She Survivied Hitler But Is Concerned About America

Kitty Werthmann survived Hitler.

“What I am about to tell you is something you’ve probably never heard or read in history books,” she likes to tell audiences.

“I am a witness to history.

“I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history.

Adolph Hitler

“We voted him in.”

If you remember the plot of the Sound of Music, the Von Trapp family escaped over the Alps rather than submit to the Nazis. Kitty wasn’t so lucky. Her family chose to stay in her native Austria. She was 10 years old, but bright and aware. And she was watching.

“We elected him by a landslide – 98 percent of the vote,” she recalls.

She wasn’t old enough to vote in 1938 – approaching her 11th birthday. But she remembers.

“Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.”

No so.

Hitler is welcomed to Austria

“In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25 percent inflation and 25 percent bank loan interest rates.

Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn’t want to work; there simply weren’t any jobs.

“My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people – about 30 daily.’

“We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933.” she recalls. “We had been told that they didn’t have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living.

Austrian girls welcome Hitler

“Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group – Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone in Germany was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria. We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back.

“Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.

“We were overjoyed,” remembers Kitty, “and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed.

Austrians saluting

“After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service.

“Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn’t support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage.

“Then we lost religious education for kids

Poster promoting “Hitler Youth”

“Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school.. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn’t pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles,’ and had physical education.

“Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail.”

And then things got worse.

“The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free.

“We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.

“My mother was very unhappy,” remembers Kitty. “When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn’t do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun – no sports, and no political indoctrination.

“I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing.

A pro-Hitler rally

“Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time, unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler.

“It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.

“Then food rationing began

“In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death.

“Women who stayed home to raise their families didn’t have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.

“Soon after this, the draft was implemented.

Young Austrians

“It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps,” remembers Kitty. “During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys.

“They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines.

“When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat.

“Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.

“When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers.

“You could take your children ages four weeks old to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, seven days a week, under the total care of the government.

“The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.

“Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna..

“After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything.

“When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full.

“

If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.

“As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80 percent of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families.

“All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.

“We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables.

“ Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn’t meet all the demands.

“Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.

“We had consumer protection, too

Austrian kids loyal to Hitler

“We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, and then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.

“In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps. The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated.

“So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work.

“I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van.

“I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months.

“They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness.

“As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia.

“Then they took our guns

“Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long afterwards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.

Kitty Werthmann

“No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.

“Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.”

“This is my eye-witness account.

“It’s true. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity.

“America is truly is the greatest country in the world.

“Don’t let freedom slip away.

“After America, there is no place to go.”

Lies, Damned Lies And Gun Control

Mark Twain once lamented that there were “lies, damned lies and statistics”, with the third being the most deceptive at all. I was reminded of this the other evening when examining a “hit piece” that was circulating on Facebook last Friday in the aftermath of the horrific mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

I was feeling a bit wonkish and I thought I would look up some statistics on violence and gun ownership around the world. One study I found was from the 2007 Small Arms Survey that dealt with the number of guns per capita in 177 nations around the world. The other was a 2012 U.N. study on the number of intentional homicides in nations around the world.

While I am not a professional statistician, we can conclude one thing: there simply is no correlation between the murder rates and rates of firearms ownership.
Let’s first consider the countries on the above graphic:

• Japan has almost no gun ownership.
• England has a low rate of gun ownership.
• Switzerland ranks fourth in the world in guns per capita.
• Canada ranks thirteenth in the world in guns per capita.
• Israel has a moderate rate of guns per capita.
• Sweden ranks tenth in the world in guns per capita.
• Germany ranks fifteenth in the world in guns per capita.
• The United States has the highest gun ownership rate on earth.

Now let’s consider just a few statistics from the two surveys:

• Honduras has the highest homicide rate on earth, and a gun ownership rate similar to that of Great Britain.
• Rounding out the top five countries for highest homicide rate are El Salvador, the Ivory Coast, Jamaica and Venezuela, all of which have fairly low rates of gun ownership.
• North Korea has a homicide rate over three times that of the United States and almost no gun ownership.
• Yemen has the third highest rate of gun ownership and a homicide rate about equal to that of the United States. Serbia, with the second highest rate of gun ownership, has a homicide rate about one-third that of the United States.
• Norway ranks eleventh in the world in gun ownership and near the bottom in homicide. (Yes, someone went nutzoid there in the summer of 2011. However, five million other Norwegians didn’t.)
• Mexico has the same rate of gun ownership as Australia, and 16 times the homicide rate.
• Several dozen countries have higher homicide rates than the United States.

On Friday evening, I posted the following graphic about gun control and received some interesting comments.

One person was most indignant that I would make a connection between the genocide of Nazi Germany and the murder of innocents in Newtown, Connecticut. Both were gun-free zones where victim disarmament did not prevent mass murder.

Another asked why every government of a disarmed nation is not killing their own citizens en masse. To be sure, not every disarmed nation has experienced genocide. However, numerous genocides – e.g., Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, North Korea – have followed citizen disarmament. Do you want to run that risk here in America?

The issue is not gun ownership. Rather, it is the evil that resides in the human heart. Depriving people of a tool – any tool – will not cure this. If people intent on crime cannot use one tool, they will use another. And when someone wants to victimize you, do you, in that most dreadful of moments, want to be denied the means of self-defense?

No?

Me neither.

And just what if someone at Sandy Hook Elementary School had been armed on the morning of December 14? How many innocent lives would have been spared?

Gun Control And Genocide Go Hand In Hand

Sunday, April 24^th marked the 90^th anniversary of the first genocide of the twentieth century: the Turkish government's slaughter of over a million unarmed Armenians.

