More than 1,400 Turks spent New Year’s Eve - also the first day of the Muslim feast Eid al-Adha (or Eid ul Adha; for some unfathomable reason, no two Muslims can agree on a standardized spelling for anything) - in hospital ERs after stabbing or otherwise injuring their hands and legs while sacrificing thousands of cows, sheep, goats and bulls. Four of the injured were crushed by the weight of large animals falling on them; three others suffered fatal heart attacks.
The rite is meant to commemorate G-d having provided a ram for Abraham to sacrifice in place of his son to reward is unquestioning obedience. As part of the ritual, Muslims chant “Allah Akbar” as the unlucky animal’s throat is slit.
Under pressure from the European Union, which Turkey is desperate to join, the government has imposed fines on such “amateur butchers,” who typically slaughter animals in their yards or by the side of the road (second item, “The Daily Blade,” December 18, 2006).
The Stiletto much prefers these inept “amateur” butchers to the ruthless, all-too-professional Ottoman Turks who systematically slaughtered the Armenian people to near-annihilation between 1915 and 1923 (video link; archival news footage and photography).
On a related topic, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial, “Justice for a Tyrant,” on Saddam Hussein’s execution that notes most mass murdering heads of state throughout history escaped punishment for their crimes against humanity:
Stalin and Mao died in their own beds. Hitler escaped the hangman by committing suicide, while Nicolae Ceausescu was shot by a vengeful mob after a perfunctory trial. Idi Amin and Pol Pot were ousted from power but lived into old age without punishment. Slobodan Milosevic made it to trial but died before a verdict could be rendered.
The Wall Street Journal has a moral and historical blind spot when it comes to reporting the Armenian Genocide as settled history – the majority of the paper’s editorial writers and columnists are so pro-Turkey as to be apologists for the Ottomans, repeatedly aiding and abetting Turkey’s ongoing genocide denial.
Thus, The Journal’s editorial did not reach back far enough into 20th century history to divulge what happened to the triumvirate of Young Turks who orchestrated the mass murders of Armenians. Here’s what The Journal left out:
† Minister of War Ismail Enver (AKA Enver Pasha) was killed leading a cavalry charge against an advancing Armenian batallion of the Red Army on August 4, 1922, near Baldzhuan in Turkestan.
† Ottoman Governor of Syria Ahmed Djemal (AKA Jemal Pasha) was assassinated by by Stepan Dzaghigian on July 21, 1922 in Tiflis, a town in Russian Caucasia.
† Minister of the Interior Mehmed Talaat (AKA Talaat Pasha) was assassinated in Berlin in 1921 by Soghomon Tehlirian, Tehlirian was acquitted of murder by a jury in Berlin.
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