Everything starts somewhere.  Even very bad things.

Many of the tremors we face today had their roots in the Ottoman Empire, in the run up to the First World War.  In what’s come to be called the Armenian genocide. 

There we began to see the rise of Muslim extremism, the battle for post WWI borders in the Middle East, the plight of refugees, the competition between national and corporate interests, particularly big oil, the Israeli/Palestinian  conundrum, and even acts of heroism in the face of seemingly improbable odds.  All of these things had their roots 100 years ago in the first genocide of the 20th century.

What we have forgotten is that for those that perpetrated it, there was a price to pay.  A small band of brothers set out to avenge the death of the million-plus people killed in that Armenian Genocide.

Now Eric Bogosian captures the essence of the story in Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide.

My conversation with Eric Bogosian: