The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Russia preparing Lithuanian offensive - claim

The security services of the Baltic states are among the most active in anti-Russian espionage, according to remarks attributed to Nikolai Patrushev, director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). Lithuanian newspaper Kauno Diena claims in a Dec. 29 report that the country could face a Russian backlash as a result of its perceived status as a centre of "anti-Russian extremism." Two weeks ago, Baltic special services with Lithuania among them, received special attention from Patrushev during a press conference. "In 2007 secret services of foreign countries, especially those of the Baltic states, have become more active," Patrushev was quoted as telling journalists.

The newspaper’s sources in Russia say that the idea of Lithuania becoming one of the main players in the world of espionage is becoming more prevalent at FSB headquarters. "The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the secret services have it that Vilniusis becoming the ‘outpost number 2 of anti-Russian extremism’ after London", an unnamed high-ranking Kremlin official told the daily. Kauno Diena says Russia is certain that Lithuania's authorities and secret services are encouraging the activity of anti-Russian groups and actively collaborates with the secret services of the US and Great Britain. Lithuania's Ministry of Foreign Affairs is also receiving signals that the Kremlin is becoming increasingly suspicious of Lithuania.

"They are convinced in Moscow that Lithuania is the largest and one of the most active diasporas of Chechens. The secret services are emphasizing in their reports that Lithuanian authorities do not interfere with the activity of ‘extremist groups’ and arrive at a conclusion that it is in fact the opposite case scenario - such activity is promoted. Moreover, the reports in question state the groups of ‘Chechen extremists’ are actively collaborating with Lithuania's secret services," according to "well-informed individuals". Russia's Foreign Intelligence Services (SVR) has drawn attention to the fact that the family of the late Chechen President Dzohar Dudajev found refuge in Lithuania. In the opinion of the SVR, Dudajev's sons could form a future rallying point for Chechen nationalists in their attempt to win independence from Russia.

Reportedly, Moscow also suspects that fugitive Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky has also become more active in Lithuania. Berezovsky was a former power-broker of Russian politics during the Yeltsin era but fled to London in 2001 and is wanted by the Russian authorities. Berezovsky has been among those blaming the murder of his friend, former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, on the Russian authorities. The paper's sources say that Russia's secret services are also preparing an attempt to undermine the reputation of Euro MP Vytautas Landsbergis, who still commands considerable influence and respect in Lithuania a decade and a half after fronting Lithuania’s independence movement.

Source: http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/19561/

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

This reminds me of the New World Order theorists... They believe that Putin is creating stability and some prosperity for Russians so they trust his government, so that in time, Russia can peacefully and quietly join the NWO, while at the same time, playing the bad guy role, just like in the Soviet-era so that the west can orient itself to a "common deadly threat" again. Anyway, I think it's obvious that we shouldn't think of the NWO as a primary goal in all the government's endeavors. But sometimes I can't help but feel suspicion... That's why I like to take all this news with a grain of salt, and not become emotionally hung up about it. Just watch for the important developments, understand the trends, seeing how they affect everybody... I think that's the most sober approach.

Listen young friend, your allegation towards Putin/Russian Federation is just silly.

Bare in mind that most theories/suspicions/allegations regarding the One World Order, the Illuminati, Zionism/Jewry, the 9/11 attacks, Al-Qaeda, etc, are paranoid talk, fairy tales constructed by the 'imaginative' or suspicious populous. In life, more often than not, the truth is always somewhere in between. The so-called "New World Order" agenda is simply an attempt by the super-wealthy of the world and the financial/political elite in the West to secure their wealth and power in an increasingly complicated/dangerous world. They attempt to pursue their 'global' agendas by population control; taxation; undermining nationalism; geopolitical manipulations; covert operations; undermining traditional religions, specifically Christianity; bringing lesser nations into their financial/political/social/cultural institutions to control them, etc...

Is Russia in on this game? No, at least not from what I have been able to observe during the past 15-20 years. They tried to contain Russia for a long time. They succeeded in the 90s. But Putin's behind the scenes revolution changed all that. In my opinion, Russia today is seen as one of the greatest threats to the so-called Globalists at this time.

