From: hla@urartu.sdpa.org (H. Hirac Asodyan)
Subject: Response to David Sternlight
Organization: S.D.P.A. Center for Regional Studies
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 04:27:27 GMT

In article  <6dcmzfj.analyst@netcom.com> analyst@netcom.com (David Sternlight)
answered my article Re: Turkish Historical Society's Newest Maneuver <1992Jul
20.010758.28280@urartu.sdpa.org>

> Hirac Asodyan suggests, in the nicest possible way, that I've been
> taken in by McCarthy. Maybe so--it's clear from some of his suggested
> "classroom questions" that he's heavily biased toward the Turkish
> side. 

Granted I speak English with a Turkish accent :-) and am undeniably Turkish in
many ways _ just as American Armenians are American _ I disagree in totality 
with the version of history I was taught in school back in Turkey. Actually, 
the same educational mentality is partly responsible for the behavior of some 
of my Turkish countrymen on this net. (I have "everything for the fatherland" 
crowd in mind here). 

> There are a lot of unconvincing statements about why the Armenians were 
> justified in what they did (the document was intended for high school 
> teaching), which a high school student can easily see through, and massive 
> statements about why the Turks were justified in what they did. (I don't say 
> that I found the Armenian position unconvincing--just that McCarthy 
> presented it in a very unconvincing way, in an attempt to be "even handed.")

As you said, Justin McCarthy is doing more damage than help to the Turkish 
case. What is more destructive is that he is trying to sell a 600,000 Armenian
death figure while his own numbers show 860,000 dead Armenians. Shame on him!

> Thus I'd like to ask Hirac for a non-Armenian reference from
> current scholarship, that I can get my hands on, that presents
> the situation in a way he thinks fair.

It is quite surprising that DS is well aware of the Armenian position but
has not come across non-Armenian references, bearing in mind that Turks,
Armenians and others have been talking about them for over four years via
this medium. It appears that he cannot remember the memoirs of U.S. 
ambassadors of the period, Henry Morgenthau and Abraham Elkus, U.S. consular 
reports by Consul Lesley Davis and others, other Allied consular reports in 
the British "Blue Book", German and Austrian (allies of Ottoman Turkey) 
diplomatic dispatches from Turkey, U.S. and other newspaper news items coming 
out of Turkey almost on daily basis, the appeals of foreign residents 
(educational and health professionals, missionaries etc.), admissions by 
Kurdish leaders regarding their part in the massacres and last but not 
least admissions regarding the Armenian fate by Turkish leaders (including 
the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk) all referenced by David Davidian 
and others all along. It is highly improbable that anybody would read things 
without taking note of the source or the bibliographic info. 

Be as it may, since DS mentioned the word genocide above, I will first point 
to genocide scholars and their works in general along with their writings on 
the genocide of the Armenians by Ottoman Turkey. The following researchers are 
a few of the genocide scholars who wrote about the Armenian genocide I 
gathered together with their book titles (Note: These are a fraction of the 
books I am aware of. I will name other titles I know if need be. Obviously, 
there are others I am not aware of. All below are recent publications, going 
back no more than 10 or 15 years. I am skipping all the Armenian names and the 
ones that have more than one book or article): Samuel Totten, Israel Charny,
Roger W. Smith in "Genocide: A Critical Bibliography; vol. 2; Facts on File 
(publisher)", Yehuda Bauer, Lucy Dawidowicz, George M. Kren & Leon H. 
Rappaport, et al in "Midstream Magazine, Vol. 30., No.4", Irving L. Horowitz, 
James Reid in "The Genocide of the Armenian People, Armenian Review 
(quarterly); special issue, No. 145", Terrence Des Pres, Robert Melson in "The 
Armenian Genocide in Perspective; Transaction Books", Tessa Hofmann, Yves 
Ternon, Theo Van Boven, Leo Kuper, Joe Verhoeven et al in "A Crime of Silence: 
The Armenian Genocide; The Permenent Peoples' Tribunal, Zed Books", Helen Fein 
in "Accounting for Genocide, (publisher?)".

> Just as McCarthy's paper has been commissioned by the Turkish Society,
> I'd be happy to read any papers by academics which were commissioned
> by an Armenian organization, though free scholarship would be even
> better.

The following should satisfy a beginner in recent Armenian history and is more
accessible than most of above titles even though it is was published (by a 
non-Armenian author and commercial non-Armenian publisher) not in anywhere as 
great numbers as Turkish propaganda books like Eric Feigel's expensively-made 
"Myth of Terror" (which Mutlu quotes from all the time) and sent to anybody 
who requested it: "Armenia Survival of a Nation", Christopher Walker, St. 
Martin's Press.

> Recall that this all started when I read the Britannica and found
> clear descriptions of genocide of Armenians by Turks, and none
> in the other direction. Though McCarthy does not support Mutlu,
> he certainly presents things in a pro-Turkish light, and I wouldn't
> like to leave this conversation with the impression that in the end
> Mutlu or McCarthy have "had their way" with me.

> I must say I appreciate the restraint of Armenians writing in
> this discussion. 

> If I were an Armenian who had been mutlued, I'd probably have though 
> seriously about acts best left unspecified.

Please explain. The consecutive sentences above do not follow.
 
> David Sternlight 

Hirac Asodyan