 The key word is "unarmed."The Turks got away with it under the cover of wartime. They suffered no greater postwar reprisals for this act of genocide than if they had not conducted mass murder of a peaceful people.

Other governments soon took note of this fact. It seemed like such a convenient international precedent.

Seventy-nine years after that genocide began, Hotel Rwanda opened for business.

The Hutus also got away with it. Ironically, at least a decade before – I wish I could remember the date – Harper's ran an article predicting this genocide for this reason: the Hutus had machine guns. The Tutsis didn't. The article was written as a kind of parable, not a politically specific forecast. I remember reading it at the time and thinking, "If I were a Tutsi, I'd emigrate."

It did not pay to be a civilian in the twentieth century. The odds were against you.

BAD NEWS FOR CIVILIANS

The twentieth century, more than any century in recorded history, was the century of man's inhumanity to man. A memorable phrase, that. But it is misleading. It should be modified: "Governments' inhumanity to unarmed civilians." In the case of genocide, however, this is not easily dismissed as collateral damage on a wartime enemy. It is deliberate extermination.

The twentieth century began officially on January 1, 1901. At that time, one major war was in full swing, so let us begin with it. That was the United States' war against the Philippines, whose citizens had the naïve notion that liberation from Spain did not imply colonization by the United States. 

McKinley and then Roosevelt sent 126,000 troops to the Philippines to teach them a lesson in modern geopolitics. We had bought the Philippines fair and square from Spain for $20 million in December, 1898. The fact that the Philippines had declared independence six months earlier was irrelevant. A deal's a deal. Those being purchased had nothing to say about it.

Back then, we did body counts of enemy combatants. The official estimate was 16,000 dead. Some unofficial estimates place this closer to 20,000. As for civilians, then as now, there were no official U.S.-reported figures. The low-ball estimate is 250,000 dead. The high estimate is one million.

Then World War I opened the floodgates – or, more accurately, the bloodgates.

TURKEY, 1915

The diplomatic game is always verbal. The G-word is verboten. Turks accept – though resent – "tragedy." Hence, all official reports from government-funded sources all over the world – except Armenia – refer to the "Armenian tragedy." This game of diplomacy has been going on since the end of World War I. Reagan was the only President to have used the correct term. President Bush diplomatically used "mass killings" in his a 2003 reference to the event. He also referred to "what many Armenian people have come to call the ‘Great Calamity.'" Many Armenians call it this? Really? Name two. He also said:

I also salute our wise and bold friends from Armenia and Turkey who are coming together in a spirit of reconciliation to consider these events and their significance. I applaud them for rising above bitterness, and taking action to create a better future. I wish them success, building on their recent and significant achievements, as they work together in a spirit of hope and understanding.

Again, name two.

Not being even remotely diplomatic in matters genocidal, I prefer to use the dreaded G-word. The Armenian genocide of 1915 had been preceded by a partial ethnic cleansing, which took two years, 1895 – 97. About 200,000 Armenians were executed.

This event served as the background for Elia Kazan's great movie, America, America (1963), which was nominated for the Oscar in 1964. Kazan tells a fictionalized version of his Greek uncle's emigration to America. Kazan's family followed in 1913. The movie begins with a Greek and an Armenian, friends, who are warned by their former military officer, a Turk, of trouble coming. It comes. Turkish officials lock the Armenian along with other Armenians inside a church. Then they burn it down. The Greek sees this. He vows to get out of the Ottoman Empire and go to America. The movie traces his journey. America was a sanctuary. If ever there was a movie on America, the sanctuary, it's America, America.

The Armenians were easily identifiable. Centuries earlier, the conquering Ottoman Turks had forced them to add the "ian/yan" sound to their last names. They were dispersed throughout the empire, so they did not possess the same kind of geographical concentrations and strongholds that other Christians did in Greece and the Balkans. They never did organize armed resistance forces. That was what led to their destruction. They could not fight back.

They were envied because they were rich and better educated than the ruling society. They were the businessmen of the Ottoman Empire. The same was true in Russia. The same resentment existed in Russia, though not with the intensity of the resentment in Turkey.

Non-Turkish estimates range from 800,000 to 1.5 million Armenians killed. Most of these deaths were low-tech but high efficiency. The army rounded up hundreds or thousands of civilians, drove them into wilderness areas, and waited until they starved to death. 

GENOCIDE? NONSENSE!

It is still the official position of the Turkish government that this was not genocide; it was a relocation for military reasons. You see, there was a revolt being planned by Armenians and Russians in the border region of Van. This was the explanation provided in 1915 by the Turkish Consol General in New York, in a statement published in the October 15, 1915 issue of the New York Times. An autonomous republic was set up in Van, which was run by someone named Aram. (We read it here first.)

Then, somehow, things just got out of hand. The government was powerless. You know: just like all other governments during wartime with respect to the activities of officials in defense of the nation. Helpless. What's a government to do? Therefore, in recent days, a minor official for the Turkish government has apologized.

"We apologize to the Armenians for us and our ancestors not having been able to prevent the Genocide." These are the words of Jashar Arif, representative of the International Exchange Confederation, who is a Turk. He has arrived in Armenia together with several other Turks to take part in the events of the 90^th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

The Turkish government still maintains that the rulers had expected the Armenians to join with Russians to fight Turkey. As recently as April 24, the Philadelphia Enquirer reported that Yasar Yakis, the head of the Turkish Parliament's European Union Affairs Committee, explained the reasons for the relocations. "The Armenians were relocated because they cooperated with the enemy, the Russians, and they . . . killed Ottoman soldiers from behind the lines."

Armenians were systematically killed all over the Empire, not just on the Russian border. Relocation to a camp usually means providing food, shelter, and basic amenities. It doesn't mean letting people starve in the wilderness.

