Iraq... an Armenian view.

[IAmMadAtAC]

In 20 years, Armenia will cease to exist because of a constant tug-of-war between America, Europe, and Russia.

What the hell? So what will Armenia become? It certainly won't become part of Europe (EU), obviously it won't turn into the 51st state of America, and Russia has a hard enough time trying to keep Armenia within its orbit, hell they don't even share a border. If Armenia cannot go to those, then who? Will it be taken over by Azerbaijan? You must be kidding that country's a joke. Will it be taken over by Iran? I can't imagine a reason why, and the US wouldn't allow that. Will it be taken over by Georgia? That country has a hard enough time holding itself together, how can it take over Armenia too? Will Turkey take it over? This is the only one that is anywhere close to feasable, and seeing as its going to try to get into the EU for the next 20 years, I don't think taking over a neighbor will help its case any. And if it does finally get admitted, I'm sure militarily or otherwise taking over a neighbor will be forbidden. So what's left?? Armenia just fails to be, it just becomes a black hole vortex in the middle of the Caucausus owned by no one with nothing there? I really can't understand how you can say Armenia will just cease to be within 20 years.

[Hayq]

Yknow, we as Armenians have had one enemy we can not get rid of...ourselves...

When a nation has 1mln old people who can not fight, has an economy run on tourism, and a corrupt government that keeps pocketing profit...it will cease to to exist.

Right NOW, as of THIS point...it does not look too good for Armenia. I do not know what will happen between now and 20 years, I do not want it to end...but I can not gaurantee that it would not.

As for Tigo....phuck off.

[IAmMadAtAC]

When a nation has 1mln old people who can not fight, has an economy run on tourism, and a corrupt government that keeps pocketing profit...it will cease to to exist.

Oh yeah, yoour the one with the problem of non-Armenians visiting Armenia. Armenia is NOT an economy run on tourism fool, no one goes there! Everyone leaves! The few people that go are diasporans visiting or ones that used to live there going back for a visit. I'd say like 1% of all visitors to Armenia are non-Armenian tourists! How is that running an economy on tourism when there is none?!
And regarding the corrupt government, sure it is, but which isn't? That's something all new republics deal with. America of the 19th century was extremely corrupt; you couldn't get a government job without knowing someone high up, voting was a joke because of how much fraud there was, we think because America was the first democracy that means it was never corrupt like Armenia. Well I'll tell you what, that's far from the case. It's also well known that Azerbaijan is even more corrupt than Armenia, so if you say Armenia will fall due to corruption why not Azerbaijan? Or the millions of other countries that are corrupt like us? I can't stand doom and gloom people who say everything for Armenia is terrible and clearly the country will cease to exist, without even thinking of the implications of that or how it could happen. When you think about it such things are not likely to happen, especially not in the fast timeframe you predict.

[Hayq]

Do not compare Armenia with America, they are not the same.

You probably did not read my other post where I said I did not have a problem with non-Armenians.

Also, I gave other reasons thn corruption. A corrupt country whos youth is flocking away and economy is stunted because of horrible relations with neighbors.

20years is a very longtime, things can happen very quickly, within a day 120k people died in the tsunamis. Within months, America's economy went from bad to worse.

[IAmMadAtAC]

Do not compare Armenia with America, they are not the same.

Also, I gave other reasons thn corruption. A corrupt country whos youth is flocking away and economy is stunted because of horrible relations with neighbors.

And can you tell me why I cannot compare them? They both were terribly corrupted, and America took basically its entire history up until now to lose some of its corruption. So in that sense I mean if a country like America had to deal with that, there's no reason to assume Armenia is on the verge of death jut because it has corruption.
Also, America didn't exactly have an easy time starting out either. The British invaded us twice in our early history, which basically counts as a neighbor because it owned Canada and Mexico wasn't a country (and we didn't own land out there yet). The British were known to blockade us at times as well and used to do things like take over our merchant ships and force our sailors into their own navy. You act like its all Armenia's fault that it has "horrible" relations with its neighbors. Actually horrible only applies to half of its neighbors. Georgia doesn't love us, but our relations aren't in the dumps, and Iran likes us. Do you seriously blame Armenia for bad relations with Turkey?? If you do I seriously question your sanity. NK is the obvious reason for bad relations with Azerbaijan, a.k.a. an extension of Turkey. And Turkey mainly does bad things like blockade us because they use NK as an excuse. So basically we only have bad relations with one neighbor, and that is Turks in general whether to the east or west. Relations with neighbors can only improve, because Turkey will not be allowed to blockade us forever, and someday NK will be solved and we'll have to start regionally cooperating.

20years is a very longtime, things can happen very quickly, within a day 120k people died in the tsunamis. Within months, America's economy went from bad to worse.

While granted And while long-term I don't think the American economy will be doing well, it has actually been on the up and up lately. It has not gone from bad to worse, that's just a random assumption people have been making. Everyone else though, keep in mind I am not defending the economy and don't think it will sustain this, it's probably headed for a downturn.

[Hayq]

And can you tell me why I cannot compare them? They both were terribly corrupted, and America took basically its entire history up until now to lose some of its corruption. So in that sense I mean if a country like America had to deal with that, there's no reason to assume Armenia is on the verge of death jut because it has corruption.
Also, America didn't exactly have an easy time starting out either. The British invaded us twice in our early history, which basically counts as a neighbor because it owned Canada and Mexico wasn't a country (and we didn't own land out there yet). The British were known to blockade us at times as well and used to do things like take over our merchant ships and force our sailors into their own navy. You act like its all Armenia's fault that it has "horrible" relations with its neighbors. Actually horrible only applies to half of its neighbors. Georgia doesn't love us, but our relations aren't in the dumps, and Iran likes us. Do you seriously blame Armenia for bad relations with Turkey?? If you do I seriously question your sanity. NK is the obvious reason for bad relations with Azerbaijan, a.k.a. an extension of Turkey. And Turkey mainly does bad things like blockade us because they use NK as an excuse. So basically we only have bad relations with one neighbor, and that is Turks in general whether to the east or west. Relations with neighbors can only improve, because Turkey will not be allowed to blockade us forever, and someday NK will be solved and we'll have to start regionally cooperating.



