Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we teach our children that genocide, wherever it occurs, is a crime against humanity that must never be tolerated or ignored. That is why it is so important for the United States to always recognize genocide for what it is and acknowledge when it takes place. Between 1915 and 1923, the Ottoman Empire carried out genocide against the Armenian people. However, the United States has yet to recognize this stain on history by its rightful name despite an irrefutable body of evidence documenting the atrocities. Diplomats, members of the military, humanitarians, journalists and others from the United States and around the world saw with their own eyes the deportation, starvation, drowning and murder of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians. And there are countless testimonies from victims who lived to tell of their experiences. The American Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morganthau, wrote: When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact. There were great efforts made by Americans to relieve the suffering of the victims of what would become the first genocide of the 20th century. Powerful leaders of industry and government did speak out. Schoolchildren and poor families contributed mightily to try to save lives by donating whatever they could.…”