Persecution Is Multi-Faceted

Persecution comes in many forms: persecution for religious beliefs, persecution by the police state, for those who do not follow the party line, persecution for ideology, persecution for personal beliefs in regard to one’s body, and persecution based on racial identification.

The mainstream propaganda machine organizes persecution into four broad categories, religious, ethnic, political, and social.

Examples of persecution include:

-          Persecution of Jews by the Nazi regime (the social democrats)

-          Covid-19 gave governments the excuse for religious persecution (relief discrimination, forced conversions, and justification for more surveillance

-          Christians are treated poorly by the Islamic State

-          Persecution of political dissidents

-          Persecuting racial groups and other minorities

-          Physical and mental violence

-          Persecution through denial of judicial redress, basic human rights, and humanitarian aid.

-          Armenians were persecuted and killed in Turkey, resulting in an Armenian genocide that is yet to be addressed properly by Turkey.

-          Communists and the Nazis persecuted gypsies and homosexuals across Europe, throwing them in concentration camps and prisons.

-          Stalin persecuted Ukrainian farmers which he called “kulaks” (wealthy peasants in Russia). He caused the Great Famine (Holodomor) of 1932-1933, entirely man-made, which resulted in the killing of almost four million Ukrainians who resisted his collectivization. There was no basis for famine in 1932-1933, there were plenty of crop yields to sustain life, but Stalin sent the Soviets to requisition huge quotas of crops which left the Ukrainian peasants starving.

-          Christians in Africa were persecuted by the Muslims and many were killed.

Persecution can be expressed as outright confiscation of property through eminent domain, confiscation by brute force in communist regimes, destruction of property such as burning, followed by confiscation, exclusion from society by marginalization and pariah status, arrests, incitement of hatred and violence against a specific group or person, prison, beatings, torture, murder, and execution.

Religious persecution is widespread. Not even the formerly constitutionally protected United States is free of religious persecution and examples are many. Most recently, churches in North America were not allowed to meet during the policed Covid lockdowns and priests and parishioners were jailed and fined for attending church.

As United States accelerates its advance to global communism, religious persecution will spread fast just as it did during the former socialist republics, Soviet satellites where the Communist Party ruled, pressing their heavily armed boots on the neck of the hapless and unarmed citizens.

Religion will suffer a similar fate as it did in former or current communist states.  Religious communities of the Christian faith will dwindle, seminaries will be restricted in the number of attendants, church building permits will be reduced, churches will be demolished, burned, or sold as mosques, and pastors may not be given the state license to preach. Churches will be controlled by the government and the lives of families of the Judeo-Christian faith and of their children will be made difficult and avenues for advancement will shrink or be closed for them.

One glaring example of persecution of the faithful happened in 1972 and 1981. Twenty thousand Bibles were promised to the Reformed Church (ethnic Hungarians located in Transylvania). Two shipments were sent in 1972 and 1981 as promised. According to former Ambassador to Romania, David B. Funderburk, … “fewer than two hundred out of the promised twenty thousand were actually delivered to the churches. Instead, pieces of the Bibles appeared in toilet paper made at a factory in Braila. The Rev. Dr. Alexander Havadtoy of Yale University has meticulously documented this blasphemy. Interspersed throughout strips of toilet paper which made their way to the West were letters and words from the Bibles of the type sent to Romania.” The toilet paper samples were presented at press conferences in the U.S. (Pinstripes and Reds, David B. Funderburk, Edwards & Broughton Company, 1987, p. 85)

Such human desecration did not diminish God and Bibles were eventually replaced after the “fall” of communism, following the December Revolution in Romania and the destruction of the infamous Berlin Wall built by East Germany, the socialist republic under the wing of the Soviets. Funny how nobody rushed to defect to the oppressive communist East but plenty have succeeded or have died trying to flee to the freedom of the capitalist West.

But has communism truly fell? Did it not go underground, regrouped, and re-emerged more powerful than ever around the world from Switzerland, of all places, the country that does not confer citizenship easily or generously to anybody, yet they are influencing the flood of illegal immigration and communism around the world.

