly mistaken. He is like a fish out on dry land, out of his depth, but he still wiggles.

A cynic once said, there are only two types of idealists in this world: the useful idiots and the functional idealists. I am not sure yet which one Dinh is, I suspect the latter.

But I lived to read a US-educated Vietnamese giving us lessons on our own hundreds of years of history. I guess this is what the US makes out of people – alpha-male, self-confident BSers, although this one is a whiner too.

I shudder at the ability of the state to appoint some mug such as this to teach your children history (and love between peoples), out of political correctness. This is in Germany, but it happens in your country too dear reader.

This is what I was referring to re. Davutoglu’s visit to Merkel:
http://news.yahoo.com/merkel-says-supports-kind-no-fly-zone-syria-165645288.html

As to this article, I am even on the possibility that it is a MIT job: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Intelligence_Organization_(Turkey).

MIT has had its budget quadrupled by Erdogan’s AKP recently and it could be hiring amateur “Russians” for such write ups, all part of the sales job on its war.

Finally, there is another character here at unz.com describing Turkey as some magical Ottoman kingdom of tolerance and progressiveness, his name is John Derbyshire. Their personal make up is terribly similar, both are fish out on the dry.

“why this relentless indictment of Turks?”

A little sample why:

“In her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described being raped and thrown into a harem (which agrees with Islam’s rules of war). Unlike thousands of other Armenian girls who were discarded after being defiled, she managed to escape. In the city of Malatia, she saw 16 Christian girls crucified: “Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands, only their hair blown by the wind, covered their bodies.â€�

That’s just one drop in an ocean. Turks have never even said they were sorry but have been brazen in their effrontery to this very day. They always had a peculiar sadism such as impalement (from whom Vlad the Impaler learned it and turned it around against them). Is there anyone besides dumb superficial western tourists who have anything good to say about them?

Saracen girl has really short memory Meme Ottomans were always our enemy was emphasized much later when it became apparent that Ottomans are fully behind their terrorist allies in Syria remember that Putin tried to secure Turks before Syrian intervention
– gas discounts
– nuclear power plant
– turk stream

The may I defend this article.

The point of the article is not that Turkey is good and Russian is bad, or that Russia is good and Turkey is bad – the point is that a country’s national media can start a war by presenting a false picture of the situation.

In this case, the Turkish media is quoting a ding dong Russian who said “to nuke Turkey.� The Turkish media are making it out that this clown represents all of Russia – this is an out and out lie. The Russian people discount this person as an honest man. The Russian people do NOT want to nuke Turkey.

Of course the national Russian media is no better, or the US media, or the UK media, extra, extra, extra.

Don’t put words into my mouth, OK? I never denied Greeks were massacred by Turks.

It seems we may have a misunderstanding, Mr. Dinh, one that, fortunately, may be easily resolved by your answering one simple question: do you unreservedly endorse the following resolution by the International Association of Genocide Scholars issued in 2007:

WHEREAS the denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide, enshrining impunity for the perpetrators of genocide, and demonstrably paving the way for future genocides;

WHEREAS the Ottoman genocide against minority populations during and following the First World War is usually depicted as a genocide against Armenians alone, with little recognition of the qualitatively similar genocides against other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire;

BE IT RESOLVED that it is the conviction of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Association calls upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these populations, to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps toward restitution.

http://www.genocidescholars.org/sites/default/files/document%09%5Bcurrent-page%3A1%5D/documents/IAGS-Resolution-Assyrian%20and%20Greek%20Genocide.pdf

It had already deported Greek civilians from the Anatolian shoreline into the interior… But these deportations were on a relatively small scale and do not appear to have been designed to end in their victims’ deaths.

Not according to Genocide Prevention Now: A Holocaust and Genocide Review for All People Taking the Side of Protecting All Human Life. Here’s what they’ve posted on their website:

He didn’t say so. How could he, when his quoted correspondence to Mr. Unz preceded my comment? What he was addressing with Mr. Unz was the lack of “composure, grace, graciousness” in the nasty stuff thrown at him upthread. But you knew that, didn’t you?

I have simply expressed my view that, sometimes and with increasing frequency, this site is like turning the corner and walking into a race riot — if you don’t immediately start to scream and throw rocks for one side or the other, you’re likely to be massacred by both. (By the way, I am sympathetic to the Russian reaction to the USG/NATO chicanery in both the ME/NA and Ukraine. And my understanding is that Mr. Dinh is, too.) How about I start accusing some of these serial posters of being [insert enemy of your choice] agents who are trying to repulse anyone who might come here with an open mind?

