Regional geopolitics

[hrai]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Basically what I am saying is that you were quoting a 6th century text describing a fourth century city as if it were fact and not just the partial the views of a Christian writer composed 200 years after the event. And you were also quoting an American fundamentalist Christian propagandist from 1912 who was claiming, on the basis of that text, that "Constantinople was from the outset a Christian city". You are quoting from an outdated book - nobody would make such a sweeping statement today and it merely shows how backward the knowledge of the late Roman / early Byzantine empire was in 1912.

So basically what you're saying is that Constantinople was designed and built using contemporary styles and methods, contemporary architects and building materials.
Christian churches everywhere were built on existing pagan sites and Christianity adopted existing pagan gods into their religion as saints. Still happening today I think.

[Haykakan]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Good to have you back Hagopn. The kitty has indeed been bad lately but people are catching on to his bad ways. Do not allow him to put words into your mouth(writing) that you did not say(write). The funny thing is that everything the cat criticizes he himself is guilty of doing but it is ok when he does it-he does not need to provide sources but you do.

[hagopn]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Good to have you back Hagopn. The kitty has indeed been bad lately but people are catching on to his bad ways. Do not allow him to put words into your mouth(writing) that you did not say(write). The funny thing is that everything the cat criticizes he himself is guilty of doing but it is ok when he does it-he does not need to provide sources but you do.

Thank you. Good to be back, definitely. Although my work schedule is like my forum schedule; erratic-- For 10 or 20 days, 16 hour days, and then 2 weeks of vacation--

Yeah, I got that about this fellow. He reminds me of another sociopath who would throw negative quotes about Armenians without support, and was often found to have invented those quotes and put into the mouths of actual writers. He had attributed to Raffi certain sayings that the author had never said, for example. Perhaps the fellow was senile and was already confusing his writers and quotes.

This fellow seems to be of the same mold, but this one has a serious British Supremacist vein, and his spillage is typical of them.

Remember that the writings of Bede mentioned Armenia as the origin of the Britons. Interestingly enough, the Encyclopedia Britannica has added a footnote that says something to the effect of "This must be a mistake made by the copier. He really was supposed to write Armorica." In other words, even primary sources have no effect against poisonous fascism and supremacist psychopaths.

[lampron]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Armen Ayvazyan is quite legitimate and hardly a "puffed up rabble-rouser," and Suny is hardly considered, even now by his American Armenian peers, as anything resembling legitimate.

Suny lied. He didn't merely draw incorrect conclusions about complex subjects due to the impreciseness of historiography as a legitimate scholar is prone to doing. Suny intentionally presented only part of a primary source to suit his outright fraudulent, faulty and blatantly anti-nationalist argument. He then expressed pride in his anti-nationalist stance upon being accused of it. Apparently his State Department sponsors needed him to be precisely that.

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Suny may try to be objective by distancing himself from what may be regarded as an Armenian nationalist position.

Objective history is essential in order to learn from mistakes.

For example was Armenian independence in Russian Armenia forced on Armenians in 1918, or was it the result of an independence struggle?

Probably Richard Hovanisian would argue that it was the latter

Much more likely - most Armenians preferred Russian control because i) they didn't trust fellow Armenians and ii) feared Ottoman Turkey

[lampron]

Re: Regional geopolitics

David Beg was pragmatic and knew well the odds. The very reason that Israel Ori was going to those drinking binges with Peter I of Russia was to secure Russian assistance, because Armenians were up against established military powers.

There is the example of Russia. Tatars terrorized Russians for 200 years, but Russians did not send emissaries to London, Rome, Paris or Vienna asking for help. They did it all by themselves.

This is how successful nations behave

[londontsi]

Re: Regional geopolitics

There is the example of Russia. Tatars terrorized Russians for 200 years, but Russians did not send emissaries to London, Rome, Paris or Vienna asking for help. They did it all by themselves.

This is how successful nations behave

If that is the case why does the US Secretary of State goes round the world to raise support as well as consult for its policies.

I assume you regard the US as an unsuccessful state.

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[hagopn]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Suny may try to be objective by distancing himself from what may be regarded as an Armenian nationalist position.

Objective history is essential in order to learn from mistakes.