Whatever Christian religion the communist police state allowed to exist in the socialist republics ruled by the iron fist of the Communist Party, that religion and those priests had to be active agents of the police state and to control the faithful with lies and platitudes such as, “if you listen to the father and the mother of this country [the dictator and his wife], then nothing bad would happen to you.” Translation, be quiet, endure the poverty, the misery, and you will live. You will receive your daily indenture to communism via long lines at the grocery stores, bread stores, pharmacies, and hospitals.

Dissident priests were often persecuted, disappeared, tortured, and killed. The West ignored the deaths or made cursory mention of such tragic events.

The Jews in Romania had a unique situation when compared to the other socialist countries ruled by the Communist Party. Ceausescu had made a deal with Israel to allow Jews to emigrate in exchange for payments per head. Israel even had an embassy in Bucharest. According to Funderburk, “Before WWII, there were nearly one million Jews in Greater Romania, but by the end of the war and due to territorial losses, the number was cut in half. By 1987, 25,000 Jews were left and were mostly elderly but much better off economically due to assistance from groups in Israel and the U.S.

As part of the U.S.-Romanian Trade Agreement of 1975, 2,500-3,000 Romanians a year were allowed to emigrate. The rest, who were denied visas, were persecuted by the communist police state.

Political persecutions around the world and across the centuries were too many to mention. The most recent in history is the constant six-year long persecution of President Donald J. Trump by his rivals in the Democrat Party, in the mainstream media, and in the Republican establishment.

Philosophers, artists, actors, revolutionaries, scientists, heads of states, military leaders, writers, priests, and activists have been persecuted by their opposition or by a police state, or a tyrant drunk on power. If we allow such persecutions to persist, unchecked, the state will force us to live in a world not unlike Orwell's 1984.

 

Society Never Condemned the Crimes of Communism in a Public Forum

Photo: Holodomor.png

I never forget that millions of victims of communism, including my Dad, died fighting tyranny born by a utopian philosophy. They all clashed with the communist party’s Marxist ideology when they opposed the confiscation of their homes, land, guns, and personal property. They objected to the lack of food, heat, water, proper medical care, medications, human rights, personal freedom, and a decent treatment as human beings.

When Margaret Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism is that, at some point, you run out of other people’s money,” she was referring to the deliberate attempt by a centralized socialist government to confiscate by various means wealth they viewed as unfairly earned at the expense of the oppressed masses.

Marx said, himself the original hippie who never worked and was supported by rich patrons such as Friedrich Engels (he would have made a perfect Socialist Democrat politician in office today), the proletariat does all the work, it is only fitting that the rich share their “ill-gotten wealth.”

You’ve heard the phrase, “the rich must pay their fair share” repeated at nauseam by socialists like Bernie Sanders who has now become a millionaire in the capitalist society he despises while preaching to his followers a return to a simple life in order to save the planet from Armageddon.

What wealth did we equally “share” under socialism/communism?  The wealth confiscated and stolen by force by communist party apparatchiks after throwing in jail dissenting citizens for being “bourgeois.”

Speaking of the equality the social justice warriors demand through their pink loudspeakers while blocking busy intersections for those citizens who actually work for a living - we had equal misery, equal suffering, equal mistreatment, equal poverty, constant shortages of food, rationing of necessities, water, energy, heat, and rationing of medical care.

I don’t expect the social justice “warriors” to understand what it’s like to have a full-time job in which one produces something useful since they work as angry-for-hire agitators while living in mom and dad’s basement.

Classical socialists believed that socialism was an imperfect stage before communism – the means of production were owned by the state and workers were paid hourly for their work. As the communist motto said, “They pretended to pay us, and we pretended to work.”

I agree with Winston Churchill’s famous assessment, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

The failed experiment with socialism/communism at Jamestown, Virginia (1620), taught us that when people worked the land together, some were lazy and did much less work, while others, who worked harder, resented the slackers. The whole commune nearly starved to death before they returned to prior individual division of land after which the settlement thrived again.

