Tags
Donald Trump, Human Rights, Raphael Lemkin, terrorism, The Armenian Genocide, The Holocaust, The Middle East
The Elephant Clock, from The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices by al-Jazari (MMA, NY)
“Cowards,” says Ban Ki-moon
Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations is perfectly right. They are cowards! Aleppo is dying and a convoy of supplies for 78,000 persons was bombed the moment the cease fire was lifted, killing twenty persons. To make matters worse, on Tuesday, medical workers were killed. Humans, homes, and architectural gems, some a thousand years old, are being destroyed. On Wednesday, the attacks continued.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/22/overnight-airstrikes-rebel-held-aleppo-kill-syrians
India and the Middle East are the areas where numerous Indo-European languages started to develop. Knowledge of the Near to Middle East may survive and so may a large number of people, but crimes are committed by terrorists, autocrats, and other villains against the innocent population of Syria and other nations of the Near and Middle East. This process goes on and on. Humanitarian relief is sent, but demented individuals prevent supplies from reaching their destination. No, there is no excuse for ISIL militants to behave like barbarians, nor is there any excuse for Bashar al-Assad to allow his forces to wreak havoc on Syria. He is blaming the US for the recent attacks.
http://news.sky.com/story/assad-us-airstrike-on-syrian-troops-intentional-10588318
As for Donald Trump, if elected to the presidency of his country, he will not allow Muslims into the United States. He has made this clear. Surely he must know that the plight of Syrians and Iraqis is genuine. If he doesn’t, shame on him! A candidate to the presidency of a country should be well informed.
A Social Contract
When the day comes, if it comes, when Donald Trump is elected to the presidency of the United States, liberty will collapse and the French will have to take the famous statue back to France: Lady Liberty. The America Mr Trump wants to see reborn is a country that will not enter into a decent social contract with its people. In all likelihood, Mr Trump will abolish the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. How can there be progress?
Every human being should be protected, from birth until death. Even the poor have the right to be treated if an illness, possibly fatal, befalls them. Insurance companies? It seems to have worked, but one has to be very careful. Insurance companies are businesses. They seek a profit. They’ll destroy your life and will not own up to what they have done. Some of you do not know my story, which I can repeat, but not now and not here. Not as I write about great atrocities and the worst of genocides.
The Armenian Genocide
A few days ago, I found information about the Armenian Genocide in a French internet publication I read regularly: Hérodote. Young Armenian women were crucified in the same manner Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. Others may have discovered the same story. Information is now posted under several entries on the internet. A video has been inserted in the Wikipedia entry on the Armenian Genocide. One can see a row of crosses and young women, girls, dying.
The Armenian Genocide EN
Forced pregnancies as a violation of Human Rights
- genocides
- Raphael Lemkin
In 1915 in particular, the year the Armenian genocide began, young girls were also raped, some to death. Many of these young women got pregnant. It is at that time in history that forced pregnancies were first seen as a violation of Human Rights, which is precisely what they were and remain. Rape is a crime, even in wedlock.
The term genocide was coined by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin who lost 49 relatives in the Holocaust. The Holocaust went on for six years, which is a longer period of time than the duration of the Armenian Genocide, but it would appear that the Armenian Genocide inspired Hitler. (See Armenian Genocide and Raphael Lemkin, Wikipedia.)
Donald Trump and Torture
ISIL beheads, mutilates, burns people to death, drowns them. It enslaves, rapes, and also crucifies some of its victims. ISIL does not crucify in the same way Jesus was crucified, but at some point the victim can no longer breathe.
Donald Trump would not go that far and it could be that Mr Trump was not speaking seriously, but he did say he approved of torture. A candidate to the presidency of the United States cannot condone torture. He’s disqualified himself.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/06/29/donald-trump-vows-torture-again-i-waterboarding-lot.
Here is a quotation from the New York Review of Books:
Can the Unthinkable Happen?
Michael Tomasky
“Trump’s false pronouncements are either believed or blithely ignored by a substantial chunk of the electorate. But we’ve seen no evidence that he’s persuaded a majority. Could that change?”
(Photo credit: The New York Review of Books)
It could be that Mr Trump will be elected.
I will close here and hope a permanent ceasefire is about to be declared.
Love to everyone ♥
Sources and Resources
- Image below: http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/447804
- Video from Hérodote
- http://www.history.com/topics/armenian-genocide
—ooo—
Samuel Barber‘s Adagio for Strings
© Micheline Walker
22 Septembre 2016
WordPress
Micheline's Blog 
Great piece, Micheline, and one of my all time favorites as a soundtrack. Unlike most people I know, I didn’t like the way Oliver Stone used on Platoon, unless taken in the context of the Seinfeld parody of it, a few years later.
