This bill is important not only to finally stop the U.S. policy of denial but also to honor the unique character and history of the United States of America who recognized the horrors of what was taking place at the time and opened their doors to thousands of Armenian Genocide Survivors. 94 years is enough. We have an obligation to speak truth to justice once and for all.

I agree completely with DLazar. We can never allow politics to get in the way of justice. No matter how hard the Turkish Government may try, they can never re-write history. They can hire Livingston and Hastert to go out and do their dirty work and take blood money from the Turkish Government, to lobby against this resolution. This changes nothing. The Armenian Genocide is not a debatable issue, and no amount of money the Turkish Government throws at trying to block this resolution will change that fact.

March 5, 2010: the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs adopted H. Res. 252 recognizing the genocide of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire despite intervention by both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Part 1:
I feel very sorry for all Armenians as well as for Turks who died during World War I but I feel that the public and most US politicians are misguided by the Armenian community’s bias of history. If you are truly interested in history I encourage you to read and hear both sides of the Ottoman-Armenian story dating back much earlier than 1915s.

Please take a few minutes to read the short commentary on Armenian Story by By Norman Stone, a historian and the author of “World War I: A Short History”, which recaps the main events nicely.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2007-10-16/news/0710150364_1_armenians-ottoman-government-genocide

I believe the best US can do is to encourage Armenians to accept the offer of Turkey to establish joint committees of historians perhaps with the involvement of historians from other nations to review past data and make a scientific conclusion. Politicians should not rewrite history. We should let the historians decide about the history.

Part 2:
Armenian story is a tragic unsuccessful independence war. It is not a genocide for 4 reasons. 1) Armenian groups start revolts/kill many Ottomans for ethnic cleansing to carve out an independent Armenia 2) As documented in the archives, Ottomans make a deportation decision (not a genocide) to move the Armenians from the eastern Anatolia to south. 3) If it would be genocide, Ottomans would systematically destroy Armenians throughout the country, they did not. Except for the “problematic” Armenians in the east no-one was deported. 4) There were trials right after the WWI by English and Armenians to try Ottomans. After months of search they concluded that there was no evidence of any genocide and released all Ottoman officials. Case Closed. (Let me highlight that Ottomans were on the losing side so the winning side British with their Armenian allies conducted this trial)

For something to be called a “genocide” it needs be fit into the definition. This case does not.