(Alleged) Armenian Genocide

Obama, fearless in standing up for the oppressed, in the face of tyranny:

 

Yeah, forgot about them.

 

My sister in law is married to an Armenian American who is the first generation of his family born here. She gets way more worked up about this than he does.

But, to be fair to YF, John Oliver did a spot on this last year, so he's not exactly alone in criticizing Obama for it.

 

While I agree with some of your sentiment, I must say characterizing the systematic widespread effort of one the world's (then) ruling empires to exterminate a race of people--one which killed an estimated 1.5 million innocent people and provided the virtual blueprint for Hitler's Holocaust a couple decades later, complete with concentration camps and all--as a mere "incident" strikes me as the height of calloused understatement.

I suspect that's the sort of thing that quite pisses off the world's Armenian population. Not just that world leaders refrain from calling it genocide to appease Turkey, nor just that this monumental thing has largely been whitewashed from the world's history books, but also that so many seem willing to minimize it as a mere "incident" unworthy of much memory or concern. Would you have ever chosen the words "an incident" to characterize the Jewish Holocaust?

 

But does he cheat at golf?

 

That's absolutely fair. I will admit not being terribly familiar with this. But it doesn't change my feelings on the issue. I have no doubt I would feel differently if I were Armenian-American.

 

From Chapter 67 of T. E. Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom". This incident happened late in WWI, when the Turks, who were allied with the Germans, were in full retreat and committing atrocities as they withdrew.


"Nuri came with Pisani. Before their ranks rode Auda abu Tayi, expectant, and Tallal, nearly frantic with the tales his people poured out of the sufferings of his village. The last Turks were now quitting it. We slipped down behind them to end Tallal's suspense, while our infantry took position and fired strongly with the Hotchkiss; Pisani advanced his half battery among them; so that the French high explosive threw the rearguard into confusion.

The village lay stilly under its slow wreaths of white smoke, as we rode near, on our guard. Some grey heaps seemed to hide in the long grass, embracing the ground in the close way of corpses. We looked away from these, knowing they were dead; but from one a little figure tottered off, as if to escape us. It was a child, three or four years old, whose dirty smock was stained red over one shoulder and side, with blood from a large half-fibrous wound, perhaps a lance thrust, just where neck and body joined.

The child ran a few steps, then stood and cried to us in a tone of astonishing strength (all else being very silent), 'Don't hit me, Baba'. Abd el Aziz, choking out something--this was his village, and she might be of his family--flung himself off his camel, and stumbled, kneeling, in the grass beside the child. His suddenness frightened her, for she threw up her arms and tried to scream; but, instead, dropped in a little heap, while the blood rushed out again over her clothes; then, I think, she died.

We rode past the other bodies of men and women and four more dead babies, looking very soiled in the daylight, towards the village; whose loneliness we now knew meant death and horror. By the outskirts were low mud walls, sheepfolds, and on one something red and white. I looked close and saw the body of a woman folded across it, bottom upwards, nailed there by a saw bayonet whose haft stuck hideously into the air from between her naked legs. She had been pregnant, and about her lay others, perhaps twenty in all, variously killed, but set out in accord with an obscene taste."

Lawrence and his men did everything they could to avoid one of their number becoming a prisoner of the Turks. Often they would douse prisoners with gasoline and set them alight alive. The Turks make strong soldiers, but they can be brutal as hell. This passage dates to WWI, just a couple of years after the Armenian Genocide. I don't doubt that it happened a bit.

Lawrence's Arab irregulars massacred every Turk they could find that day.

 

Just words, guys. Just words.

 

If I had to guess, the worst part of the job for any president, Democrat or GOP, is kissing the ass of countries we find distasteful. But the cold, awful reality is that every country needs favors from other countries.

 

Did Obama not understand this when he was running for President?