Support the AKP, Don’t Trip Them Up
Last week, the House Foreign Affairs committee voted 27 to 21 to bring a resolution to the floor condemning as genocide the mass killings of Armenians in 1915. The genocide of Armenians has been widely accepted as historical fact. Despite this, the timing of the House resolution is damaging to American foreign policy. Not only does this resolution hurt American policy in the Middle East, but it also is harmful to the current ruling party in Turkey, led by Prime Minister Erdogan and President Adbullah Gul. This is a time when we need to support the current Turkish civilian leadership. We do not need to be adding to its challenges.
The Justice and Development party (AKP), with their mildly Islamist government, should be held up as a model for a moderate Islamic party in a well-functioning democracy. Their current electoral success shows that an Islamic party can appeal to a large cross-section of the populace in a maturing democracy. The Erdogan administration has been a valuable ally to the United States both in a bilateral sense and as an invaluable NATO member. Perhaps most importantly, they provide an important check against the militarism that always lurks underneath the surface of Turkish politics. As we saw during the spring and summer, the Turkish military is always willing to rise to the intense nationalism of the Turkish people and will attempt to distort the hard-won democratic gains of the Turkish polity. The AKP responded admirably to the “cyber-coup” attempted by the generals, stood their ground, and finally got Adbullah Gul elected President (with the popular support of the Turkish people).
The vote by the House Foreign Affairs committee gives the Turkish military another opportunity to burnish their nationalistic credentials against the AKP. Turkey has always been particularly sensitive to the charges of Armenian genocide and this vote could create a situation where the Army feels that it needs to defend the Turkish honor. In this way, the military may feel that the AKP is insufficiently nationalist and could try to exert more political influence. Additionally, the vote by the House Foreign Affairs committee may tie the hands of the AKP. Turkish domestic politics may dictate that the AKP act in some way to show how they will defend Turkey. We may already be seeing this as the parliament recently voted to authorize Turkish incursions into Northern Iraq. The United States and Turkey do not need to open another front in Iraqi Kurdistan. The US does not want two of its allies fighting each other and certainly would prefer to avoid another front in the war in Iraq. The Armenian genocide vote, which does not help United States policy in any way, may cause more violence in Iraq and will create further problems for the AKP.
Armenians deserve to have the genocide recognized by the Turkish government. Turkey’s repeated denials do nothing to help heal the wounds that are almost a hundred years old. However, I’m not sure that this resolution is the best way to get the Turkish government to recognize the genocide. These sorts of issues need to be worked out by Turkey at a time when a mature, frank discussion can take place. The United States can speak out against the censorship that accompanies this issue in Turkey and it is obvious that Turks have a ways to go in addressing this portion of their history. However, this resolution will only add to the perception of American foreign policy arrogance and will only prove to be a hindrance in United States Middle East policy.
Related posts:
I know that little that Turks say can change minds made up by many in the American media, like in this otherwise thoughtful article.
However, the veracity of the genocide allegation has been questioned by many historians, who are not Turks (although the have been “vilified” for even the association) They may appear in the minority, but their credentials by far outweigh those of scholars trumpeted by the Armenians to the entire wisdom on this matter. They count poets, human rights activists, genocide scholars among them, but very few Ottoman and World War I historians.
When you count the death on one side, all wars look like genocide. The fact remains that Muslim Ottoman deaths have been shamefully disregarded in the recounting of this tragic history, while sympathy has been shown to the suffering of the Armenians. Their deaths most certainly deserve remembrance and sympathy, but so do the deaths of the millions of ancestors of Turks.
Notable scholars are pointing to the historical context in which the Armenian forced relocations (namely the Syrian territories of the Ottoman Empire) took place, the gravity of the security threat posed to the Ottoman Empire by the massive Armenian rebellion and fifth column activity on behalf of the British, Russian and the French. Allow me to name a few who question the genocide allegation: Bernard Lewis of Princeton, Guenter Lewy of University of Mass/Amherst, Justin McCarthy of University of Louisville, the late Stanford Shaw (formerly at UCLA, who incidentally got his house fire-bombed by Armenian terrorists and lived in hiding for many years), Norman Stone, author of World War I: A Short History and many respected historians.