The written text of the government's order is controversial. It was a state secret. One version was smuggled out of Turkey in 1916. It is posted online. As with all such secret orders, it should not be accepted automatically. But it serves as a starting point for full-scale research: open archives openly arrived at.

Our fellow countrymen, the Armenians, who form one of the racial elements of the Ottoman Empire, having taken up, as a result of foreign instigation for many years past, with a lot of false ideas of a nature to disturb the public order; and because of the fact that they brought about bloody happenings and have attempted to destroy the peace and security of the Ottoman state, and the safety and interests of their fellow countrymen, as well as of themselves; and, moreover, as they have now dared to join themselves to the enemy of their existence [i.e., Russia] and to the enemies now at war with our state – our Government is compelled to adopt extraordinary measures and sacrifices, both for the preservation of the order and security of the country and for the welfare and the continuation of the existence of the Armenian community. 

Therefore, as a measure to be applied until the conclusion of the war, the Armenians have to be sent away to places which have been prepared in the interior villages; and a literal obedience to the following orders, in a categorical manner, is accordingly enjoined on all Ottomans: 

First. – All Armenians, with the exception of the sick, are obliged to leave within five days from the date of this proclamation, by villages or quarters, and under the escort of the gendarmerie. 

Second. – Though they are free to carry with them on their journey the articles of their movable property which they desire, they are forbidden to sell their lands and their extra effects, or to leave the latter here and there with other people, because their exile is only temporary and their landed property, and the effects they will be unable to take with them, will be taken care of under the supervision of the Government, and stored in closed and protected buildings. Anyone who sells or attempts to take care of his movable effects or landed property in a manner contrary to this order, shall be sent before the Court Martial. They are free to sell to the Government only the articles which may answer the needs of the Army. 

Third. – Contains a promise of safe conduct. 

Fourth. – A threat against anyone attempting to molest them on the way. 

Fifth. – Since the Armenians are obliged to submit to this decision of the Government, if some of them attempt to use arms against the soldiers or gendarmes, arms shall be employed against them and they shall be taken, dead or alive. In like manner those who, in opposition to the Government's decision, refrain from leaving or seek to hide themselves – if they are sheltered or given food and assistance, the persons who thus shelter or aid them shall be sent before the Court Martial for execution.

What happened subsequently was fully consistent with this order.

The Turkish government said in 1989 that the archives regarding the non-existent genocide were now open. But, as it turned out, they were not open to Armenians studying the non-existent genocide.

What the archives prove, according to the Turkish government, is that the Turks were the victims of mass murder by Armenians. Yes, it's hard to believe. But that's what the archives show. We can take the Turkish government's word for this. On April 25, a report appeared on the website of the International Relations and Security Network which is partially funded by the Swiss defense agency. Here, we read:

Armenians say at least 1 million of their ethnic kin died between 1915 – 17 as a result of a deliberate policy of extermination. They say the policy was initiated by the Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti), or CUP, which then ruled over the empire. Ankara claims the death toll is grossly inflated and that 300,000 Armenians died during these years.

 It also says the deaths were the result of negligence, interethnic strife, or wartime operations. It says the CUP leaders – also known as the Young Turks – had no intention of wiping out the empire's largest remaining Christian community. While admitting to the massive deportations of 1915 – which followed the massacre of 200,000 Greeks – Turkey's official historiography says the transfers were aimed at preventing Armenians from collaborating with Russia. Tsarist Russia was then at war with the Ottoman Empire and its German ally. Turkey's official historiography also asserts that more than 500,000 Turks died at the hands of Armenians between 1910 – 1922.

On April 25, 2005 – hot off the TurkishPress.com site – we learn of that ruthless counter-genocide.

Turkish Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy leader Onur Oymen said on Monday, "if you must express grief about Armenian casualties, you also have to talk about more than half a million Turks who were killed in the same incidents."

In a written statement, Oymen said that the decision of the U.S. president Bush not to use the term "genocide" represents the reality. We must not be too happy about Mr. Bush's statements, told Oymen. "We know for sure that 513,000 Turks were butchered by Armenians. Don't we have a right to ask for sympathy for the murdered Turks?"

"If you are going to mention these incidents and express grief for the Armenians who lost their lives in those incidents, it is our right to expect a word of sympathy for more than half million Turks in the same incidents."

All right, his story is a bit scrambled. It's now up to 513,000 Turks in 1915 – 17, rather than 500,000 Turks 1912-22. But it's all there. In the archives. We are also assured by a spokesman of the Turkish Ministry of Justice that Turkey has had enough of this genocide nonsense. Quite enough. On April 25, 2005, TurkishPress.com posted this story.

Turkish Minister of Justice and Government Spokesman Cemil Cicek has indicated that, after many years of leaving the issue of so-called genocide to historians, it is now high time for Turkey to start disproving all allegations in various countries.

High time, indeed! Those historians, tied as they are to misleading primary source documents, simply cannot be trusted. They do not pay sufficient attention to primary source documents of official Turkish assurances for 90 years that nothing was happening or had happened, preferring instead to cite unreliable eyewitness accounts of what did happen. Armenian political influence is behind this.

Cicek noted that Armenians influenced the parliaments of the countries in which they are powerful and succeeded in obtaining parliament decisions in their favor in 15 countries.

Ah, yes: the well-known Armenian International Network, which dominates parliaments around the world.

As Turks, we wished that, instead of turning incidents of the past into a topic of hatred and anger, they should be brought to daylight by the historians with an approach looking at the future. . . .

Based on our archives and confidence in our history and culture, we can say that no genocide took place.

THE BLUE BOOK

What has stuck in the craw of the Turkish government for almost 90 years is an official report issued by the British government, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915–1916. If you don't think governments stick by their official versions of history, consider this April 22, 2005 story in London's Financial Times.