While granted And while long-term I don't think the American economy will be doing well, it has actually been on the up and up lately. It has not gone from bad to worse, that's just a random assumption people have been making. Everyone else though, keep in mind I am not defending the economy and don't think it will sustain this, it's probably headed for a downturn.

America, in the beginning of the 20th century, America had sooo many factors that Armenia does not. Please. Consider the following.
-America had two coast lines connected by railroads to gaurantee trade with Asia and Europe and from coast to coast.
-America had an incredible amount of raw materials ranging from petroleum and steel along with a surplus in agriculture.
-America had a great surge in population, where millions of foreigners poured onto its soil.

Consider Armenia; a landlocked nation, poor infastructure with neighbors, almost no raw materials, and a rapidly decreasing population.

Hop-skotch your arse out of this one, what does Armenia have that will miraculously get us out of this hole? We do not even have a united Armenian race...

[IAmMadAtAC]

America, in the beginning of the 20th century, America had sooo many factors that Armenia does not. Please. Consider the following.
-America had two coast lines connected by railroads to gaurantee trade with Asia and Europe and from coast to coast.
-America had an incredible amount of raw materials ranging from petroleum and steel along with a surplus in agriculture.
-America had a great surge in population, where millions of foreigners poured onto its soil.

Consider Armenia; a landlocked nation, poor infastructure with neighbors, almost no raw materials, and a rapidly decreasing population.

Hop-skotch your arse out of this one, what does Armenia have that will miraculously get us out of this hole? We do not even have a united Armenian race...

Hayq, did you not see me talking about the founding era of America there, a.k.a. 1770s-1820s?! It is totally not fair to compare an America 150 years old to a 13 year old Armenia. Clearly the only sensible comparision would be a young America to a young Armenia, not a young Armenia to a much older America. And you list all those factors in early 1900s America trying to portray some kind of booming Eden. Well that certainly didn't stop it from coming crashing down and sinking America into a deep depression for years, so it couldn't have been that great! But none of that matters because I was comparing it to early America when it was a small group of colonies on the East coast of America boxed in by UNFRIENDLY neighbors. It also had very poor infrastructure. And you say WE don't even have a united Armenian race??! Well what about colonial/early America like I talk about! Hell that thing was practically 13 totally seperate countries rolled into one, full of tons of different ethnic groups. English wasn't even the universal language, and the Federalists vs. the anti-Federalists were at each other's throats! I'd say things looked even worse for early America than our current Armenia!!!!!!!

[jgm1975]

It is indeed quite depressing when one takes a look at the state of Armenian affairs today. But if we were living in the 1915-1922 period, we would also feel that there would not be much of a future for Armenians. Yet here we are 90 years later. Somehow I feel that the gods of fate are playing mind games with us, i.e. giving Armenians all kinds of hardships, but not completely eliminating the Armenian nation from the face of the Earth, the way the Hittites, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Ancient Egyptians were. Perhaps there is a lesson here.

But Hayq has a point about how the main issues affecting the Armenian nation are related to Armenians. The problem is that we have not achieved enough maturity to stop equating self-criticism with self-hatred. There is NO relationship between the two. If fact many great things come out of self-criticism. But many Armenians are so quick to condemn other Armenians who practice self-criticism, that those very intellectually gifted Armenians simply walk away from Armenian issues, thus depriving the Armenian community from valuable perspectives. Blaming others is the oldest thing in the book. Certainly foreigners were not that reliable and honest. After all, westerners encouraged Armenians to revolt in the 19th century, only to pursue friendly relations with Turks after WWI. But Armenians are not immune from criticism either. Even in the aftermath of the Genocide there was still cheap and bitter partisanship affecting Armenian politics in the late 1910s and early 1920s.

Finally, regarding the issues of corruption, I also saw something similar as Pyunik. I do not remember what report it was, but there was a documentary on the BTC pipeline on Canadian TV, and they quoted a report on how the oil business in Azerbaijan had transformed the country into the 6th or 7th most corrupt country on the planet!

[Hayq]

A country is only as good as its people, and its natural resources help as well.

America had ports, America had industry, and Americans had great minds who stayed with the American cause.

Madatac, stop looking at numbers. Numbers are not always right, especially with something like human nature...humans are not static, Armenia is not STABLE. Corruption? Hell, America is very corrupt, but you see, the wealth America possess is so great that it is shared by MANY people. That is the difference Armenia is corrupt with 40percent unemployment.

Society always has corruption, unless you live in Finland or something...

There is a fine line between building a better Armenia and being a chauvanistic arsehole. Armenia and America are two different things, Armenians and Americans are two different things. Humans are not all the same. The first step in solving the problem is to know what the problem is....according to you, Armenia is like America was, and will become what America is today through time...give me a break.

[obi]

My last post in this topic, I cannot change the thoughts of an whole nation....

An area i worked in when i was a little younger was social reform and poverty... I say poverty, it is not in the same sense that Armenia knows it. The state if the parents are not working will still give a family with 2 kids around $400 per week, that you can just about live on here, at the lowest end of our social structure.

I hope people here do noy carry arguements through to other topics.

The most sense i have heard here is that Armenians are their own biggest enemy.