Turkey has opened its archives to historians and has gone further by inviting a Joint History Commission with Armenians — Armenians have so far scorned it. Only if the path of gaining admission through legislative fiat is closed to them and they realize that there’s nothing concrete (meaning reparations and even land claims) to be gained from it, will the hardliners in the Armenian lobby relent their grip over the larger community and allow them to come to sit down and face history — a history that is undoubtedly is less “open and shut” than they would like everyone to believe.
I rest my case by submitting to your readers the following two links:
Armenian Story has Another Side. By Norman Stone, Chicago Tribune, October 17, 2007
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped1016endoct16,0,900339.story
History Speaks: The moral case against the Armenian genocide
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTAxNThjN2UyZjExNmRhOTY1OTU3OTNiMzEzNDJjY2Y=
Finally, the Armenian people waged a war of national independence against the Ottoman Empire and they were proud of it. Please don’t take my word, but the proud declaration to the London Times by Boghos Nubar, the head of the Armenian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, in 1919:
Boghos Nubar Pasha to The Times of London (January 30, 1919)
To the Editor of the Times,
Sir, the name of Armenia is not on the list of the nations admitted to the Peace Conference. Our sorrow and our disappointment are deep beyond expression. Armenians naturally expected their demand for admission to the Conference to be conceded, after all they had done for the common cause.
The unspeakable suffering and the dreadful losses that have befallen the Armenians by reason of their faithfulness to the Allies are now fully known. But I must emphasize the fact unhappily known to few, that ever since the beginning of the war the Armenians fought by the side of the Allies on all fronts. Adding our losses in the field to the greater losses through massacres and deportations, we find that over a million out of a total Armenian population of four million and a half have lost their lives in and through the war. Armenia’s tribute to death is thus undoubtedly heavier in proportion than that of any other belligerent nation. For the Armenians have been belligerents de facto, since they indignantly refused to side with Turkey.
Our volunteers fought in the French “Legion Entrangere” and covered themselves with glory. In the Legion d’Orient they numbered over 5,000, and made up more than half the French contingent in Syria and Palestine, which took part in the decisive victory of General Allenby.
In the Caucasus, without mentioning the 150,000 Armenians in the Russian armies, about 50,000 Armenian volunteers under Andranik, Nazarbekoff, and others not only fought for four years for the cause of the Entente, but after the breakdown of Russia they were the only forces in the Caucasus to resist the advance of the Turks, whom they held in check until the armistice was signed. Thus they helped the British forces in Mesopotamia by hindering the Germano-Turks from sending their troops elsewhere.
These services have been acknowledged by the Allied Governments, as Lord Robert Cecil recognized in the House of Commons.
In virtue of all these considerations the Armenian National Delegation asked that the Armenian nation should be recognized as a belligerent. Had the recognition been granted, we should now have been admitted, ipso facto, to the Conference, to which even transatlantic States have found access, though having merely broken off diplomatic relations with Germany, without the least sacrifice on their part.
At the moment when the fate of Armenia is being decided at the Peace Conference, it is my duty, as the head of the National Delegation which has no tribute from which its voice can resound, to state once again, in the columns of The Times, the important part played by the Armenians in this frightful war. I wish strongly to urge that the Armenians, having of their own free will cast their lot with the champions of right and justice, the victory of the Allies over their common enemies has secured to them a right to independence.
Believe me, sir, yours very truthfully,
Boghos Nubar
Comment on October 19, 2007 @ 1:38 pm
The above comments by Jill is typical of the posts and articles that we are seeing after Turkey hired powerhouse PR and lobbying firms. These people are using the same methods and tactics employed by anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers.It seems Holocaust and genocide denial is becoming a viable industry. David Irving is celebratig with Jill!