Objective history requires faithfulness to primary sources as well. Therefore, his objectivity is also suspect. I think he is a die hard leftist, but on order, depending upon which direction the wind blows. As I explained, which is strangely being ignored: He was on the extreme Right on the Armenian nationalism issue right alongside the US State Department until the break up of the USSR. That should be more than enough to deny him any credibility.

For example was Armenian independence in Russian Armenia forced on Armenians in 1918, or was it the result of an independence struggle?

My opinion is that it was forced, at least in terms of the timing. The SEIM http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictiona...caucasian+Seim was a better security blanket, but the pan-Turkists were already poised to abandon it and leave Armenian isolated in the region.

Probably Richard Hovanisian would argue that it was the latter

Interestingly, so would Armen Ayvazyan who, in his book, also considers Hovanissian a trusted source on the latter's own research material.

Much more likely - most Armenians preferred Russian control because i) they didn't trust fellow Armenians and ii) feared Ottoman Turkey

Yes, at the time that is what they were vying for, but not because of trust, but because a large chunk of their population were murdered and another large chunk were orphans or destitute. Armenia was a country barely recovering from genocidal tactics. They didn't have any choice on the matter. They didn't necessarily wish to have no statehood, but didn't see any practicality in having one at the time in the condition that we were in.

[hagopn]

Re: Regional geopolitics

There is the example of Russia. Tatars terrorized Russians for 200 years, but Russians did not send emissaries to London, Rome, Paris or Vienna asking for help. They did it all by themselves.

This is how successful nations behave

They had drastically different geopolitical situations.

Depending on which period you're talking about, the Tatars were only able to attack the south and grab a few hundred captives and run with random raids, assuming we're dealing with the 16th to 18th century and in reference to the Crimean Tatars. They were not facing two large and established military powers who could massacre their entire population in a matter of months as Armenians faced in that time period.

The Russians had the fortune of a large swath of land strategically blessed with an extremely cold Winter and much land that was not subject to easy attacks, and this affforded them the ability to resist even Napoleon's powerful military.

Also, at the time their focus was to the North when Peter I started with their modernization and expansion. Peter also was a leader who overturned all traditions and imported a large foreign population to terraform Russia into his vision of it, which was essentially a Franco-Prussian sort of state. Would any Armenian prince be able to carry out such a radical transformation act? Is this not considered "outside help" in some form? He essentially displaced his own people in many facets of Russia's political, economic and intellectual life, then Russia ended up eventually having a Prussian ruler at the helm. That same Russia then collapsed under a Red revolution, and the entire Russian nobility was either exiled or massacred, with few exceptions. Now the Russians are re-examining, with considerable objectivity, the benefits versus the damage of having inherited Peter I's legacy. Alcoholism, for example, is a devastating disease in the Russian social sphere, and Peter I is credit for having introduced hard liquor to the Russians.


I don't know how successful they are if they still fear that Muslims will one day outpopulate them in their own land because they publically admit that their male population is too drunk to marry and have children.

[Artashes]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Thank you. Good to be back, definitely. Although my work schedule is like my forum schedule; erratic-- For 10 or 20 days, 16 hour days, and then 2 weeks of vacation--

Yeah, I got that about this fellow. He reminds me of another sociopath who would throw negative quotes about Armenians without support, and was often found to have invented those quotes and put into the mouths of actual writers. He had attributed to Raffi certain sayings that the author had never said, for example. Perhaps the fellow was senile and was already confusing his writers and quotes.

This fellow seems to be of the same mold, but this one has a serious British Supremacist vein, and his spillage is typical of them.

Remember that the writings of Bede mentioned Armenia as the origin of the Britons. Interestingly enough, the Encyclopedia Britannica has added a footnote that says something to the effect of "This must be a mistake made by the copier. He really was supposed to write Armorica." In other words, even primary sources have no effect against poisonous fascism and supremacist psychopaths.

----- remember the writings of Bede -----
I spoke of the same thing.
On the "introduction & congratulation" thread "greetings from Cyprus" post #21 &#22.
Also agree with the association of "Henge" & "Hunge".
Artashes

[Hakob]

Re: Regional geopolitics

British neo-McCarthyism or why UK media coverage falls short

By Afshin Rattansi
From RT

There are moments when one could be forgiven for thinking that the mainstream media is beginning to learn the craft of journalism. That would obviously make the production of our show, Going Underground more difficult.

