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Labeling genocide won't halt it
Armenians were murdered, but the current Turkish regime shouldn't be
faulted for what happened more than 90 years ago.
Niall Ferguson
Los Angeles Times
October 15, 2007
Last Wednesday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee condemned mass
murder in the Middle East. Quite right, you may say -- except that
this mass murder took place more than 90 years ago.
The committee approved a resolution, which could go to the House floor
this week, calling on the president "to ensure that the foreign policy
of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and
sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic
cleansing and genocide . . . relating to the Armenian genocide."
Now, let's be clear about three things: First, what genocide means;
second, whether or not the Armenians suffered one; third, whether or
not it was smart for a U.S. congressional panel to say so.
The term "genocide" is a neologism dating back to 1944, coined by
Raphael Lemkin to describe what the Nazis had done to the Jews of
Europe. The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide sets out a clear definition: Genocide covers
"any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole
or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such":
* Killing members of the group;
* Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
* Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
* Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
* Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
On this basis, did the Armenians suffer a genocide? For my latest
book, "The War of the World," I reviewed the available evidence,
including not just the reports of Western diplomats and missionaries
but also, crucially, those of representatives of Turkey's ally,
Austria-Hungary. It's damning.
For example, according to Joseph Pomiankowski, the Austrian military
plenipotentiary in Constantinople, the Turks had undertaken the
"eradication of the Armenian nation in Asia Minor" (he used the terms
Ausrottung and Vernichtung, which will be familiar to students of the
Holocaust). There is also contemporary Turkish testimony that
corroborates such reports.
Armenian males of military age were rounded up and shot. Women and
children were herded onto trains, driven into the desert and left to
die. The number of Armenians who were killed or died prematurely may
have exceeded 1 million, a huge proportion of a prewar population that
numbered, at the very most, 2.4 million, but was probably closer to
1.8 million. With good reason, the American consul in Izmir declared
that the fate of the Armenians "surpasse[d] in deliberate . . . horror
and in extent anything that has hitherto happened in the history of
the world."
It is absurd, then, that Turkish politicians and some academics (not
all of them Turks) insist that the issue is somehow open to debate,
though there is certainly room for more research to be done in the
Turkish archives. And it is deplorable that writers in Turkey can
still be prosecuted for describing the fate of the Armenians as
genocide.
Yet I remain far from convinced that anything has been gained by last
week's resolution. Indeed, something may well have been lost.
Relations between the U.S. and Turkey were once good. The heirs of
Kemal Ataturk were staunch allies during the Cold War. Today, Turkey
allows essential supplies to Iraq -- around 70% of all the air cargo
that goes to U.S. forces -- to pass through Turkish airspace.
Moreover, the regime in Ankara currently offers the best available
evidence that Islam and democracy can coexist.
Now consider this: For years, a campaign of terrorism has been waged
against Turkey by separatists from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or
PKK. The Turks are currently preparing to launch cross-border strikes
on PKK bases in the Kurdish region in northern Iraq. To say the least,
this will not be helpful at a time when Iraq teeters on the brink of
bloody fragmentation.
Does gratuitously bringing up the Armenian genocide increase or
decrease our leverage in Ankara? The angry responses of Turkey's
president and prime minister provide the answer. On Thursday,
President Abdullah Gul called the resolution an "attempt to sacrifice
big issues for minor domestic political games" -- an allusion to the
far-from-negligible Armenian American lobby, which has long pressed
for a resolution like this.
The absurdity is that the genocide of 1915 was not perpetrated by
today's Turkish Republic, established in 1923, but by the Ottoman
Empire, which collapsed at the end of World War I. You might as well
blame the United States for the deportation of Acadians from Nova
Scotia during the French and Indian Wars.
"If we hope to stop future genocides, we need to admit to those
horrific acts of the past," argued Rep. Brad Sherman, a California
Democrat and a sponsor of the resolution. Really? My sense is that all
the resolutions in the world about past genocides will do precisely
nothing to stop the next one.
And if -- let's just suppose -- the next genocide happens in Iraq, and
the United States finds itself impotent to prevent it, the blame will
lie as much with this posturing and irresponsible Congress as with
anyone.
[email protected]
Sou rce: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/ la-oe-ferguson15oct15,1,6320587.column?ctrack=3&am p;cset=true
From: Baghdasarian
Armenians were murdered, but the current Turkish regime shouldn't be
faulted for what happened more than 90 years ago.
