- Part 1 of the speech Dr. Henry Astarjian gives to the Armenian Diaspora and the ANCA (Armenian National Committee of America)
- Part 2 of the speech Dr. Henry Astarjian gives to the Armenian Diaspora and the ANCA (Armenian National Committee of America)
- Armenian Hatred of Turks, Anti-Turkism
- Armenian Hate of Jewish Organizations and Israel
- Armenian Criticism of Washington
- Conclusion
The speech given by Dr. Henry Dickran Astarjian, was filmed on April 24th, 2008, as part of the Armenian National Committee of America's consistent politization of Anti-Turkism and the Armenian Genocide allegations. Dr. Henry Dickran Astarjian is an Armenian-American neurologist who delivers a speech filled with hatred and nationalist diatribes against the Turkish people.
Dr. Henry Dickran Astarjian, a doctor who practiced medicine in New York State as well as a neurologist in New Hampshire, whose license was later revoked due to professional misconduct, possible sexual harassment in 1998. http://w3.health.state.ny.us/opmc/factions.nsf/eed59008a3228eef852568c0004e55b5/d94c9db27e0bdb8285256a4a0047c257/$FILE/lc108304.pdf He has long been a supporter of the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) terrorist organization's cause "Kurdistan", which is a separatist cause for the creation of an independent nation for the Kurdish people of the Middle East in territories of Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.
Dr. Astarjian has written articles for the "Kurdish Times" and even addressed the "Kurdistan Parliament in exile in Brussels" according to the ANCA.
In his ANCA speech (part of ANCA's Anti-Turkist policy) on April 24th, 2008, Dr. Astarjian talks about the many sacred duties of Armenian generations and their ultimate goal of recognition of the Armenian Genocide and the subsequent demand of reparations and land back from the current Turkish government for "denying the Armenian Genocide" and being the "successor state" of the Ottoman Empire.
Part 1 of the speech Dr. Henry Astarjian gives to the Armenian Diaspora and the ANCA (Armenian National Committee of America)
He starts off with
Mr. Chairman, I would like to pay tribute to the memory of a million and a half Armenian martyrs who perished from 1915 to 1923. By the hands of Turkish and Kurdish civilians, their military, their gandarmerie, and the Hamidiye. I would like to condemn the role of the German governmental crime architects who sold the idea of the genocide to the Young Turks, ittihat ve terakki.
An incredible barrage of blame by this respected Armenian intellectual against a variety of people around the world.
Firstly, it should be clearly noted especially to AGD's Kurdish and German readers, to understand the accepted beliefs of the Armenians around the world who support Dr. Arstarjian.
This political message of hate and twisting of facts to stretch the legal definition of genocide to fit a contradictory perspective of history should not be accepted.
If one wants to fight for the creation of Kurdistan, that is one perspective, but no one should assume that some of these Armenian political activists truly want to aid this cause. On the one hand they say they are in full support of Kurds and the PKK cause, but on the other hand, they also blame the Kurds for genocide, but when this contradiction is questioned, activists claim that "The Kurds were ordered to commit genocide by the Turks", and now Dr. Astarjian says that the genocide was an idea sold by the German "crime architects".
To think that so many German missionaries in the Ottoman Empire in World War I, helped the Armenians in 1915 to 1917 when the relocations ended, by providing them with more rations of food that the Ottoman Empire had a shortage of. The missionaries must be turning in their graves knowing that Armenian activists today want to blame the Germans and Turks for what happened to the Armenians.
Let's review the mistakes, Dr. Astarjian makes in his introduction about history:
- "million and a half Armenian martyrs", which claims that 1.5 million Armenians died between 1915 and 1923, and this is simply a factual mistake. Not only because no one has counted how many died since no nation took death toll quantities of Armenians during that time simply because most people including the Turks were dying to starvation, disease, dehydration, exhaustion, and massacres. If we were to count the ones that were killed as "martyrs" or their religious beliefs that would be most likely less than 200,000. Most Western scholars accept that approximately 300,000-800,000 Armenians died in World War I. However, Ottoman demographic experts like Dr. Justin McCarthy say that approximately 600,000 of them died, and most of it was due to starvation and disease, and that it wasn't genocide because the percentages of death amongst Turks and Armenians were pretty much the same.
- In addition, the relocations of Armenians had ceased in 1917 and the ethnic conflict between local groups in Eastern Anatolia including the Armenians had stopped by 1918. So why do they want to claim it lasted until 1923? So that they can also try and blame the founders of the Turkish Republic who fought for independence and created the Turkish nation in 1923. This way, if anyone asks why they blame the Turks instead of just the Ottomans who collapsed in 1920, they can claim that the founders of Turkey were also a part of it, even though they were not.