Turkey challenges genocide ‘fraud'

By Vincent Boland in Ankara

Published: April 22 2005

The Turkish parliament was yesterday preparing to ask the UK to repudiate a historical document that is considered to form the basis of the claim that Armenians were victims of genocide by Ottoman Turks during the first world war.

The initiative comes on the eve of Sunday's 90^th anniversary commemorations among Armenians of what they regard as the start of the massacre of up to 1.5m people.

The move is likely to exacerbate the bitter dispute between Turks and Armenians. Supporters of the Armenian cause, particularly in France, are lobbying for the European Union to delay the start of Turkey's accession talks for EU membership until Turkey acknowledges a "systematic extermination" in 1915.

Turkish MPs completed and signed a letter to both houses of the UK parliament arguing that the document was "a fraud based on fabrications, half truths and biased reports and perceptions" of what happened and "a masterpiece of propaganda and tool of deception".

The document, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-1916, was written by the British historian Arnold Toynbee and included in a publication known as the Blue Book, by Viscount Bryce, a British diplomat. It was an official Westminster document, which is why the Turkish parliament wants the House of Commons and House of Lords to act.

Turkey rejects the charge of genocide. It insists that the true death toll among Armenians was about 600,000 and that many died from the effects of civil war, starvation and deportation. It says the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Turks at the time are overlooked.

The letter, which was made available yesterday by the Turkish parliament in the original Turkish and in English translation, will be sent to London imminently.

The letter says British propaganda in the first world war aimed to portray the destruction of the Ottoman Empire as a key aim of the war, to "render British colonialism in Anatolia and Mesopotamia palatable", and to encourage the US to join the Allied side. The Ottoman Empire collapsed into many nations after the war. Its Anatolian heartland is now Turkey.

The British embassy in Ankara declined to comment on the letter. Some Turkish historians say the document has stood the test of time; others say Mr Toynbee later distanced himself from its findings, which were based on eyewitness accounts.

The official UK position is that the massacres were "an appalling tragedy" but that the evidence is not "sufficiently unequivocal" to categorise them as genocide under the 1948 United Nations Convention on Genocide.

The letter says British propaganda in the first world war aimed to portray the destruction of the Ottoman Empire as a key aim of the war, to "render British colonialism in Anatolia and Mesopotamia palatable", and to encourage the US to join the Allied side. The Ottoman Empire collapsed into many nations after the war. Its Anatolian heartland is now Turkey.

The British embassy in Ankara declined to comment on the letter. Some Turkish historians say the document has stood the test of time; others say Mr Toynbee later distanced himself from its findings, which were based on eyewitness accounts.

The official UK position is that the massacres were "an appalling tragedy" but that the evidence is not "sufficiently unequivocal" to categorise them as genocide under the 1948 United Nations Convention on Genocide.

Viscount James Bryce was a master historian. His book, The American Commonwealth (1888), is still read by American historians as a primary source document regarding educated English opinion about America. He served as Ambassador to the United States from 1907–13.

The name Arnold Toynbee may ring a bell. By the 1950s, he was one of the most prominent historians on earth. His 12-volume study (1934–61) of 26 civilizations is unprecedented in its breadth. The Treatment of Armenians was his first major publication.

Why some Armenian organization has not bought a copy of Adobe Acrobat Pro 7 and scanned in the full volume, with the documents, remains a mystery to me. The book is in the public domain: pre-1923. But Toynbee's summary is online. This section, which appears in Part VI, "The Deportations of 1915: Procedure," is enlightening. Read it carefully. It is the crucial aspect of the entire genocide. The government confiscated their guns.

A decree went forth that all Armenians should be disarmed The Armenians in the Army were drafted out of the fighting ranks, re-formed into special labour battalions, and set to work at throwing up fortifications and constructing roads. The disarming of the civil population was left to the local authorities, and in every administrative centre a reign of terror began. The authorities demanded the production of a definite number of arms.

 Those who could not produce them were tortured, often in fiendish ways; those who procured them for surrender, by purchase from their Moslem neighbours or by other means, were imprisoned for conspiracy against the Government. Few of these were young men, for most of the young had been called up to serve; they were elderly men, men of substance and leaders of the Armenian community, and it became apparent that the inquisition for arms was being used as a cloak to deprive the community of its natural heads. Similar measures had preceded the massacres of 1895 – 6, and a sense of foreboding spread through the Armenian people. "One night in winter" writes a foreign witness of these events," the Government sent officers round the city to all Armenian houses, knocking up the families and demanding that all weapons should be given up. This action was the death-knell to many hearts."

I own a copy of The Treatment of Armenians. Or, rather, my wife does. In it, there are two accounts of events in Van, which is where the Turks say a revolt broke out, thereby justifying the forced relocation. These reports were written by Y. K. Rushdooni (as it is spelled in The Treatment of Armenians), my wife's grandfather. They are extremely detailed: street by street activities. Some might think they are just too detailed.

 Not so. Y. K. Rushdoony had a photographic memory. Once, his son Haig caught him in his easy chair in front of the fire, head down, eyes closed. "You were sleeping," Haig kidded him. "I was meditating on what I have just read," he replied. "Come on," Haig said. "You were asleep." He handed Haig the book. "Ask me anything about the pages where the book is open to." Haig did. He said that his father began answering each question, word for word, by what was on the page. He went on for two pages. Haig told me this story 50 years later and confirmed it yesterday. "It was the only time I ever challenged him."

 When, in his old age, Y. K. began to lose his eyesight, he memorized dozens of psalms, so that he could read them at family gatherings. If his sons knew, they did not tell him. Haig, a Ph.D. in geography, has a good memory. Rousas John, his older brother, was also generally regarded as no slouch in the memory department – a master of the footnote.

