Turks Quotes



A large proportion of Turks are of Kurdish extraction. A minority of the Turkish Kurds want to take part of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran and create a new state of their own—Kurdistan. The PKK has been a revolutionary terror organization within Turkey and other nations and at the time Turkey, unwisely many thought, restricted the use of the Kurdish language as there was a movement there similar to the English only movement in the U. S. at the turn of the millennium. The official position is that all were Turks and there were not separate peoples. Zana, a member of Parliament had Parliamentary Immunity, although she shocked and outraged the conservative, nationalist Turkish establishment. When she left Parliament she joined an illegal political party, was sentenced to jail for terrorism on the testimony of two people who had been tortured and in response to international protests was released in 2004. A number of American Congressmen nominated Zana for the Nobel Peace Prize.


Turkey, under the control of the triumvirate of the 3 Young Turks had massacred almost all of the Armenian population in the area claimed by Turkey. At the end of WWI, there were many demands that those who ordered the policy of a Turkish genocide and those who carried it out by brought to justice—tried and punished. The Sultan had done little if anything to stop the slaughters although he was very weak, Turkey under the Young Turks had also picked the wrong side and allied with the Germans. The Sultan and his Grand Vizier were trying to pick up the pieces and maintain the Ottoman Empire as best they could despite they the fact that they lost control of much of their vast territory. At the Paris Peace Conference, the Grand Vizier virtually admitted the crimes and committed the Turkish government to determining the guilty and bringing them to justice. He actually had 50 of the worst offenders arrested (See {620595}.). However, there were a few tried and one governor of a province was hanged and a few others received short jail sentences. Talaat, the worst of The Young Turks regarding the genocide, escaped to Germany. But he was tracked by a surviving Armenian who assassinated Talaat. The assassin was acquitted by a sympathetic German court which ruled that the extermination of the assassin’s family had been so traumatic that temporary insanity relieved the assassin of criminal responsibility.


Although the Turks were the enemy, the British when they “liberated” an area, turned to the local governors of the territory and asked them to “carry on,” supplying them with resources if necessary. This was just the opposite of the George W. Bush administration strategy in the Iraq War of 2004, where after taking Baghdad, all the old politicians and governors were arrested and the police and other infrastructure was removed. The replacements were inexperienced and had little respect and influence and the city fell apart. The moral hypocrisy of the British left the “bad guys” in place running things for them instead of the Turks. However, they were able to keep the cities running and keep control of the entire situation.


One of the most murderous struggles in history was when Turkey was fighting Armenia. The peoples had, and still do have, a great hatred towards each other. The Turks had a large ethnic Armenian population and the Turkish government decided to “relocate” them. In the process many Armenians were brutally murdered, The Armenians however also butchered Turks whenever they could. The events were so brutal, that neither Turkey or Armenia teach about their own atrocities in their schools, but tell their students of the other’s atrocities. Historial denial governs this conflict and its war crimes.