Talk:Niles and Sutherland Report

This did not take long. It is customary to at least explain what part of this article if at all is unobjective or contradict known and referenced facts.--Murat (talk) 19:13, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

POV Problems
This article is full of unencyclopaedic, POV, and weasel-worded phrases.

For example, it claims that the report was "in great contrast to the reports the American public was fed during the War", weasily implying that those earlier reports (which the article decribes using the highly POV term "anti-Turkish propaganda"), reports that were based on eyewitness accounts btw, were all wrong, and this single report (an after-the-event report) is all right. A more realistic view would be to suggest that the majority wasm ore likely to be correct and this report, a minority of one, is the suspicious one. The article contradicts information contained in other Wikipedia articles. For example, it states that "Van's Armenians who were approximately a quarter of the city population were gone" (weasily avoiding mentioning how they got to be "gone"). However, from those sources that give population figures, it is clear that Armenians actually comprised the majority of the population of pre-1915 Van city. The one-sidedness of the content continues by claiming that there were "close to one hundred thousand in the whole province" of Van (i.e. 100,000 Muslims) and only 700 Armenians. The Ottoman Empire's own statistics (cited in the Van entry) gives 179,422 Muslims and 67,797 Armenians living in the whole of the vilayet. So the Muslim population has gone down from 179,000 to 100,000 and the Armenian population has gone down from 67,000 to 700! So, we see clear POV distortion in a text that falsely claims "Two thirds of the pre-war Muslim population was no longer there", but declines to say that 67,000 Armenians (99% of the pre-war Armenian population) were no longer there, in a text that cries out about "destruction in the hands of Armenians", yet does not mention the far greater "destruction at the hands of Turks". Are these POV distortions a result of distortions by the article's creator, distortions by the writer of the sources, or an indication of the propagandistic-nature of the source material (the report)? Certainly, a fundamental flaw in the article is that the author of its two sources is a well-know manufacturer of Armenian Genocide denialist propaganda. Meowy 19:37, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

As usual, you confuse the facts, with opinions. This is not an article where I express my feelings and prejudices, that is what many others do. This is just about the Niles and Sutherland Report. I did not inject any other interpretations or extranous commentary. This is just a synopsis of what THEY bserved, heard and wrote. But I will surely take your complaints to Mr. Niles and Mr. Sutherland.--Murat (talk) 04:04, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * This article is not about the Niles and Sutherland Report, it is a platform for your POV warring of non-academic and marginal opinions. Even a casual look at that report reveals the extreme distortions of it that are being made by you in this article. It's little wonder you don't know the difference between facts and opinions. Meowy 16:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

NPOV Violation
''The report is significant as its findings and conclusions sharply contrast the war time anti-Turkish propaganda, and it was one of those rare occasions where an outside commission had a chance to observe facts on ground directly and listen to the local Muslim population without interference. It gives a good and rare glimpse of the physical and emotional state of the region that had just recently experienced so much cruelty and destruction.''

Is a violation of NPOV according to this, Let the reader decide and needs to be removed. --Kansas Bear (talk) 22:42, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