 Ask him a question after one of his lectures, and you might get another lecture. (His dying words, after he had briefly exposited a passage that his son had read to him on his deathbed, were these: "Are there any questions?") But, compared to their father, they both said, they were outclassed.

On her way home in 1915, his pregnant wife came across her father's remains in the street. He had been hacked to death. Y. K. took her, his young child, and a £100 sterling note that had been given to him when he graduated from Edinburgh, and fled across the border into Russia. The boy drowned in the escape. The money – hard currency – got the two of them across Russia to Archangel, and from there they bought passage to the United States. Rousas was born in 1916 in New York City. 

GUN CONTROL

Lenin disarmed the Russians. Stalin committed genocide against the Kulaks in the 1930s. At least six million died.

The model for 1968 Gun Control Act – even the wording was taken from Hitler's legislation of 1938, which was a revision of the 1928 law passed by the Weimar government. A good introduction to this politically incorrect history of American gun control is on jpfo.org: Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

When Mao's troops took a village, they would kidnap rich people. They would then offer to return the victims in exchange for money. The victims would be released upon payment. Then they would be kidnapped again. This time, the demand was for guns. Then they would be released again. This made the deal look reasonable to the families of the next victims. But once they had the community's guns, the mass arrests and executions began.

The idea that the individual has a right of self-defense is written into the U.S. Constitution: the second amendment. Carroll Quigley, who taught Bill Clinton history at Georgetown, was an expert in the history of weaponry. He wrote a 1,000-page book on medieval weaponry. He argued in Tragedy and Hope (1966) that the American Revolution was successful because the Americans possessed weapons that were comparable to those possessed by British troops. 

This, he said, was why there were a series of revolts against despotic governments in the eighteenth century. When government weapons became superior, the move toward smaller government ceased to be equally successful.

There is a reason why governments are committed to disarming their citizens. They want to maintain the monopoly of violence, no matter what. The idea of an armed citizenry is anathema to most politicians. After all, what's a monopoly for, if not to be used?

CONCLUSION

Genocide happens.

It doesn't happen whenever the would-be targets own guns.

Watch Nixon End The US Gold Standard

Aug. 15, 1971... Tricky Dick abandons the gold standard. Nixon announces the end of the Bretton Woods International Monetary System 41 years ago today. This was one of the most important decisions in modern financial, economic and monetary history and is a seminal moment in the creation of the global sovereign debt crisis confronting the U.S., Europe and the world in 2012. The dollar has since fallen from 1/35th of an ounce of gold to 1/1750th of an ounce of gold. Text below from Youtube page: On August 15, 1971, President Nixon announced on TV 3 dramatic changes in economic policy. He imposed a wage-price freeze. He ended the Bretton Woods international monetary system. And he imposed a temporary surcharge (tariff) on all imports. The Bretton Woods system was created towards the end of World War II and involved fixed exchange rates with the U.S. dollar as the key currency - but also a role for gold linked to the dollar at $35/ounce. The system began to falter in the 1960s because of an excess of dollars flowing out of the U.S. which foreign central banks had to absorb. A run on gold in 1968 was stemmed by a patch on Bretton Woods known as the two-tier gold system. All of this was ended unilaterally by the Nixon decision.

Lakota Sioux Nation Leaves America

America betrayed them and all Native Peoples. Throughout US history and earlier, genocide was policy.

Historian Ward Churchill explained four centuries of systematic slaughter. It went on from 1492 - 1892. It continues today against Native culture.

Churchill estimated around 100 million Native People throughout the Americas "hacked apart with axes and swords, burned alive and trampled under horses, hunted as game and fed to dogs, shot, beaten, stabbed, scalped for bounty, hanged on meathooks and thrown over the sides of ships at sea, worked to death as slave laborers, intentionally starved and frozen to death during a multitude of forced marches and internments, and, in an unknown number of instances, deliberately infected with epidemic diseases."

Destruction of their culture continues in new forms. "The American holocaust was and remains unparalleled, in terms of its scope, ferocity, and continuance over time."

Silence and denial suppress what happened and goes on today. Try finding coverage anywhere by America's major media. Virtually nothing is said, let alone explained.

Survivors represent a tiny fraction of original numbers. They also symbolize a longstanding US tradition of butchery and viciousness.

After centuries of systematic slaughter, Census Bureau data estimated around a quarter-million US survivors. Those living struggle to get by.

Raphael Lemkin defined genocide as:

"the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" that corresponds to other terms like "tyrannicide, homicide, infanticide, etc." (It) does not necessarily mean the destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings....It is intended....to signify a coordinated plan (to destroy) the essential foundations of the life of national groups" with the intent to eradicate or substantially weaken or harm them."

"Genocidal plans involve the disintegration....of political and social institutions, culture, language, national feelings, religion, economic existence, personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and" human lives.

The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Convention defines it legally as:

"any (acts like those above) committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the national, ethnical, racial or religious group (by) killing (its) members; causing (them) serious bodily or mental harm; (or) deliberately inflicting (on them) conditions" that may destroy them in whole or in part.

Destroying peoples' cultures, preventing them from practicing their religion, speaking their language, and/or passing on their traditions to new generations are genocidal acts.

Constitutional provisions don't let government abuse people or deny them their rights. They don't authorize genocide, either within or outside the country. They don't permit theft and occupation of their lands or any others.

Nonetheless, binding principles are spurned. America, Israel, and rogue NATO partners violate them with impunity. Crimes of war, against humanity, and genocide are official policy. Millions of corpses bear testimony.

