By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on October 12, 2015
Published at Verily
I have always been interested in the Middle East, specifically the Syrian conflict. In early summer 2014, as part of my master’s dissertation, I went to Lebanon to work with the United Nations. I was still there when the Islamic State group, commonly known as ISIS, struck Iraq. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 30, 2015
Russia began airstrikes in Syria today, ostensibly to combat the Islamic State (I.S.). In reality the strikes first hit U.S.-supported moderate rebels and the campaign is intended to buttress the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on August 22, 2015
This is the final part of a six-part series. Read parts one, two, three, four, and five, or read the whole essay.
Masyaf fortress, the headquarters of the Nizari Ismailis (The Assassins) in Syria
Conclusion
The Nizari Ismailis did not invent assassination, of course; only lent it their name. The Ismailis were “part of a long tradition that goes back to the beginnings of Islam … of popular and emotional cults in sharp contrast with the learned and legal religion of the established order.” Still, the Nizaris did rely on the Holy Law. The ideal of Islamic governance might be authoritarian, but it is not arbitrary; if a ruler crosses the shari’a it becomes a duty to resist. This element became gradually more marginal as the religion formed into a State and Empire, but it was there and many other sects had called on it in their opposition to the prevailing regimes. The Nizaris were the first to call up this tradition of righteous rebellion and combine it with an effective opposition organization.
In their use of conspiracy, assassination, and even the ceremonial nature of the murders and the weapon-cult, the Assassins were hardly unique. But they might well be the first terrorists: those who, at an overwhelming disadvantage in conventional terms, used unconventional means in a planned, long-term campaign of targeted violence as a political weapon with the intention of overturning the established order. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on June 9, 2015
This is the complete review. It has previously been posted in three parts: Part 1 on the question of whether the 1915-16 Armenian massacres constitute genocide; Part 2 on the post-war trials and the Nationalist Movement; and Part 3 gives some conclusions on what went wrong in the Allied efforts to prosecute the war criminals and the implications for the present time, with Turkey’s ongoing denial that genocide took place and the exodus of Christians from the Middle East.
A Question of Genocide
The controversy over the 1915-16 massacres of Armenian Christians in the Ottoman Empire is whether those acts constitute genocide. Those who say they don’t are not the equivalent of Holocaust-deniers in that they do not deny that the massacres happened; what they deny is that the massacres reach the legal definition of genocide. Their case is based on three interlinked arguments:
Taner Akcam’s A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility presents evidence to undermine every one of these arguments. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on June 7, 2015
Part 1 of this review dealt with the question of whether the 1915-16 Armenian massacres constitute genocide. Part 2 was about the post-war trials and the Nationalist Movement. This part gives some conclusions on what went wrong in the Allied efforts to prosecute the war criminals and the implications for the present time. Alternatively, the complete review is available here.
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on June 1, 2015
This is the first part of a three-part review; it deals with the question of whether the 1915-16 Armenian massacres constitute genocide. Part 2 is about the post-war trials and the Nationalist Movement. Part 3 gives some conclusions on what went wrong in the Allied efforts to prosecute the war criminals and the implications for the present time. Alternatively, the complete review is available here.
A Question of Genocide
The controversy over the 1915-16 massacres of Armenian Christians in the Ottoman Empire is whether those acts constitute genocide. Those who say they don’t are not the equivalent of Holocaust-deniers in that they do not deny that the massacres happened; what they deny is that the massacres reach the legal definition of genocide. Their case is based on three interlinked arguments:
Taner Akcam’s A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility presents evidence to undermine every one of these arguments. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 7, 2015
With the triumph of relativism and the current economic woes of the West, the sense that Western civilization is unique and in some respects—to use an old-fashioned word—better than the alternatives, and worth defending and exporting, is waning. But Bernard Lewis’ The Muslim Discovery of Europe suggests a longer view in which Europe, while containing all the faults of previous civilizations, has been one of the few to begin the process of correcting those faults, and has corrected many more than any other civilization.
One feature of European civilization that stands out as unique is curiosity. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 13, 2015
Richard Bell’s Introduction to the Qur’an is, at less than 200 pages, a brief and easily-digestible explanation of the context in which Islam’s “holy” book arose, and the problems of reconciling theological orthodoxy with historical accuracy. More than six decades after publication, the book remains influential in scholarship of the Qur’an. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 7, 2015
Al-Qaeda’s emir, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released a document on 14 September 2013, entitled, Tawjihat ‘Amma lil-Amal al-Jihadi (توجيهات عامة للعمل الجهادي), variously translated as: “General Guidelines for the Work of Jihad” or “General Guidelines for Jihadist Action”. Al-Zawahiri’s document is reproduced below. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on December 24, 2014
The Armenian Catholic Church of the Martyrs in Raqqa City
In the last few days I’ve been asked a lot about my longstanding view that the beginning of a Western strategy in Syria is the removal of Bashar al-Assad. The question has come from various angles and been phrased in various ways but it always boils down to: “What comes next?”
The best response I have seen to this comes from Thomas Nichols: “When someone says ‘tell me how it ends,’ it’s another way of saying: ‘I just don’t happen to like this particular case for intervention,’ for whatever reason.” Continue reading
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