Communism was supposed to abolish classes and the workers would have been paid for their needs not for the work they performed – “from each according to his ability, to each according to their need.” But who decided the need and the level of pay? Who received the higher pay? The answer is simple, the communist party elites and their loyal lackeys.

Sadly, today in America, we have built a permanent underclass that relies on welfare, being paid not to work, according to their needs determined by government bureaucratic charts developed to give dependence to the populace and enough to survive on. Thirty-five states pay more welfare per hour than a person earns working thus destroying the incentive to work. These are the low information voters, including illegal aliens, who are voting for communist living.

The supposed “classless” communist society did have two classes, the proletariat who called each other “comrades in chains” and the ruling elites. The controlling elites shared and used all the wealth as they pleased, according to their greedy wants.

Marxism has not worked and will never work because greed and jealousy are part of the human psyche. Not everyone is so altruistic that they are willing to work extremely hard for the good of everyone, knowing that those in power get their lion’s share of the divided pie.

Capitalism works because of self-interest. One individual’s hard work to achieve self-interest enables Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” to float everyone else’s boat. Marx himself said, “Capitalism is the most powerful mode of production available.” Waiting on the dole and the spreading of wealth is the death of initiative, self-respect, dignity, honor in a good day’s work, the pursuit of happiness, and the desire to improve one’s standing in society.

Self-interest also breeds charity. Communist elites were never charitable except to themselves. People living under communism were not charitable to strangers. They performed volunteer activities involuntarily under the forced direction of communist rulers. Everyone was spied on and watched by community organizers and snitches.

The proletariat hoarded food, enabled black markets, and engaged in bartering stolen goods or raw materials from work in order to survive. They even stole public items that were not fastened or nailed down if they could be sold for recycling.

Private property was forbidden because it created “unfair” competition. Anyone caught by the Economic Police with extra goods and belongings was sentenced to jail. But the ruling elite and their lackeys could own as much private property as they wished or as they could steal from the hapless proletariat and from the common means of production.

In the communist “utopia” I experienced, the proletariat was given free healthcare and free education heavily infused with communist indoctrination. The children of elites were chosen first for college education.

Health care was so dismal and pathetic, human life had no value. People were killed by malpractice in simple procedures; no accountability existed since everyone earned meager wages and worked for the omnipotent government that could not be sued. Doctors, nurses, teachers, and engineers were told where to live, where to practice their trade, and how much they could earn. People were forced to do everything in a communist society against their will.

Modern “socialists” in Europe run bankrupt welfare states with a nanny mentality of cradle to grave entitlements but with a substantial and large tax base collected from citizens and from large corporations to pay for it all. There is no such thing as a free meal, someone must pay for it, and it comes with strings attached.

Exceptionalism is punished, “global citizens” are shaped by socialist schools, and “group think” is rewarded. But most inventions of the modern world were the result of individual creativity and exceptional talent of one individual not of groups “brainstorming.”

Communist China did not start to make economic progress until the centralized communist bureaucracy lessened its iron grip on the population and allowed individual creativity and entrepreneurship to thrive. But now they control and “reward” citizens with social scoring for their good communist behavior. If they fail to measure up, they are denied traveling by plane, for example.

The U.S. has experienced the “Creeping Socialism” that Ronald Reagan and Friedrich von Hayek warned us about: government takeover of Chrysler, GM, student loan programs, banking and financial institutions, Obamacare, control of Internet, FCC radio programming content, attacks on Christianity, censorship on social media like Facebook, YouTube, Tweeter, and attacks on conservative speech and values.

Socialists hide behind political speech, clever euphemisms, rhetoric, deception, manipulation, lies, propaganda, class and racial division. Accusations of hate speech, bigotry, racism, homophobia, islamophobia are intended to stifle free speech.

Communist terms I left behind decades ago are now part of everyday politics: social justice, economic justice, social engineering, community organizing, nationalization, social democracy, redistributive change, equitable society, open society, social change, working class, communitarian, redistributive change.