On December 17, 2007, a delegation of Lakota people went to Washington. They declared independence. They called it "the latest step in the longest running legal battle" in history.

It's not a cessation, they said. It's a lawful "unilateral withdrawal" from treaty obligations permitted under the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

At the time, American Indian Movement (AIM) leader Russell Means said:

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us."

"We offer citizenship to anyone provided they renounce their US citizenship."

"United States colonial rule is at an end."

Signed documents were delivered to the State Department. Sovereignty was declared. The Republic of Lakota was established. It's based on the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie. It created the Great Lakota (Sioux) Nation. It states in part:

"The territory of the Sioux or Dahcotah Nation, commencing the mouth of the White Earth River, on the Missouri River; thence in a southwesterly direction to the forks of the Platte River; thence up the north fork of the Platte River to a point known as the Red Buts, or where the road leaves the river; thence along the range of mountains known as the Black Hills, to the head-waters of Heart River; thence down Heart River to its mouth; and thence down the Missouri River to the place of beginning."

It gave Lakota people portions of northern Nebraska, half of South Dakota, one-fourth of North Dakota, one-fifth of Montana, and another 20% of Wyoming.

Unilateral withdrawal from all treaties and agreements became policy. America never honored its own. More on that below.

Earlier events led to the 2007 declaration. In 1974, 5,000 International Indian Treaty Council delegates, representing 97 North and South American Indigenous People, signed a Declaration of Continuing Independence.

It was a "Manifesto representing the wisdom of thousands of people, the Ancestors, and the Great Mystery supports the rights of Indigenous Nations to live free and to take whatever actions are necessary for sovereignty."

Numerous elders approved it. They represented ancestors born to live free. They gave delegates two mandates:

(1) Gain international recognition. In September 2007, the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights affirmed it.

(2) "We must always remember that we were once a free People. If we don't, we shall cease to be Lakota."

The right to return to their original free and independent status was asserted. On December 17, 2007, they declared it formally.

In United States v. Sioux Nation (1980), the Supreme Court upheld a $105 million award to eight Sioux tribes. It was compensation for lost land. It was lawlessly taken.

The Court, however, denied what Sioux people most wanted - their land back. As a result, they refused the money. They reasserted their sovereign rights.

Thirty-two years of compound interest makes the 1980 award worth $400 million today. It's a tiny fraction of what Sioux people lost. They demand and deserve what's rightfully theirs. America's highest court has no sovereignty over their rights. Neither does political Washington.

Lakota people say US law supports them. America systematically broke treaties and stole their land. It's theirs and they want it back. The Republic of Lakota claims it.

On September 29, 2012 Means reiterated what he and others declared in December 2007, saying:

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five state area that encompasses our country are free to join us."

He cited longstanding problems and grievances. They include land theft, resource plunder, poverty, unemployment, repression, and overall human depravation. All of it remains out of sight and mind.

The Republic of Lakota described ongoing genocide as follows:

(1) Mortality

Life expectancy for Lakota men is less than 44 years. It's the lowest of all sovereign countries. It's the highest in America. Infant mortality is threefold higher than the US average. Diseases are a major problem. "Cancer is now at epidemic proportions."

Teenage suicide is150% higher than America's average. One-fourth of Lakota children are fostered or adopted by non-Native people. Doing so destroys their identity and culture. Ward Churchill calls it killing the Indian, saving the man.

(2) Disease

Tuberculosis is 800% higher than America's average. Cervical cancer is fivefold higher. Diabetes is eight times the national average. The Federal Commodity Food Program provides high-sugar foods. They contribute to poor health.

(3) Poverty

Annual median income is $2,600 - $3,500. Poverty affects 97% of Lakotans. Many families can't afford essentials most people take for granted. In winter, many use ovens for heat. Simple luxuries are unheard of. Life is hard, merciless, punishing, and unrelenting.

(4) Unemployment

It's 80% or higher. Government corruption, cronyism, and indifference destroy normal living opportunities.

(5) Housing

In winter, elderly people die from hypothermia. They freeze to death for lack of heat. One-third of homes lack clean water and sewage. About 40% have no electricity. About 60% of families have no telephone.

Another 60% of homes are infected with potentially fatal black molds. On average, 17 people reside in each household. Many have two to three rooms. Some homes built for six to eight people have up to 30 in them.

(6) Drugs and Alcohol

Over half of adults battle addiction and disease. Alcoholism affects 90% of families. Two known methamphetamine labs operate. Authorities haven't closed them.

(7) Incarceration

Indian children imprisonment exceed whites by 40%. Native People comprise 2% of South Dakota's population. They account for 21% of those imprisoned.

Indians have the second highest state prison incarceration rate in America. Most live on federal reservations. Less than 2% are where states have jurisdiction.

(8) Culture

It's threatened with extinction. It's federal policy to destroy it. Only 14% of Lakotans speak their language. It's not shared inter-generationally.

The average fluent Lakotan speaker is 65 years old. In another generation or less, perhaps few or none will remain. Lakotan language skills aren't allowed or taught in US government schools. Nor is much of anything about native history and culture. America wants it destroyed and forgotten.

Lakotan struggle began with the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. They call it "fantasy" US history. France sold America 530 million Native land acres for $15 million. Lakotans owned part of it. They and other Native people weren't consulted.

They've been systematically ignored and violated. From 1778 - 1871, Washington negotiated 372 treaties. Their provisions were systematically spurned.

America's winning the West involved invading, encroaching, stealing, and occupying their lands. That's how imperialism works. It's the same everywhere.

Throughout the 19th century (and earlier), Washington engaged in military, legal, and political battles against Native Peoples. Their rights were contemptuously denied. They were displaced and exterminated. That's how today's America was created.