OK, you now have another round to dissemble or ignore my observation about the nature of the discourse here.

“I am not Russian, but my ancestors have been fighting the Turks for more than five hundred years.”

It’s saddening that you have so much blood in your eyes. In the faint hope that it will lead to any reflection on your part, please see my #102, and Mr. Dinh’s # 104.

As another ‘anonymous’ I also concur in that I’ve liked your writings and feel that you are trying to be even handed. A lot of people sometimes are over the top but then that’s the price one pays when you have open microphone night. Otherwise having moderation imposing itself too heavily might lead to blandness and being boring which would be deadly sin number eight. Also, when it comes to subjects like the Turks one has to realize it’s connected to the history of millions of people and isn’t just another subject in some dry musty history book. When the Turks were forced to leave and hundreds of years of slavery ended they left nothing behind but stagnation and backwardness. Others were advancing while those living under them were held back and those effects are with us even today which accounts for the occasional bubbling up of anger.

I see increasing venom everywhere, a sure sign we’re spiralling into some very dark place.

yes, but what you’re talking about are words. And only written words by people on computers. Hardly all that perilous when you consider what the folks in Syria are dealing with. Their entire world is being destroyed, they families murdered and their hopes crushed under the ambitions of vain and greedy men in suits who tell lies to further their ambitions no matter the suffering or injustice of it all.

What we’re doing here is trying, in our own, small way to undue those lies and point out the truth, not just for the sake of it, but also for the sake of those pitiable people. Real lives are being dashed. Real people slaughtered, real children washing up on the shore- all due to the viscious evil that lurks in the hearts of men. Their megalomaniacal appetites. Their insatiable lust for more and more power.

But they have to sell their lies! They have to pave the way for their armies of orcs by first sending in the false scribes, to deceive and subvert the truth. As we all know, the first casualty of war is the truth. So we here are not getting paid. We’re not serving ourselves from the safety and comfort of our intact lives. We’re simply serving the truth, and hoping that by doing so, perhaps the foul agenda of some evil men might be made just a little more precarious. Perhaps somewhere, there’s a Syrian whose life just might be a bit less tormented if we all seek and more importantly, speak the truth about these terrible affairs. No?

If the tone here sometimes feels harsh, just imagine how if feels to see that ISIS has been to your village, and have done what they’re by now infamous for to your family. Imagine what that feels like sir, if you can.

So I appreciate the opportunity that Mr. Unz has afforded me to point out the truth. To expose lies and liars and apologists for soulless dogs who slaughter innocent people in order to steal their lands or rape their daughters. ~ Or try to muddle up the distinctions between the good guys and the murderous bastards.

Distinctions like that are important, especially when they’re glaringly obvious- (except to those who have been lied to). It behooves us all to point out those lies, don’t you think? Not for the sake of our well being, but for the sake of the truth, and also for the sake of those hundreds of thousands of people whose lives are being ended or destroyed for the vanity and ambitions of human scum.

“…whether malicious or paranoid, there’s a handful of accusatory bullies with seemingly nothing else to do in their waking hours but malign anyone who differs with them, even — as here — when they might generally be in agreement with their target.”
Let me respectfully disagree that the above expression by Anonymous is filled with “composure, grace, graciousness.” His/her words would carry weight if they were related to some specific points, otherwise the accuser conforms to his/her own accusations.

Very well put.

Mr. Dinh is well beyond his depth commenting about anything related to Turkey.
His statement – Turkey, long among the most tolerant ….. Muslim nations – is so bizzare and patently false, that I am beginning to wonder.

Find it hard to believe, but you might be right about this article and Mr. Dinh’s incongruous defense of Ms. Zaripova. (….a defense which was thoroughly debunked by several posters)

Of course, I’m then accused of doing so to hide my inconsistent tracks.

Hi wizard

ferreting out the impure.

rather, ferreting out the untrue

You went back to daddy crying? Did he give you a lollipop?

464 milesbetween Russian and Syrian borders you say. Well, there are 5500miles between Damascus and the U.S., 2000 miles between Paris and Damascus and 2800miles between Damascus and London. So what are they all doing over there? Protecting their interest, defending their countries, or maybe spreading “Democracy” and “Freedom to the peoples” like they did in Iraq, Libya, Vietnam, Korea…How about you write an article explaining that. I would love to read your take on that.