[jgk3]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Listen young friend, your allegation towards Putin/Russian Federation is just silly.

Bare in mind that most theories/suspicions/allegations regarding the One World Order, the Illuminati, Zionism/Jewry, the 9/11 attacks, Al-Qaeda, etc, are paranoid talk, fairy tales constructed by the 'imaginative' or suspicious populous. In life, more often than not, the truth is always somewhere in between. The so-called "New World Order" agenda is simply an attempt by the super-wealthy of the world and the financial/political elite in the West to secure their wealth and power in an increasingly complicated/dangerous world. They attempt to pursue their 'global' agendas by population control; taxation; undermining nationalism; geopolitical manipulations; covert operations; undermining traditional religions, specifically Christianity; bringing lesser nations into their financial/political/social/cultural institutions to control them, etc...

Is Russia in on this game? No, at least not from what I have been able to observe during the past 15-20 years. They tried to contain Russia for a long time. They succeeded in the 90s. But Putin's behind the scenes revolution changed all that. In my opinion, Russia today is seen as one of the greatest threats to the so-called Globalists at this time.

I know that Russia really doesn't look like they're on this game with all that I'm reading. I'll take what you have to say into consideration, but I am always somewhat suspicious of nationalistic leaders... Are they genuinely nationalist, or are they merely giving the people what they want? The story we have of Putin suggests he's a genuine nationalist. I'm just not used to seeing nationalists being leaders of a country, I'm used to seeing the follies and ulterior motives of Canadian and American government. Perhaps it's not suitable to project my understanding of government in North America onto Russia?

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Most Russians think of CIA as world’s major terrorist organization

A recent opinion poll conducted by Yury Levada’s Research Center showed that 30 percent of Russians believe that the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency is a terrorist organization. Almost one-third of the polled Russian people therefore agreed with Iranian officials who ascribed USA’s CIA and Armed Forces to terrorist organizations. Iranian officials released such a harsh statement in response to USA’s decision to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. Nevertheless, 32 percent of Russian citizens are certain that the CIA has nothing in common with terrorism. In the meantime, up to 70 percent of Russians condemn the intention of the US administration to conduct pinpoint strikes on the camps of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and nuclear objects of Iran. Only eight percent of the polled approved the actions of the US administration against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The UN Security Council has repeatedly imposed sanctions against Tehran because of its unwillingness to meet the requirement of the international community to shut down uranium enrichment works. Russia’s attempts to support Iran raise concerns with quite a number of Western countries. However, about 38 percent of the polled said that Russia needs to continue the nuclear cooperation with Iran. Thirty-four percent believe that such cooperation should end. The above-described views of the Russian people can be explained with the policies of the Russian government towards Iran. President Putin has recently stated that Russia had no information on the military orientation of the Iranian nuclear program. That is why Russia is certain that Iran has no plans to build nuclear weapons. Putin emphasizes that there is no perspective in using methods of intimidation against Iran.

Source: http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/4192

[Armenian]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

A wild rant by a Schwartz. The rhetoric used by this individual is interesting to say the least. Yet the rhetoric is also all too familiar, if not thoroughly expected. Just a sampling of Schwatz's politically correct hate speech: "1995 massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys by Serbian terrorists – is the most prominent recent symbol of Moscow-backed genocidal aggression in Europe", "Armenia also assaulted Azerbaijan", "Muscovite strategy of Slav-Orthodox assault on vulnerable Muslims had been visible not merely in Afghanistan, but in Europe, too..." Yes, this Schwartz character wants to save the world of Islam from the bloody hands of Russian backed genocidal maniacs. This Schwartz character is a true champion of Muslims... as long as Muslims are fighting the Slavs/Orthodox, and as long as they don't live in the Zionist state, or in Iran, or in Lebanon, or in Syria, or in Palestine...

Who believes this crap!?

