middleeastinfo.org
22 June 2005
An Armenian and Muslim Tragedy? Yes! Genocide? No!
By Bruce Fein
I. Both Armenians and Muslims in Eastern Anatolia under the Ottoman Empire
experienced harrowing casualties and gripping privations during World War I.
Hundreds of thousands perished. Most were innocent. All deserve pity and
respect. Their known and unknown graves testify to President John F.
Kennedy’s lament that “Life is unfair.” An Armenian tombstone is worth a
Muslim tombstone, and vice versa. No race, religious, or ethnic group stands
above or below another in the cathedral of humanity. To paraphrase
Shakespeare in “The Merchant of Venice,” Hath not everyone eyes? hath not
everyone hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases
healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and
summer…If you prick anyone, does he not bleed? if you tickle him, does he
not laugh? if you poison him, does he not die?
These sentiments must be emphasized before entering into the longstanding
dispute over allegations of Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman
Turks during World War I and its aftermath. Genocide is a word bristling
with passion and moral depravity. It typically evokes images of Jews dying
like cattle in Nazi cyanide chambers in Auschwitz, Bergen-Belson, Dacau, and
other extermination camps. It is customarily confined in national laws and
international covenants to the mass killing or repression of a racial,
religious, or ethnic group with the intent of partial or total
extermination. Thus, to accuse Turks of Armenian genocide is grave business,
and should thus be appraised with scrupulous care for historical accuracy.
To do less would not only be unjust to the accused, but to vitiate the
arresting meaning that genocide should enjoy in the tale of unspeakable
human horrors.
It cannot be repeated enough that to discredit the Armenian genocide
allegation is not to deny that Armenian deaths and suffering during the war
should evoke tears in all but the stone-hearted. The same is true for the
even greater number of contemporaneous Turkish deaths and privations. No
effort should be spared to avoid transforming an impartial inquest into the
genocide allegations to poisonous recriminations over whether Armenians or
Turks as a group were more or less culpable or victimized. Healing and
reconciliation is made of more magnanimous and compassionate stuff.
In sum, disprove Armenian genocide is not to belittle the atrocities and
brutalities that World War I inflicted on the Armenian people of Eastern
Anatolia.
I. Sympathy for All, Malice Towards None “War is hell,” lamented steely
Union General William Tecumseh Sherman during the American Civil War. The
frightful carnage of World War I confirmed and fortified that vivid
definition.
The deep pain that wrenches any group victimized by massacres and
unforgiving privation in wartime, however, frequently distorts or imbalances
recollections. That phenomenon found epigrammatic expression in United
States Senator Hiram Johnson’s World War I quip that truth is the first
casualty of war. It is customary among nations at war to manipulate the
reporting of events to blacken the enemy and to valorize their own and
allied forces. In other words, World War I was no exception, about which
more anon.
II. The Armenian Genocide Accusation
The Ottoman Turks are accused of planning and executing a scheme to
exterminate its Armenian population in Eastern Anatolia beginning on or
about April 24, 1915 by relocating them hundreds of miles to the Southwest
and away from the Russian war front and massacring those who resisted. The
mass relocation (often mischaracterized as “deportation”) exposed the
Armenians to mass killings by marauding Kurds and other Muslims and deaths
from malnutrition, starvation, and disease. After World War I concluded, the
Ottoman Turks are said to have continued their Armenian genocide during the
Turkish War of Independence concluded in 1922.
The number of alleged Armenian casualties began at approximately 600,000,
but soon inflated to 2 million. The entire pre-war Armenian population in
Eastern Anatolia is best estimated at 1.3 to 1.5 million.
A. Was there an intent to exterminate Ottoman Armenians in whole or in part?
The evidence seems exceptionally thin. The Government’s relocation decree
was a wartime measure inspired by national self-preservation, neither aimed
at Armenians generally (those outside sensitive war territory were left
undisturbed) nor with the goal of death by relocation hardships and hazards.
The Ottoman government issued unambiguous orders to protect and feed
Armenians during their relocation ordeal, but were unable because of war
emergencies on three fronts and war shortages affecting the entire
population to insure their proper execution. The key decree provided:
“When those of Armenians resident in the aforementioned towns and villages
who have to be moved are transferred to their places of settlement and are
on the road, their comfort must be assured and their lives and property
protected; after their arrival their food should be paid for out of
Refugees’ Appropriations until they are definitively settled in their new
homes. Property and land should be distributed to them in accordance with
their previous financial situation as well as current needs; and for those
among them needing further help, the government should build houses, provide
cultivators and artisans with seed, tools, and equipment.”
“This order is entirely intended against the extension of the Armenian
Revolutionary Committees; therefore do not execute it in such a manner that
might cause the mutual massacre of Muslims and Armenians.”
(Do you believe that anything comparable has been issued by Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic to his troops in Kosovo?)
The Ottoman government prosecuted more than one thousand soldiers and
civilians for disobedience. Further, approximately 200,000 Ottoman Armenians
who were relocated to Syria lived without menace through the remainder of
the war.
Relocation of populations suspected of disloyalty was a customary war
measure both at the time of World War I and through at least World War II.
Czarist Russia had employed it against Crimean Tatars and other ethnic Turks
even in peacetime and without evidence of treasonous plotting. The United
States relocated 120,000 citizens and resident aliens of Japanese ancestry
during the Second World War despite the glaring absence of sabotage or
anti-patriotic sentiments or designs. Indeed, the Congress of the United
States acknowledged the injustice in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which
awarded the victims or their survivors $20,000 each.
In sum, the mass wartime relocation of Ottoman Armenians from the Eastern
front was no pretext for genocide. That conclusion is fortified by the
mountains of evidence showing that an alarming percentage of Armenians were
treasonous and allied with the Triple Entente, especially Russia. Tens of
thousands defected from the Ottoman army or evaded conscription to serve
with Russia. Countless more remained in Eastern Anatolia to conduct sabotage
behind Ottoman lines and to massacre Turks, including civilians. Their
leaders openly called for revolt, and boasted at post-World War I peace
conferences that Ottoman Armenians had fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the
victorious powers. Exemplary was a proclamation issued by an Armenian
representative in the Ottoman parliament for Van, Papazyan. He trumpeted:
“The volunteer Armenian regiments in the Caucasus should prepare themselves
for battle, serve as advance units for the Russian armies to help them
capture the key positions in the districts where the Armenians live, and
advance into Anatolia, joining the Armenian units already there.”
The Big Five victors -Great Britain, France, the United States, Italy, and
Japan acknowledged the enormous wartime service of Ottoman Armenians, and
Armenia was recognized as a victor nation at the Paris Peace Conference and
sister conclaves charring the post-war map. Armenians were rewarded for
their treason against the Ottoman Empire in the short-lived Treaty of Sevres
of 1920 (soon superceded by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne). It created an
independent Armenian state carved from large swaths of Ottoman territory
although they were a distinct population minority and had always been so
throughout the centuries of Ottoman rule. The Treaty thus turned President
Woodrow Wilson’s self-determination gospel in his Fourteen Points on its
head.
The Ottoman government thus had overwhelming evidence to suspect the loyalty
of its Armenian population. And its relocation orders responded to a dire,
not a contrived, war emergency. It was fighting on three fronts. The
capital, Istanbul, was threatened by the Gallipoli campaign. Russia was
occupying portions of Eastern Anatolia, encouraging Armenian defections, and
aiding Armenian sabotage. In sum, the mass relocation of Armenians was
clearly an imperative war measure; it did not pivot on imaginary dangers
contrived by Ottoman rulers to exterminate Armenians.
The genocide allegation is further discredited by Great Britain’s unavailing
attempt to prove Ottoman officials of war crimes. It occupied Ottoman
territory, including Istanbul, under the 1918 Mudros Armistice. Under
section 230 of the Treaty of Sevres, Ottoman officials were subject to
prosecution for war crimes like genocide. Great Britain had access to
Ottoman archives, but found no evidence of Armenian genocide. Scores of
Ottoman Turks were detained on Malta, nonetheless, under suspicion of
complicity in Armenian massacres or worse. But all were released in 1922 for
want of evidence. The British spent endless months searching hither and yon
for evidence of international criminality- even enlisting the assistance of
the United State yet came up with nothing that could withstand the test of
truth. Rumor, hearsay, and polemics from anti-Turk sources was the most that
could be assembled, none of which would be admissible in any fair-minded
enterprise to discover facts and to assign legal responsibility.
None of this is to deny that approximately 600,000 Ottoman Armenians
perished during World War I and its aftermath. But Muslims died in even
greater numbers (approximately 2.5 million in Eastern Anatolia) from
Armenian and Russian massacres and wartime privations as severe as that
experienced by relocated Armenians. When Armenians held the opportunity,
they massacred Turks without mercy, as in Van, Erzurum, and Adana. The war
ignited a cycle of violence between both groups, one fighting for
revolutionary objectives and the other to retain their homeland intact. Both
were spurred to implacability by the gruesome experience that the loser
could expect no clemency.
The horrifying scale of the violence and retaliatory violence, however, were
acts of private individuals or official wrongdoers. The Ottoman government
discouraged and punished the crimes within the limits of its shrinking
capacity. Fighting for its life on three fronts, it devoted the lion’s share
of its resources and manpower to staving off death, not to local law
enforcement.
The emptiness of the Armenian genocide case is further demonstrated by the
resort of proponents to reliance on incontestable falsehoods or forged
documents. The Talat Pasha fabrications are emblematic.
According to Armenians, he sent telegrams expounding an Ottoman policy to
massacre its Armenian population that were discovered by British forces
commanded by General Allenby when they captured Aleppo in 1918. Samples were
published in Paris in 1920 by an Armenian author, Aram Andonian. They were
also introduced at the Berlin trial of the assassin of Talat Pasha, and then
accepted as authentic.
The British Foreign Office then conducted an official investigation that
showed that the telegrams had not been discovered by the army but had been
produced by an Armenian group based in Paris. A meticulous examination of
the documents revealed glaring discrepancies with the customary form,
script, and phraseology of Ottoman administrative decrees, and pronounced as
bogus as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the Donation of
Constantine.
Ditto for a quote attributed to Adolph Hitler calculated to liken the
Armenians in World War I to the Holocaust victims and to arouse anger
towards the Republic of Turkey. Purportedly delivered on August 22, 1939,
while the Nazi invasion of Poland impended, Hitler allegedly declared: “Thus
for the time being I have sent to the East only my Death Head units, with
the order to kill without mercy all men, women, and children of the Polish
race or language. Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the
Armenians.”
Armenian genocide exponents point to the statement as evidence that it
served as the model for Hitler’s sister plan to exterminate Poles, Jews, and
others. Twenty-two Members of Congress on or about April 24, 1984 in the
Congressional Record enlisted Hitler’s hideous reference to Armenian
extermination as justification for supporting Armenian Martyrs’ Day
remembrances. As Princeton Professor Heath W. Lowry elaborates in a booklet,
“The U.S. Congress and Adolph Hitler on the Armenians,” it seems virtually
certain that the statement was never made. The Nuremburg tribunal refused to
accept it as evidence because of flimsy proof of authenticity.
The gospel for many Armenian genocide enthusiasts is Ambassador Henry
Morgenthau’s 1918 book, Ambassador’s Morgenthau’s Story. It brims with
assertions that incriminate the Ottoman Turks in genocide. Professor Lowry,
however, convincingly demonstrates in his monograph, “The Story Behind
Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story,” that his book is more propaganda, invention,
exaggeration, and hyperbole than a reliable portrait of motivations and
events.
According to some Armenian circles, celebrated founder of the Republic of
Turkey, Atatürk, confessed “Ottoman state responsibility for the Armenian
genocide.” That attribution is flatly false, as proven in an extended essay,
“A ‘Statement’ Wrongly Attributed to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk,” by Türkkaya
Ataöv.
Why would Armenian genocide theorists repeatedly uncurtain demonstrative
falsehoods as evidence if the truth would prove their case? Does proof of
the Holocaust rest on such imaginary inventiveness? A long array of
individuals have been found guilty of participation in Hitler’s genocide in
courts of law hedged by rules to insure the reliability of verdicts. Adolph
Eichmann’s trial and conviction in an Israeli court and the Nuremburg trials
before an international body of jurists are illustrative. Not a single
Ottoman Turk, in contrast, has every been found guilty of Armenian genocide
or its equivalent in a genuine court of law, although the victorious powers
in World War I enjoyed both the incentive and opportunity to do so if
incriminating evidence existed.
The United Nations Economic and Social Council Sub-Commission on the
Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities examined the
truthfulness of an Armenian genocide charge leveled by Special Rapporteur,
Mr. Benjamin Whitaker, in his submission, “Study of Genocide,” during its
thirty-eighth session at the U.N. Office in Geneva from August 5-30, 1985.
The Sub-Commission after meticulous debate refused to endorse the indictment
for lack of convincing evidence, as amplified by attendee and Professor Dr.
Ataöv of Ankara University in his publication, “WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN
GENEVA: The Truth About the ‘Whitaker Report’.”
B. If the evidence is so demonstratively faulty, what explains a widespread
credence given to the Armenian genocide allegation in the United States?
As Napoleon once derisively observed, history is a fable mutually agreed
upon. It is not Euclidean geometry. Some bias invariably is smuggled in by
the most objective historians; others view history as a manipulable weapon
either to fight an adversary, or to gain a political, economic, or sister
material advantage, or to satisfy a psychological or emotional need.
History most resembles truth when competing versions of events do battle in
the marketplace of ideas with equally talented contestants and before an
impartial audience with no personal or vested interest in the outcome. That
is why the adversarial system of justice in the United States is the
hallmark of its legal system and a beacon to the world.
The Armenian genocide allegation for long decades was earmarked by an
absence of both historical rigor and scrupulous regard for reliable evidence
and truth. The Ottoman Empire generally received bad reviews in the West for
centuries, in part because of its predominant Muslim creed and military
conquests in Europe. It was a declared enemy of Britain, France, and Russia
during World War I, and a de facto enemy of the United States. Thus, when
the Armenian genocide allegation initially surfaced, the West was
predisposed towards acceptance that would reinforce their stereotypical and
pejorative view of Turks that had been inculcated for centuries. The
reliability of obviously biased sources was generally ignored. Further, the
Republic of Turkey created in 1923 was not anxious to defend its Ottoman
predecessor which it had opposed for humiliating capitulations to World War
I victors and its palsied government. Atatürk was seeking a new, secular,
and democratic dispensation and distance from the Ottoman legacy.
Armenians in the United States were also more vocal, politically active and
sophisticated, numerous, and wealthy than Turks. The Armenian lobby has
skillfully and forcefully marketed the Armenian genocide allegation in the
corridors of power, in the media, and in public school curricula. They had
been relatively unchallenged until some opposing giants in the field of
Turkish studies appeared on the scene to discredit and deflate the charge by
fastidious research and a richer understanding of the circumstances of
frightful Armenian World War I casualties. Professor of History at the
University of Louisville, Justin McCarthy, and Princeton Professor Heath
Lowry stand at the top of the list. Professor McCarthy’s 1995 book, Death
and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, is a
landmark. Turkish Americans have also organized to present facts and views
about the Armenian genocide allegation and other issues central to United
States-Turkish relations. But the intellectual playing field remains sharply
tilted in favor of the Armenians. Since public officials with no foreign
policy responsibilities confront no electoral or other penalty for echoing
the Armenian story, they generally acquiesce to gain or to solidify their
standing among them.