“… It is doubtful that we shall witness in the near future a plethora of instances of outright denial. But subtle, and consequently more dangerous, theories continue to appear. The course of this development and the nature of the theories, however pseudo-scientific they may be, must be fully examined.
We need not waste time or effort answering each and every one of the deniers’ contentions. It would be a never-ending effort to respond to arguments posed by those who freely falsify findings, quote out of context and simply dismiss reams of testimony because it counters their arguments. Unlike true scholars they have little if any respect for data or evidence. Their commitment is to an ideology and their ‘findings’ are shaped by it.
However, there is a critical difference between debate and analysis. To debate them is to give their theory the imprimatur of a legitimate historical opinion. It is far better to analyze who these people are and what it is they are trying to accomplish. Above all, it is essential to expose the illusion of reasoned inquiry that conceals extremist views. It is only when society – particularly that portion of society committed to intellectual debate -comprehends the full import of this group’s intentions that we can be sure that history will not be reshaped and recreated to fit a variety of pernicious ulterior motives.
The speciousness of the deniers’ arguments, rather than the arguments themselves, demands a response. The insidious way in which denial enters the mainstream debate – often disguised as relativism- must be fully exposed as it is crucial, ultimately, to an understanding of the deniers’ influence. These are not simply arcane controversies between scholars or, in this case, pseudo-scholars. In the words of the historian Donald Kagan, the past and, more importantly, our perception of the past, have a powerful ‘influence on the way we act in response to our problems today. What historians and others say happened and what they say it means. . .makes a great difference’. Relativists and deniers are well aware of this. It is not by chance that one of the fathers of American Holocaust denial, Harry Elmer Barnes, believed that history could serve as a ‘means for a deliberate and conscious instrument of social transformation’.
History matters. Adolf Hitler’s rise to power was facilitated by the artful way in which he advanced views of recent German history that appealed to the masses. It did not matter if it was a distorted view; it was one which appealed to many people and, more importantly, explained their current situation. David Duke has tried to modify his personal history as well as the history of the United States and his region. That which he has been unable to reshape, he and his followers have declared irrelevant. On the eve of the election for Governor of Louisiana, one of his supporters remarked in a television interview: ‘What do his views on Jews and Blacks have to do with this election?’ Though the interviewer did not respond, the answer was obvious: it was, simply put, ‘everything’.
The deniers hope to achieve their goals by winning recognition as a legitimate scholarly cadre and by planting seeds of doubt in the younger generation. Only by recognizing the threat that denial poses to reason and the pursuit of truth, will we expose denial for what it truly is and ultimately refuse any shred of legitimacy to it and its purveyors.”
Deborah Lipstadt
HOLOCAUST DENIAL AND THE COMPELLING FORCE OF REASON
Comment on October 19, 2007 @ 3:02 pm
By the US not passing H106, as an Armenian American, I’m still be victumized on a daily basis.
Comment on October 19, 2007 @ 4:29 pm
Sorry to Armenians everywhere who may be offended, but I have to oppose the above resolution, err, resolutely.
Real, blood-and-guts victimization of currently living people comes before historical grievances. This resolution causes the former by attempting feebly to correct the latter. Iraqis, Kurds, and American soldiers will all suffer real hardship when Turkey inevitably responds harshly. I really don’t have a problem with Nancy Pelosi, and I understand the spirit of this forum, but it seems pretty cut and dried that one of the effects of this course of action is likely to be a literal cutting of support for our troops by Turkey. For once, I feel that charge is justified.
Besides, this resolution is exactly the kind of political stunt that never fixes anything. Once upon a time, a congressional resolution said “this is the carefully considered opinion of a body of learned and serious people.” This resolution says, to me at least, “this is a shallow effort to buy the votes of a certain demographic at the expense of a great many other policy priorities.”
Comment on October 21, 2007 @ 5:15 pm