Turkey: Muslim murderer complains that he is being treated like a "Christian"

Izmir is actually Turkey's bastion of secularism. Large anti-sharia demonstration took place in the city in past years. Izmir was known as 'Giaour/Gavur Izmir' (Infidel Izmir)during Ottoman times for its large nonmuslim population. It is called that today.

Kinana of Khaybar wrote:

Islamic apologists in the West would probably try to claim that this young man's murders constitute a form of domestic violence like other non-Muslim domestic violence, but these anti-non-Muslim comments by the confessed perpetrator himself indicate that these murders are at least in part motivated and enabled by the Islamic supremacist mindset.
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Very true, Kinana.

Steffen Larsen wrote:

It is in the Izmir area - his father has a shop in Izmir - formerly known as "Smyrna", the place of the "Great Fire of Smyrna" or "Smyrna Catastrophe" . Some simply call it the "Smyrna Massacre" when the Greek and Armenian population was ....erm ....following which the Greek and Amenian population was very much diminished.
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Thanks, Steffen—I was going to mention this myself.

The terrible destruction of Smyrna—in 1922 Turkey's wealthiest and most cosmopolitan city—was the final spasm of the terrible, decades-long Armenian Genocide.

As you note, Armenians weren't the only victims--they includes Greeks, "Levantines" (mostly Western Europeans who traded and lived in Turkey--some of these families had been in Turkey for as long as 200 years)--and Turkey's most vibrant Jewish community. In other words, all non-Muslims were targets.

As lanastalem notes, the city was known as "Infidel Smyrna"—which is the only reason that its non-Muslim population was not *slaughtered earlier*—after all, the Armenian Genocide had been going on in the rest of Turkey, proceeding in waves of mass-murder, since the late 19th century.

Many foolish residents of Smyrna at the time believed that "it couldn't happen here"—but at the end, Smyrna just served as "virgin territory" for an especially savage massacre.

The beautiful city was sacked, and its non-Muslim residents raped and slaughtered—then burned, right up to its quay. That Muslim Turks destroyed their own most vibrant city counted for nothing compared to their "cleansing" the city of Kuffar.

The few survivors were those who were picked up by American, British, and European ships in the harbor.

What was left was renamed Izmir. I very much doubt that most clueless Infidels who consider this a 'resort area' have any idea of the region's baleful history.

Graven remarks

The few survivors were those who were picked up by American, British, and European ships in the harbour.

Those ships where naval ships, and they idly stood by and watched while Mustapha Khemal, burned Smyrna and completed the massacre of 150,000 non muslims.

So as not to offend the Turks not a shot was fired, Smyrna, "Ghiaour Smyrna," became the last stronghold of Christianity and Greek culture in the Near East.

Let us briefly review the situation which enabled the Turks in the year of our Lord, 1922, to complete the extinction of Christianity in the Near East: The Germans were, as long as they lasted, the active allies of the Turks, and during this period nearly a million Armenians and many thousands of Greeks perished; after the Armistice and during the period which led up to the destruction of Smyrna and the accompanying massacre, the French and Italians were allies of the Turk, and furnished him moral and material support; the British gave no aid to the Greeks, but contented themselves with publishing an account of the dreadful events that had been taking place in the Ottoman Empire; the Americans gained the reputation of being pro-Turk, true friends, who would ultimately, on account of this friendship, be given the permission to put through great schemes, which would result in the development of the Ottoman Empire and, incidentally, fill certain American pocketbooks. The Turks confidently believed that commercial avarice would prevent us from interfering with their savagery, or even strongly condemning it.

Never in the world had the Turk so good an opportunity to glut his lust for Christian blood without fear of interference or criticism.

http://www.pahh.com/horton/

Not a shot was fired, and in the year of our Lord, 1923, 7 months after the massacre

The Chester Concession, approved by the congress of the newly founded Republic of Turkey on April 10, 1923, allowed United States development of oil and railways. It was an award of the significant importance and marked the introduction of U.S. capital for the first time on a large scale into the Near East. The same type of agreement (Baghdad Railway) was a major cause of the anxiety which led the Ottoman Empire to World War I. Germany had obtained concessions from Ottoman Empire which allowed German companies to construct railways.

The U.S. corporation would have the rights to all the mineral resources, including oil fields, found within a 20-kilometer zone on each side of the railway lines, as well as the privilege of carrying on subsidiary activities such as the laying of pipe lines, the utilization of water power for construction, and the building of port and terminal facilities on the Black Sea and the Gulf of Alexandretta. The corporation could utilize the resources of the public lands, including sand pits, gravel pits, quarries and timber, without compensation and was granted exemption from taxation. Retired Rear-Admiral Colby Mitchell Chester led the U.S. syndicate, thus the name Chester concession was employed, although the official name of the syndicate was the Ottoman-American Development Company.

Graven remarks

What was left was renamed Izmir. I very much doubt that most clueless Infidels who consider this a 'resort area' have any idea of the region's baleful history.

It was never the intention of the powers to be that the average Joe was to know what happen

In September of 1922, Mustapha Kemal (Ataturk), the victorious revolutionary leader of Turkey, led his troops into Smyrna (now Izmir) a predominantly Christian city, as a flotilla of 27 Allied warships -including 3 American destroyers- looked on. The Turks soon proceeded to indulge in an orgy of pillage, rape and slaughter that the western powers anxious to protect their oil and trade interests in Turkey, condoned by their silence and refusal to intervene. Turkish forces then set fire to the legendary city and totally destroyed it.

