Categories
Letters

Letter to CNN

The following letter is intended to condemn Nic Robertson’s distorted news report that declares, “Greek President provokes Turkey by visiting tiny Island At center of eastern mediterranean dispute.” Since when is it a provocation for a head of state to visit the territory of her own country. Provocations have emanated from the jihadist President of Turkey and his Ministers who have sought to drill for oil in waters that belong to Greece. In addition to challenging international law which recognizes Greek sovereign rights over these territorial waters, Turkey has exploited millions of refugees by attempting to force them over the Greek border. 

The Turkish President over the past three years has made statements demanding a revision of the Treaty of Lausanne which defines the borders of Greece and Turkey. The Turkish President, Turkish cabinet members, and opposition leaders have all put forward territorial claimsover the Dodecanese islands which have been part of modern Greece since 1947 and are populated overwhelmingly by Greeks. In recent days,Turkish extremists who serve as President Erdogan’s political allies have celebrated the anniversary of the Turkish massacres of Greek and Armenian Christians in the old City of Smyrna in 1922.


Verbal threats from Turkish officials have accompanied Turkey’s aggressive actions in Greek territorial waters. Turkish remarks have contained implied threats of genocide as they have warned Greece of the possibility of a repetition of the genocidal horrors experienced by the Greek, Armenian, and Assyrian Christians by Turkish leaders between 1914 and 1923. Remarkable in this news report is the assertion that neither side actually wants war. Anyone familiar with the realities of present day Turkey would not have made such a false and dishonest assertion. 


In addition to threatening Greece, the Turkish leadership has attempted to blackmail Europe by threatening to flood Europe with millions of refugees. The Turkish leadership sees these unfortunate people as nothing more than weapons to be used against any countries that dare to challenge the aggressive and expansionist tendencies of Ankara. CNN and Nic Robertson are morally bankrupt propagandists for daring to criticize the Greek President for visiting the island of Castellorizo. 


The island of Castellorizo and its people have been at the receiving end of Turkish threats and bullying. All Greeks are fully aware of what the fate of the people of the Dodecanese islands would be if the Turkish President were to succeed in conquering these Hellenic islands. The GreekPresident and the whole of the Greek government should be seen as heroic for defending their territory and their citizens from the predatory designs of the Turkish leadership.


 Theodore G. Karakostas 

The news item that this letter has responded to

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/14/europe/kastellorizo-greece-turkey-tensions-intl/index.html

Categories
political

Another victory for Greece

The Turkish seismic research vessel Oruc Reis has returned to Turkey despite the strong words from the Turkish leadership in recent days and the provocations of the National Action Party (the Grey Wolves) who celebrated the anniversary of the Turkish slaughter of Armenian and Greek Christians at Smyrna. This is the third Greek victory over Turkey this year. Earlier this year, Athens successfully defended the Greek border from refugees who were being exploited by Turkey for use as a political weapon against Greece.

At the end of July, Turkey stopped drilling for oil near the Greek island of Castellorizo. Prime Minister Mitsotakis has understandably adopted a diplomatic stance following the Turkish withdrawal but should not conclude that the Turkish threat has diminished. President Erdogan’s bragging about the events at Smyrna and other Turkish officials bragging about Syrian jihadists who were prepared to fight with Turkey in the event of a war with Greece should not be forgotten.

Strong support from France, Italy and Egypt has been of enormous benefit to Greece as has the threat of European sanctions against Turkey. Greek diplomacy has won another small but serious victory. It should be remembered that Erdogan has constantly called for the revision of the Treaty of Lausanne and Turkish officials in all parties sitting in the Turkish Parliament have called for the seizure of the Greek islands.

Greece has taken strong steps in purchasing military equipment and sending troops to the island of Castellorizo. Its strong determination to defend its territory and its islands played a role in deterring Turkish aggression at this particular time. Athens needs to build on the small but significant victories it has achieved this year. It must continue purchasing military equipment and keeping its military on guard for the next confrontation that Turkey instigates.