Armenian

************************************************** **********

Keeping Moscow at Bay - In Kosovo

By Stephen Schwartz

World War IV is real. It began not on September 11, 2001, but in 1978 when the Russians installed a puppet regime in Afghanistan. The Russian incursion south toward the Indian Ocean reproduced the history of more than a century before, beginning in 1875, when the tsar incited the Balkan Christians to rebel against the Ottomans. But events never repeat themselves exactly. Developments today follow the cycle between the Austrian absorption of Bosnia-Hercegovina in 1908 and the Sarajevo assassination of 1914. Europe claims that, like the Habsburgs in Bosnia, it will bring progress to Kosovo, now demanding independence. Russia seeks aggrandizement. But while those are the permanent features of the political landscape, the details have been distorted to appear new.

Kosovo has dropped off the political map for most Americans, who are diverted by continuing terrorism in the core Islamic countries – exemplified by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Similarly, Western obliviousness has encouraged Turkey to attack Iraqi Kurdistan with impunity. Westerners find it difficult to perceive clearly how, while the U.S. is absorbed with the headlines in the battle against jihadists, other malign interests – Russian and Chinese imperialism no less than Turkish ultranationalism – pursue their own aims. The appetites of Moscow could again set Europe afire, beginning in Kosovo - just as war was touched off in Sarajevo. While Kosovo appears most important to Albanians and their friends, the territory’s independence is significant for another reason – as a bulwark against revived Russian designs beyond its borders. Kosovo independence has been promised, explicitly or implicitly, by the U.S. and some European countries since 1999. There are no special “processes” required for the attainment of independence, except, when necessary, a struggle against the colonial power. Indeed, the United Nations declared in the great age of decolonization – the 1950s and 1960s – that “Inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.”

Failure to secure independence for the Kosovar Albanians will have further negative consequences. First, it would be a betrayal by the U.S. of one of the few majority-Muslim communities in the world that is wholly pro-American – a threat also visible in the alienation of Kurdish affections by American hesitation to restrain Turkey in Iraq. But most importantly, it will encourage Serbian adventurism, as well as similar attitudes elsewhere – beginning in Turkey and Russia, but opening a road without a predictable end, except probable disaster. While Western media and pseudo-experts prattle about the dangers of “separatism” in Europe, the real menace comes from the arrogance of the established powers, not from the oppressed small nations. Giant Russia has always backed nearby Serbia against the Albanians, except briefly during the Tito era, while the few million Albanians have real friends only in distant America. The balance is hardly as even as it should be. When I went to Kosovo in mid-December – expecting a declaration of independence at that time – Kosovars were still trusting and enthusiastic about America, but consumed with rage at the obstruction of Russia and the endless delays proposed by the Europeans.

Russian imperialism has been the bulwark of obscurantism and collective hatred in Europe since the 18th century, and the division of Poland beginning in 1772. The regime of Vladimir Putin has revived the strategy of encroachment and belligerence pursued by his predecessors. Few of us who fought for and celebrated the defeat of Soviet Communism imagined that it would be succeeded by mafia capitalism, and then by a neo-tsarism that exploits its speculative prosperity to demand submission from its neighbors. In accord with this legacy, Putin and his cohort have repeatedly stated bluntly that the Kosovo question must be deferred to the United Nations Security Council, where Moscow will veto independence. The anticolonial principles that the Russians claimed to support in 1960, when the issue was that of the Congolese versus the Belgians, are elided now that Moscow wishes to reincorporate Ukraine and China continues to exercise a cruel domination over Tibet. Kosovo has gained the renewed, if vague, attention of the Western press, which unfailingly covers the bid for statehood in two ways, both mendacious. The first turns victims of a 20th century attempted genocide into the victimizers. Thus the British dailies tearfully elicit sympathy for Kosovo Serbs who allegedly face “ethnic cleansing” from their supposed “cultural cradle.” The second way reduces the issue to irrelevance, treating the Kosovars as yet another quixotic separatist movement in which the arguments of “both sides” merit equal attention. The Kosovar Albanian viewpoint – the land was theirs centuries before the Slavic invasions 1,500 years ago – is seldom heard or read in the Western media.