Communism never died; it has rebranded itself across the world. It is making a comeback in the U.S. thanks to the Democrat Party, Communist Party U.S.A., Socialist Party of America, teachers, college professors, unions, ignorant Americans on welfare, Occupy Wall Street movement, ANTIFA, Black Lives Matter, main stream media, and United Nations Agenda 21/2030, the design of global communism.

Norman Matoon Thomas (1884–1968), a leading American socialist and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America, explained best the status of socialism in the U.S.

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day American will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.” He continued, “I no longer need to run as a presidential candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.” It appears that they have reached that goal. Numerous members of Congress have openly declared their affiliation with the Socialist Party and the Communist Party USA.

We are governed by progressives disguised as public servants, our minds are molded by academia, priests and preachers, and main stream media socialists, our tastes are formed by communism-loving Hollywood, our ideas suggested by communists, and by men we have never heard of like George Bernard Shaw, a Fabian socialist and eugenicist, and by John Dewey, the most influential American Marxist and progressive  theorist of education and founder of our current public school teaching practice and ideology.

America is under siege, in a state of propaganda encouraging brainwashing of the population to support a socialist state. We are following in the failed multiculturalist footsteps of Europe, overrun by illegal aliens who demand amnesty, with no intention of assimilating. America is in no social and economic position to absorb so many millions without its self-destruction as a nation. We are being colonized from within by the socialist/communist tyranny of the oppressed.

We will lose private property, all accumulated wealth, the right to inheritance, the right to bear arms, and we will get in return centralized everything (transportation, communication, credit, means of production, technology), free education, equitable distribution of population density across permitted areas, and equal wages.

If we wonder why the sudden desire of young people to become socialists, look no further than your child’s teachers and history textbooks that glorify socialism/communism to impressionable students.

The Marxists, Bolsheviks, Leninists, Stalinists, Maoists, Castroists, Che Guevara worshippers, Pol Pot supporters, and other fellow travelers who have murdered 100 million people collectively in the name of communism since 1917, were never tried in a public setting like the Nuremberg trial for the Nazis which condemned National Socialism and its leaders. Communism was never really condemned in such a public forum. For this reason, young people believe that it was a benign part of world history that must be repeated by the right people who are smarter than the communist predecessors.
https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/witnessblog/2018/3/23/why-was-there-no-nuremburg-for-communism

Why Is Donald Trump Good for America?

In New Hampshire August 19, 2015
Photo: Wikipedia

The often ostentatious Trump irritates Democrats, the liberal media, and the establishment Republicans for many reasons. They cannot understand how his popularity soars in the polls no matter what he says and what they do to unseat him, or what dirt, real or imagined, they try to dig up.

Donald Trump is a populist and a nationalist. He loves his country and does not like the path that the current administration and its supporters on both sides of the isle have chosen for 320 million Americans, even though at least half have vociferously expressed their desires, to seemingly deaf elected representatives and senators, to maintain our sovereignty, our Christian roots, our market-based economy, our traditions, and our exceptionalism.

Donald Trump is a successful alpha male, which Hispanic populations, with their cultural machismo, greatly respect. He is a billionaire who has experienced success and failure, yet has come back unscathed like a Phoenix bird from the ashes of bankruptcies, divorces, law suits, and other life-altering events. He is wise and knows how to manipulate and keep his enemies closer. He is brash and doubles down on his opinions which later turn out to be based on fact. He comes back with evidence to support his opinions.

Trump is not intimidated by media bullies, cyber bullies, and other individuals whose jobs are to take him down at all costs. He is loud, he is insulting at times, but he fights back. He does not roll over and play door mat to the ruling elites. He is a successful politician in his own right already. It takes guts and knowing the ropes to maneuver the mine-field of business in order to be so successful. He does not need the financial support of PACs even though political endorsements are beneficial. He does not have to compromise his belief system in order to receive money from big donors.