Alarmist articles in the New York Times and the Guardian lamented the absence of traditional American diplomacy in the handling of Greek-Turkish confrontations. If the late Richard Holbrook whose absence has been lamented by these misguided editorialists had handled this Greece would have been forced to forfeit its rights. Greece has just benefitted from the replacement of traditional American “diplomacy” by Trump’s diplomacy.

The Trump administration stayed out of it and did not pressure Greece. The Greeks stood up for themselves and Turkey capitulated. This is a Greek victory in the Trump era which has no precedents during the eras of the Clinton or Obama administrations. Nor does it have any precedents in the Republican administration of George W. Bush.

There are yet more dangers that exist. The world remains strangely silent at the exploitation of millions of Middle Eastern refugees by the Turkish government. Turkey has threatened to flood Europe with these refugees. Germany has been so struck with fear over another refugee crisis that it was willing to appease Turkish aggression against Greece.

Certainly, there are reasons to fear another refugee crisis in Europe. Even at the best of times the refugee crisis was a problem. Now in the world of covid-19 millions of refugees flooding Europe will add far greater dangers than ever before. The Turkish government is attempting to hold Europe hostage through the inhumane treatment of the refugees and the potential threat to millions of people in Europe.

The Erdogan government is an international menace to the entire world. Greece has emerged as a front line state and is taking its place. At last, Athens is finding its voice and putting forward its national interests like a normal country.

Categories
political

Jihadism and the West

The western world has tolerated, if not outright supported jihadism for centuries. Great Britain and France protected the Ottoman Empire from the Russians during the nineteenth century. During the Greek campaign of Asia Minor, Italy, France, Great Britain, and the United States all supported Mustafa Kemal’s campaign which despite his later secularism, was fought as a jihad.

During the Yugoslav wars of the 1990’s, the United States and Europe tolerated and assisted jihadists who went to Bosnia and Kosovo to fight the Serbs. Previous to this in the 1980’s, the United States armed and trained jihadists to fight in the mountains of Afghanistan. Supporting jihadists has long been a western tradition.

During the war in Syria, the United States and Europe armed jihadist groups that sought to overthrow the secular government of Syria. This was after the 2003 invasion of Iraq which led first to a brutal intercommunal civil war before jihadists emerged to wage crimes against humanity and genocide. These atrocities preceded the formal establishment of the Islamic State which conquered one third of Iraq and Syria.

Arming jihadists has been a policy undertaken by both Republican and Democratic administrations in the United States and all these administrations deserve condemnation for pursuing these policies. Where the west did not directly arm jihadists, it created the conditions for jihadist territorial conquest and rule as in the case of Iraq. The Bush administration will be forever associated with Islamic State.

This brings us to the present. Turkey is gradually emerging as a jihadist state. Turkish leaders have bragged that many Syrian fighters would join Turkey in the event of a war between Greece and Turkey. It is obvious that those Syrians who would fight for Turkey are jihadists who received training and experience in the Syrian war that was backed by the administration of Barack Obama and Joseph Biden.

This is something that Greek Americans need to ponder before casting a vote for Democratic Candidate for President Joseph Biden. The Syrian war has also damaged Greece because all wars create refugees. The Syrian war flooded the Greek islands with refugees. In addition to the refugee crisis, Syrian jihadists supported by the Obama-Biden administration may be going to fight against Greece in the event of a war.

It was the Trump administration that cut off assistance to the Syrian jihadists after taking a realistic view of the situation. The Trump administration considered the Islamic State to be a bigger threat than the Assad government (correctly) and permitted the Russians to win the war for Damascus. The Trump administration not only contributed to the defeat of jihadism in Syria it also stopped the flow of refugees many of whom would have gone to Greece.