- Dr. Astarjian claims that "Kurdish and Turkish civilians" had committed the genocide. However, a few bad apples participating in ethnic conflict does not mean there was a planned genocide. Think about it, in World War II, in the Holocaust, were German citizens committing the atrocities or was it the Gestapo and Nazi personnel committing the atrocities? Of course it was the army, if civilians are attacking civilians, and Armenians are admitting it, it shows that it was indeed an ethnic or religious conflict rather than a planned genocide.
- Dr. Astarjian says that 1.5 million Armenians who died from 1915-1923, also died by the hands of the Kurdish "Hamidiye", but the Hamidiye were established in 1890, by the Sultan in response to Armenian complaints to European powers who were pressuring the Sultan to enact reforms for the Armenians without enforcing it. Fearing that the Armenians in Eastern Anatolia were planning to rebel, because of the recent creation of the Hunchaks and Armenian Revolutionary Federation (1890), the Sultan gave Kurdish tribes the title of Hamidiye. So does he claim Armenians died from 1915-1923? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Armenians died to Hamidiyes from 1890-1917, in the midst of an Armenian rebellion? Of course not, because then they would be forced to point out the Armenian massacres and rebellions that occurred BEFORE 1915.
- Dr. Astarjian makes the statement "German governmental crime architects who sold the idea of genocide to the Young Turk government". If they sold the idea, then doesn't that mean the Germans are the perpetrators of this mythical genocide? The AGH team would really want to know the opinions of Germans about this. Armenian historians like Dr. Vahakn Dadrian and the Zorian Institute, who has people like Taner Akcam, and other Armenian-Genocide propagandists, want to blame the German government for thinking of the Armenian Genocide idea. They have been faced with too many challenges and lacking the proof to show that the Young Turks were planners of genocide, so now they want to blame it on the Germans because Western people would be more willing to believe that Germans are responsible for genocide because of the Holocaust.
We hope that German and Kurdish readers study the Armenian Genocide Allegations even more, and realize that they are simply World War I propaganda and grudges left-over by a grumpy old generation of Armenians that preach hatred to their children about Turks because of the wars they lost to them.
Part 2 of the speech Dr. Henry Astarjian gives to the Armenian Diaspora and the ANCA (Armenian National Committee of America)
This part of the video disproves Western views that the Armenian Genocide Allegations are valid or have some sort of proof. It also shows that the Armenians are preaching world hatred to their sworn enemies, the Turks.
It should finally be accepted that the Armenian Genocide Allegations are nothing more than propaganda to reinstate the void Sevres Treaty which gives Armenians the large amounts of territory that they never deserved in World War I. It was voided when the Turks won the war of independence and recaptured their homeland. The League of Nations found that Armenians were not a majority in that area, and since they had lost battles there, decided to give the land to Turkey in the Treaty of Lausanne.
"The inherent sacred duty of this generation and the future generations to reclaim land that is Western Armenia!"
4:01-4:15
I know the Kurdish people, they thought that because we were silent, that we have relinquished our rights to Western Armenia--Like hell we have!
7:11-7:25
Dr. Henry Astarjian finally reveals why Armenians have been working so hard to have the Armenian Genocide recognized without any proof.
Armenian Hatred of Turks, Anti-Turkism
And if you ever for one second doubted that this is any different than a speech made by the KKK or whether Armenian society preached hatred towards Turks, this would be Dr. Henry Astarjian's answer:
Regardless of American non-recognition, we will pursue the issue [of the Armenian Genocide] until the last [Turkish] dog dies
0:25-0:50
I rise to condemn Kemalist Turkey's refusal to confess the crime of the genocide, they are the children and grandchildren of Turkish criminals, who executed this genocide.
He condemns Kemalist (or ones who support the founding father of the democracy of the Turkish Republic Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The one who abolished religion in the government and brought to the Muslim world, Western ideas and the Western way of life. I wonder why Dr. Astarjian thought it would be good to blame the founding father of Turkey for genocide, perhaps it's because he is appealing to the hatred of Armenians of Turkey and modern Turkey for taking their lands.) Turkey for refusing to recognize the Armenian Genocide, due to lack of proof and evidence. Then he says "they are the children and grandchildren of Turkish criminals," we know that no Jew would ever say that Germans of today are children of Nazis and are supporters of genocide, so why is it at all acceptable for Armenians to blame the Turks of today for being children of genocidal maniacs when the genocide of Armenians was not even proven yet.
It is further proof, that this issue is about land and money and not about recognition of a historical reality, because the reality is it was an ethnic conflict, where hundreds of thousands of Turks AND Armenians died, and it was the local population killing each other and massacring each other, not the government.
It is up to us, to decide how much money, time, and effort, we are prepared to spend chasing the issue...
If the Armenian Genocide is the truth, what does it matter what Turks say? What does it matter what others say? If one says the Armenian Genocide is the truth, why would one need to spend the money, time, and effort; why not simply let historians do it?
The reality is, it does matter what others say, for Armenians, the Armenian Genocide is the ultimate issue, it is the single most important issue in each Armenian organizations agenda, the recognition of the genocide. Why? Because the war was lost, their lands were taken from them, then 70 years of Soviet oppression, and then almost 20 more years of oppression under dictator-like presidents in the new "democracy" of Armenia. Poverty, aggression and war, and restrictions of freedoms and dissent has left Armenia, worse than some African countries (Algeria for example, has GDP of 250 billion dollars, Armenia, only 16 billion dollars; Algeria has 7,600$ GDP per capita, and Armenia has $5,700). The Armenian Genocide allegations are the only thing uniting the Armenian people, they live their lives around it, read poems about it, sometimes they talk about the rebellion and how proud they are about their rebels amongst themselves, but know that they shouldn't publicly talk about it, for fear of people realizing that it wasn't a genocide but an ethnic conflict.
So why does the Armenian lobby, Armenian Assembly of America, instead of helping the Armenian economy or help Armenia make peace with their neighbors, spend between $140,000 and $260,000 per year on lobbying the Armenian Genocide allegations? http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/Article.aspx?id=1281
We are not a single issue nation
Of course, the Armenian Genocide is not the single issue of the Armenians. There are two other issues on Armenian minds: Kurdistan and Karabakh. Karabakh is Azerbaijan territory that Armenia conquered in 1992 and spent money convincing the world that they didn't commit ethnic cleansing there against the Azeri population and that the war was completely legitimate. Kurdistan is a cause of the terrorist organization the PKK to create a large Kurdistan territory in the middle of the Middle East, similar to pan-Aryan's wanting to create a large Aryan territory. Many Kurds do not agree with the "Kurdistan cause", but the people in the poorer areas of the Middle East do.
So why do Armenians care about these issues? Because really, the single issue of Armenians is not the Armenian Genocide and it is NOT a multi-issued culture either. Armenians think they have 3 issues, but in reality they fail to tell people that their is only one single ultimate issue important to Armenian lobbying groups: Anti-Turkism. The two issues of Karabakh and "Kurdistan" are one-in-the-same, they are both policies/causes that are against Turks, or Turkish governments like Turkey and Azerbaijan (who are Turks), hence they are both Anti-Turk causes.
If you say 'we are small', I say so is the virus, vigilant and fatal; we have to learn from the virus, but in order to do that we need to pack super energy.
So, imitating a virus, infecting others with hate against the Turkic people, by consistently brain-washing everyone about the Armenian Genocide allegations without proof, is a good thing?
Our near century past, is generating less and less positive psychic energy to propel us forward, we need new energy!
Oh, everyone must have forgot Armenian history starts in 1915. The Armenian history of before 1915, is not important since it was under Turkish rule, and the Armenian kingdoms of the past are not important as well, since it doesn't provide the nationalistic unity that the Armenian Genocide allegation does. Why do Armenians need psychic energy? Is it because without it, Armenians would assimilate into their respective societies in Europe and America? Is it because then, they wouldn't have hate and will get along with Turks? Is it because then, they will live their life happily without hate and prejudice against others? Is it because then, they can work more on themselves and helping their people rather than the "Cause of Western Armenia (Eastern Turkey)" or the "Cause of Kurdistan" or the "Cause of Karabakh"?
Armenian Hate of Jewish Organizations and Israel
I rise to condemn the hostile, unjust, and unfair feverish habits of American Israel Public Appearance Committee AIPAC in congress to block the passage of the [Armenian] genocide resolution.
He also condemns George W. Bush, and George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton for not accepting the genocide as well as members of the U.S. State Department. Dr. Astarjian really shows the human minds persistence to blame others for their own problems (problems like not being able to provide proof to make such powerful people believe in a genocide; simply because no proof exists), as a neurologist, one would think Dr. Astarjian would know better about human psychology. He claims that the U.S. government has sold the "moral conscience" of America, by not accepting Armenian viewpoints on history.
I condemn the actions of now president of Israel Shimon Peres, who as Prime Minister of Israel who stood on the steps of Cankaya Palace in Ankara with then president, Dr. Suleyman Demirel... to declare there has been no Armenian genocide.