Finally this horrible tragedy is coming to light; hope this time we learn something out of it (but unfortunately, I doubt it). Thanks
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It was a terrible tragedy. Crucifying young women. Nobody can deny it. It’s all over the internet. Trust the Kardashians! This is ISIL. An Armenian doctor found a cure for a congenital blood that had plagued my family. Armenians are my people! Cheers 🙂
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I was floored by her awareness of the issue. Sadly, she & family are endorsing Trump. It’s beyond me.. Or maybe not.
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The difficulty is that Hillary is a Clinton and left doubts as to her integrity. I feel sorry for the Syrians, but the US should not be in the Near and Middle East next to, of all leaders, Vladimir Putin. That scenario, US-Russia, had to be avoided. Tocqueville foretold of this possible confrontation nearly two hundred years ago. Donald Trump is more likely to say the word that will trigger further war. Obama wouldn’t, but he fell into a trap. He saw heads falling. As my father told me a very long time ago, one does not enter another country uninvited. Armenians asked for help and were abandoned. Roméo Dallaire also screamed for help, but he saw nearly a million individuals die in a brutal manner. But Americans could not enter the Middle East, not after the Palestinian fiasco and not after George Bush. I would tell my father that too many people would die and he would answer that the bleeding countries would then have to mop the floors themselves, if there was anyone left. The best candidates are/were Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders. Who knows, Americans may elect Dr Stein. There is still time and they are quite capable of doing just that. Love, Micheline
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I agree, our choices stink even more this year. But Stein has no chance in hell to be elected; a vote for her will be a vote less to defeat Trump, and that’s reality ranch (remember Nader?). In politics, as in life, you almost never get what you want, just the chance to fight for another day, and even that doesn’t smell nice. But we need to move forward. There are concerns about Stein and her views over vaccines; even if she didn’t mean to endorse the obscurantist anti-vac movement by way of criticizing big pharma, she failed as a prospective leader by allowing even this simple narrative to get out of control. Imagine with more complex issues. What I’m the most concerned about Clinton is her hawkishness, but no one else is so well prepared as to relate to almost every world leader on a first name basis. The problem is not even Trump, who if winning, would be mostly absent from the big decisions; worst are the monsters that have emerged from under their rocks in the wake of his candidacy and straight into the mainstream of American politics. Heard of David Duke and the KKK? That should be enough to scare the living hell out of incomprehensibly still hesitant voters. Then again, people simply don’t know history and vote on the skin color and after a ‘likability’ factor, which honestly, it is a desgrace (to use one of his hyperbolic terms). More than ever, though, the record of what happened to the Armenians must come to light; it’s a familiar story of nations standing pat while a genocide is perpetrated. Thanks for your input, Micheline. Cheers
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You’re quite right. Hillary knows everyone and is familiar with every issue. Trump is a showman and he does not have the knowledge required of the President of the United States. Gun control: “Take her guards away, disarm them, and see what happens.” Showmanship and dismissive, but people like it. The Armenian genocide? I don’t think he knows there are Armenians. And I don’t think he knows how dangerous David Duke is.
It’s very frightening. Love, Micheline
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Kim is with her. http://www.people.com/article/kim-kardashian-not-voting-donald-trump-hillary-clinton
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And that is not “banal”. She is also remembering a terrible massacre. As a Canadian, I cannot vote, but I’m endorsing Hillary, and Kim. Love, Micheline
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😦
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Platoon aside, that Adagio makes me weep every time. I didn’t know about the Armenian suicide until a year ago. Truly horrific. You make some excellent points, Micheline. Why do we never, ever learn? Rather, it seems we learn but the people who control us through power and money choose not to learn.
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We don’t learn for several reasons, one of which is denial. Turkey denies the genocide of Armenians. Did you know about the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement? We are suffering the consequences, a hundred years later. The first Syrian refugees to be flown to Canada were Armenians, i.e. Christians. Their flight was sponsored by the Canadian Armenian community. There are many sad stories. Our family doctor was Armenian and a very close friend of the family. I’ve always known about the genocide. Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yousuf_Karsh escaped the genocide and first lived in my community, Sherbrooke. Canada has taken in a large number of refugees during its history. I think that is what we are. Take care. Micheline 🙂
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Ah, yes, the incomparable Karsh. Denial, indeed. We are going backwards at a rate of knots.
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Karsh was excellent. He could capture the very soul of the persons he photographed. He must have asked the right questions. Winston Churchill and Hemingway forever remembered. Best. Micheline
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I think he meant it that he approves of torture. Yes, he is scary. I’m with her.