Srebrenica – the site of the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys by Serbian terrorists – is the most prominent recent symbol of Moscow-backed genocidal aggression in Europe. While Boris Yeltsin, then the titular leader of post-Soviet Russia, pursued inconsistent policies on the issues created by Russia’s imperial history, powerful interests in the former USSR backed Serbian and other terrorist crimes against whole communities. Throughout the Bosnian conflict, Russian nationalist media and politicians supported Serb claims, and Russian volunteers served alongside Serbs in committing bloody atrocities in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Kosovo. I argued in my 2002 book The Two Faces of Islam that a Muscovite strategy of Slav-Orthodox assault on vulnerable Muslims had been visible not merely in Afghanistan, but in Europe, too. Communists expelled Bulgaria’s Turkish minority and “nationalized” domestic Bulgarian Muslims in the 1980s. Armenia also assaulted Azerbaijan, and Russia’s devastation of Chechnya began as the Soviet Union collapsed. In other words, the wars against the Bosnian Muslims and Kosovar Albanians came after many warnings, for those capable of understanding them. Kosovo has a Srebrenica, which is much less well-known. It is called Korenica and is located in the western section of Kosovo, near the city of Gjakova. In Korenica, on April 27, 1999 – a month after the commencement of the NATO bombing of Serbia – nearly 400 Albanians were wantonly murdered by Serbian irregulars. But Korenica is significant for more than its having seen the largest number of Albanian victims in a single Serbian assault during the 1998-99 conflict.

While Serbs and their apologists portray their role in the long battle for Kosovo as a defense against a jihadist offensive by Albanian Muslims hateful of Slav Christians, their churches, and their sacred heritage, the majority of the Albanians killed at Korenica were Catholics. The aim of the Serbs, like that of their Russian protectors, has always been to promote the dominance of the Orthodox Christian identity over all the peoples that follow religious traditions different from it. I first learned of the crime of Korenica only months after it took place, during a visit to Gjakova. I found out about the killings accidentally, when I drove along a rural road and found a Sufi turbe or mausoleum. Inside the structure, I was shocked to discover the coffins of 24 infants. It was then that I learned about the Korenica slayings, and was taken to a graveyard that included many wooden markers with the initials “N.N.” for an unidentified corpse. I believe I was among the first foreigners, aside from some human rights monitors, to thoroughly research the Korenica incident, and in the years that followed I continued an extensive inquiry into it. First, in 1999, I interviewed a brave Albanian Catholic priest from Gjakova, Pater Ambroz Ukaj, who had defied Serbian officers to learn what had transpired in Korenica. Later I learned that a Sufi, Shaykh Rama of Gjakova, had been killed at Korenica. In recent years, the Center for Islamic Pluralism, of which I am Executive Director, has appealsupportmixedalbanian.htm”>supported reconstruction of a primary school in the Korenica district, the Pjetër Mugy School in the hamlet of Guska, that educates both Catholic and Muslim children

Europe seems not to understand that in refusing to repudiate Serbian and Russian blandishments, and in failing to assist the Kosovar Albanians consequentially, it is committing a slow suicide. Spain is afraid of demands for rights by the Basques and Catalans; Slovakia and Romania have a bad conscience about their treatment of their large Hungarian minorities, which possess capacity for resistance unknown among the Roma, those other martyrs to Slovak and Romanian nationalism. Cyprus should probably not have been admitted to the EU without the participation of its Turkish-minority northern zone (a topic so convoluted as to require a separate article.) But rather than deal with stateless nations and minorities fairly, resolve its fear of Turkish Islam, and recognize the unquenchable desire of the Kosovar Albanians for freedom, Europe may blindly submit to the return of Russian power, enriched by energy and bent on reestablishing a bipolar world in which only the U.S. and Moscow count. The U.S. still counts, more than either the hallucinated Serbian and Russian leadership or the Europeans – the latter with a disgraceful record of preferring peace to freedom. America must support Kosovar independence, without dishonorable concessions to Belgrade or Moscow, and without delay.

