Originally posted by armnuke
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Armenia and the information war
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Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan
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Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan
Originally posted by HyeSocialist View PostWhich page? Need collaboration?
I was checking if we have any other pistol in service other than the Makarov.
If there is anything to add let me know.
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Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan
Originally posted by armnuke View PostI'm working on the wikipedia page. It has to look top notch.
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Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan
I'm working on the wikipedia page. It has to look top notch.
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Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan
Do we have the MP-443 Grach pistol in service? Or just the Makarov?
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Re: Armenia and the information war
From Peace to Hit-Piece: Turkey’s New Lobbying Strategy Against Armenian Americans
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By Taniel Koushakjian
Armenian Agenda Editor
Hit Piece
On February 22, the Turkish Institute of Progress retained Mercury Public Affairs, LLC to lobby on its behalf in Washington, D.C. According to the filing, Mercury will lobby specifically on “Turkish-US relations.” Two days later, Mercury’s Vice Chairman, Adam Ereli, a former U.S. Ambassador and Deputy Spokesperson at the State Department, penned a hit-piece on Armenia entitled “Putin’s Newest Satellite State,” on Forbes’ opinion page. However, Forbes neglects to mention the fact that Ereli’s firm is under contract with the anti-Armenian lobby group. It is not yet clear whether or not Ereli disclosed to Forbes his business relationship behind the story.
It appears that either the Turkish lobby planted this story with the full knowledge and support of Forbes, or that Mercury’s connection with Forbes was used as a pawn in the Turkish lobby’s anti-Armenian campaign.
This is not the first time a high-priced Washington lobbyist has used the stroke of the pen to attack Armenian Americans. In 2014, Brenda Shaffer wrote a piece in the New York Times opinion page entitled “Russia’s next land grab.” The title sounds familiar. The story’s byline for Shaffer states that she “is a professor of political science at the University of Haifa and a visiting researcher at Georgetown.” However, Shaffer did not disclose her role as a paid consultant to Azerbaijan’s state-run oil company SOCAR. After the Times realized they had been duped, the editor’s rightly appended the story with the following statement: “This Op-Ed, about tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, did not disclose that the writer has been an adviser to Azerbaijan’s state-run oil company. Like other Op-Ed contributors, the writer, Brenda Shaffer, signed a contract obliging her to disclose conflicts of interest, actual or potential. Had editors been aware of her ties to the company, they would have insisted on disclosure.”
Peace?
The Turkish Institute of Progress (TIP), a New York based Turkish lobby group is the latest player trying to prop up Turkey by putting down Armenian Americans. The group was established months prior the centennial anniversary of the Armenian Genocide to “provide a forum for dialogue in pursuit of peace and cooperation between Turkey and the international community,” according to its website.
Instead of outright opposing Armenian Genocide recognition efforts by American human rights activists, the Turkish lobby’s genocide denial strategy shifted its approach to the issue on the centennial anniversary. TIP’s other hired public relations firm, Levick, tried to get a counter genocide resolution introduced that “focused on the next 100 years” by Rep. Curt Clawson (R-FL) who had been recruited to introduce the bill by Clawson’s predecessor, Congressman Connie Mack (R-FL), now a lobbyist for Levick.
A pushback from Clawson’s own constituency thwarted the TIP’s efforts, and the resolution, H. Res. 226, was instead introduced by Rep. Jeff Sessions (R-TX). The bill currently has two cosponsors.
I am personally aware of the Turkish government’s coordinated anti-Armenian effort with TIP, Levick, and now Mercury, as I was in Clawson’s district on April 12, 2015. I was invited to give a presentation on the Armenian Genocide at the Holocaust Museum and Education Center of Southwest Florida in Naples. Upon my arrival to the Holocaust Museum, I was shown an intimidating letter by Ozgur Kivanc Altan, Consul General of the Republic of Turkey in Miami addressed to the Holocaust Museum demanding that they cancel my presentation.
From Peace to Hit-Piece
The Turkish lobby’s strategy of genocide denial cloaked as peace has now turned to attacking the Republic of Armenia itself in order to mask Azerbaijan’s $4 billion dollar arms purchase from Russia, not to mention Azerbaijan’s gross abuse of human rights, corruption scandals, jailing of journalists, and drift away from democracy and towards authoritarian rule.