On the contrary. This is not a personal opinion. Highlighting in a sentence the significane of the document and putting in context is what an article should do. The reaction from certain pov editors makes the case I think. I am not sure what the objection is. Is the concern that the above quoted sentence is not accurate or true? Why sprinkle citation requests where none is warranted, seems to me a form of spamming. The original of the report is not where it should be. This is a report to congress, does not just walk away, it was discovered by accident. What part needs a reference? --Murat (talk) 18:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * On the contrary, it is a direct violation of Let the reader decide. You are TELLING the reader what to decide, instead of simply letting the article do that itself. Since you clearly don't understand this, I'll notify an admin. As for citation requests, get over it. I have the right to ask for a citation. Just because you can't handle facts and think that a "commission" that shows up 4 YEARS AFTER the massacres and mass deportations will change the facts of the matter is quite amusing. If anything, a paragraph should be written stating that this commission shows up 4 YEARS AFTER the event in question. That would illustrate to the reader(s), that using common sense, you aren't going to find much evidence. --Kansas Bear (talk) 20:05, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Everything is dated, nothing is left to guess. Actual readers have more common sense than you give them credit for.  What is this 4 years?  WWI ended in 1918.  There was fighting in the area through 1917-18.  As usual a pov overreach... cant handle truth?--Murat (talk) 04:07, 2 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Having a difficult time reading, again, I see. Let's try it again. You are TELLING the reader what to decide, instead of simply letting the article do that itself. If you want to stray from the topic of violating NPOV then that is your choice. Your issue is, you can't deal with the fact that you only made this article to TELL people what you believe, not to show facts. That is the only reason for that statement. You've shown no reason why the statement should be in the article, only your typical nationalistic whine of truth and how anything written recognizing the AG is propaganda. --Kansas Bear (talk) 05:05, 2 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I read 4 years in bold rather well. I think I see your point also, but your very reaction validates the ACCURATE summary of the report I have made.  This is exactly why the report is signficant.  The authors could not have known it 80 yrs ago! We could have just copy-pasted the report itself here, but we don't.  The real problem seems to be your inability to handle truth.  If you are so particular about statements, there a few articles I would like to bring to your attention that are in desparate need of cleansing of subjective opining.--Murat (talk) 05:30, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The situation is still largely as I characterised it at the start of August. The article is still less about the Niles and Sutherland Report and more like a platform for Murat to post his own POV interpretations. The core of the article should consist of a factual account of the mission and its subsequent report. The published opinions of others about the mission and the report, such as from the likes of McCarthy, should always be presented as just that, opinions, and those opinions should be presented separately and should not be allowed to stray off-topic. The personal opinions of Murat should not appear in the article at all. Meowy  03:09, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
 * McCarthy speculations about the reasons why there is no trace of the interviews and copies because they have been most probably destroyed has just more than a tint of dishonesty, because his naive readers could believe they were destroyed to hide a truth. The draft, the so-called investigation, was addressed to Constantinople, to Rear Admiral Mark Lambert Bristol just few couple of days after he became high commissioner and his first doing was to try dismantling the Harbor commission. The copies and records of the interviews should be in Bristol files, if anyone destroyed them, he most probably was the first to be blamed since no file Bristol wanted to be read have ever vanished, just those he did not want to, like original interviews (eg. those concerning the fire of Smyrna, for instance) of his extraordinary claims. It's not as if Bristol never forced witnesses to change their reports and sign false testimonies something plainly documented needless to add, as I'm sure Murat is fully aware of it. Alternatively, the only things copies and actual interview records should be required to support would be stuff like the conclusion of this investigation, which is that Armenians caused the death of 3/4 of the Ottoman population and the destruction of 6/7 of the Ottoman buildings. Sagain popularized maxim: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence puts the onus on the claimer, hardly on the conspirationist anti-Turk gestapo McCarthy sees everywhere, to explain where those mysterious interviews are. The simple reason why this investigation was ignored was because there is other than the draft, no material provided supporting the beyond reason allegations which it contains. Even Bristol who never missed an occasion was careful not to mention such an investigation when all the existing materials were sent to him since addressed to Constantinople. No surprise that self deceiving revisionists recycle the same easily dismissable stories repeatedly without even realizing the content of the materials defeat the material themselves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by XrAi (talk • contribs) 16:45, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Much speculation and bottom line is that report original was NOT where it was supposed to be. The unsigned makes false assumptions (naturally) about what I "must" know. I do not know everything, but I know what I know. Missing documents and books is rather widespread by the way and not unique here. More than a few scholars have noticed that many original documents and rare books contradicting some of the fundementals of the Armenian myths have been disappearing from world libraries. I had taken care not to inject any "personal" opinions, but a concise summary of the report. This is obvious to anyone who has bothered to read the whole thing of course. You should look into some the armenian nationalist infested articles to see good examples of opinion injection. Only a farce requires such elaborate protection from the light of day.--Murat (talk) 04:01, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Setting aside the paranoia from Murat, it is correct to say that certain producers of Armenian Genocide denialist tracts have made the bizarre claim that, basically, "Armenians have methodically gone through every archive and every library throughout the world, removing all material that would serve to disprove the Armenian Genocide". This claim shows the depth that those denialists have to stoop to justify their academically unjustifiable views. I also think these "discovery" claims reflect the egos of those involved in producing those tracts. McCarthy is very much a third-rater, so it suits him to make claims he has discovered something that everyone else has overlooked. The fact that his claimed "discovery" was of a document already contained in a national archive, catalogued in that archive, and cited by name in other reports, shows how little of a "discovery" it was. (See the case of Perinçek and his "discovery" in a library of an unabridged copy of Katchaznouni's 1923 ARF report for a similar example). Meowy 16:02, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I intend to remove the text "This was in great contrast to the reports received by the American public during the War by the Armenians and the missionaries in the area friendly to them". Its reference is a book published in 1917. A book published in 1917 cannot be referring to a report published in 1919! This is either Murat placing his own opinions into the article, or Murat getting this content from one of McCarthy's propaganda books. If McCarthy is claiming something then it has to be clear that it is McCarthy's opinion that such and such is the case (with a page citation). Meowy 19:59, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you do not engage in edit waring here too. You have already attracted much attention due to your blatant violations. If you are not satisfied with all the pov distortions you made already and outright remove the modest summary I had made, which is referenced, then this gives me an opportunity to expand it with direct quotes from the report itself. Your stalking me through wikipedia is amusing, childish but a bit tiring.--Murat (talk) 03:59, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I said I intended to remove the invalid text and gave you the reason why it is invalid, thus giving you the chance to rewrite it. If you do not avail yourself of that opportunity, I will remove the text. That text already had a citation required tag on it for a month. A book published in 1917 cannot be used as a source to characterise a report published in 1919! Meowy 15:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Rather than removing the text I have attempted to rewrite it. Meowy 18:14, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Another transparent attempt at blunting the significance of the report. What exactly this rewrite improve?  Seems to only obscure.  This report is exclusively about Van and Bitlis, the areas Harbosrd did NOT cover, the areas for which Harbord counted on this very report!  So how can Harbord report be contrasted with this report?  The contrast WAS with the incessant reports of barbarity of Turks that West was fed by unobjective parties for decades and the state of affairs Niles and Sutherland observed on ground.  That was what you removed and in a way only a petty mind can, think this will be considered and improvment.--Murat (talk) 18:47, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I gave you a week to rewrite your contribution: surely you must understand that a 1917 book cannot be used as a source to characterise a report published in 1919! The characterisation had been fact tagged for over a month before you added that invalid source. So who is making that "contrast" you talk about? You? In which case it is OR. Or is it McCarthy? In which case why are you not saying that it is McCarthy? Meowy 20:21, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Given that Hudavendigar has declined to rewrite that paragraph, and that his response to my attempt at rewriting it was simply to revert, I have now removed it. Meowy 18:07, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Another evidence that anyone can pretend to know stuff they know nothing about here. Documents are very often wrongly classified, it was the case with Leslie Davis reports about the massacres which were uncovered at the wrong section mixed with irrelevant files and some of his dated reports were missing (in fact, even McCarthy provides such inconsistencies with the classification of Ottoman statistics, his knowledge of the archives and the fact that he could not have ignored that it is common, makes of his misleading remarks an indication of dishonesty). Your reference to Ussher makes no sense at all, did you take the time to read his memoir about the events? He clearly reports massacres of Muslims by Armenians, your injection of weasel words in order to mislead those who read the article is plainly dishonest. Concise summary of the report or not, I don't see you having added the most important thing about this report, its conclusion, which says that Armenians have caused the death of 3/4 of the Ottoman population and the destruction of 7/8 of its buildings. Why don't you add this info? Don't you agree that this conclusion could have explained why it could have never been used by the Harbord Commission because it was tainted by the same allegations prepared by the Kemalists and published in pamphlets and booklets and presented by the Turkish delegations? The fact remains that anything under Bristol guidance is untrustworthy. As an example, we can read the reports of Prentiss about the fire in Smyrna, where he reports what he witnessed with others then makes a 180 degree turn under Bristol command. —Preceding unsigned comment added by XrAi (talk • contribs) 06:46, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