Greek critics complain that the Trump administration had gotten too close to the Erdogan government in Turkey. Fair enough, but hitherto the Trump administration has not bullied Greece into making concessions to Turkey. The Bush administration tried to force Cyprus into accepting the Annan Plan which would have rewarded the Turkish invasions and occupation.

The Clinton administration forced Greece to withdraw from the islet of Imia which the “Treaty of Peace with Italy” showed was Greek territory. The Obama administration did nothing for Greece and created the refugee crisis which flooded the Greek islands. The Carter administration lifted the arms embargo that Congress had imposed on Turkey after the twin Turkish invasions of Cyprus during the summer of 1974.

In addition, the Democratic Party is not an intellectual party. It is a party of Marxism and political correctness. The foreign policy of the Obama administration was based on utopianism rather than reality. In fairness, the Bush administration and the neocons likewise conducted a foreign policy based on utopianism and differed little from the Democrats foreign policy.

Greeks are in full agreement that Greece is a bastion of Orthodox Christianity. This means that Greece is a sister country of Serbia and Russia, Orthodox countries that were targeted by jihadists which in turn were armed and supported by the west. Syria is a historic bastion of Orthodoxy as the Patriarchate of Antioch is located in Damascus and presides over the last significant Orthodox population in the Middle East.

It was the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton that supported jihadism in Kosovo against the Serbs and the Democratic administration of Barack Obama that supported jihadism in Syria and made Russia the target of mass hatred throughout the west. Can the Democrats really be trusted to support Greece?

The Trump administration has proven to have a staunch record against jihadism as can be seen by its willingness to change foreign policy in furtherance of the decimation of Islamic State. With Turkey evolving further into a jihadist state, who would be the more likely to confront this threat? Donald Trump or Joe Biden?

Certainly, Greeks should be skeptical of Donald Trump as long as his administration is still friendly with the Erdogan regime. Greeks should be more skeptical of the Democrats. Who is more likely to end the traditional western backing of jiihadism?

Throughout the nineteenth century, support for the jihadists in the Ottoman Empire was motivated greatly by hatred toward the Russians. The Democrats have inherited that anti Russian hatred as well as their leaning in favor of jihadism as in Syria. The Trump administration has favored reconciliation with Russia. Perceptions of a Russian threat and the myth that Russia stole the 2016 elections for Trump could very well ensure that the Democrats support Turkey to undermine Russia.

We live in an age where nothing is certain and alliances are changing. All factors should be taken into consideration before Greeks throw their support behind a political candidate at this crucial time.

Categories
Letters

Letter to the Globe and Mail

While one can appreciate the need for objectivity in reporting on the events transpiring between Greece and Turkey, the Globe and Mail goes beyond objectivity by failing to appreciate the warning signs that Turkey is embarking on a war of aggression while simultaneously referring to those warning signs. For example, the article mentions that the Turkish President wants a revision of the Treaty of Lausanne and that Ankara is simultaneously threateningto flood Greece and Europe with millions of refugees. The Turkish government is exploiting millions of people for its purposes of promoting its aggressive designs in the Mediterranean Sea. Furthermore, any number of these people could be infected with covid-19  and could spread the virus to millions of people throughout Europe. 


Furthermore, Turkish demands to revise the Treaty of Lausanne make quite clear that Turkey has plans to expand at the expense of Greece. The Turkish President has openly expressed the view that the Greek islands belong to Turkey on the basis of their proximity to the coast of Asia Minor. The tone of the article expresses alarm at the prospect of war, but not by the actions of Turkey which are intent on provoking war with Greece and Cyprus. The article further demonstrates its biases by referring to Cyprus and “the northern half claimed by Turkey”. Reference is also made to an “oil route through Cypriot waters.” It is not mentioned that the Republic of Cyprus is an internationally recognized country whose territory in the north is under Turkish occupation and not recognized by any country in the world. 


The Treaty of Lausanne was itself the outcome of Turkish genocide and ethnic cleansing. It was signed a decade after Turkish governments carried out the genocide of millions of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks. The Lausanne Treaty whitewashed the ethnic cleansing of well over one million Greeks from their homelands in Asia Minor. Turkish expansionism and aggression knowns no bounds as can be seen by the invasions and ethnic cleansing of Cyprus of its Greek population and its current claim on the Greek islands. The islands of Greece are populated exclusively by Greeks but this makes no difference to the racist and jihadist oriented leadership in Ankara.


Theodore G. Karakostas

Link to the article being responded to

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-a-dispute-in-the-eastern-mediterranean-has-brought-turkey-and-greece/

Categories
Letters

Letter to the Guardian

 This in in response to the Guardian’s September 11 article on Greece and Turkey. The article is seriously distorted and takes  a stance that is much too favorable to the Turkish aggressors. Turkey is attempting to drill for oil in waters that are recognized as  belonging to Greece under international law. The article cites the comments of a Turkish Admiral who favors the overthrow of the Treaty  of Lausanne,  but the Guardian fails to challenge or criticize him. For centuries the Ottoman Empire conquered and ruled over numerous  Christian peoples who were horribly persecuted. Between 1914 and 1923, the decadent Ottomans perpetrated genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks.


 The article attempts to promote false understanding for Turkey by mentioning Prime Minister David Lloyd George. The Turks emerged triumphant in 1922 and escaped punishment for their aforementioned crimes against humanity. Today, Turkish leaders openly covet the Greek islands and  demand the renunciation of the Lausanne Treaty. Turkey is led by a monstrous tyrant who has collaborated with monsters such as the Islamic  State and is attempting to conquer Greece and Cyprus, in addition to supporting the genocidal threats made against Armenia by its allies in  Azerbaijan. 


 Expressing a sympathetic view for Turkey today is not unlike expressing a sympathetic view for Germany in 1938 when Hitler was seeking to  dismember the democratic government of Czeckoslovakia. Turkey is a country that has benefited from the western world’s blindness towards its genocidal history and expansionistic tendencies owing to the perception that Ankara had strategic value. That miscalculation has encouraged  Turkish expansionism and convinced both the present Turkish leadership and its predecessors that it can bully and provoke neighboring countries  such as Greece, Cyprus, and Armenia.


 Turkish leaders are presently boasting that Syrian volunteers will fight on their side in the event of a war with Greece. What is to be said about a  lunatic regime which openly welcomes the support of jihadists and terrorists? In addition to bragging about their support from international terrorists,  Ankara never fails to remind Greece of its genocidal ambitions by praising the 1922 slaughter of Greek and Armenian Christians at Smyrna. The  Guardian also fails to mention that the Turkish leadership is blackmailing Europe by threatening to unleash a wave of millions of refugees into  Europe.
 The Turkish leadership sees these refugees as nothing more than a weapon upon which to threaten and intimidate the whole of European  civilization. Threatening to unleash an army of refugees during the worldwide pandemic which could further spread covid-19 should be seen as  further evidence of the evil and barbaric nature of the Turkish government.


 Theodore G. Karakostas 

Link to the article being responded to

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/11/mediterranean-gas-greece-turkey-dispute-nato

Categories
Letters

Letter to Kathimerini newspaper (English edition)

I am not sure what reality Tom Ellis is living in by extending undeserved praise upon the late Richard Holbrooke, “The Absence of Richard Holbrooke” September 8). The settlement regarding the Imia islet in 1996 was not only completely unsatisfactory but compromised Greece’s territorial integrity by forcing Greece to withdraw from a portion of its own territory, no matter how small that territory is. That Mr. Ellis thinks a comparison of Mr. Holbrooke (or any person) to Henry Kissinger is a positive one indicates how completely out of touch with Greek realities that he really is. Outside of  left wing and liberal cliques,there is not a single Greek who has anything positive to say about the infamous Henry Kissinger. 


Kissinger bears moral responsibility for the Turkish invasions of Cyprus during the summer of 1974 and is responsible for the war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Turkish forces against the people of Cyprus. Holbrooke himself was responsible for supporting war crimes against 200,000 Orthodox Christian Serbs in the region of Krajinna during the fall of 1995 and supported the neo-Nazi Croatian government of Franjo Tudjman. In 1999, Holbrooke was the architect of the Ramboullet agreement that was presented to Serbia which would have required that country to give up its province in Kosovo and made war inevitable. 


In addition, neither Joe Biden nor the Democratic Party should be considered friends of Greece or Hellenism. Biden served as Vice President in an administration which nearly turned Syria into a failed state and flooded the Greek islands with Syrian refugees. Turkey at the present time is threatening to unleash millions of refugees into Europe. This situation could not exist were it not for the wars that were unleashed by the Bush and Obama administrations against Iraq and Syria. Biden played a huge role in fomenting this refugee problem which has made modern Turkey the terror of Europe much like its Ottoman predecessors in previous centuries.


Actions toward Greece by the Trump administration are uncertain at this point. However, the Trump administration has not bullied Greece into capitulating to Turkey which is exactly what Richard Holbrooke did in 1996 when Greece was forced to withdraw from the islet of Imia. The Trump administration has in many ways formulated a more realistic and sophisticated foreign policy than its immediate predecessors in the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. The Trump administration contributed to the defeat (in collaboration with the Russians) of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq which came into existence because of the wars of the Bush and Obama  administrations. 


Finally, Joe Biden is an old man who appears to have mental health issues. The Clinton administration and Obama administration did nothing to help Greece or Cyprus. Certainly, the Trump administration must prove itself to win the support of Greek Americans. In any case, the Trump administration has made changes in American foreign policy and there is at least some hope on the horizon. The Democrats will in all likelihood pursue similar policies pursed by all previous administrations that will continue to support Turkey. The Trump administration has explicitly challenged Islamic extremism as in the case of Islamic state, the very same extremism that is now represented by the rise of the Caliphate of Erdogan’s Turkey.


Theodore G. Karakostas 

Link to article being responded to

https://www.ekathimerini.com/256669/opinion/ekathimerini/comment/the-absence-of-a-richard-holbrooke

Categories
political

Trump’s Foreign Policy, Greece and Turkey

Editorial writers at both the New York Times and Bloomberg lamented the end of an era when the United States pressured Greece to make major concessions to Turkey. In fairness, these editorials did not express their opinions this way and they probably never proceeded to look at the details of how the Greek standoff with Turkey ended on January 31, 1996 over the islet of Imia. The Treaty of Paris of 1947 which gave the then Italian ruled Dodecanese islands to Greece included the Imia and other islets.

The Clinton administration represented by Undersecretary of State Richard Holbrooke brokered an agreement that led to the removal of the Greek flag and the abandonment of the islet by Greece. It was a capitulation by the Simitis government in Athens to the pressure of the United States. Thus far, the Trump administration has not emulated the traditional American pressure on Greece.

Sunday was the sixty fifth anniversary of the anti Greek pogroms in Constantinople. It should not be forgotten that neither the United States, Great Britain, or NATO condemned the Turkish government. On the contrary, the State Department under Secretary of State John Foster Dulles threatened to cut off aid to Greece if Athens maintained a firm position on the Turkish atrocities.

In 1965, Greek Ambassador to Washington Alexander Matsas was crudely insulted by President Lyndon Johnson who expressed outrage when the Ambassador asserted that the Greek Constitution would not permit Athens to give away a part of Greece (the island of Castellorizo) as part of a “settlement”on Cyprus. Johnson angrily declared,

“Fuck your parliament and your constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If these two fellows continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked by the elephant’s trunk, whacked good….If your Prime Minister gives me talk about democracy, parliament, and constitution, he, his parliament, and his constitution may not last very long.”

The Trump administration has not committed itself to Greece as it should, but neither has it threatened or bullied Greece as previous administrations have. The Trump campaign was in my opinion preferable to Hillary Clinton in 2016 owing to its “America First” platform that would have committed itself to an isolationist policy away from waging foreign wars and conducting traditional foreign policy that has been so detrimental to Greece and Cyprus in the past. Events that are playing out in the world and in America are changing quickly and this means that the stances and attitudes of America’s political parties could evolve.

As of this writing, it appears that a continuation of the Trump administration is preferable for Greece and Cyprus than the advent of a Biden administration. Again, things could change depending on how the Trump administration reacts to Turkish aggression against Greece and Cyprus. It is certainly true that the Trump administration capitulated to Turkey when it abandoned the Syrian Kurds and permitted Turkey to invade parts of Syria.

However, previous to this the Trump administration had taken a touch stance on Turkey on two occasions. The Trump administration refused to extradite Turkish exile Fetullah Gulen to Ankara despite the Erdogan government’s insistence. During the fight against ISIS, the Trump administration continued to arm the Syrian Kurds despite Turkish demands.

The Trump administration has a mixed record regarding Turkey. Still, the Trump administration has made changes to the traditional foreign policy conducted by both parties. The possibility of coming out strong against Turkey still exists, especially since the Turkish President is becoming increasingly irrational.

A case against the Democrats remains. The performance of the Democrats during the Imia affair are a perfect example. The Clinton administration recognized Skopje at the time as “Macedonia” despite Clinton’s promises in 1992 not to recognize Skopje. The Turkish murders of Cypriots Tasos Isaak and Solomos Solomou went completely unpunished by the Clinton administration.

The Obama administration in which Joe Biden served as Vice President involved itself in Syria. The failed policies in Syria resulted in refugees flooding the Greek islands at the apogee of the economic crisis. The Democrats have never been friendly to Greek interests.

Ultimately, it may not make a difference which party is in power in Washington. If the foreign policy apparatus decides Turkey is a threat, this could be enough to influence either Trump or Biden. The behavior of President Erdogan may also turn off whoever the President turns out to be.

One thing is certain. Turkey is an international menace. However, for the time being Trump appears to be the preferential candidate on Greek and Cypriot security issues.

Categories
Letters

Letter to Bloomberg

Mr. Shipley,
The following is in response to the Bloomberg editorial that “Merkel can calm the conflict” between Greece and Turkey. The editorial advocates appeasement of Turkey by advocating membership for Turkey in the East Mediterranean Gas Forum. Greece happens to be entirely in the right in this conflict and is acting defensively to Turkish acts of aggression and provocation. The Erdogan government has for several years openly called for the eradication of the Treaty of Lausanne which defines the current boundaries between Greece and Turkey. President Erdogan and other Turkish officials and politicians have openly put forward claims to the Dodecanese islands that have been Hellenic since classical times and have belonged to present day Greece since 1947 through the signing of the Treaty of Paris. 


Furthermore, the editorial makes reference to the January 31,1996 crisis between Greece and Turkey which was instigated by the Turkish Government. The islet called “Imia” is a part of Greece without question and is according to Treaty of Paris a part of Greece. Criticism is given to the Trump administration which is unfavorably compared to the Clinton administrations so called “mediation” of 1996. In fact, the Trump administrations policy is an improvement fromthe Clinton administrations. The Clinton administration in effect bullied and pressured Greece into surrendering its own islet and withdrawing the Greek flag from its own territory. Such an agreement may have been to the satisfaction ofthe officials of the Clinton administration but not to Greece which was forced to surrender its own territory to the Turkish aggressors.


Turkey is presently being ruled by a lunatic who used to purchase oil from the Islamic State and permitted Jihadists from Europe to go through Turkey to join the Islamic State when that criminal entity was engaging in genocide against the Yazidi, Shiite, and Christian populations. The Trump administration should be criticized for betraying the Syrian Kurds and appeasing the Turks in Syria. The Trump administrations non intervention in the crisis between Greece and Turkey is oneof its better moments. Unlike the Clinton administration, the Trump administration so far has not bullied Greece into appeasing the mad man of Ankara.