Source: http://pajamasmedia.com/2008/01/keep...y_in_kosov.php

[Illuminator]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Typical chosen filth liar this Schwartz idiot.

[Merv]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

It's a somewhat bizarre article, to tell the truth. I looked up the "Srebrenica of Kosovo." Interestingly, the Korenica "massacre" was discussed at the Milosevic trial and the defense evidence indicates that 74 KLA fighters will killed there. Whatever happened, I haven't seen any confirmation of 400 dead at Korenica, much less 400 massacred civilians. And it is obvious at this point that there's simply no evidence for the 8000 Srebrenica dead (more like 2500 military age males (many of them soldiers) killed as they broke through Serb lines and fled from Srebrenica to Tuzla or executed as POWs). More exaggeration and "genocide."

Characterizing the 1990s Balkans conflicts and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as Slav-Orthodox "genocidal aggression" is the most demented sentence I've read yet. Regardless of how brutal those conflicts may have been by any party (and surely both the Serb and Armenian parties had blood on their hands, as is the nature in any civil conflict), they can only be characterized as responses by the Orthodox Christian populations (in all three cases: Azerbaijan, Kosovo, Bosnia) against an Islamic attempt to rule over territory and people that were historically Orthodox, or in fact followed attempts by Islamists at expelling/suppressing/killing Orthodox Christians. For decades under Tito the Albanians were expelling Kosovo Serbs, buying up property, immigrating from Hoxha's Albania, and overpopulating the province. Over the past 150 years, Russia has been largely responding to Islamic aggression against Orthodox Christians in Europe and the Middle East. Of course, Russia has had its own political ends in mind, but that does not change the facts as to who is was the aggressor and who was responding to aggression.

Actually, I think Schwartz is a Muslim.

[Merv]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

I just looked up Stephen Schwartz on wikipedia:

Schwartz was born in Columbus, Ohio. His father, Horace, was xxxish and his mother Protestant, but the family was not religious.[citation needed] Instead his mother was a member of the Communist Party, and his father he described as a "fellow traveler". Schwartz was thus initially a Communist and supporter of the Soviet Union; later he would call himself a "red diaper baby".[citation needed]

The family moved to San Francisco when he was young, where Horace Schwartz became a literary agent while Stephen attended Lowell High School. While there he made his first serious writing attempts, focusing initially on poetry. In college his views began to shift, favoring a Trotskyist view of Marxism over Stalinism.[3]

In 1999, Schwartz left the Chronicle and moved to Sarajevo, living and traveling in the Balkans for the next 18 months. He had previously visited the area in 1990 to do research and maintained ties through an Albanian Catholic institute connected with the University of San Francisco.

After his return, Schwartz gained some attention for a speculative theory that the xxxish Marxist intellectual Walter Benjamin might have been assassinated. Writing in The Weekly Standard, he conjectured that Stalinist agents in Spain might be responsible, questioning evidence that Benjamin committed suicide to avoid being handed over to the Nazis. He had little evidence to support his speculation, and critics noted that unlike other assassination victims, Benjamin was never a Communist Party member. Schwartz defended the article as "just asking questions that should be asked."

As he continued writing for various publications, Schwartz strongly supported the Iraq War, identifying with other former Trotskyists who supported the war, including Christopher Hitchens and Kanan Makiya. Schwartz found support for this, among other reasons, in Trotsky’s internationalist outlook and approval of pre-emptive war.

[skhara]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

Who believes this crap!?

Armenian

Bosnians, Albanians, Chechens, Turks, xxxs. Or do they?

[skhara]

Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

It's a somewhat bizarre article, to tell the truth. I looked up the "Srebrenica of Kosovo." Interestingly, the Korenica "massacre" was discussed at the Milosevic trial and the defense evidence indicates that 74 KLA fighters will killed there. Whatever happened, I haven't seen any confirmation of 400 dead at Korenica, much less 400 massacred civilians.

Actually, that's why they poisoned. The so-called "criminal court" were scared xxxxless when it came to Milosevic's defense proceedings.