The 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie was systematically violated. So were provisions of all other treaties. From 1866 - 1868, Washington let the Bozeman trail go through the "Heart of the Lakota Nation."

It was a short cut to Montana's gold fields. Military forts were built on stolen land along its route. Doing so violated 1851 treaty provisions. Battles ensued. Washington negotiated peace. The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty followed. Native People thought they won. Victory was pyrrhic and illusory.

The Supreme Court's 1883 ex parte Crow Dog decision made no difference. The Court recognized Lakotah freedom and independence. It ruled that tribes held exclusive jurisdiction over their internal affairs. It didn't matter.

The transcontinental railroad facilitated development, land and resource theft.

In 1885, Congress passed the Major Crimes Act. It extended US jurisdiction into Lakota territory. The same year, the last of the great buffalo herds were exterminated. At one time, they numbered 60 million. Native People relied on them for food.

In 1887, Congress passed the General Allotment Act (the Dawes Act). It ended communal ownership of reservation lands. It distributed 160-acre "allotments" to individual Indians. Tribes lost millions of acres. Wealthy ranchers exploit them today.

In 1888, Congress began prohibiting Indian Spiritual and Prayer Ceremonies. It was part of destroying Native culture. In 1891, a Commissioner of Indian Affairs was authorized. It was to assure Native People obeyed white man's laws.

Many more abuses followed. In Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock (1903), the Supreme Court extralegally recognized near absolute plenary congressional power over Indian affairs.

It let US authorities steal tribal lands and resources freely. They did so on the pretext of fulfilling federal responsibilities.

Doing so abrogated fundamental indigenous rights unilaterally. The ruling was used to violate hundreds of treaties. Like other Native Peoples, Lakotans were grievously harmed.

Their sacred Black Hills were stolen. So were valued resources on them. Lakotans want back what's rightfully theirs. Their ancestors thought the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty granted them victory. They were wrong.

Yet in 1904, even after Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, some believed the Treaty was "the only instance in the history of the United States where the government has gone to war and afterwards negotiated a peace conceding everything demanded by the enemy and exacting nothing in return."

Until the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act, Native People got what no one had the right to deny them in the first place. In fact, rights afforded them nominally never existed in fact.

The entire history of Native People in America reflects horrific struggles lost. From 1492 to today, they experienced promises made and broken. Disenfranchized people remain. Most are bereft of hope.

On reservations or assimilated, they're out of sight and mind. Once they lived peacefully on their own land. White settlers changed things. Western civilization destroyed their way of life. There's nothing civilized about it.

They're either ignored, mocked, or demonized in films and society. They're called drunks, beasts, primitives, and savages. America always was a white supremacist society.

Rich powerful elites run it. Native People and most others don't matter. They're systematically used and abused. They're not served. It's the American way.

Strange Death Of Jim Morrison

The official story is that Jim Morrison died at the age of 27-years-old in the early morning hours of July 3, 1971, in his bathtub at his apartment in Paris with his girlfriend Pamela Courson. The Doors manager, Bill Siddons, flew in from L.A. but did not see his body. Why not? The only people who apparently did were a few emergency medical personnel and Dr. Max Vassile, who is now deceased. He never gave any interviews only saying that Morrison died of “natural causes” specifically of heart failure which is why there was no autopsy.

In this DailyMail article, things have changed quite a bit. Supposedly, Jim Morrison died in the bathroom of a Paris night club and that a singer, Marianne Faithful was sworn to secrecy not to talk about the events that lead to his overdosing of heroin that he bought from dealers for his girlfriend, Pamela Courson.  Jim Morrison never did heroin in the U.S.A. and he had an intense hatred for the drug and needles as well. What did Marianne Faithful see exactly? So why would he begin taking heroin in Paris, France? And if he did overdose why are mysterious people like this singer sworn not to talk about the events that night which led to his death? Wouldn’t these events have come out into the mainstream press several weeks later? So what really did happened to James Douglas Morrison? And who was the American poet and singer for the rock band, The Doors, and what did he really stand for? This is an excerpt from a 1970 interview with Lizzie James: He talks about his dislike for drugs with Lizzie James in this 1970 full interview. We are supposed to believe he died of a drug overdose which caused heart failure. But his personal physician, Dr. Derwin gave him a complete physical before he left to France and said to the press, “Jim was in excellent health before leaving to Paris.” “We walked down to the Garden Spot on La Cienega for dinner. That was the evening we talked about drugs. I told him stories I’d heard of his acid escapades, and he laughed and said, ‘I’m not interested in drugs,’ almost scornfully, and lifted his martini glass towards me, rotating it slightly with a smile that said that this was the ‘Crystal Ship.’ Another time I offered him some speed, pot and once or twice some very superior downers, and he declined always, once with a derisive shake of his head saying, ‘I don’t need any pills.’” (Jim Morrison did in fact use LSD, marijuana, and other drugs, but towards the last couple of years of his life he mostly used alcohol.) Members of The Doors (left to right), Ray Manzarek, Jim Morrison, Robbie Krieger, and John Densmore. The Rolling Stone interview was removed from youtube, so here is another interview with Jim Morrison (audio starts off low quality): Update 28 Feb 2008: I have noticed a pattern. After they kill famous and important people, and then they become legends, they have to do something to turn the general population away from them by writing lies like these below: contactmusic.com morrison was bisexual Otherwise, people may be inspired to find out why he really died. It’s better to turn the masses away before they start investigating the crimes they have committed and find out some terrible facts. The remaining three members of the band, his former friends, and many others that knew him said this book, Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend, by Stephen Davis, is spreading the lie that he was bisexual or homosexual. They all say without question he was straight. And he loved one girl in particular, his long time girlfriend, Pamela Courson who died two years and nine months later after Jim Morrison’s death on April 25, 1974 of a heroin overdose — surprise, surprise. How many rock stars and the people that knew them during the 1960′s and 1970′s died of a “heroin overdose” or other strange deaths? For instance, look at this list of dead rock stars put together by a police-pathologist, Dr. Ed Friedlander. What is going on here? The book, No One Here Gets Out Alive, by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman, is described as the first biography of Jim Morrison, but his sister, Anne Morrison, said that “my brother was not in that book.” In other words, she did not consider the book to be a biography of her brother.  Some people on the Internet have sarcastically referred to this book as Nothing Here but Lies. Ray Manzarek was so disgusted by Oliver Stone’s movie about The Doors which portrayed Jim Morrison as crazy and out-of-control that he directed his own movie The Soft Parade to counteract the Zionist propaganda and lies. And recently a new documentary about Jim Morrison and The Doors, When You’re Strange, has been released to further counteract the propaganda about Morrison and the band.