Unlike many politicians, Hollywood, and other assorted famous individuals, he has raised, in spite of his many divorces, a beautiful family, with highly successful, intelligent, and educated children. He believes in the American dream built the right way and in the success of our Judeo-Christian nation.

Donald Trump understands well the threat of unchecked immigration, open borders, of Islam, and of ISIS. He sees the need to build a fence along the southern border where people who wish to do us harm are entering day and night, hidden among those who are mostly economic refugees looking for a better life which their countries have failed to provide. But we have to care of the needs of our own population first.

Trump’s background and history are well known - he is an American born and raised in the United States to two American parents. His credentials are public knowledge and easy to access. He has America’s interest at heart and understands that we must preserve our Constitutional Republic if the country is to survive in the form that has made it the most successful nation on the planet for almost 240 years.

Because of his business acumen, Trump understands the damage that the many free trade agreements have wrought on the American manufacturing and on our trade imbalance: NAFTA, CAFTA, TIP, TPP. These trade deals are destroying our manufacturing sector, turning our country into a service economy, staffed with many foreign nationals who are brought here in ever-increasing numbers to replace American workers and professionals at half the wages, not the living wages liberals are advocating.

Someone said, Trump took a $1 million loan and turned it into a $10 billion empire. Even though he may have inherited some money from his dad, Trump is a man who knows how to make money, how to make a corporation highly successful despite temporary setbacks. He elegantly and cleverly defined and redefined “the art of the deal.”

Trump is not a supporter of political correctness, a liberal-forced form of free speech self-censorship. “The big problem this country has is being politically correct. I don’t have time for political correctness.”

Trump would hire the best minds in the business to deal with whatever problems may arise. He is fair, measured, and deliberate, but is not afraid to say, “You are fired.”

Donald Trump supports things that hard-working, tax-paying Americans care about such as jobs, the right to bear arms, freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of the press, a press that reports the news not manufactures them to please the ruling administration, military strength, securing our borders, taking care of our veterans, ending crony government, enforcing the Constitution, and praising American exceptionalism instead of criticizing America on foreign soil.

Despite the media narrative, women and Hispanics love Donald Trump. Lobbyists are apoplectic because he has accepted no special interest money like the other candidates. He is a great negotiator who knows how to win in order to build an empire, a skilled executive, an honest man who does not deceive the public with polished and clever rhetoric coached in lies. Trump knows how to make sound decision and would thus help cut wasteful Washington spending.

In the face of so many vicious attacks from all directions, from “friends” or foes, Trump did not lose his resolve, patience, or his courage. Speaking without a teleprompter, Donald Trump is himself and listens to his audience. He understands the dangers our nation is in, attacked by those who do not want to maintain our borders, our language, laws, and our culture. He understands that such a nation would become a global entity under the aegis of U.N.

Donald Trump fearlessly speaks about the Christian persecution, the need to protect our gun rights, the need to curtail illegal immigration because it does not benefit the American citizens, it hurts those who are at the bottom of the pay scale and the legal immigrants who are already here and struggling to overcome their poor prospects. Trump understands the dire situation created by the true, two-digit unemployment, and our unpayable national debt approaching $19 trillion.

Trump may be the only qualified candidate who can truly say, he will devote all resources necessary to make America great again and to bring back the American dream.

The Armenian Genocide

“Around the world, Christians are facing violence, persecution, brutality in a way we have not seen in generations.”  – Rey Flores, “The Wanderer”

A New York Times article published
December 15, 2015

The hypocritical “war on women” movement is deafly silent, no real effort to save the captives, and good men are doing nothing when faced daily with photographs of Christian hostages on their knees, clad in orange jumpsuits, about to be beheaded, when women and girls are kidnapped, raped, genitally mutilated by ISIS, and driven into a life of slavery as forced converts to Islam.