Hello geo, no I wanted to say that Merkel expressed support for Turkey, at least publicly, when Davutoglu visited her recently. He probably said to Merkel: “either you support our solution for Syria or you get a couple more million of Muslim refugees”. Sorry if this turned out unclear but I was typing on a mobile.

Dovutoglu went on a sales tour for the planned Turkish War on Syria recently. I see this article as a propaganda part of this push for war (of course not the only one). Dovutoglu visited Germany for the exact reason that the Turks have a very powerful and vocal political and ethnic minority in Turkey. I believe he was asking for NATO logistics support: AWACS planes (already supplied, but can they be used in a war on Russia please), satellite imaging, Patriot anti-aircraft batteries and so on. The US in the election year and is thus out of the war starting game, this is why Davutoglu visited the second NATO capital – Berlin. Then he went to Ukraine, probably trying to get the Nazis to attack the Russians in Eastern Ukraine, so that Russia would have to fight on two fronts: Ukraine and Syria. Apparently, the Minsk ceasefire is already in tatters, so Davutoglu’s visit appears to be paying off.

Of course, the push for further war is to finally divide Syria into four parts, the job that proxy terrorists did not finish. The parts should be: Turkish (oil wells), Israeli (Golan Heights ++), Saudi (ISIS) and a small piece left for Alawites.

I am not Russian, but my ancestors have been fighting the Turks for more than five hundred years. Then comes some Vietnamese mug, a tourist of Europe and a equal opportunity professor in Germany, to tell me that the Turkish people and the Russian people should love each other, that it is only the leaders (of both countries) who are pushing them towards war. There is stupid, there is stupider and then there is Dinh. Cannot believe now that I was one of his first fans here on unz.com, because of his insightful and inspired writing: he does have a good talent for writing, but also a talent for pushing his nose into other peoples’ troubles that he knows an absolute zero (-273 degrees) nothing about. The character just does not know what his limits are.

The defender of the downtrodden Tartar women, whose writing only he could appreciate.

Mr. Dinh,

Please don’t allow this exchange to discourage your contributions to what is, on the whole, a first rate website, including the commenters.

Sadly, whether malicious or paranoid, there’s a handful of accusatory bullies with seemingly nothing else to do in their waking hours but malign anyone who differs with them, even — as here — when they might generally be in agreement with their target. They see themselves as constables, ferreting out the impure. Those with a suspect national, religious, racial, or ethnic background are even more likely to be attacked in this way. That’s why I’ve thus far chosen to contribute anonymously, explaining that my ideas should stand or fall on their own. Of course, I’m then accused of doing so to hide my inconsistent tracks.

I have said here before that your articles and participation as a mere commenter are appreciated. That you’re not doctrinaire enough to meet the impossible standards of these critics confirms that you’re here to share and learn, as should we all. Thanks for that, and please continue.

Very appropriate reminder!
“He gives the whole story of the savage extermination of Christian civilization throughout the length and breadth of the old Byzantine Empire in a clear and convincing manner.
That it should have been possible twenty centuries after the birth of Christ for a small and backward nation, like the Turks, to have committed such crimes against civilization and the progress of the world, is a matter which should cause all conscientious people to pause and think; yet the writer shows conclusively that these crimes have been committed without opposition on the part of any Christian nation and that the last frightful scene at Smyrna was enacted within a few yards of powerful Allied and American battle fleet.
We turned a deaf ear to the dying Christians, when they called to us for aid, fully aware
that America was their only hope, and now it would appear that there is a growing tendency in this country to whitewash the Turks and condone their crimes in order to obtain material advantages from them”.
From the Forward to Horton’s book by James W. Gerard, Former Ambassador to Germany.
If it looks like what happens today, it is because it was the same thing!

I totally agree with Kiza. This piece of writing is totally biased against Russia. The writer definitely needs to widen her horizon on global politics. The “analysis” is quite infantile.
An apt observation, from Hadad, on the use of numerals. Quite a laugh of Ramziya Zaripova.