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I agree. Trump was probably trying to make an impression. He’s like an actor. But he could not say that he approved of torture. There’s a protocol and one must respect it. Moreover, it was further rejection of Muslims and it creates further radicalization. The distance between words and deeds is too narrow. The two other parties now have to work together so Trump is defeated. Assange has information about Hillary, but he may be boasting. At any rate, she needs Bernie and the support of the two other candidates. She is of course the better candidate. Would that the Republicans had nominated someone else. Thank you for writing. Best.
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Travelling through Turkey buying old tribal rugs and kilims in the mid 1980s, I visited Van nor far from the Iranian border. Just outside the city are the ruins of the much older Armenian city of Van, which dates from the first millenium BC. It was destroyed in the genocide. That was the first time I became interested in the history of Armenia and the Armenians.
In 1998 I got to visit Yerevan, capital of present-day Armenia, to research a travel article on the Pazyryk Carpet, the oldest carpet in the world, for the Daily Telegraph. Discovered in a Scythian tomb in the Altai Mountains of Siberia in 1949, some experts believe it to have been woven in Armenia. I was looking for evidence to support that theory.
In Yerevan, the genocide was still a part of living memory for the few families left with relatives born before 1915. Of the Armenians I talked to some had grandparents who managed to escape the tragedy. As children they heard stories from the mouths of those who went through it. One young woman told me she longed to be able to visit the Turkish city of Ezerum, where her grandparents had lived. I told her the little knew about it, having been there twelve years before. In the national museum I saw the terrible photographs of the genocide. There is also a museum devoted to it, but I had too many places to visit in a very short time.
A series of articles I am revising at the moment contains a little about Armenia and Armenian history. I hope to be able to post it soon.
From what I am reading, the Western media is feeding us a lot of lies and disinformation about Syria. Finding the truth is proving next to impossible, as it involves reading information from many different sources. Nevertheless, it is possible to piece together a more accurate picture. Whatever your views on Assad, one thing is certain, the war is a tragedy being made far worse by Western arms and interference.
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There has been considerable denial. Denial is usually proof that a massacre happened, but people do not know about it. Officially, there were 1,500,000 victims, but there were more. What is particularly disturbing about this massacre is the manner in which the Armenians were practically annihilated. It was barbaric. Asking women to sit on a sword thereby impaling and killing them is beyond the imagination. I haven’t been to Turkey, Greece only. Armenians were the remains of the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern Church. In my opinion, Western intervention in the Syrian Civil War is making matters war. It’s retaliation from foreigners, a continuation of colonialism. The nations of the Near and Middle East can look after themselves. They are being trivialized.
An Armenian doctor and close friend of my family, discovered what was killing members of my family (a congenital blood disease) and he found a cure. He was brilliant. Armenians are a very special people to me and to other Sherbrooke families. He was a popular doctor. Yousuf Karsh, the photographer, also lived here for a while.
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You’re not alone in believing Western intervention is making things worse in Syria, as is the Western media. By filling newspapers and TV screens with reports from journalists who are not actually there most of us are getting a very false picture indeed.
Vanessa Beeley is a brave journalist who travels to Syria. I have sometimes been in email contact with Vanessa and she comes over as very genuine and determined to get at the truth. I take the liberty of posting a link to one of her reports where she recounts a trip she took from Aleppo to Homs.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/journey-to-aleppo-exposing-the-truth-buried-under-nato-propaganda/220563/
She is well worth looking out for, as she receives a lot of news from her contacts inside Syria on a regular basis.
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Thank you Brian. Journalists see and hear what they want or expect to see and hear. They cannot possibly know what is going on. It is normal for agencies such as the UN to send humanitarian relief, but there will be no lasting peace unless it comes from within. Colonialism is slow to die. Besides, why support a nation that has yet to return the occupied territories? The Palestinian exodus has not stopped. What a mess.
I enjoyed reading Vanessa’s article. She is exceptionally perceptive.
Have a good weekend. Micheline
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I don’t want to bombard you with links, but here’s one more. Robert Parry is an experienced American journalist of the old school. Some of his information comes from ex-CIA operatives. His latest report on Consortium News casts serious doubts on the official U.S. government’s version of the attack on the Syrian aid convoy, and it seems to come from the United Nations. Let’s see if that gets into our nespapers and onto our TV screens.
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/09/24/another-kerry-rush-to-judgment-on-syria/
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Thank you Brian,
Blaming is a form of provocation. One cannot do it. It can lead to immediate war in the same manner as retaliation. “There were planes above” is all one can say, until the matter has been investigated. Besides, if one is dropping bombs, there will be accidents. If would be safer not to drop bombs. We can’t even assume that Bashar al-Assad is the very devil. If one presumes he is the very devil, how can talks even begin? What I am not seeing is an effort to promote peace. On the contrary, both Russia and the US are in the Middle East. That could become confrontational. We cannot afford WW III. There will be no planet left. We need a ceasefire.
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