One year later, the Clarion Project says, “ #BringBackOurGirls” are still sex slaves to Boko Haram, sold into slavery for 2,000 rials each, about $12. www.clarionproject.org/bring-back-our-girls-one-year-later-still-slaves-boko-haram

The Christian genocide continues unabated. ISIS is demanding $100,000 per hostage, for the 250-300 Assyrians who were captured in the Hasaka province. http://www.cbn.com/world/2015/ISIS-Demands-30-Million-to-Release-Christians?

The Pope spoke about the Armenian genocide during Mass in the Armenian Catholic rite at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  Church leaders and the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan were in attendance. He spoke about humanity witnessing “three massive and unprecedented tragedies” in the 20^th century.  “The first, which is widely considered, ‘the first genocide of the 20^th century,’ struck your own Armenian people,” he said. The Nazi Holocaust and Stalin’s mass killings were followed by other genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi, and Bosnia.

As Christians, it is our duty and responsibility to keep alive the memories of those killed, the Pope said. “Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it,” Pope Francis continued.

BBC News reported on April 12, 2015 that Turkey was angry with Pope Francis’ description of the mass killings of Armenians under Ottoman rule in WWI as “genocide.”  Turkey plays down the genocide as smaller numbers of deaths resulting from the WWI clashes in which ethnic Turks have also suffered.  Most Western scholars regard the 1.5 million Armenians civilians, who were deliberately deported between 1915-1916 to desert regions where they succumbed to starvation and thirst, as genocide. “Thousands also died in massacres.” Countries like Belgium, Canada, Argentina, France, Italy, Russia, and Uruguay recognize the mass killings of Armenians as genocide. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32272604

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered condolences in 2014 for the first time to the grandchildren of all the Armenians who were massacred in 1915. This year marks a century since the atrocities were committed, and,  until all countries recognize that the genocide had occurred, it is an incomplete mourning exacerbated by the denial stories to this day. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/23/turkey-erdogan-condolences-armenian-massacre

Why were Armenians massacred by the Turks? To understand the reason, you must understand who the Armenians were, how, and why they lived under the Ottoman Empire, and their status as non-Muslims, “non-believers,” and second-class citizens.

Armenians are ancient people who lived in Anatolia some 2500 years ago. They had their own distinctive alphabet and culture. There are 6 to 7 million Armenians today, half living in the Republic of Armenia, while the rest are scattered in the U.S., Russia, France, Lebanon, and Syria.

In the year 301 A.D., the King of Armenia was the first ruler to adopt Christianity as the official state religion, even before the Roman Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity. Captured by the Ottoman Empire in the 15^th century, Armenia was absorbed into the Islamic Ottoman Empire, along with a large swath of European lands. As subject of the Sultan, Armenians had less freedom, had to pay higher taxes, were discriminated against, and were not allowed to serve in the military.

Armenian intellectuals killed
en masse on April 24, 1915

Unhappy with the second-class citizen status, by the end of the 1800s, Armenians demanded equality. In the 1890s the Bloody Sultan who was presiding over a weak government, used massacres as a way to maintain law and order.  In 1894-1896 200,000 Armenians were killed during the Hamidian massacres under the rule of Abdul Hamid II, a foreshadowing of what was to come in 1915. http://www.armenian-genocide.org/hamidian.html

When the Young Turks forced the Sultan out in 1908, Armenians were allowed to serve in the military. In 1912-1913 the Christian regions of Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria gained their independence from the Ottoman Empire.

According to Vahaken Dadrian, Director of the Genocidal Research at Zoryan Institute, as quoted on a film aired on PBS, http://asbarez.com/133128/acclaimed-armenian-genocide-documentary-to-air-on-pbs/

“For the first time in recent history, the glorious Ottoman army suffered a major military defeat at the hands of their former subject-nations, Greeks, Bulgarians, and Serbs,” losing in two weeks 75 percent of their former European territories. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vahakn_Dadrian

The despair borne by such a loss in the Balkans gave rise to a deep hatred against Christians, inflamed by Ottoman refugees’ stories, refugees thrown out of Christian lands, turning angry Turks against their indigenous Christian population, the Armenians – “Revenge, revenge, revenge, there is no other word.”

Ambassador Henry Morgenthau published in 1918 his personal account of the Armenian genocide. Chapter 24, The Murder of a Nation, describes in grizzly detail how Armenian men, who were formerly soldiers and cavalrymen in the Turkish army, were stripped of their arms and transformed into road workers and “pack animals.” Carrying heavy loads onto their backs, these men were whipped and bayonetted by the Turks into the Caucasus Mountains, sometimes waist-deep through snow. 

“They had to spend practically all their time in the open, sleeping on the bare ground. … They were given only scraps of food; if they fell sick they were left where they had dropped,” while the Turks robbed them of their possessions and their clothes. “Squads of 50-100 men were taken in groups of four, marched to a secluded spot a short distance from the village,” they were stripped naked and shot, having been forced to dig their own graves.

Morgenthau describes the fate of an entire Armenian regiment sent to Diarbekir. Agents notified Kurdish tribesmen to attack and kill these weak and starved soldiers “that they might gain that merit in Allah’s eyes that comes from killing a Christian.”

Ambassador Morgenthau explained how “throughout the Turkish Empire a systematic attempt was made to kill all able-bodied men, not only for the purpose of removing all males who might propagate a new generation of Armenians, but for the purpose of rendering the weaker part of the population an easy prey.”

When thousands failed to turn in weapons, the Turks ransacked churches, desecrated altars, marched the naked men and women through the streets, letting them be whipped by angry Turkish mobs. Those imprisoned who did not manage to flee into the woods and caves were subjected to the “bastinado” torture, the beating of the soles of the feet until they burst and had to be amputated.

Crucifixion, pulling of fingernails, of hairs, of eyebrows, tearing of flesh with red-hot pincers, and then pouring hot oil into the wounds were some of the barbaric methods of torture drawn from the records of the Spanish Inquisition.

Torture was just the beginning of the Armenian atrocities. What was to come was the actual destruction of “an entire Armenian race” by deporting it to the south and southeastern part of the Ottoman Empire, the Syrian desert and the Mesopotamian valley. Morgenthau said, “The Central Government now announced its intention of gathering the two million or more Armenians living in the several sections of the empire and transporting them to this desolate and inhospitable region.” They knew they would die on the way of thirst, starvation, or murdered by “Mohammedan desert tribes.”

The deportations took place through the spring and summer of 1915. The entire Armenian population of villages were ordered to appear in the main square, sometimes with little time to prepare, their homes and possessions confiscated for “safekeeping” and then divided among Turks. Once the deported Armenians had traveled several hours, they were attacked and killed in secluded valleys by Turkish peasants with clubs, hammers, axes, scythes, spades, and saws.

The “caravans of despair” originated in thousands of cities and villages in the Ottoman Empire.  Ambassador Morgenthau described how village after village and town after town were emptied of its Armenian population and, in six months, “about  1.2 million people started on this journey to the Syrian desert.” He believed it absurd that the Turkish government claimed to deport Armenians to “new homes,” the real intent was extermination. He concludes, “The details in questions were furnished to me directly by the American Consul in Aleppo, and are now on file in the State Department at Washington.” (Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story:  A Personal Account of the Armenian Genocide, Henry Morgenthau, Cosimo Classics, New York, 2010)

Henry Morgenthau Sr. (1856-1946) “details how Turkey fell under the influence of Germany and how this led to the Armenian Genocide. In a trial run of the extermination of the Jews, the Germans orchestrated the murder and exile of the Armenians from Turkey, with ‘Turkey for the Turks’ as a rallying cry. The similarities to the Holocaust are chilling.”

Also chilling is the recent discovery made by Stefan Petke of the Technical University of Berlin who uncovered rare WWII footage that documents the existence of Muslim units (The Free Arab Legion) in the Nazi army who were used as ‘working soldiers’ because they “were a complete failure in the battlefields of Tunisia in 1943.” http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4645922,00.html

The pogrom against Christianity continues to this day.

Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2015