"Who Still Talks Nowadays of the Extermination of the Armenians?" - Adolf Hitler, making an address before the Nazi invasion of Poland am 22. August 1939.

Before the Holocaust and before the Cambodian massacres, there was the Armenian Genocide. From the period of 1915 to 1923, the Young Turk government of The Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey) murdered 1.5 million ethnic Christian Armenians and deported another 1 million from their native homeland of centuries. Most historians recognize this event as the first genocide of the twentieth century. What is the difference between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust? Germany has admitted to their attrocity. So has Cambodia. But to this day, Turkey denies that the Armenian Genocide ever happened. This, in itself, is a tragedy.

In summary, Turkey is at least a semi-significant friend to the US. Armenians have tried to get the Genocide measure passed in the US for decades. This seems fair. At the time, the Genocide received much coverage in the USA. US Ambassador to Turkey Henry Morgenthau made it clear in his letters (and later, a whole book devoted to the Genocide) that these massacres were indeed taking place in the Ottoman Empire. Turkish leaders made little to no attempt to hide what was happening, quoted as saying things such as: "The Ottoman Empire should be cleaned up of the Armenians. We have destroyed them by the sword" (Enver Pasha) and "Turkey is taking advantage of the war in order to thoroughly liquidate its internal foes, the indigenous Christians" (Talaat Pasha). So why, oh why, would the USA now refuse to acknowledge these events?

The answer is Turkish oppression. Each and every time the issue has been brought up in the US government, Turkey made it clear that they did not approve of the Genocide and warned of consequences in the event of US recognition. Resolutions never came to close to being passed.
This year, it's going to be different.
In September, House speaker Dennis Hastert pledged to bring H. Res. 398 (The Armenian Genocide Resolution) to House floor. The resolution seemed to have gained new momentum. It started at the House International Relations Sub-Committee. It passed. It went on to the House International Relations Committee. It passed. 24 to 11.
Turkey was fuming. Each day since the resolution began its journey, Turkish ministers and officials would make new threats of consequences and issuing not-so-discrete warnings as to how the USA would suffer if this measure was passed. This included cutting off a multi-billion dollar helicopter deal about to occur between the two countries and even threatening the lives of Americans in Turkey. On top of this, Turkey spent upwards of 3.5 million dollars in lobbyists to persuade the House members to act against H. Res. 398 (modified into H. Res. 596 by the time it made it to the Committee).
Though opposed by President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeline Albright and Secretary of Defense William Cohen, the stage was set for the resolution to come to vote. The scheduled date was October 18, 2000. October 18, 2000, was a sad day in US history.

Moments before the resolution was to be up for vote, Dennis Hastert, the same man who made a pledge to the Armenian community to bring the issue to vote on the floor, pulled it off the schedule for the rest of the House session. He later released a letter from Bill Clinton urging him "in the strongest terms" not to allow the resolution to come to vote on the floor. Most representatives were in favor of the resolution. It was almost guaranteed passage. Why and how could Turkey be allowed to bully around the most powerful nation in the world is beyound my comprehension. What kind of message does this kind of action send to US allies and enemies alike? If Germany denied the Holocaust, would the USA revision history to suit the needs of their ally, one probably more important to the US than Turkey?

The answer is no. So why should Turkey be allowed to modify the past by threatening a nation that they benefit from more than the US benefits from them? This is a travesty. As Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. put it after the resolution was killed: "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"

"Only the Turks are held responsible for the murder of eight hundred thousand of their citizens."
- Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -

To the Government Aleppo:
It was at first communicated to you that the Government, by order of the Jemiet (Young Turk Committee), had decided to destroy completely all the Armenian living in Turkey... An end must be put to their existence, however criminal the measures taken may be, and no regard must be paid to either age or sex, nor to conscientious scruples.
Minister of Interior, TALAT - September 16, 1916

« Telegram of death »

". . . the Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war, and the failure to act against Turkey is to condone it . . . the failure to deal radically with the Turkish horror means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense."
US President Theodore Roosevelt - May 11, 1918, letter to Cleaveland Hoadlet Dodge.

"I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915."
Henry Morgenthau, Sr. US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire

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