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Watertown
urges Blue Cross to drop support of No Place for Hate

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(7) Posted by David Dahl, Regional Editor
September 24, 2008 01:07 PM

The Town Council in Watertown has voted to urge the state's largest insurer
to withdraw its support of the Anti-Defamation League's No Place for Hate
program.

In a meeting Tuesday night, the council also voted unanimously to send a
letter Abraham Foxman, the league's national head, formally requesting he appear
before the council to clear up what some called ambiguities in the ADL's
previous statements regarding the acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide of
1915 to 1923.

These moves come after John J. Curley, a Senior Vice
President of Government Affairs for Blue Cross, told town officials and a crowd
of 60 that the company does not intend to end its relationship with the program.

Curley said he and company executives met with leaders from the ADL New
England office last month seeking clarity on the issue and now feel comfortable
with the assurances they received over league's position on the Armenian
Genocide.

"Our relationship is with the local ADL and we're very
satisfied with the response we got," said Curley. "If it was ambiguous, we would
have ended our partnership," he said.

Council President Clyde L. Younger,
Vice-President Mark Sideris and Councilor Jonathan Hecht implored Blue Cross to
join the Town Council in approaching the national ADL leadership for
clarification on the league's stance.

"Getting involved in national and
international politics is not something we do" said Curley.

Curley did
note the company was "not pleased with the tone and tenor" of an August 22
written statement by Foxman that was posted briefly on the New England chapter's
website.

"There is simply no basis for the false accusation that we
engage in any form of genocide denial, and we believe this characterization of
ADL crosses the boundary of acceptable criticism and falls into the category of
demonization," Foxman's statement read.

"It was not helpful," Curley
said.

Local ADL leaders have been disatisfied with the national group's statements
on the genocide, saying the national office did not go far enough in
acknowledging the atrocities. In August 2007, Foxman sought to clear up
controversy by issuing a statement.

"We have never negated but have always described the painful events of
1915-1918 perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against Armenians as massacres and
atrocities," Foxman said in that 2007 statement. But upon reflection, Foxman
continued, "the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to
genocide."

Tuesday night, Councilor Vincent Piccirilli said the lingering gap between
what the local ADL leaders and national leadership have said about whether the
slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks constitutes
genocide is at the heart of the outrage expressed by many local Armenian
Americans and their supporters.

"Most of the citizens of Watertown are
somewhat dismayed with the talking around the issue and the failure to come
clean," said Piccirilli. "This kind of two-faced action and statement is not"
helpful to resolving the dispute. "All the citizens of Watertown are tired of
this."

--Christina Pazzanese

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7 comments so far...

Even if the ADL uses unambiguous language to describe the genocide, they
still conspire with the Turkish government to deny the genocide in Congress
and elsewhere. That's just as bad as their own denial, and grounds for cutting
them off.

Posted by Fred September 24, 08 09:15 PM

The Globe continues to mislead its readership. Christina missed the most
potent arguments of the Watertown Town Council - the Anti Defamation League
under the cover of "human rights" organization continues to actively work
against US recognition of the most heinous crime humanity has given a name -
genocide. BCBS may not be involved in international politics but the ADL
certainly lobbies for foreign countries and is heavily involved in all aspects
of international politics.

Raphael Lemkin, a lawyer of Polish-Jewish descent coined the word genocide
to label the brutality and vandalism that befell the Armenians. The
International Association of Genocide Scholars unanimously affirmed the
Armenian genocide.

Posted by Berge
September 25, 08 12:31 AM

GENOCIDE CLAIMS IGNORE “THE SIX T’S” OF THE TURKISH-ARMENIAN CONFLICT:

Applying political pressure on ADL will not resolve the issue because the
allegations of Armenian genocide are based on a racist and dishonest
interpretation of history in the first place.

Racist because they imply that Turkish dead are not important, only
Armenian dead are. And dishonest because they ignore “The Six T’s” of the
Turkish-Armenian conflict:

1) TUMULT (as in many violent Armenian rebellions)
2) TERRORISM (by
Armenian revolutionaries
3) TREASON (Armenians joined the invading enemy
armies)
4) TERRITORIAL DEMANDS (where Armenians were a minority, not a
majority)
5) TURKISH SUFFERING AND LOSSES (i.e. those caused only by the
Armenian nationalists)
6) TERESET (Temporary Resettlement) triggered by the
first five T’s above and amply documented as such; not to be equated to the
Armenian misrepresentations as genocide.)

Fairness, honesty, and truth are all that I ask.

ERGUN KIRLIKOVALI

SON OF TURKISH SURVIVORS FROM BOTH MATERNAL AND PATERNAL SIDES

Irvine, California, USA

Posted by
Ergun Kirlikovali September 25, 08 02:14
PM

I very much appreciate the ADL's care in labeling this disputed historical
event. Do not underestimate the one-sided vitriol and underlying Turkophobia
and occasional Islamophobia that come with the Armenian-American community's
discourse about the events of the teens in Turkey. Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire wanted their own territory and fought bravely against the Ottomans to
try to secure it. It is not accurate to portray them simply as victims of a
holocaust, not even close. Horrible things were done to some Armenians, and
other Armenians committed terrible crimes of their own. The powerful Armenian
lobby in this country would have you believe otherwise, but do your own
research. www.armeniangenocidedebate.com is a good place to start.