Mr. Ereli’s anti-Armenian hit-piece in Forbes should be appended, as the New York Times did, so that its readership is fully aware of his firm’s financial benefit from the published story. Their readers deserve no less.
*UPDATE: As of 4:00 PM on 2/26/16, Forbes corrected Ereli’s byline, stating he is “the vice chairman of Mercury, a public affairs and strategy firm whose clients include the Turkish Institute for Progress.”
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Re: Armenia and the information war
Treachery or free speech?: Armenian scholar’s interview with Azeri website elicits mixed reactions
KARABAKH | 14.05.15 | 13:10
By SARA KHOJOYAN
ArmeniaNow reporter
A pro-opposition Armenian scholar’s interview with an Azerbaijani website in which he lashes out at Armenia’s former and current governments has sparked renewed debate in Armenia around whether it is acceptable to “wash your dirty laundry in public”.
Well-known filmmaker and activist Tigran Khzmalyan known for his opposition views has already been branded as “traitor” by some social media users in Armenia after Haqqin.az published an interview with him in a question-and-answer format on May 13.
Khzmalyan, who answered the Azerbaijani website’s questions in writing, confirmed that his words were not distorted.
“I would say the same thing to Armenian, Russian, Chinese or Turkish journalists if they asked me these questions. I don’t think that in giving an interview to an enemy or an enemy state [representative] one has to lie,” the Armenian scholar explained.
In his interview Khzmalyan, in particular, spoke about the 1999 parliamentary killings in Armenia, claiming that they marked the beginning of political and economies woes for the country. Khzmalyan also addressed issues of social injustice and corruption in Armenia.
“As far as I know, the situation is similar in other post-Soviet countries, partly also in Azerbaijan. I believe that the main reason for our defeats is the weakness of our national elite that yielded to the criminal regime supported by the Kremlin,” he argued in the interview.
While in the past similar views expressed by opposition Armenians in interviews with foreign media have been mostly criticized in the Armenian segment of social media, today there is more of a debate going on regarding the matter.
Information security expert Samvel Martirosyan thinks that Khzmalyan’s interview is first of all an indicator of the high level of freedom of speech in Armenia, especially in comparison with Azerbaijan.
However, according to the expert, the selection of platform and contents is important, especially that the motives are unknown.
“This website is clearly a platform for anti-Armenian propaganda, it can hardly be considered to be a media outlet. I would understand if Khzmalyan spoke about Armenian-Azerbaijani relations. But what is the point of going to the Azerbaijani field and talking about internal political problems of Armenia in the case when you can do that freely in Armenia and says nothing new?” the expert wondered.
“I think a politician should take into account these circumstances, as giving an interview is not an end in itself,” Martirosyan added, talking to ArmeniaNow.
Journalist and publicist Varduhi Simonyan thinks that double standards are applied when a Turk speaking about the Armenian Genocide is hailed as a hero, but an Armenian who speaks with the Azerbaijani society is labeled as a traitor.
“Don’t turn this society into rubbish. Giving an interview to an Azerbaijani media outlet is not a sin. It is another thing that your son gets shot at the border. Your scholar should be talking to the Azerbaijani society about how to stop the shooting at the borders and establishing peace,” Simonyan wrote on her Facebook account.
This is not the first time Armenian oppositionists and scholars give interviews to Azerbaijani media, lashing out at Armenian authorities. Armenia’s leading human rights activist Artur Sakunts also does not avoid giving such interviews. He has described Khzmalyan’s interview as the exercise of the right of freedom of expression.
Meanwhile, information security expert and well-known blogger Tigran Kocharyan thinks that Khzmalyan in reality has been “used” for so-called “network screening”.
“In this case, it was a screening on how the Armenian public reacts to the phenomenon that is rejected (still rejected) by the Armenian society and how the network that has not worked for some time should respond – either by justifying what Khzmalyan has done, or in the worst case scenario, by divert flows to other directions. The only victim here is Khzmalyan, who has been simply used as a Guinea pig to gauge the mood of the society,” Kocharyan wrote on his Facebook account.
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