Admiral Morrison, the attack of the U.S.S. Liberty, and the Zionist Connection Morrison’s military awards According to his military record, Admiral Morrison was awarded the Legion of Merit, the Air Medal with two Gold Stars and the Presidential Unit Citation Ribbon (World War II), the Bronze Star Medal with “V” for valor device (Korean War), and Vietnam Service Medal. Rear Admiral Morrison also received the American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three Stars, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, National Defense Service Ribbon with Bronze Star, Korean Service Medal, United National Service Medal, and Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal (Taiwan Straits). He also received the Korean Presidential Unit Citation Medal. Admiral Morrison, then a captain, with his son, Jim, on the bridge of the U.S.S. Bon Homme Richard, January 1964 Aboard the U.S.S. Hancock off South Korea, December 3, 1968. Rear Adm. George S. Morrison, commander of Carrier Division Nine, left, South Korean Prime Minister Chung Il Kwon, center, and Vice Adm. William F. Bringle, commander of the U.S. 7th Fleet in the Pacific.

As of Nov. 2009, both  the New York Times (here) and the Wikipedia (here) have selected this particular photo of Morrison with a smear on his face. Is it a coincidence that of all the photos, they selected one with this imperfection? A British newspaper (here) used the same photo, but without the imperfection.

Jim Morrison came from a military family. His father was a career U.S. Navy officer and a graduate of the Naval Academy. Admiral G.S. Morrison was one of the youngest Navy officers ever selected to become a Rear Admiral at the age of 47-years-old. Then a young Ensign, Admiral Morrison was stationed at Pearl Harbor, and was an eyewitness to the attack on Dec. 7, 1941. He flew fighter aircraft in the South Pacific during the last year of WW II and again during the Korean War.
Jim Morrison and his family were frequently moving during the late 1940′s through the 1960′s to new assignments his father was ordered to report to. While Jim Morrison was in college at UCLA film school, his father was leading a battle carrier group off the coast of South Vietnam in 1964.
You can read his biography here in this article:
signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20081128/news_1m28morrison.html
Jim Morrison graduated from film school at UCLA in 1965 and he and Ray Manzarek formed The Doors in June of that year. The Vietnam war was escalating and there was a particular event that many Americans may still not have heard of yet but Admiral Morrison was very vocal about. That is an intelligence gathering ship, the U.S.S. Liberty which was stationed in the Mediterranean Sea near the Sinai Peninsula during the Six day War between Israel and Egypt when it was attacked by Israeli fighter jets on June 8, 1967 killing 34 and wounding 171 crewmembers.
The attack by the Israeli fighter jets lasted for over an hour and the crew of the U.S.S. Liberty being a non-combat ship only had two 0.50 inches caliber guns both fore and aft of the vessel but never got off a shot.
After the Israeli fighter aircraft attack, the U.S.S. Liberty was again attacked by Israeli torpedo boats, which fired five torpedoes, one of which hit the Liberty creating a forty hole and killing 25 sailors. The Israeli torpedo boats also attacked with cannon fire and machine gunned defenseless American sailors in the water and as they were attempting to enter life rafts. The torpedo boats however failed to sink the U.S.S. Liberty.

At this page you can hear audio interviews of Commander James Ennes, U.S. Navy, retired, who was one of the officers on board that day. He tells in graphic detail how the attack happened and how they repeatedly told the Israelis they were an American ship. There is also an interview with a sailor who was on the U.S.S. America.

During the attack, the U.S.S. Liberty was able to get off a message to its flagship the aircraft carrier U.S.S. America and said that they were under attack. The U.S.S. America immediately scrambled F-4 Phantom fighter jets but were recalled by President Lyndon Johnson. What were President Johnson’s motives for doing this?

Meanwhile, after the Israeli torpedo boats murdered American sailors trying to reach the safety of the life rafts, in came some Israeli helicopters with assault troops ready to board the ship and to kill the remaining crew members who had survived both attacks. The helicopters however, did not land on the ship as there was some radio traffic that suggested that U.S. fighter jets were again on their way to engage the Israelis.
You can read about the account of the U.S.S. Liberty here at the Wikipedia. Keep in mind however, that Wikipedia has strong Zionist connections so they are going to try and favor Israel in a positive light. There is another website, gtr5.com from the crew of the U.S.S. Liberty.
The U.S.S. Liberty flew the American flag that day so there was no question that the Israeli fighter jets did not know whose ship it was they were attacking. The Israeli fighter jets used rockets and cannon fire at the ship and many of the sailors that were hit by fragments were unrecognizable because of the damage these weapons do to the human body. Some of the sailors were also incinerated beyond recognition. Clearly, the Israelis were trying to sink this American ship. Although they claimed over the past decades that it was a mistake. Admiral Morrison thought otherwise: