Keller @ Large: How A Big Lie Persists
BOSTON (CBS) - The facts are not in serious dispute.
Between 1915 and 1923 the Ottoman Empire, precursor to today's Republic of Turkey, systematically exterminated 1.5 million Armenians, a precursor to the Holocaust which is considered the modern world's first act of genocide, the deliberate mass killing of a targeted group.
The documentary evidence is overwhelming - photos, eyewitness accounts, the journalism of the time.
Monday was Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day around the world and thousands marched in Yerevan, burning the Turkish flag and displaying the flags of some of the 28 nations that formally acknowledge what occurred as genocide.
But despite the fact that 45 out of 50 U.S. states recognize the genocide, including Massachusetts, where there is a memorial to the horror in downtown Boston, the U.S. government still does not call this slaughter by its rightful name.
Donald Trump is the latest president to shirk this responsibility, conforming in his statement Monday to the Turkish government preferred language.
President Barack Obama actually promised Armenians he would call it genocide if elected, then reneged on that vow. When confronted on that a couple of years ago and told that even the pope calls it genocide, Obama had the nerve to claim the pope doesn't face the political pressures that he does.
This is a blight on the notion that truth and justice are part of the American way.
If even the U.S. is willing to be intimidated by Turkish politicians from telling the truth about one of mankind's worst atrocities, then an awful truth becomes apparent - fake news has won, and grotesque denial is ascendant.
