The Armenian Genocide: Revisionism and the U.S. National Interest
20 November 2000
When historical instances of systematic genocide are overlooked by neo-Nazi
historians, it is called revisionism. When they are overlooked by the U.S.
government it is called safeguarding U.S. national interest. Take, for
instance, the Armenian Genocide. In 1915, the military elite of the crumbling
Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) decided to implement drastic measures against the
Armenian minority residing within its borders. By 1923, between 1.1 and 1.5
million Armenians had been systematically massacred by Ottoman troops, while
another 0.4 million had sought refuge abroad -many of them here in the U.S.
The facts and figures of the Armenian Genocide are not new. They have been
widely known for decades. The bureaucratic precision of the Ottomans, who
kept detailed records of all "neutralising activity" carried out by the
Empire's troops, as w! ell as painstaking scholarly research conducted over the
years, have provided us with ample documentation, impressive in its volume
and clarity -see, for instance, http://www.armenian-genocide.org. The
Association of Genocide Scholars reported in 1998 that had it not been for
the testimonies offered by survivors of Nazi concentration camps, the Jewish
Holocaust would have been harder to prove than the Armenian one, as the
latter has been so well-documented. In fact, the two instances of genocide
are closely related: Hitler himself referred to the Armenian Genocide when
arguing for the implementation of his 'final solution' for the Jews: "Who,
after all", he wrote in a 1939 internal memo discovered in 1951 "speaks today
of the annihilation of the Armenians?". Today, numerous democratic nations
around the world have officially recognised the 1915-1923 slaughter of the
Armenians as an ! Act of Genocide. The long list includes Argentina, Australia,
Russia, Canada, Belgium, Britain, France, Italy, Sweden and the Vatican. In
addition, international bodies, such as the United Nations (through its War
Crimes Commission), the World Council of Churches, the League of Human Rights
and the Union of Hebrew Congregations have published official declarations
recognising the Genocide. On November 16, 2000 the European Union added
itself to the long list, by calling for Turkey to publicly recognise the
Genocide. Turkey claims that, although 300,000 Armenians were exterminated,
such acts were not systematic and were sparked by internal strife. One of the
few democratic national governments who have remained largely silent over the
issue has been that of the U.S. On October 11, 2000, the U.S. House of
Representatives found itself before an opportunity to follow the example of
other Western nations by voting on a proposed resolu! tion formally recognising
the massacre of the Armenians as an Act of Genocide. The resolution had been
proposed by a bipartisan group of representatives, and co-sponsored by a
House majority. Yet things did not work out quite as planned. On the evening
of the vote, J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Speaker of the House, withdrew the
resolution from the floor. The reason behind the withdrawal was initially
unclear, but later emerged in full color: minutes before the vote was due,
U.S. President Bill Clinton telephoned Hastert and requested that he
immediately withdrew the resolution, as it could "seriously harm U.S.
interests if passed" [N.Y. Times, 10/20/2000]. The precise nature of those
threatened U.S. interests became clear on the following day. Specifically,
the Turkish government issued a warning to the U.S. embassy in Ankara,
stating that, if the resolution was passed by the House, it would proceed to
do the following: (a) grou! nd U.S. planes which use Turkish air bases to
patrol and bomb northern Iraq; (b) cancel a $4.5 billion contract to buy 145
attack helicopters made in Texas; and (c) block a major U.S. backed $2.7
billion project to pipe Caspian oil through Turkish territory to Europe [N.Y.
Times, ibid.; Reuters 10/20/2000]. The end of the proposed Armenian Genocide
resolution ensued rather quickly, following Clinton's telephone call. The
resolution was withdrawn without questioning by the same U.S. governing
officials who have showed such humanitarian sensitivity to the plight of
Kosovar Albanians in Yugoslavia. Representative Hastert, who withdrew the
resolution, characteristically stated to the press that "[t]he Congress,
while it has a right to express its opinions on critical issues of the day,
also must be cognizant of the consequences of the expressions of those
opinions" [N.Y. Times, ibid.]. Especially, one might add, if those
conseque! nces involve the financial dealings of U.S. arms and oil interests
around the globe. The News Insider 2000
http://www.pol.ed.ac.uk/ninsider/index.html?editorials/armenia.html&1
