Patrick E. Connor Quotes

Over the years Sherman’s advocacy of Indian extermination went beyond the Sioux to all Indians.

Describing events in the battle of Talishatchee, where Tennessee soldiers under General Andrew Jackson wiped out every one of the adult male Red Stick Creek Indians in the settlement in retaliation for their massacre of the population of Fort Mims:

Roosevelt had little respect for Miles who was an enemy of the President’s. Incredibly enough, Roosevelt wrote this sentence in a letter to the general. However, the President’s aids persuaded him not to send the letter not only because it was so confrontational with Miles but it was a Presidential admission that there had been a “massacre” for which the United States military was responsible. For a parallel situation in World War II England, see Winston Churchill {597711}. Roosevelt remembered the incident and later when Miles stepped out of line, Roosevelt ended the general’s career—see {589012}. This quotation when considered against the {588991} quotation demonstrates the very complex nature of TR’s character and views. He did not like Indians and had disparaged them and commented that dead Indians were good Indians. Yet he had a very strong sense of honor and was greatly offended by the massacre of unarmed Indians and women and children.

Lee was guilty but was also the scapegoat and was executed by the Army for his part in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The inquiry stopped with his execution and exactly who wrote and approved Lee’s orders still is not known. Some believe that the authorities made a deal with the Mormon leadership. The Mormons gave up Lee, and the investigation stopped there.

The Colonel defined people capable of bearing arms as males and females over 20 years of age. Many were slaughtered. Fortunately, most of his officers and men did not follow this order but enough did to make it one of the most disgraceful events in American military history. Smith was court marshaled and found guilty but his punishment was to be cashiered from the army. There were many atrocities committed by the minorities of both sides in this brutal war. Military and Congressional Investigations caused the army manual to be revised military policies reformed.

The two groups of Christian minorities in Turkey then were the Greeks and the Armenians. The discrimination against those minorities had been so great that many sought independence for their areas and accepted and gave assistance to Russia and other “enemies” of Turkey. The Turks, instead of distinguishing between those who aided the enemy and those that did not, assumed that all Armenians and Greeks were guilty and began a program of ethnic cleansing and organized murder of the Christians—the Armenians in particular. Unlike Germany, which accepted its guilt for the Holocaust and organized their society to prevent anything like that from ever happening again, the Turks deny the Armenian Genocide and despite clear historical evidence to the contrary, claim that the Armenian deaths were “collateral damage” resulting from the war. This quotation is poignant in that by the time, the Western powers seriously challenged the Armenian genocide, most of the Armenians had been exterminated as Talat admitted.

Saloth Sar Pol Pot. He was responsible for the brutal killing of over 1 million of his own people.

Lawrence of Arabia. In the Middle East, Lawrence led a small Arab army against the Turks and the Germans. In a battle near Tafas, the captured 250 Turkish and German soldiers as prisoners. They them shot them all in cold blood with their Hotchkiss machine gun. What makes this quotation so significant is that one of the great British heroes of WWI was actually guilty of War Crimes. An American journalist gave Lawrence and his exploits great publicity without mentioning the atrocities. The British chain of command also ignored the transgression of one of the most fundamental rules of war even though the clear evidence was in basic battle report files. However, the British never removed the report from the files or destroyed it. The Turks and the Germans while they respected the rules of war with the English, French, and most allies, treated the Arabs much more harshly and murdered Arab prisoners on many occasions. In part this atrocity at Tafas was an act of vengeance and retaliation. But Lawrence never even tried to explain it.

The White Boers viewed themselves as superior to the Blacks and the Blacks and Whites competed for land. In an early form of ethnic cleansing, the Boers attacked the undefended women and children of the Black tribes. The authorities opposed these atrocities but did not have any way of enforcing their orders.

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.

The U.S. was at war with Spain and Filipino insurgents for the control of the Philippines. During this war there were a few senior U. S. Officers who in later times would have been tried and jailed for war crimes. The men under them were brutal and committed atrocities at their orders. See {615368}.

Wilson was referring to the Armenian genocide that was being carried out by Turkey. Under the League of Nations treaty then executed, the League would take over Armenia and end the massacres.

The Christian Armenians, a minority in Turkey and its lands, were discriminated against like other non Muslim minorities in the Ottoman Empire. But during the Turkish War with Russia and WWI, some Armenians defected and served on the Russian side. Many Turkish citizens took revenge on Armenians by means of murder and torture. Soon, the extermination of the Armenians became the official “Young Turk” government policy. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed outright, and about an equal number were “deported” to special areas. Many died of malnutrition along the forced march of Ethnic Cleansing. Others were murdered as they were deported. No one knows exactly how many Armenians were killed with estimates ranging from ½ million to 4 million. This was the first genocide of the 20th century. Modern Turkish leaders however, are in denial about the Armenian deaths. They claim that there was a war and food was scarce; the only Armenians killed, the claimed were proven Russian agents. They further claim that the Armenian behavior was in large part responsible for the forced deportations because of their lack of patriotism and unwillingness to help the Turkish authorities identify the Russian agents. Most Turks today are unaware of the Armenian Genocide as nothing is taught about the massacres in schools or other institutions. It is against the law in Turkey to even have an intellectual study of the Turkish behavior towards the Armenians, much less publish anything about it.

This was part of the continual conflict between the Muslims and the Eastern Orthodox Christians. The Greeks ended up doubling their territory.