What's your point? I have mentioned here *many* time that the West was shameful in its inaction during the Armenian Genocide in general, and the destruction of Smyrna in particular.

The fact is that the genocide of the Armenians and other Infidels in Turkey was one of the few policies pursued with equal zeal by the Ottoman Empire, the interim government, and the New Republic of Turkey. There is some question as to whether Attatürk himself supported the Genocide—what is absolutely clear is that he did nothing to stop it.

The West was involved in the same sort of grotesquely short-sighted "Real Politik" that they often are today—official reaction to the Armenian Genocide was sporadic and utterly inadequate.

There were many British and Americans at the time who urged that their military ships at least pick up those refugees who made it to the quay. Eventually, several officers disobeyed orders and rescued as many refugees as they could, taking them to Greece. Many of these ships made several trips, packing the ships each time.

This action was very little—and very late. Most of the victims were slaughtered.

But the fact is that of the few who did survive the terrible destruction of Smyrna, most were rescued by foreign ships in the harbor. Nothing you say changes that.

This should be a moral lesson to the West today—but it probably won't be. Very few people know this history.

Graven said

What's your point? I have mentioned here *many* time that the West was shameful in its inaction during the Armenian Genocide in general, and the destruction of Smyrna in particular. then goes on to say, Very few people know this history.

Well if not many people know this history, then no harm done telling it one more time.

Here is a very good account of what happen

THE BLIGHT OF ASIA

An Account of the Systematic Extermination of Christian
Populations by Mohammedans and of the Culpability
of Certain Great Powers; with the True Story
of the Burning of Smyrna

By
GEORGE HORTON
For Thirty Years Consul and Consul-General of the United States in the Near East

http://www.pahh.com/horton/

True, Gunung Semeru.

Two good books on this terrible subject are "The Burning Tigris" by Peter Balakian on the entire scope of the Armenian Genocide, and "Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922" by Giles Milton, with the focus, obviously, on Smyrna itself.

I remember reading somewhere that Ataturk said in an interview in the Los Angeles Examiner that "millions of our Christian subjects" were massacred by the Young Turks. On the other hand, if Ataturk was aware of the massacres of Armenians, I doubt he did anything to stop it. Surely he would have noticed the presence of poorly treated Ottoman Armenian soldiers in the labor battalions at Gallipoli. Yet anything which made the Young Turks look bad was good for Ataturk, as they were his political enemies and he sent many of them into exile.

Whatever one thinks of Ataturk, the man was undeniably shrewd and ever the political opportunist. He represented himself as a revolutionary to the Russian communists (the Turks could not have won their independence without their aid), Gazi/Jihadist to the muftis and Anatolian peasants, and nationalist patriot to the urban classes. When Eleftherios Venizelos offered a population exchange between Greece and Turkey, Ataturk jumped at the chance. What my point is, Ataturk was in favor of homogenizing Turkey, and Armenians being massacred would have fit into his plans neatly. No one can deny he had knowledge of the massacres as he ordered general Kazim Karabekir to suppress the fledgling Armenian Republic, in course of which resulting in more massacres. It should be noted that while Karabekir rescued some Armenian orphans, he had them trained in a janissary like fashion to become the core of the new Turkish Army.

http://www.sears.com/library-images-historic-print-m-ishmid-turkey-ranks-of-armenian/p-SPM2730453201P

The picture speaks for itself.

On the other hand, Ataturk may have aimed to prevent any further massacres following the founding of the Republic because he found Armenians (as with Jews) to be useful to his modernizing campaigns. The modern Latin Turkish alphabet was designed by an Armenian and Ataturk's life saved by Berç Keresteciyan, an Armenian banker. Still, I doubt he had any genuine fondness for the Armenians. Enver Pasha too had his life saved by an Armenian soldier named Hovannes during the battle of Sarikamish yet he proceeded to blame Armenians for the loss of that battle.

Good post, lanastalem.

I generally respect Atatürk's suppression of Islam in Turkey--all of Turkey's (comparative) modernity in the 20th-century can be attributed to his policies, which are now being energetically dismantled by Erdogan and the rest of the "Islamists".

But there is absolutely no doubt that he—at best—winked at the continuing Armenian Genocide, which had begun under the Ottoman Empire, continued under the "Young Turks", and then ended in the horrifying destruction of Smyrna. After this, there were only a handful of Armenians surviving in Turkey—mostly in Istanbul (and this remnant would be attacked later on, in the 1950s). Now even fewer remain.

His blaming the Armenian Genocide solely on the "Young Turks" (or the old Ottoman Empire) was clearly propaganda—and meant for Western consumption. Generally, this is the line that the West bought—when they thought about the genocide at all.

Estimates of the final death toll vary, but it is clear that—conservatively—over a million Armenians, Greeks, and Jews were slaughtered between the last decade of the 19th-century until 1922.

I believe we are poised for another horrifying spasm of wholesale "religious cleansing" of Infidels in the Muslim world—in Pakistan, in Iraq, in Syria, in Egypt, and in many other parts of Dar-al-Islam.