Niall Ferguson
Los Angeles Times
October 15, 2007
Last Wednesday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee condemned mass
murder in the Middle East. Quite right, you may say -- except that
this mass murder took place more than 90 years ago.
The committee approved a resolution, which could go to the House floor
this week, calling on the president "to ensure that the foreign policy
of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and
sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic
cleansing and genocide . . . relating to the Armenian genocide."
Now, let's be clear about three things: First, what genocide means;
second, whether or not the Armenians suffered one; third, whether or
not it was smart for a U.S. congressional panel to say so.
The term "genocide" is a neologism dating back to 1944, coined by
Raphael Lemkin to describe what the Nazis had done to the Jews of
Europe. The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide sets out a clear definition: Genocide covers
"any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole
or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such":
* Killing members of the group;
* Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
* Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
* Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
* Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
On this basis, did the Armenians suffer a genocide? For my latest
book, "The War of the World," I reviewed the available evidence,
including not just the reports of Western diplomats and missionaries
but also, crucially, those of representatives of Turkey's ally,
Austria-Hungary. It's damning.
For example, according to Joseph Pomiankowski, the Austrian military
plenipotentiary in Constantinople, the Turks had undertaken the
"eradication of the Armenian nation in Asia Minor" (he used the terms
Ausrottung and Vernichtung, which will be familiar to students of the
Holocaust). There is also contemporary Turkish testimony that
corroborates such reports.
Armenian males of military age were rounded up and shot. Women and
children were herded onto trains, driven into the desert and left to
die. The number of Armenians who were killed or died prematurely may
have exceeded 1 million, a huge proportion of a prewar population that
numbered, at the very most, 2.4 million, but was probably closer to
1.8 million. With good reason, the American consul in Izmir declared
that the fate of the Armenians "surpasse[d] in deliberate . . . horror
and in extent anything that has hitherto happened in the history of
the world."
It is absurd, then, that Turkish politicians and some academics (not
all of them Turks) insist that the issue is somehow open to debate,
though there is certainly room for more research to be done in the
Turkish archives. And it is deplorable that writers in Turkey can
still be prosecuted for describing the fate of the Armenians as
genocide.
Yet I remain far from convinced that anything has been gained by last
week's resolution. Indeed, something may well have been lost.
Relations between the U.S. and Turkey were once good. The heirs of
Kemal Ataturk were staunch allies during the Cold War. Today, Turkey
allows essential supplies to Iraq -- around 70% of all the air cargo
that goes to U.S. forces -- to pass through Turkish airspace.
Moreover, the regime in Ankara currently offers the best available
evidence that Islam and democracy can coexist.
Now consider this: For years, a campaign of terrorism has been waged
against Turkey by separatists from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or
PKK. The Turks are currently preparing to launch cross-border strikes
on PKK bases in the Kurdish region in northern Iraq. To say the least,
this will not be helpful at a time when Iraq teeters on the brink of
bloody fragmentation.
Does gratuitously bringing up the Armenian genocide increase or
decrease our leverage in Ankara? The angry responses of Turkey's
president and prime minister provide the answer. On Thursday,
President Abdullah Gul called the resolution an "attempt to sacrifice
big issues for minor domestic political games" -- an allusion to the
far-from-negligible Armenian American lobby, which has long pressed
for a resolution like this.
The absurdity is that the genocide of 1915 was not perpetrated by
today's Turkish Republic, established in 1923, but by the Ottoman
Empire, which collapsed at the end of World War I. You might as well
blame the United States for the deportation of Acadians from Nova
Scotia during the French and Indian Wars.
"If we hope to stop future genocides, we need to admit to those
horrific acts of the past," argued Rep. Brad Sherman, a California
Democrat and a sponsor of the resolution. Really? My sense is that all
the resolutions in the world about past genocides will do precisely
nothing to stop the next one.
And if -- let's just suppose -- the next genocide happens in Iraq, and
the United States finds itself impotent to prevent it, the blame will
lie as much with this posturing and irresponsible Congress as with
anyone.
[email protected]
Sou rce: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/ la-oe-ferguson15oct15,1,6320587.column?ctrack=3&am p;cset=true
From: Baghdasarian