SokSa Lair

Armenian Genocide?

Mr. Bostom speaks about the Armenians, too. But in a different way. He writes about the "Armenian genocide committed by the Ottoman Turks during the initial two decades" of the 20^th century, adding yet another link to his chain of evil.

But that is an argument by assertion. "Armenian genocide" is not an established historical fact, it is the "Armenian thesis" that some prominent historians such as Bernard Lewis find erroneous. The Turkish thesis is that there was not an extermination policy against the Armenian population of Turkey in 1915, as has been alleged, but rather the tragedy was mutual killing in war conditions. The slaughter of tens of thousands of Muslim (Kurdish and Turkish) civilians by the Armenian militias aligned with the invading Russian army gives credence to that assessment. 

Justin McCarthy, professor of history at Louisville University, in his book titled Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, documents this view. As historian Daniel Pipes well summarizes, McCarthy's book, "Puts into perspective the deportation of Armenians in 1915 and turns this from an act of hatred into one motivated by fear (had the Armenians, with Russian support, rebelled, Ottoman Muslims could have expected to be slaughtered)."

In his book, Justin McCarthy examines many of those incidents in which Armenian rebels killed local Muslim populations. During the Armenian revolt, which preceded the alleged "Armenian genocide,"

Everything Islamic in Van was destroyed. With the exception of three antique buildings, all the mosques were burned or torn down. The entire Muslim quarter was destroyed. When the Armenian work and the battle between Ottomans and Armenians were finished, Van more resembled an ancient ruin than a city . . .

When the Armenians attacked Muslims' own villages or nearby villages, Muslims fled with whatever moveable property they could carry. On the road, Armenian bands first robbed them, then raped many of the women and killed many of the men. Usually, but not always, a number of women and young children were killed as well.[xv]

In fact, "After the Armenian retreat, much of eastern Anatolia was a graveyard."[xvi]

What is called the "Armenian genocide" was partly the attacks of revenge on the Armenian population by local Turks and Kurds. That was indeed inter-communal violence. On the other hand, the decision by the Ottoman government to deport the Armenians in Eastern Turkey caused many deaths and that is horrible, but it was not a genocidal policy either. According to McCarthy,

The Ottoman response to the Armenian Revolution was approximately the same as that taken by other twentieth-century governments faced with guerrilla war: isolate the guerrillas from local support by removing local supporters.[xvii]

Thus, McCarthy concludes, "The blame for the deaths of Armenians in the convoys must be shared by the Ottomans -- shared with the Armenian revolutionaries and their supporters and with the Russians"[xviii]