And last but not least, I condemn the National Anti-Defamation League ADL's stance articulated by then president Abe Foxman, who preaches no hate, and has founded organizations, adopts projects like "No Place For Hate", NPFH, yet does everything in his power to deny the genocide.
5:17-5:50
I wonder if he ever considered the hypocrisy of his speech, the way he preaches hate against Turks and justifies it by claiming that Turks committed genocide, and then he blames Abraham Henry Foxman who made organizations to condemn hatred and who also rejects ideologies of hate like the Armenian Genocide Allegations.
Well what does Abraham Foxman have to say about his position on the issue and his blockage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution in 2007? "I don't think congressional action will help reconcile the issue. The resolution takes a position; it comes to a judgment" said Foxman in a statement issued to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Yes, and Foxman knows well that history should not be judged by politicians, but by judges or historians.
Furthermore, many Western historians have concluded that the Armenian massacres do not constitute genocide because they were committed by local populations in response to Armenian massacres of Turks and for 93 years no proof of intent or premeditation to exterminate Armenians has come up. Instead mountains of proof showing that the Ottomans cared and wanted to protect the Armenian minority in World War I, has shown up after 93 years since 1915.
In response to mail spam by Armenians and consistent attacks by Armenians in public and private to either him, his reputation, or the ADL, Mr. Foxman was pressured to make the following statement: "that the consequences of [the Ottoman government's] actions were indeed tantamount to genocide." It definitely angered Turks world-wide as well as historians world-wide who have been trying to get people to understand that you need proof to claim genocide, not just accusation and acceptance. Even still, many Turks respect the ADL's mission of fighting hatred and anti-semitism; however, they simply want to ask Mr. Foxman: "Why do you not stand against this Anti-Turkism hatred of the alleged and unproven Armenian Genocide, why the hypocrisy?"
Meanwhile, Armenians in Armenia continue to oppress and drive out the Jews and restrict their freedoms. I suppose to Jews that support the Armenian Genocide do not realize that it lacks proof and that Turkey has accepted refugees of Jews in times of hardship. One would learn that Jews who recognize the Armenian Genocide Allegations have simply not read history, or the many Jewish historians who conclude that it wasn't genocide (such as Dr. Stanford Shaw, the famous Dr. Bernard Lewis, Guenter Lewy, and many others). However, most Jews do not recognize the Armenian genocide and know that it is indeed propaganda for land and reparations.
Armenian Criticism of Washington
The thick heads of Washington do not understand this: only recently, the Turkish parliament refused our request to use their airspace in the Iraq War, and what did we do to retaliate? Nothing.
Firstly, what gives him the right to insult the people in Washington and Congress? Is this the Armenians that Congress is trying to please when they bring up resolutions about the Armenian Genocide Allegations? I'd like to ask Congress, to stop eating from the hands of Armenian voters and donors and realize that they are trying to twist history and at the same time blaming them for their problems.
Secondly, why is it "our request" and "we" when it comes to Turkey doing something wrong to America, but then
a minute later he says
While the spirits of our martyrs are asking for "justice, justice, justice, and revenge". We feel victimized...The U.S. did nothing in Cambodian Genocide, they did nothing in Rwandan Genocide, and they did nothing in Darfur, why should they do anything for us?
keeping the major powers from meddling in our internal affairs
Conclusion
So what should we conclude from this speech? Should we generalize Armenians even though many of them think this way? Of course not, we shouldn't generalize Armenians, there are Armenians that feel there is no genocide, many of them live in Turkey and have seen the archives of the Turks. They wonder why the Armenian archives are closed on the issue! Armenians are a good people, but some of these Armenian ultra-nationalists who have reached success by using the opportunities given to them by America, are now using this success to spread hatred, ethnic superiority, and myths about genocide.
Does anyone find this speech by Dr. Henry Astarjian, similar at all to some other speeches in history? I find it very similar to some hate speeches during World War II:
Was it this bad, or have these guys stepped up the hostile rhetoric lately? The anti-Turkish rhetoric in the U.S. and Canada has reached astonishing proportions recently. Since Armenian attempts of Hitler quote has been exposed as fake, they are now coming up with new theories about how Germans have really designed it all along? Because formerly the story was the other way around - how Hitler was supposedly influenced by it. There is no straight story. All lies, imaginations, like below:
"I would like to condemn the role of the German governmental crime architects who sold the idea of the genocide to the Young Turks, ittihat ve terakki."
Armenians got it wrong again. He should be condemning the WW1 British Propaganda Machinery along with the French and the Russian forces for recruiting Armenians to rebel against the empire. They can never come to terms with what really caused the Ottoman Armenian Tragedy.