Dimitrije Tucovic Quotes

The Turks had massacred the vast majority of their Armenian population, and treated the Greeks badly killing and them many of them from territories the Ottoman Turks had conquered. Jews fared better but were 2nd class citizens. Bristol was the American State Department’s senior official and was very “understanding” of the murders and ethnic cleansing despite the fact that President Wilson and most American politicians were very opposed to the Turkish massacres. See {620614} and {620599} . Two factors makes this quotation very significant. First, at the time the State Department was not really under the control of either the President or the Congress. It was not rare for the Department to have its own policies and implement them. This began to change in WWII and FDR exercised much more control than previous presidents since Theodore Roosevelt. The second factor is that there were many racists throughout the State Department—Bristol was only one. There was little concern for minorities’ welfare and the emphasis was on commerce. See {620600} Even in Truman’s administration, the President had massive opposition from the State Department for his policy of recognizing the State of Israel. Today, this kind of racism in the State Department is very rare, and human rights has been one of their major concerns. There were many changes in 75 years.

At its largest, the Ottoman Turkish Empire included all of the Middle East, most of North Africa, much of Russia, and Europe right up to the walls of Vienna.

Adams was not only generally wary of involvement in foreign intrigues but was suspicious of the Greek war of independence in that the Greeks were no more committed to democracy and freedom than the Ottomans were.

The Serbs were in a conflict with the Ottoman Muslims almost 1000 years ago. However, they have never seen that war as having ended. When the Albanian Muslims were breaking from the weakened Ottoman Empire, the Serbs not only wanted to dominate Albania, but also to extract vengeance for alleged wrongs committed by Ottoman Muslims hundreds of years earlier. This attitude existed through and after the Serbian war and the Kosovo Albanian population would not live under Serbian control given the Serb war crimes and atrocities perpetrated on Muslims—not only in the historical past but even in the Serbian War. Tucovic was one of the very few Serbs who not only argued that the Serbian policy of oppression of the Muslims was not only morally wrong but counter productive from the Serbian point of view. For many Serbs, Tucovic was considered a traitor.

This was 6 years after the German defeat in WWI. That Dream helped propel Hitler to power and the German aggression of WWII.

Greece had always coveted Anatolia which was a part of the Ottoman Empire but had been in antiquity a Greek dominated area. Further, people of Greek ethnicity and culture, who hundreds of years ago use to be the vast majority were after the hundreds of years of Ottoman rule and migration were then the largest minority in Anatolia. After the Turks lost the First World War as a consequence of their allying with Germany, and had been stripped of its Arab territories and was determined to keep the territories that they still had. Also, Turkey had just undergone a revolution and the old order was displaced. Venizelos and the Greeks saw this as an opportunity to get back Anatolia and sent a military invasion force to land at Smyrna (Ismir to the Turks), the largest city of Anatolia where despite the Greek minority in all of Anatolia, Greeks were a small majority in Smyrna and many of the ethnic Greeks not only aided the Greeks once they had landed but participated in atrocities against the minority of Turkish Muslims of Smyrna. The Ambassador was then trying to rationalize the heavy hand with which the Turks dealt with the indigenous Greeks many of whom were guilty and many of whom were not.

Greece had always coveted Anatolia which was a part of the Ottoman Empire but had been in antiquity a Greek dominated area. Further, people of Greek ethnicity and culture, who hundreds of years ago use to be the vast majority were after the hundreds of years of Ottoman rule and migration were then the largest minority in Anatolia. After the Turks lost the First World War as a consequence of their allying with Germany, and had been stripped of its Arab territories. Also, Turkey had just undergone a revolution and the old order was displaced. Venizelos saw this as an opportunity to get back Anatolia and sent a military invasion force to land at Smyrna (Ismir to the Turks), the largest city of Anatolia where despite the Greek minority in all of Anatolia, Greeks were a small majority in Smyrna. Greece was accused of making war on the Muslim Ottoman Turks. This was his answer to the British press. The invasion was initially successful but was then repulsed by the Turk revolutionists lead by their great patriot Ataturk who defeated the Greek forces handily despite the fact that they were hastily organized, untrained together, and much more poorly equipped than the Greeks. Turkey was very corrupt until the Ataturk reforms, but Greece was arguably even moreso.

Mobutu with Amerucan CIA and French assistance deposed Lumumba, murdered him, and seized power.

the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait

Ironically, when he attacked Athens in 480 BC, the Athenians under Themistocles, abandoned the city—see {612656}—and lured the overly-confident Xerxes into a sea battle at Salamis where the Persians were totally destroyed. A few public buildings of Athens were burned, but before Xerxes could fulfill his vow, he was defeated and had to retreat to Persia.

This statement became known as "The Truman Doctrine." Truman asked for $400 million to help Greece and Turkey fight stave off armed Communist minorities destabilizing their governments.

“Lebensraum” was a German expansionist concept of the time which has no good English translation. Literally, it means “living room”. The Germans had this notion that the German race and nation had to have more land to accommodate the growth of the German people. And because the Germans were a superior race, they were entitled to the land surrounding Germany in which to have Germans grow and thrive. The “inferior” peoples who lived on the land could be exterminated so that Germany would have this expansion room. The “Death’s Head units” were special German elite troops who used the Death’s Head as a symbol on their uniforms. Some of the Generals were concerned that the rest of the world would condemn Germany and possibly interfere if they exterminated the Poles. Hitler pointed to the example of the Turks who had killed most of the Armenians in the Armenian Genocide in the early 20th century. They got away with it with no outside interference, and there were no international consequences for Turkey. Hitler, convinced that the Armenian genocide was the precedent, thought Germany could easily get away with murdering the Gypsies, seriously handicapped, homosexuals, Russians, Poles and Jews. For other quotations on the Armenian Genocide, see {51838}, {638251}, {620602}, {620603}, {620604}, {620605}, {620600}, and {620606}

The Ottoman Turks, at war with Russia, exterminated a large proportion of the Armenian population of the then Turkish Empire. Some of the ethnic Armenians were working with Armenians in greater Russia and thus were a risk to the Turks. However, they starved, shot, beat, hung, and bayoneted hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians, wiping out entire villages and towns. Despite the fact that women and little children were all killed, Modern Turkey even into the 21st century refused to admit that this was a genocide even though there was ample documentation to prove it was not spontaneous but government ordered by the “Young Turks” then controlling Turkey. See {620603} and {612638} for examples. The modern Turks maintain the view expressed during the genocide that Armenians were a threat to Turkish Independence.

The Turkish Ottoman Empire controlled most of the Middle East and at times Arab areas and tribes would revolt. Egypt was considered the prize of the Middle East. The Ottomans not only controlled the Middle East militarily and civilly, but also religiously. The Turkish Sultan was the spiritual leader of almost all of the Middle Eastern Muslims.