RECOGNIZING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
by Austin Bay
Strategy Page
Oct 17 2007
It’s an old phenomenon: When the dispossessed get clout, the
past becomes a battleground. Often the stakes in the present are
extraordinarily high.
An exemplary skirmish over very bad history is taking place in the
U.S. Congress — in this case, the World War I slaughter of Armenians
by Ottoman Turkey.
Whether or not the Ottomans’ mass deportation and murder of Armenians
in 1915 and 1916 reaches the formulaic, industrial magnitude of the
Nazis’ genocide or Stalin’s decimation of Ukraine is a debating point
for lawyers and apologists. The Ottoman "Young Turk" government
took a systematic approach that stinks of classic tribal "ethnic
cleansing." The Ottomans disarmed Armenian soldiers and removed them
from the ranks of the Turkish army. Suspect loyalty and connivance with
the Orthodox Christian enemy, Russia, was the ostensible rationale.
After confiscating Armenian guns, Ottoman knives appeared. Mobs
murdered Armenian intellectuals and leaders — killing communicators
silences a community. Then the deportations began, featuring long
marches where starvation and sunstroke killed as many as the attacks
of "thieves and raiders." One-and-a-half million Armenians (out of
a population of approximately 2.5 million) died in this directed chaos.
Darfur and the Congo are contemporary examples of this hideous
technique.
WWI ended. After a bout of internal chaos and a war with Greece,
republican Turkey emerged from the Ottoman wreckage. Its political
architect, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, launched political and cultural
revolutions, creating a secular Turkey and with it a possible Islamic
bridge to modernity. Turkey adopted Latin script, a visual, literary
break with the Ottoman Empire and caliphate. It’s one reason al-Qaida
fanatics despise Ataturk more than they do George Bush.
Modern Turks can make a case they aren’t the Ottomans.
Diaspora Armenians, however, now have influence and a voice. The
once dispossessed have earned it. Armenians have had extraordinary
political and economic success in Western Europe and the United States.
Only the heartless would dismiss their desire to recognize the great
wrong. Yet historical verification and vindication aren’t the only
goals — the U.S. House resolution backed by Armenian-Americans
demands punishment of the perpetrators.
The perpetrators, however, are long dead. The Turkish government thus
sees the resolution as a political attack on Turkey — one that could
raise compensation issues.
At a less volatile moment one can imagine Congress passing the
nonbinding resolution. I would support it, particularly if it promoted
Turkish and Armenian reconciliation.
But find the less volatile moment. The Clinton administration judged
the year 2000 as too volatile to pass the House resolution. President
Clinton valued U.S.-Turkish relations, and the United States needed
access to Turkish airbases to enforce the U.N.-mandated northern
no-fly zone that helped protect Iraqi Kurds from Saddam. Clinton got
then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert to kill the resolution.
Those Turkish bases now supply and support U.S. troops in Iraq. No
matter one’s opinion on Iraq, antagonizing Turkey when it provides
air and logistical bases supporting U.S. troops actively deployed in
a combat zone is foolish and craven. A Turkish decision to shut down
these facilities would cut a major coalition supply line. U.S. troops
in Iraq would face increased risks.
This is reason enough to delay passing the resolution. There are
others. For two years, Turkey has threatened to invade northern Iraq
in order to destroy Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) bases. The Iraqi
government and Washington have both promised Turkey they will "act
against the PKK." Turkey says it is tired of waiting — and has an
army on the Iraqi border prepped for action.
Cynics suggest Turkey has been waiting for an opportunity to slip
U.S. calls for military restraint and launch a decisive attack
to finish off the PKK. The resolution provides Ankara with just
this opportunity. Conceivably, Washington could "trade" a deferred
resolution for a Turkish promise to restrict its operations in Iraq to
"hot pursuit" situations, special-forces actions and surveillance.
Diplomats on both sides might structure such a transparent but useful
give and take.
Note I said deferred resolution. 2015 may be as volatile as 2007.
Historical horrors like the Armenian genocide really don’t have
anniversaries or centennials, or at least they shouldn’t. They do
deserve recognition and remembrance as instructive history, but
recognition should not do damage to the present. 2015 — a hundred
years after the Armenian massacre — strikes me as the perfect time
to pass the resolution.
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