You clearly don’t know your history, Mr. Dinh:

The Greek genocide, part of which is known as the Pontic genocide, was the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Christian Ottoman Greek population from its historic homeland in Anatolia during World War I and its aftermath (1914–23). It was instigated by the government of the Ottoman Empire against the Greek population of the Empire and it included massacres, forced deportations involving death marches, summary expulsions, arbitrary execution, and the destruction of Christian Orthodox cultural, historical, and religious monuments. According to various sources, several hundred thousand Ottoman Greeks died during this period. Most of the refugees and survivors fled to Greece (amounting to over a quarter of the prior population of Greece). Some, especially those in Eastern provinces, took refuge in the neighbouring Russian Empire. Thus by the end of the 1919–22 Greco-Turkish War, most of the Greeks of Asia Minor had fled or been killed. Those remaining were transferred to Greece under the terms of the later 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey, which formalized the exodus and barred the return of the refugees. Other ethnic groups were similarly attacked by the Ottoman Empire during this period, including Assyrians and Armenians, and some scholars and organizations have recognized these events as part of the same genocidal policy.

If you are interested in learning the truth, you should try reading U.S. Consul or Consul General at Smyrna (known as Izmir, Turkey today), 1911–1917 and 1919-1922, George Horton’s book The Blight of Asia:

Today Horton is best remembered for The Blight of Asia, his 1926 book about the events, notably the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Christian population, leading up to and during the Great Fire of Smyrna. He briefly summarizes events from 1822 to 1909 and covers in more detail, with eye-witness accounts, events from 1909 to 1922.

I think that the author of this screed missed her mark; the Washington Post, or one of Murdoch’s atrocious rags or television networks, or maybe both would seem to be more suitable outlets for this swill.

This is an exercise in “concern trolling”; if only the Russians were aware of how they are being manipulated, all could be made right again. This is a huge, odoriferous lie. The Russians (and for that matter, many of the rest of the world’s peoples) have begun to understand just exactly how little all of this touchy-feely, Responsibility to Protect, blather from the West, and its inner cabal of NeoConservatives and NeoLiberals comports with the realities of the situation. The Russians learned, and boy howdy did they ever learn, how much genuine goodwill was borne toward them by the smugly triumphalist West. At length they have resolved after numerous fruitless attempts to be ceded membership in the company of civilized nations, an abject failure due to their attempts to stake out a position of independence in the world as an economy and as a culture, to not get fooled again. No, to our NeoCons and NeoLibs this is completely not permissible; they aim to break non-conforming nations to the wheel, and assert their absolute hegemony.

This author is merely a “useful idiot” in propagandizing this agenda.

Centuries of cultural and physical genocide practiced upon other neighboring nations, shamelessly denied or downplayed when challenged, have characterized the Turks. Do the peoples of the Balkans, or Eastern Europe (other than the opportunistic Quislings who embraced Islam to advance their fortunes – I’m looking at you Bosnians, and you Albanians, among others) look back fondly on the period of Turkish rule? No? Why not, then? Of course, you can’t ask those millions of Armenians or Pontic Greeks what their feelings toward the Turks might be, largely because the Turks murdered them, and deny it to this day.

Of course, in the eyes of the NeoCons and NeoLiberals this just makes the Turks people “with whom one can do business”, rather in the manner in which Hitler was thought of by the right wing British establishment in the Thirties. And largely for the same reason, strangely (or not); they looked to be a thorn in the side of the Russians. Back then, of course, the Russians were Bolshevik Communists, and that would never do. Nowadays, they are just stiff-necked, unrepentant nationalists; but it comes to the same thing, doesn’t it?

@seperate

It is actually ‘separate’.
The same type of misspelling (unfortunately so thoroughly entrenched that it became ineradicable) as: then/than, its/it’s, definitely/definately, etc.

The Telegraph, 06 Aug 2010:

‘Separate’ is most commonly misspelt word
‘Separate’ is the most commonly misspelt word in the English language, according to a new study…
”A common mistake many make is writing a word the way it sounds which leaves us muddling up one letter with another and getting it wrong.
Fortunately, computers’ spell-check corrects wrongly spelt words for us, but that means we become lazy and never learn the correct spelling.
There’s no excuse not to learn how words are formed – it’s drilled into us from such a young age and if the words are frequently used we should make a conscious effort to get it right next time.
The fact we judge other people’s intelligence by their written word, yet don’t like to be judged ourselves, means we should all pick up a dictionary once in a while.”
@http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/7930745/Separate-is-most-commonly-misspelt-word.html

What did Merkel say recently when Davutoglu visited her in Germany to drum up support for the Turkish invasion of Syria (either you support our solution for Syria or you get a couple more million of Muslim refugees)?

