"Born to Defense"

A murder that makes Jet not lag.

What sparked this page was the viewing of a film starring and directed by Jet Li, entitled "Born to Defense." It's the rare foreign production available to American audiences where the Americans were made out to be the villains. (Not in a really evil way, mind you, but in that brazen, loutish way characteristic of the "Ugly American" who pushes his weight around in less developed corners of the globe.)

The film begins with Japanese aggression against China in WWII, and the victorious Americans quickly establish a presence during the time when Chiang and Mao were duking it out. Our hero, played by Jet Li, is constantly provoked by racist American sailors who enjoy demonstrating their testosterone in a local watering hole's boxing ring. The conflict escalates, until the sailors kill a couple of people close to the heart of our hero. Just as he sets out to teach the Yanks a lesson, the military police intervene.

The lackey Chinese police provide a taste of "Guantanamo Bay."

Wrongfully behind bars, not unlike many of the Ottoman detainees in the postwar empire.

Our hero is the one who winds up being imprisoned, and is tortured by the Chinese authorities who are under the domination of the Americans. Finally, our hero makes the following outburst (which may be listened to in its entirety here; note how at the end our hero cries for "vengeance," sure to warm the heart of most genocide-batty Armenians):

"Who's in charge here? The Chinese government or the U.S. military? Whose country is it, ours or theirs?"

There you go, ladies and gentlemen! That statement lies at the very core of the legitimacy of the 1919-20 Ottoman courts.

The Chinese authorities are happy to play along at the hands of the American occupiers.

The puppet Ottomans of the successive Damat Ferid government were almost totally beholden to the victorious British and French, who had taken over the defeated the Ottoman Empire, initially with one million Allied soldiers. (If Peter Balakian's "The Burning Tigris" is to believed; in other words, even though Istanbul was officially occupied in March 1920, it is not as though the nation was not already occupied.)

.Jet uses propulsion against a giant American officer, curiously a martial arts expert as well, back in 1945.

Not only were the puppets out for retribution with the now-hated previous CUP administration having led the nation to disaster, but were hoping for mercy at the hands of the Allies, in the upcoming Peace Conference. As a result, whatever the British wanted, their Ottoman lackeys would be sure to comply — from finding culprits for "genocide" to signing a death sentence for their own nation, via the Sèvres Treaty.

And this discussion leads to our parallel straight out of today's headlines.

The Turkish Courts-Martial of 1919-22

(The following is from pp. 73-82 of Dr. Guenter Lewy's book.)


The Turkish Courts-Martial of 1919-22

Following the defeat of Turkey in World War I and the signing of rhe armistice ofMudros on October 30, 1918, rhe new Turkish government formed on November 11 accused the Young Turk regime of serious crimes. These accusations led to the convening of special courts-martial to try the leadership of the Committee on Union and Progress and selected officials of the former government. Several contemporary Armenian writers cite the findings of these proceedings as crucial support for the charge of genocide. Vartkes Yeghiayan argues that they "are primary evidence of Turkish confessions and condemnations which corroborate and authenticate the Armenian witness' accounts of the genocide." [37] Dadrian, as we have seen above, invoked the trials to confirm the genuineness of the Naim-Andonian documents.

After losing the war, the Young Turk government was badly discredited, and harsh criticism of the CUP became the chief theme in the Turkish press.[38] Public clamor for the punishment of the Young Turk leadership gathered strength after the escape from Constantinople of seven top CUP leaders, including Talaat Pasha, on board a German destroyer during the night of November I. British high commissioner Arthur G. Calthorpe informed London on November 29 that planning was underway to try Enver, Talaat, and their associates by courtmartial. There is hardly an organ of the press, he added, "which is not vehemently attacking these men either for the incalculable harm they have brought to the country or for their share in the massacres of the various Christian races." [39] A committee of the Turkish parliament and a commission convened in the ministry of the interior undertook the gathering of evidence and procured a large number of relevant documents that were later used by the courts-martial.[40]

By all accounts, the most important reason for the establishment of the military tribunals was massive pressure by the victorious Allies, who insisted on retribution for the Armenian massacres. As early as May 24, 1915, the Allied governments had warned the Sublime Porte that they would "hold personally responsible [for] these crimes all members of the Ottoman government and those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres."[41] When the Turkish cabinet made the formal decision on December 14 to set up the courts-martial, writes Taner Akcam, author of the most detailed study of the trials, "the political pressure of the British played a decisive role."[42] Dadrian also speaks of the Allies' eagerness for punitive justice."[43] It is most certain, Dadrian writes in another article, that the convening of the courts-martial "was dictated by political expediency. On the one hand, it was hoped that it would be possible to inculpate the Ittihadist Party leadership as primarily, if not exclusively, responsible for the Armenian massacres, thereby exculpating the rest of the Turkish nation. On the other, many representatives of the victorious Allies nurtured a strong belief that the punishment of the perpetrators might induce the victors to be lenient at the Peace Conference."[44]

The wartime plans of the Allies had provided for the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. According to the so-called Constantinople agreement of March 18, 1915, Russia was to annex Constantinople and parts of eastern Thrace as well as an adjoining area in Asiatic Turkey. The Sykes-Picot agreement of May 16, 1915, negotiated between Mark Sykes and Georges Picot for Britain and France and ratified by the Russians, divided large areas of Asiatic Turkey among France, Russia, and Britain.[45] Understandably, the Turks were greatly concerned about these plans, and they decided early on that only full cooperation with the Allies would help minimize the loss of territory. They also unleashed an elaborate publicity campaign to convince the world that the Young Turks alone were to blame for the crimes that had been committed. According to an American intelligence report of December 10, 1918, the Turks had created a commission of propaganda "in order to persuade civilized people that the Turk is worthy of their sympathy, throwing all the responsibility for the massacres on the Young Turk Government."[46]

The National Congress, an umbrella group of more than fifty political and cultural organizations, issued several pamphlets addressed to the West, sounding a theme that was to be echoed by some of the courts-martial. The National Congress argued that the deportations of the Armenians had become necessary because of the treasonous activities of the Armenian revolutionary organizations and the "numerous outrages against the Musulman population" but that the massacres that had taken place were inexcusable. It accused the CUP of having carried out an "infernal policy of extermination and robbery" but maintained that the Turkish people should not be held responsible "for a criminal aberration against which its conscience protested from the outset." Muslims as well as Armenians had suffered greatly from the reign of the Young Turks. "All classes, all nationalities were the victims of its tyranny."[47] Grand Vizier Damad Ferid, appearing before the Paris peace conference, argued likewise that the responsibility for Turkey's entry into the war on the side of Germany and for the crimes committed against the Christians lay strictly with the CUP.[48]

Large-scale arrests of leading Ittihadists began in January 1919. A list of suspects had been compiled by the Greek-Armenian section of the British high commissioner, which drew on the assistance of the Armenian patriarchate; others arrested were nationalists opposed to the armistice or political enemies of the Liberal Union party now in power, which sought to settle old accounts. The charges included subversion of the Turkish constitution as well as massacres of Greeks and Armenians and wartime profiteering. The main trial judged key cabinet ministers and high CUP functionaries. Several other courts took up crimes in provincial cities where massacres had taken place. Due to inadequate documentation, the total number of courts is not known. Taner Akcam arrives at a count of twenty-eight, but there may have been more.[49] An attempt of the Turkish government in February 1919 to have representatives of four neutral governments (Denmark, Spain, Sweden, and Holland) participate in the investigation of the massacres was foiled by British and French opposition.[50] All of the proceedings took place in Constantinople.

Between May 20 and 23 Constantinople saw several large demonstrations against the Allied occupation. To appease the nationalists the Ottoman government freed forty-one prisoners. The British had long been concerned about the lax discipline at the prisons and the large number of escapees. They now feared the release of all of the prisoners. Hence on May 28 British forces seized sixty-seven of the detainees, including some already on trial, and transferred them to Malta. As the Kemalist movement gathered strength, the work of the courts-martial slowed down more and more. On March 16, 1920, the Allies occupied Constantinople, but the signing of the Treaty of Sevres by the Ottoman government on August 10 further weakened the Turkish courts-martial. The treaty envisaged an international tribunal that would judge those suspected of serious war crimes and thus undermined the relevance and importance of the Turkish courts. The last Ottoman government uncovered several mistakes in the proceedings of the military tribunals. The trials formally ended on March 28, 1922. An amnesty a year later freed those still in custody.[63]

Dadrian considers the military tribunals of 1919-20 "a milestone in Turkish legal history." The courts, he concedes, suffered from instability in structure and personnel. There was much turnover among presiding judges and prosecutors. The proceedings failed dismally "in the area of retributive justice." Despite the enormity of the crime, there were only fifteen death sentences, only three of which were actually carried out. Still, Dadrian argues, the trials "demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the Ittihad, which had become a monolithic governmental party, intended to destroy the Armenian population of the empire and for that purpose had organized and implemented its scheme of genocide."[64] Hovannisian concludes similarly that, although justice was not done, "the relevant documents stand as reminders of the culpability of the Young Turk regime."[65] According to Melson, "the courts-martial demonstrate that Turkish authorities once did exist with the integrity not to deny but to face up to the truth of the Armenian Genocide."[66]

Armenian writers and their supporters have praised the contribution of the military tribunals to the discovery of historical truth, despite serious problems concerning our knowledge of these proceedings and the reliability of their findings. It is of course not surprising that the proceedings in 1919-20 lacked many basic requirements of due process. Few authors familiar with Ottoman jurisprudence have had many positive things to say about the Turkish court system, especially the military courts. Dadrian notes that military tribunals in 1915 "hanged countless Armenians on the flimsiest charges," and he cites with approval a German memo that referred to these tribunals as "kangaroo courts."[67] In January 1916 the German ambassador, Paul von Wolff-Metternich, demanded the supervision of Turkish courts by German officials, "since one cannot have confidence in Turkish jurisprudence."[68] In July 1915 and again early in 1916 a Turkish military court condemned to death a total of seventy-eight leading citizens of Syria. "Many, probably a large majority," writes one student of the subject, "were innocent of anything which would justify such a sentence."[69]

Probably the most serious problem affecting the probative value of the 1919-20 military court proceedings is the loss of all the documentation of these trials. This means that we have none of the original documents, sworn testimony, and depositions on which the courts based their findings and verdicts. We know of some of this material from reports of the legal proceedings that are preserved in selected supplements of the official gazette of the Ottoman government, Takvim-i Vekayi, or from press reports; but, of course, such reproductions can hardly be considered a valid substitute for the original documentation. In many cases we do not know whether the official gazette or the newspapers covering the trials reprinted all or only some of the text of the documents reproduced. Neither can we be sure of the accuracy of the transcription. According to Dadrian, "before being introduced as accusatory exhibits, each and every official document was authenticated by the competent staff personnel of the Interior Ministry who thereafter affixed on the top part of the document: 'it conforms to the original.'"[79] However, in the absence of the original documents and without the ability of defense counsel to challenge the authenticity of this material, we have to take the word of the officials in question—and that is indeed a tall order. It is doubtful that the Nuremberg trials would ever have attained their tremendous significance in documenting the crimes of the Nazi regime if we had to rely on a few copies of such documents in the trial record or in the press covering the trials instead of the verdicts being supported by thousands of original German documents preserved in our archives.

In the absence of the complete original documents, we have to be content with selected quotations. For example, General Vehib Pasha in his written deposition is supposed to have described Dr. Behaeddin Sakir. one of the top CUP leaders, as the man who "procured and engaged in the command zone of the Third Army the butchers of human beings.... He organized gallow birds as well as gendarmes and policemen with blood on their hand and blood in their eyes."[80] Parts of this deposition were included in the indictment of the main trial and in the verdict of the Harput trial,[81] but without the full text we lose the context of the quoted remarks. The entire text of the deposition is supposed to have been read into the record of the Trebizond trial on March 29, 1919, but the proceedings of this trial are not preserved in any source; only the verdict is reprinted in the official gazette.

Other highly incriminating testimony is said to have been given at the Yozgat trial, but here again only the verdict was published in the official gazette. Dadrian, who quotes this testimony, has to rely on accounts of these proceedings in Turkish newspapers, all of which were operating under the dual prior censorship of the Turkish government and the Allied high commissioners.[82] Moreover, much of this testimony must be considered hearsay at best. For example, former Turkish official Cemal is supposed to have testified that Ankara's CUP delegate Necati had told him that the time had come to begin "the extermination of local Armenians."[83] Similar hearsay evidence is contained in the indictment of the main trial. The Turkish official Ihsan Bey had heard Abdulahad Nuri Bey, the Aleppo representative of the deportations committee, say: "I have taken up contact with Talaat Bey and have personally received the orders of extermination."[84] In the absence of cornoboration from other reliable sources, it seems difficult to consider this testimony evidence in any meaningful sense of the term.

Contemporary Turkish authors dismiss the proceedings of the military tribunals of 1919-20 as tools of the Allies.[85] The victorious Allies at the time, however, anxious for retributive justice, considered the conduct of the trials to be dilatory and half-hearted. The trials, British high commissioner Calthorpe wrote to London on August I, 1919, were "proving to be a farce and injurious to our own prestige and to that of the Turkish government."[86] In the view of commissioner John de Robeck, the trials were such a dead failure that their "findings cannot be held of any account at all."[87] Hence when the British considered conducting their own trials of alleged Turkish war criminals held at Malta they declined to use any of the inculpatory evidence developed by the Turkish tribunals (see chapter 7).

According to Dadrian, "several aspects of the court-martial proceedings merit attention for the quality of their judiciousness, despite the consideration of the fact that these trials were urged on by the victorious Allies, under whose shadow they took place." Among the features that deserve praise Dadrian notes that the trials were held in public, that the defendants had able defense counsel, and that the verdicts pronounced by the tribunals were based almost entirely on authenticated official documents.[88] As explained earlier, however, the authenticity of documents admitted into evidence cannot be established by assertion on the part of the prosecuting authority. Moreover, none of the testimony, written depositions, and documents put forth by the prosecution were subjected to cross-examination by the defense, which makes it impossible to consider these materials conclusive proof. Some of these materials are reproduced in the indictments, but an indictment is not tantamount to proven guilt. The serious violations of due process as well as the loss of all of the original documentation leave the findings of the military tribunals of 1919-20 unsupported by credible evidence.

See also:

The Other Side of the 1919-20 Ottoman Trials