More attempts at giving opinion
''The observations reported by Niles and Sutherland was in great contrast to the reports received by the American public during the War. The Armenians and the Christian missionaries in the area friendly to them had so far only detailed the sufferings of the Armenians in the region.''
 * Where in the Niles Sutherland Report does it say this?
 * Also, neither reference, for those sentences, state anything of that nature. From page 190 of Ussher's book, via provided link....
 * ...by a master sculptor in glistening white marble, but at dawn in summer-time they were a velvety pale pink shading into lavender, and deepening into purple under the noonday sun.
 * Page 110 of Knapp's book mentions nothing specific of either Turks or Armenians..
 * rushed down past the camp to water the fields of the village whose ant-hill-like houses in their setting of green trees were just visible from the edge of the Knapp terrace. It was a place absolutely shut in by mountains and the world shut out --" a haunt of ancient peace." The word "home" has always brought instantly the picture of this quiet retreat before the inner eye of one, at least, whose childhood summers were spent there. But now the picture is as instantly followed by the stabbing remind that Cindian also became in 1915 the scene of hideous carnage; that those simple viallagers were then butchered; that many of the girlish playmates of long ago have as women endured torture, shame and death. The death of her husband, the massacre of 1895, the deportation of her son, events which followed each other within a year, almost crushed Mrs. Knapp's brave spirit. She returned to America in 1896. Here she found new service awaiting her, service in behalf of those she loved, and to it she gave herself unstintedly, self-sacrificingly, year after year. Always keenly interested in affairs, keeping... --Kansas Bear (talk) 05:16, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Way too quick to wholesale revert. Proper sequence is FIRST discuss. I will remove wrong page numbers and just include Ussher, which is widely cited.--Murat (talk) 05:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC) Ussher: '...did all in their power to keep the peace...So they told the Armenians to submit to anything rather than antagonize the government; to submit to the burning of two or three villages, the murder of a dozen men, without attempts at retaliation that would give the Turks excuse for a general massacre. (p118)--Murat (talk) 05:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


 * That still doesn't reference either sentence. --Kansas Bear (talk) 05:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * And re-adding Knapp's book? Pity you can even begin to support YOUR opinion here. --Kansas Bear (talk) 05:51, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


 * This is Original Research, plain and simple. --Kansas Bear (talk) 18:01, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Would it make everyone happy if I were to open a new section titled "Significance of the Report" or something similar and appropriate?--Murat (talk) 20:52, 22 November 2009 (UTC)


 * You mean, "Murat's personal opinion of Niles and Sutherland Report". This has already been labeled POV and Original Research by two uninvolved editors. Also, you need to read about primary sources. A heading will not remove the FACT that neither source supports the sentences in question. --Kansas Bear (talk) 21:13, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I really do not get your point. If you were to say tomorrow is Monday, is that an opinion, or a fact? To me that is a fact, not a statement and not an opinion. If I were to say N&S wrote such and such in their report becasue they felt this or that way, now that would be an opinion. No?--Murat (talk) 00:52, 23 November 2009 (UTC)