It is disgusting to hear that American foreign policy might possibly be harmed if the United States passes legislation that the 1915 killings in Turkey of the Armenian population was genocide.
This tragedy happened more than 90 years ago and, due to the large number of people killed, regardless of the reasons or the factors, it was genocidal for the Armenian population.
The insensitivity and cruel denial of some American politicians for their own “political” and “foreign policy” reasons is an insult to our great nations’ democratic traditions.
A similar denial and lack of decency has occurred more recently in the actions and policies of the United States and the United Nations involving the genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina. When a nation’s policies allow and support gang rape, executions of thousands of children, artillery attacks that are meant to torture mentally as well as destroy physically and other inhumane acts such as those committed by Serbian and Croatian ultranationalists in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the 1992-1995 genocidal war there, these need to be recognised as genocide due to their extreme violent nature.
The fact that the American government and many of its politicians choose to deny, ignore or alter the truth stands against everything America stands for, decency, humane traditions and freedom for humanity.
The US should come right out and say that any mass killing that goes on for years with massive civilian death, torture, concentration camps and starvation should always be recognised as genocide and the US should always make policies as well as take action against it.
We will all benefit from this in the long run and this idea of supporting decent humanity should be an integral part of our foreign policy.
Kevin Beck
Germantown, Maryland
Comments by David - 18:20 22 Oct 2007 |
 | What happened in Bosnia was not a Genocide, it was a collection of Genocides which can be called: Holocaust during which Serbs attempted to Biologically wipe out Bosnians and a 1000 year old country and culture that is Bosnia. |  |
Comments by mt - 14:37 23 Oct 2007 |
| There is a legitimate historical controversy concerning the interpretation of the events in question and most of the scholars who have propounded a contra genocide viewpoint are of the highest calibre and repute, including Bernard Lewis, Stanford Shaw, David Fromkin, Justin McCarthy, Guenther Lewy, Norman Stone, Kamuran Gürün, Michael Gunter, Gilles Veinstein, Andrew Mango, Roderic Davidson, J.C. Hurwitz, William Batkay, Edward J. Erickson and Steven Katz.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. A good number of well-respected scholars recognize the deportation decision in 1915, taken under World War I conditions, as a security measure to stop the Armenians from co-operating with the foreign forces invading Anatolia.
On the legal aspect, the elements of the genocide crime are strictly defined and codified by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Genocide, adopted by the General Assembly on 9 December 1948. However, Armenians, claiming that "the evidence is so overwhelming", so far have failed to submit even one credible evidence of genocide.
| |
Comments by delminium - 21:45 23 Oct 2007 |
| And mr. Beck You don't know anything about mudzahedins crimes in Central Bosnia?? | |
Comments by Marko - 12:48 25 Oct 2007 |
| Mr Beck flaunts wilful ignorance by comparing a real genocide - that of the Armenians - with entirely false propaganda allegations about the Bosnian war. The UN itself determined that the stories of mass rape in Bosnia were untrue; that the real figures of rape victims on all sides during the war were infinitely smaller (some 3000 on all sides, I believe) than had been alleged by Sarajevo's Bosnian Muslim regime.
As for thousands of children being executed, or indeed any other number of children, this sounds like an invention of Mr Beck's, ie a very good reason why we should not allow the word genocide to be used and abused by wilful propaganda-mongers.
Mr Beck has his wars and genocides confused: it was only in the Second World War that thousands of children, were genocidally executed: namely in 1941-45 11,000 Serbian children from Bosnia and Croatia were executed in the world's only concentration camp that was ever designed to kill children. This was operated at Jasenovac by the Croat nationalist 'ustashe' forces in WW2 | |