Kiza, did you mean to write:

What did Davutoglu say recently when he visited Merkel in Germany to drum up support for the Turkish invasion of Syria (either you support our solution for Syria or you get a couple more million of Muslim refugees)?

FYI Dinh, Ron is an Editor in Cheif of unz.com. I am sure he does not check every article, he TRUSTS his established contributors with their recommendations. His contributors, such is you, are his Editors.

I do not believe that you deserve this trust because of your career ambitions which compromise your intellectual integrity, whatever your role in publishing this propaganda article was.

If one can speak of Germany as being tolerant and successful, then why not Turkey…

The difference is this: Germany has acknowledged its war crimes, paid reparations, and built memorial museums.

As you well know, Turkey has refused to do any of these things… which makes me wonder about your own views about the first genocide of the 20th century: do you recognize it or do you deny it?

Well, I will write to Ron Unz regarding this article and how it got onto this website. You can tell him, as you told us, that you did not at least recommend this article for publication? Yours is a lone voice of defense of this “article”. Using unz.com as your political launching platform Dinh?

I apologise for pointing the finger at Hasbara, this article is not a Hasbara job, I now believe it is a Dinh-job.

To others: Dinh’s is a case study of an ambitious intellectual, a careerist and opportunist, who discovered a powerful Turkish nationalistic constituency in his current country of residence – Germany. Only by chance, this is the same constituency which the German politicians ride upon. If Turkey attacked the Russians in Syria, which side do you think the German politicians would stand on? What did Merkel say recently when Davutoglu visited her in Germany to drum up support for the Turkish invasion of Syria (either you support our solution for Syria or you get a couple more million of Muslim refugees)? Later in Kiev, Davutoglu also called Russia a rogue state and threatened it with destruction.

Dinh manipulates humanitarian information fro propaganda: “all sides are to blame”, “leaders of both sides turned people against each other” and similar Kumbaya singing, quazi-humanistic hashish for the uninformed. This “view” is targeted at a particular segment of propaganda market, usually women who are not interested in politics and do not understand much about what is going on, but accept common cliche that all sides are to blame (including the one defending itself from aggression). But, as another commentator here put it: there is an aggressor in the Syria story and it ain’t Russia. Maybe the Russians should not be in Syria, as I wrote before, maybe they should, for the exactly the same humanitarian reasons that this character sells, that is to protect a country from foreign aggression by the vicious neighbors: Turks, Saudis and Israelis.

I can only give Dinh credit for his acute sense of wind direction: the Russians in Germany are very passive, whilst the Turks are extremely politically aggressive. He knows well who can push his career and help extend his tenure! If Mutti Merkel is kissing the Turkish ass, why would not little prof. Dinh?

Rurik: “Putin’s Russia was asked by the legitimate government of Syria for assistance. Turkey is in the wrong, and anyone who can’t see that is blinded by bias.”
On point.

I can only conclude that there is a German connection between this article’s writer and Dinh. It is possible that it was Dinh who pushed this article into publication on unz.com. He is the “editor” who passed this article. When comments turned out to be almost exclusively negative, the character jumped in to support his achievement. This by itself would present a dishonesty, just like Zaripova’s about being Russian instead of citizen of Russia. But this is how all quasi-humanists operate – using many lies and manipulations. This is how R2P operates, for example, bombings and killings all for the sake of humanity.

Prof Dinh,
I have experienced your tendency before to blabber about things you do not know much or anything about, usually as a subscriber of the history of Russia written by Polish academics in the US. But now you are exceeding your usual blabbering self. You are truly a dis-service to unz.com and I for one will stop reading your quasi-humanistic rants. Pity the German children who learn stupidities about life from a character such as you.

This character somehow sold his quasi-humanism to the German academia keen on political correctness and employing ethnicities. It is just amazing what passes on in this World and how some can make careers. But I must admit that this character is a good salesman, because he sold to me his quasi-humanistic rubbish before.

Others have given the reasons why this character is wrong.

There is no anti-Russia sentiment in Ramziya Zaripova’s article.

That’s beside the point. My point is that the perception of objectivity is just as, or even more, important as the reality of objectivity.

And as for your comment:

Turkey, long among the most tolerant and successful Muslim nations.

I guess the slaughter of about 4 million Orthodox Christians in the 20th century’s first genocide is an expression of their tolerance and success.

not to jump in here, but I sort of already have ; )

Her antipathy towards Putin is not the main thrust here, and merely reflects the heavy dosage of demonization of Putin in the entire Western world

I respectfully doubt that. Rather I suspect her antipathy comes not from the Zio-media blanketing the West, but from the sentiments of Turks who resent Putin’s hammer coming down on Turk ambitions in Syria. The lady hardly has a word to say in condemnation of ISIS- the very reason Putin is in the theater! Sometimes much more is conveyed by what we don’t say, than by what we do.

Erdogan’s war against Syria comes with American backing,

this is also misleading, insofar as it suggests American interests per se are being advanced by the war in Syria, when we all know this war, as all the rest of the recent wars, are all being waged for Israeli aspirations at massive and catastrophic costs to Americans and America’s interests.

Since the Turkish media is heavily state controlled, the ratcheting up of war frenzy shows that they’re not looking for a resolution with Russia but further confrontation. Zaripova sees this.

if she sees it why does she reserve her vitriol for the one man who’s not doing the bidding of the Zio-war mongers?

Putin is the one man who is solving the problems that the corrupt media foments and assorted war criminals hell bent on destroying Syria and stealing its land. Why is she railing against the singular statesman who is holding the ‘sultan’s” feet to the fire for augmenting this terrible strife and war? Her animosity drips..

Putin has hypocritically declared that Russia is not against Turkish people but against its government.

does anyone in their right mind believe that Putin has it in for the Turkish people?

Such a sentiment is silly at best, yet we’re admonished to condemn Putin for responding to an act of treachery and murderous betrayal by a regime of scoundrels and criminals in the p0cket of the exact same Zionists who have been ravaging the Muslim world for generations. Erdogan is clearly their toady and lickspittle, and he’s waging wars on impoverished and defenseless villagers in a rank attempt to steal their land.

There is no moral equivalence here. The aggressors and criminals are well known. The ISIS savages have earned the outrage and condemnation of the entire world.

Putin’s Russia was asked by the legitimate government of Syria for assistance. Turkey is in the wrong, and anyone who can’t see that is blinded by bias. It would simply have been more honest for the author of the piece to let us know what her background is, because that’s about the only thing that can account for her very skewed view of this conflict. IMHO

Let me to explain you the condescending tone of the following writ by Ms. Zaripova: “… a poor consolation for Russian girls who are used to wear bikinis and miniskirts in Antalya and Alanya.”
This could be written by a prudish young Muslim woman that despises both the Russian girl and their inappropriate outfits that the girls dared to wear in the Muslim Turkey. It is curious that the above quote (both unfriendly and mocking, by the way) has been produced by a young woman that prefers to live in a European non-Muslim country, where her own relationships with her Turkish boyfriend would not be subjected to the conventional rules of behavior for Muslims.

There is no contradiction between being a Russian and a Muslim

just as there is no contradiction to being a Palestinian and being a Jew. Humans are free to think and believe and have loyalties that transcend provincial expectations.

But if you’re going to write an essay on the conflict going on in Palestine, and you represent yourself as being a Palestinian but you don’t mention that you’re also an ethnic Jew, then that might be considered dishonest, no?

Hello Annamarina,

Because it is with much respect and pleasure that I read your perspectives, I would just like to point out for the record, that even tho I’m no expert in matters theological, or even specifically to the three religions mentioned, there are I suspect significant differences and challenges that those respective religions place upon us all by virtue of their doctrines.

As you rightfully point out, being a member of any of those religions, or any religion for that matter, hardly makes you a good or a bad person by virtue of your piety (or lack there of). But unlike Christianity, Judaism considers non-Jews as not possessing a soul. As having been put here by the Jewish God to serve the Jews. – In much the same way I think that some Christians consider (tragically and wrongly) animals as having been put here by God for no other reason than as food and beasts of burden for human consumption and exploitation. Anyways, this rather dismissive contempt for all gentiles is I suspect one of the reasons there’s been so much strife in the world, both historically and today, regarding the Jewish question. That’s a theory of mine.

And as for Islam, I suspect that one of the problems of Islam vis-a-vis the rest of us, are Islam’s tenets regarding hegemony and expansion and the proper treatment of infidels and ‘apostates’.

I suspect that if Judaism was not so ethnocentric to the point of dismissing the very humanity of non-Jews, that the Palestinians might be treated a little better. And if the tenets of Islam were not so easily twisted by men (like those of ISIS) to dismiss the humanity of ‘apostates’ who happen to be Shias or infidels who happen to be Christians, that some of the strife in the Middle East might be mollified a little.

There are some problems with those religions when they’re taken literally by their respective adherents, I suspect.

Not that ‘Christians’ can’t be just as bloodthirsty and cruel, but it doesn’t seem to be the message of the Christ, but rather an abomination of His message, meaning that they aren’t really Christians as they mass-murder innocents and torture people to death. (Blessed are the peace makers, love thy enemy, and all that)

just some random ruminations…

My previous post was supposed to be a reply to Linh Dinh. Sorry!

My other reply was swallowed by cyberspace, I apologize if Mr Unz gets two from me…

But she uses her identity to make a point. She writes as if it gives her a uniques perspective (one foot in Putin’s Russia, one foot in Erdagon’s Turkey) but Tatars have a unique perspective as Turkic Muslim people living in a Slavic Christisn nation. This the background the reader is led to believe she rests on doesn’t exist.

Tatars share commonalities with Turks they do not share with Russians. Can anyone deny this?

I lament the contemporary age of identity politics yet I must navigate it all the same.

Written by an Irish Catholic Polish Jew.

There is no contradiction between being a Russian and a Muslim, so Ramziya Zaripova wasn’t hiding anything.

While there may not be a contradiction, are you suggesting there may not be a potential for bias if the individual is a citizen of the Russian Federation, but also a Turkic Muslim, who just happens to have a Turkish boyfriend?

Even if it turns out she happens to be the most objective person on this topic, there is a saying in law that also applies to journalism: “not only must justice be done, it must be perceived to be done.”

That’s why journalists, who may be perceived as having a bias in their coverage of a certain conflict, are attacked for the potential for bias and are reassigned to cover something else.

If Ms. Zaripova had openly identified herself as a (former?) citizen of Russian Federation and an ethnic Tatar – a Turkic people – and a Muslim, most of the posters would not object to her article so strongly.

But she deliberately concealed that fact at the outset, to conceal the blatant “conflict of interest”, and to create the fiction that a supposedly ethnic “Russian” (Orthodox Christian) is objecting to her former country’s supposedly anti-Turkey actions.

What a beautiful tableau: an Orthodox Christian Russian girl falls in love with a Muslim Turk, and both now work for peace and harmony between two peoples.
Altogether now: sing Kumbaya.

{….Russians have suffered as well from the crisis. Not Putin – he still will eat tangerines from a gold plate –..}
{Well, a poor consolation for Russian girls who are used to wear bikinis and miniskirts in Antalya and Alanya.}

The above are just two of the many incoherent sentences from the article.
Is that what you are defending ?

I believe that UNZ gave us a chance to read a sincere expression by a “new European” that is biased towards Turkey (and in this case is also a russophobe). An interesting sample of what Europe is going to deal with as a result of the ziocons’ massive geopolitical games in the Middle East.

So in conclusion, this “unique perspective” consists of Facebook friends and your boyfriend – a Turk.
Forgive me asking, but who is this woman and why is she published here? This article is horribly written, subjective and ill-informed.

As Razib says, mostly ignore the commenters.

Dear Ramziya,

Hate to say it but your article really was very shallow and seemed to be based more on hearsay and TV propaganda than on actual original research.

Can’t believe it was approved by the Unz Review editors.

Pure drivel masquerading as objective and humanistic commentary. How did this get published in the first place and who signed off on the decision?

“we civilized peoples” owe enormously to the peoples of previously powerful civilizations: see where the letters, math, chemistry, medicine, and architecture came from.
Frankly, I do not understand your point: What does make you believe that some ethnicities and some religions are inherently better than others? It is much more reliable to divide people on good and bad (for instance, the kind, intelligent, honest, and hard-working versus the psychopaths and unprincipled opportunists). Are not Bush the lesser, Blair, and Condi Rice Christians? These three are criminals of first order; they are guilty of harming the millions of people in the Middle East. But it is not the Christianity or “civilization” that made them evil; they have become moral midgets on their own volition.
“It’s inherent in both Judaism and Islam to harm and deceive people outside the faith (Islam) or outside the race (Judaism).” This is not true; moreover this is a malicious propaganda on a par with the Nazi’ and Zionist’ propaganda. There are great individuals among Jews and Muslims, which are the glory of humankind – along with great individuals from other cultures.