The consequence has been not only bad and biased history unbecoming an
evenhanded search for truth, but a gratuitous irritant in the relations
between Turkey and the United States. The former was a steadfast ally
throughout the Cold War, and Turkey remains a cornerstone of NATO and Middle
East peace. It is also a strong barrier against religious fundamentalism,
and an unflagging partner in fighting international terrorism and drug
trafficking. Turkey is also geostrategically indispensable to exporting oil
and gas from Central Asia to the West through pipelines without reliance on
the Russian Federation, Iran, Afghanistan or other dicey economic partners.
Finally, endorsing the false Armenian genocide indictment may embolden
Armenian terrorist organizations (for example, the Armenian Secret Army for
the Liberation of Armenia) to kill and mutilate Turks, as they did a few
decades ago in assassinating scores of Turkish diplomats and bombing
buildings both in the United States and elsewhere. They have been relatively
dormant in recent years, but to risk a resurgence from intoxication with a
fortified Armenian genocide brew would be reckless.
III. Conclusion
The Armenian genocide accusation fails for want of proof. It attempts to
paint the deaths and privations of World War I in prime colors, when the
authentic article is chiaroscuro. Both Muslims and Armenians suffered
horribly and neither displayed a morality superior to the other. Continuing
to hurl the incendiary charge of genocide on the Turkish doorstep obstructs
the quest for amity between Armenia and the Republic of Turkey and warmer
relations between Armenians and Turks generally.
Isn’t it time to let the genocide allegation fade away and to join hands in
commemorating the losses of both communities during World War I and its
aftermath?
*Note: Bruce Fein biography
Bruce Fein
Syndicated columnist, Washington Times
Former U.S. Deputy Attorney General
Biography
Bruce Fein is a nationally acclaimed expert on constitutional law. He
commands more than 25 years’ experience in legal fields ranging from
antitrust to communications to national security law. He is former Associate
Deputy Attorney General in the Department of Justice and former General
Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission. He also served as Research
Director for the Minority on the Joint Congressional Irancontra Committee,
and at the Justice Department as Assistant Director in the Office of Legal
Policy and Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for
Antitrust. He has been a Visiting Fellow for Constitutional Studies at the
Heritage Foundation, an Adjunct Scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute, and frequent lecturer on constitutional and communications law
for Brookings Institute.
Both parties in Congress have repeatedly summoned Mr. Fein for testimony on
such issues as the confirmation of Supreme Court Justices, flag burning, the
Victims’ Rights Amendment, Helms-Burton law, and the executive powers of the
President. He has advised approximately two dozen countries in revising
their constitutions, from South Africa to Hungary to Russia to Mozambique.
Mr. Fein is a media fixture. He is a weekly columnist for the Washington
Times and a guest columnist for USA Today. According to the National Law
Journal, he is one of the seven most quoted attorneys in the nation. He
regularly appears on national radio and television, including National
Public Radio, Face the Nation, C-SPAN, CNN, MSNBC, and the Diana Rheem Show.
He is a monthly staple on the Armstrong Williams Show discussing law,
morals, and ethics. He has been featured on the cover of the American Bar
Association Journal. In addition to the Washington Times and USA Today, his
columns have been carried in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the
Los Angeles Times, Legal Times, the American Bar Association Journal, the
National Law Journal, and the District of Columbia bar journal. His law
review articles have been published in the Harvard Law Review and elsewhere.
He has addressed conferences of the United States Circuit Courts and
regularly speaks before esteemed legal audiences. He was Executive Editor of
the World Intelligence Review for several years.
Mr. Fein graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California at
Berkeley in 1969, cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1972, and then
clerked with United States District Judge Frank A. Kaufman in the District
of Maryland. He serves as general counsel for a public interest
organization, Legal Affairs Council, and is an adjunct scholar and general
counsel with the Assembly of Turkish American Associations. He is a member
of the bars of the District of Columbia, the United States Supreme Court,
and several other federal courts.