What if the BBC, ITN and Sky in the UK began realizing the country is amidst some of the greatest welfare cuts in history? What would we put in the show? Luckily, for us, the mainstream channels’ about turn on Syria – they have just discovered that anti-Assad forces have been hi-jacked by Salafist Islamists – is not because these channels’ foreign correspondents suddenly understand the polarities of multidimensional geopolitics. It’s arguable that MSM journalists merely realize that their masters have changed their minds about intervention. That’s why you don’t hear too much about the millions of refugees created in part by European and American governments.

Such is the extent of British neo-McCarthyism that even in 2014 not one of the main channels thought to cover a historic victory in the House of Commons in the past few weeks. The victory was against successive British governments that have tried to cover up events surrounding the only national builders’ strike in Britain’s history. MPs voted by 120 to three to call on David Cameron to release government papers detailing the convictions of 24 men who were accused of violent picketing and intimidating workers in Shropshire in 1972. The most famous worker who was jailed was Ricky Tomlinson, who has since become a highly successful actor. He appeared on Going Underground with a cohort of the so-called "Shrewsbury 24" who were convicted under the 1875 Conspiracy Act.

Most journalists didn't even begin to ask the question “Why is this important today?” That’s because they probably weren't aware of it. If they had asked, the answer would be, of course, that the British government, with UK law enforcement authorities, have deliberately attempted to sabotage the desires of the majority of British people for decades – using surveillance and all the rest of the panoply of the UK secret state. Ricky Tomlinson told us that the state was trying its best to stop campaigners from changing a work regime for builders that had one person dying every day.

Just a few years after the strike, Sir David Omand began his career at the government’s top secret spying operation, GCHQ. He came on Going Underground to answer questions in the wake of the continuing Snowden revelations. Somewhat, surprisingly Sir David was pleased by one element of the disclosures. He said Snowden’s documents show off how successful the measures he took were when he eventually became head of GCHQ to closely cooperate with his US counterparts. As to the controversial relationship between GCHQ and the NSA – some have described the situation as the UK pimping out GCHQ to American secret services for cash – well, that’s good too. If a deal hadn't been done, then the UK taxpayer would have had to shell out money for spying, so tying Britain with the US made good business sense. He said he was proud that “we could see publically” how good GCHQ was. And it was a kind of business – I was struck by how Sir David, who eventually left GCHQ to become permanent secretary at the Home Office, used the word “customer” when it came to intelligence.

As for illegality when it came to surveillance, he was satisfied that at no point had his activities transgressed against UK legal constraints. He said that the moment The Guardian newspaper began publishing Snowden leaks, investigations into law began and everything was all clear. As for using the secret state for political means, it couldn’t happen. Never did a minister or the Prime Minister ring him up and ask for “x” to be put under surveillance. “The system has checks and balances in it,” he said.

It was Sir David who among others said the late government scientist David Kelly should be pursued for talking to a BBC radio show I was working on. It was just ahead of the Iraq war and when I asked him about the intelligence cooperation framework at that time, he insisted that not all the intelligence was wrong; Kelly had told us before he died that intelligence was being cooked by politicians. On Going Underground, Sir David said that GCHQ sat in on all the decision-making and he stands by the fact that on Saddam’s nuclear weapons assessments, the intelligence was right, citing the Butler Inquiry as support. Kelly’s expertise had been on biological weapons.

Given that only 1 percent or so of the Snowden revelations have actually been released to the wider public, we’ll be hoping Sir David comes on again to give us his insights. Ironically, the biggest national security threat to Britain has not turned out to be bomb-toting militants. The greatest threat to national security – whether it be the threats to our armed services, healthcare, mortality rates and every other aspect of civil society – is the perceived need to bail out Britain’s banks after the financial services industry collapsed. Check out our interview with the British Bankers Association to see if you think British-government subsidized banks have now reformed themselves. Or will banks again catalyze ever more austerity in Britain? It’s an austerity they caused and an austerity supported by all main parties in the House of Commons. By Panorame. Am