Your editorial also fails to note that Erdogan and his close allies in the neo fascist action Party are praising the the slaughter of Greeks and Armenians in the Christian City of Smyrna in September 1922. Erdogan and others are in effect threateninga resumption of the genocide of 1914 and 1923 that led to the extermination of millions of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks. Turkey is an international menace and has no business being invited to join any international organizations. Turkey should be considered an enemy of the civilized world and Greece should be fully backed and supported in defending its territorial integrity against the expansionist and jihadist regime in Ankara.
 

Theodore G. Karakostas 

Link to the Bloomberg article

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-09-07/merkel-can-calm-the-conflict-between-greece-and-turkey

Categories
Letters

Letter to my Congressman

Dear Congressman,
I am writing to express to you as an American of Greek descent that I believe the United States should give maximum support to our democratic allies Greece and Cyprus who are the victims of Turkish aggression and provocations. As is well known at the present time, Turkey is attempting to drill for oil in waters that are according to international law under the jurisdiction of Greece and Cyprus. The Turkish acts of aggression come in the aftermath of public statements made by the Turkish President himself that the Dodecanese islands that are off the coast of Asia Minor and belong to Greece under the Treaty of Paris of 1947 belong to Turkey. Such statements can only be construed as advocating ethnic cleansing and genocide as the population of these islands are overwhelmingly Greek and have not a single Turkish inhabitant residing on them. 

Turkey has publicly condemned the Treaty of Lausanne which defines the present day borders between Greece and Turkey. The Turkish President is a jihadist and a fanatic intent on creating a greater Islamic Turkey at the expense of Greece. It is inconceivable to contemplate that the United States will not support Greece during this crisis. The Turkey of President Recep Teyyip Erdogan is gradually filling the vacuum left by the destruction of the Islamic State (IS). As thatJihadist entity was eradicated, Ankara is now emerging as its successor Jihadist state. The Turkish government has converted old Churches such as the famed Hagia Sophia into Mosques and has held public parades glorifying the Ottoman Empire and Islamic triumphalism. 

Turkey continues to occupy thirty seven percent of the Republic of Cyprus. The greedy Jihadist Republic of Turkey seeks the oil that rightfully belongs to the people of the Republic of Cyprus. Having occupied the north of Cyprus and ethnically cleansed its territories of Greek Cypriots, Ankara is now seeking to seize the oil that belongs to the people of the internationally recognized and democratic Republic of Cyprus. The Turkish President has been adding fuel to the fire through his rhetoric by glorifying the racial extermination of Greek and Armenian Christians that occurred when Turkish forces seized that city from the Greek Army in September 1922. The Turkish President is a disturbed and dangerous individual that must be opposed by the civilized world.

 I respectfully call on you to raise the matter of Turkish aggression against Greece with your colleagues in the House of Representatives and with the President himself. I respectfully ask that you make an appeal to the President to extend full support to the democratic Republics of Greece and Cyprus and to condemn and oppose Turkey. It is my opinion that the United States should terminate all military and other forms of assistance that are being given to the Turkish Jihadist government. The White House and the State Department should be called upon by the House of Representatives to condemn Turkish acts of aggression, to cut off all forms of assistance to Turkey, and to take further necessary diplomatic and political actions to stop Turkish aggression and maintain peace and stability in the region. 

Respectfully,
Theodore G. Karakostas 

Categories
books

Genocide and the Turks

Book Review

The Thirty Year Genocide

by Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi

Harvard University Press. 2019

Turkish President Recep Teyyip Erdogan has followed the example of the leader of National Action Party ( the neo-fascist Grey Wolves) leader Devlet Bahceli and recalled the events at Smyrna which resulted in the mass slaughter of that city’s Greek and Armenian Christian inhabitants. Erdogan mentioned that Turkey would again drive the Greeks into the sea. For a country whose policies are heavily based on genocide denial, Turkey goes out of its way to actually remind the world not only of the genocide that its founders committed, but that it is willing to commit genocide again.

Turkey has lost the war that it spent many decades fighting by trying to impose its genocide denial on foreign countries and societies. That was has been lost as can be seen by the continued and unrelenting publication of books on the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides. Turkey had always been fighting a losing battle as its only real supporters in western governments and academic institutions were corrupt politicians and pseudo academics willing to come under Ankara’s influence for a price of some sort. Bernard Lewis is a perfect example.

In 2019, Israeli academics Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi published “The Thirty Year Genocide” a five hundred page tome documenting the systematic planning and carrying out of the physical extermination of the Ottoman Empire’s Christian populations. This book followed on the publication of “The Great Fire” by Lou Ureneck just a couple of years earlier which was about the slaughter of the Greeks and Armenians and the burning of Smyrna. There has never been any question as to the historical truth of what transpired in Anatolia between 1914 and 1923. When Turkish leaders open their big mouths making threats they are verifying the fact that their country has been built over the corpses of Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Christians.

The authors of “The Thirty Year Genocide” spent seven years researching and writing this book. Their outstanding efforts show as this is simply a historical masterpiece. The authors recount in the introduction that Turkish governments over the decades have purged their historical archives of incriminating evidence. Turkish efforts to hide the truth have ended in miserable failure.

The authors in great detail recount the origins of genocide which they claim began against the Armenians in 1894. Over time, the policies of mass extermination were extended to the Greeks and Assyrians. Three governments in the Ottoman Empire were responsible- the government of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the Young Turks, and Mustafa Kemal Pasha. Each government continued pursuing genocide as an instrument of state policy.

There are times when this book is tough to read. The pages at times endlessly describe the slaughter of Greeks and Armenians in village after village after village. They describe them in great detail and with statistics. This is a product of great historical research as well as political significance.

Israel for many years used its influence in Washington to stop the recognition of the Armenian genocide by the United States Congress. One has to wonder whether this book could have been published by two prominent Israeli historians had relations between Israel and Turkey not been damaged by the present leadership in Ankara. This is a wonderful and powerful contribution to the history of the Christians in the late Ottoman and early Republican eras in Turkish history.

This book has great political significance because unlike Germany which was occupied by the allies in 1945 and forced to undergo a policy of denazification, Turkey has never been forced or compelled to account for the horrors it inflicted on the Christian populations. As a result Greece, Cyprus, and Armenia today face threats of genocide by the Erdogan regime. Armenia in particular has been threatened by the lunatic regime in Azerbaijan which has threatened to attack Armenia’s nuclear power plant.

In recent days, the Greek government appointed an Ambassador to Azerbaijan. The Ambassador was in fact insulted by his hosts who made it clear that they stand firmly with Turkey on the matter of Ankara’s aggressive designs against Greece. It is abundantly clear that Turkey and Azerbaijan are being led by lunatics who are capable of and willing to resume genocidal operations against the descendants of the communities they exterminated one century ago.

Favorable reviews of this book were published in various American and British newspapers. Most important may have been the article about this book that appeared in the Wall Street Journal. The Journal was once one of the most staunchly pro Turkish newspapers in America. Its editorial writers served as apologists for the denial of the Armenian genocide and for the Turkish invasions of Cyprus.

They published a review of this book entitled “When Turkey killed its Christians” and recounted the genocide of the Armenians and Greeks. This is one example where the rise of Erdogan has led to a change in attitude toward Turkey. This past summer, National Review, another formerly pro Turkish publication made mention of the Armenian and Greek genocides.

Serious historians have worked hard for decades to expose the truth of genocide that was committed by the Turkish government. Their work has not been in vain. New generations of historians and scholars have come to assist the effort in liberating history from politics.