Posted by Sallycigim September 25, 08 04:33 PM

I wish people could care about Turkish victims killed by Armenians.,
too. This is not fair. If you want to make a right judgment on that, you
should listen to Turkish side, too. Otherwise, all these efforts will be
considered as being the spokesmen of a few Armenian living in USA.

Posted by SELCUK ACAR September 25, 08 04:55 PM

It is time for supporters of the genocide charge to either put up or shut
up if they want the “Armenian Genocide” claim to be accepted as the truth.

Their position that the “Armenian Genocide” is fact is pure rubbish. As
much as they like to pretend that this is an “open and shot case”, they fear
an “open court” more than they may fear God Himself.

Why dwell on due process? Because things may not be what they appear to be;
or, better, things may not be what people say they are. Recent examples from
Enron to credit crisis, WMDs in Iraq, are just a few examples of the types of
“ooops!” committed by politicians used to taking sides on matters without
actually seeking the truth. So now, the Armenians want these same politicians
to vote (!) on the “truth” of history that stretches back at least a
century.

To help their case, Armenians are running an excellent propoganda machine.
They are pushing “Enron-style accounting” of the history: They are greatly
exagerating their losses and innocence (“assets”) while completely omitting or
hiding their history of violence against the Turks and other non-Armenians
(“liabilities”), and the suffering they suffered.

In the end, unsuspecting and well-intentioned Americans are led to believe
that the “Terrible Turk” suddenly decided to exterminate the Armenians just as
the Ottoman Empire chaotically fell apart. Nevermind that Turks had 900 years
to exterminate the Armenians and somehow never bothered to do so!.... Sounds
very much like the Saddam and Al Qaeda “partnership” and the “mushroom cloud”
claims: Sounds good, too good to be true.

So, why due process, again?

To put it mildy: Even the Nazis were given their day (actually several
years) in court at the Nuremberg Trials. Why should NATO allies Turks get
anything less? Milosevic and others also got their trials. Somehow, Turks are
not worthy of due process, even if it is an “open and shot case”.

Thanks to the Nazi trials at Nuremberg, we truly have an “open and shot
case” against the Germans. There are millions of authentic, catalogued German
documents that detail the conception, preparation and execution of the "Final
Solution”. That is why the Holocaust is considered factual and remembered and
recognized worldwide. Even if die-hard skin-heads defy it, they have no basis
to do it – they will always be severely outnumbered and on the defensive.
Thanks to due process, that is.

So why not walk in the proven steps of the Nuremberg Trials?

The Armenians fear due process. It would likely expose the ugly aspects of
their history with the Turks, like the information Enron hid from its books.
An open process would force Armenians to admit and explain their direct role
in the demise of millions of Turks, the massive guerilla warfare and rebellion
they started and the basis of their greatly exagerated death tolls, etc.

This is where the genocide claim breaks down: The Jews never adopted
violence against the Germans; they were truly non-violent and Germans had no
real reason to target them. The Armenians have a lot of Turkish blood on their
hands and the Ottomans were forced to *respond* to them.

In short, Armenians have to control the “debate” so that they do not have
to answer for the millions of Turkish skeletons in their closet and paint a
black and white picture. It worked for Enron! That is, before the skeletons in
their books came out to haunt them!

This is why Armenians are CONDEMNED to follow a 100%, purely political path
to gain “recognition” for the “Armenian Genocide”. They have no other option.
If they really want the truth, it becomes an “open and shot case” AGAINST
genocide.

Using lobbyist/special-interest tactics (money and voting blocks) to buy
votes in congress has nothing to do with "verdict" or truth. It is plain and
simple political opportunism and hate politics disguised as
humanitarianism.

The same politicians voted for the war in Iraq, loved Enron, deregulated
Wall St., postured about family values, etc. Does anyone really think that
politicians have the discipline, fortitutude, "backbone" (let alone expertise)
to judge history truthfully and accurately?

What the supporters of the "Armenian Genocide" are asking is lynching
without trial or due process – at the expense of Turks and American taxpayers.
Their idea is "we know you are guilty; it is obvious; no need for trial; let's
go straight to verdict and have our execution". This is obviously a
contradiction with a group of people claiming to stand for principle (due
process) and jsutice (truth). It also is contradictory to the confidence these
people claim to have in their “open and shot case”. It is so easy to make the
case, but… we rather not make it in open court!... hmmmmm.

It may not be such a "shot and closed case", after all.

Posted by Basat Tayfun September 25, 08 06:12 PM

The Turkish have not only murdered humans, destroyed an ancient culture /
civilization and rewritten history, but they continue to legitimize the act as
well as the racist ideology that led to the act.

Denial is not just the simple negation of an act; it is much more the
consequent continuation of the very act itself. Genocide should not only
physically destroy a community; it should likewise dictate the prerogative of
interpretation in regard to history, culture, territory and memory. As the
victims- Armenians - never exists.

So then, When does the Armenian Genocide end? Only when Turkish denial
ceases.

Posted by Berge September 25, 08 08:11 PM

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