The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

[Armenian]

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

I have always stated that the US government, specifically the political/economic/social elite that run the country, is an enemy of the Armenian Republic. The reason why the Armenian Republic has not gone by the way of Serbia, Cyprus or Iraq is due to Armenia's close proximity, geographically and politically, to the Russian Federation and Iran. The well being and the security of the Armenian Republic is not within the strategic interests of the US government nor will it be so within the foreseeable future. I am in no way implicating the United States of America as a nation in this, nor am I implicating all elected politicians within America. As noted above, my comments are specifically directed towards the ruling elite, the political/economic establishment, within America.

In my opinion, the Armenian Republic will do well to distance itself from Washington DC and any other entity that is backed by or financed by Washington DC. We don't need their money, we don't need their expertise, we don't need their assistance. As I have stated on many occasions in the past accepting money from Washington DC is like accepting money from a loan shark. I have also stated that American financed NGOs in Armenia are nothing but US State Department/CIA run front offices. And US government backed Armenian entities such as the Armenian Assembly are nothing but traitors to the Armenian nation.

In short, the Armenian Republic does not fit into the grandiose agendas of Washington DC. The US government will not jeopardize its lucrative relations with major nations such as Turkey, Azerbaijan or Israel for the sake of a tiny landlocked impoverished nation. As a result, the Armenian nation should learn to pick sides more wisely. Recent issues revolving around the resolution bill in the US Congress concerning the Armenian Genocide, especially the anti-Armenian letter prepared by eight US Secretaries of State (unprecedented in its nature), is yet another glaring example of how seriously opposed upper echelons of the political elite within the United States are to matters that concern the Armenian nation.

And political matters such as these reveal the strategic reasoning, the sound logic, behind why official Yerevan looks towards Moscow for political/military/economic support. I am glad that these recent events will also serve to awaken more Armenians to the anti-Armenian nature of the ruling establishment within the United States.

Armenian

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Former U.S. Secretaries of State oppose Armenian Genocide Resolution

Fearing an imminent vote on the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H.Res.106), Turkey’s multi-million dollar lobbyists have solicited the assistance of eight former U.S. Secretaries of State in seeking to derail this human rights legislation, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA.)

"Facing a growing bipartisan Congressional majority demanding passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution, Turkey’s lobbyists - out of desperation and a never ending desire to squeeze more billing dollars out of Ankara – have turned to the very architects of our government’s failed policy of appeasing Turkey," said Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the ANCA. "Sadly, successive U.S. administrations have found themselves lacking the moral courage to end the cycle of genocide – from Cambodia, to Rwanda and, today in Darfur – precisely because of their legacy of caving in to, rather than confronting genocidal regimes."

"We are, as Americans, especially troubled that, in warning Congress not to make a simple anti-genocide statement for fear of upsetting Turkey, these officials would outsource our nation’s moral conscience to a foreign government," added Hamparian.

In their September 25th jointly-signed letter, former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright, James Baker III, Warren Christopher, Laurence Eagleburger, Alexander Haig, Jr., Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, and George Schultz, urged Speaker Pelosi to, "prevent the resolution from reaching the House Floor," thereby denying House Members an opportunity to vote their conscience on the Armenian Genocide. The former State Department officials expressed concern that passage of the resolution "could endanger our national security interests in the region, including our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and damage efforts to promote reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey."

Source: http://www.panarmenian.net/news/eng/?nid=23490

Erdogan enlists U.S. J-e-ws’ support for opposing the Armenian Genocide Resolution

Turkey’s Prime Minister has used a meeting with representatives of the U.S. xxxish community to discuss ways of denial of Armenian Genocide at the hands of the Ottoman in 1915. Meeting with representatives of groups including the Conference of Presidents, the Appeal of Conscience, the Foundation, the Anti-Defamation League, the American xxxish Congress, and Bnai Brith International in New York late Wednesday Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the genocide recognition claims as “baseless and not supported by any scientific or historical grounding.”

"The Prime Minister also recalled Turkey’s call to Armenia to establish a joint commission to study historical facts, and stated that Turkey expected the xxxish community to confirm its support," a statement issued after the meeting said. Following the meeting, Abraham Foxman, the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said that “at times there could be disagreement between friends, referring to the League’s had accepted the events of 1915 as being tantamount to genocide.”

However, Foxman said that the issue should not be the subject of a resolution of the U.S. Congress. "We believe that a matter between Turkey and Armenia related to history should be tackled between the two parties, not in the U.S. Congress or the parliament of any other country," he said. "This is not a political matter and those in the Congress are not historians," he said. "I believe that we should focus on the future, not the past. If the xxxish community, the United States and the Congress are willing to assist they should bring together Turkey and Armenia for the grandchildren of the two parties,” he said, NTV MSNBC reports.

Source: http://www.panarmenian.net/news/eng/?nid=23507

US relations with Armenia at risk

The Bush administration has warned that Washington's relations with Turkey could be endangered and US troops in Iraq put at risk because of congressional legislation that denounces the mass killings of Armenians more than 80 years ago as genocide. The bill, which will be put to the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee on Wednesday, enjoys majority support and comes at a time when ties between Washington and Ankara are under severe strain. Turkey has launched a concerted effort to prevent passage of the bill, warning of serious consequences for bilateral relations. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, called President George W. Bush on Friday, and a delegation of Turkish MPs is in Washington to muster support against the resolution.

Dan Fried, the state department's top Europe official, said last week: "We think it would do grave harm both to US-Turkish relations and to US interests. It would hurt our forces deployed in Iraq, which rely on passage through Turkey . . . We have to be mindful of how much we depend and how much our troops and the Iraqi economy depend on shipments from and through Turkey."

Eight former US secretaries of state - including Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright - have written to Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, to ask her to prevent a vote on the issue. The bill has 226 co-sponsors. It calls on Mr Bush "to accurately characterise the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1.5m Armenians as genocide". The massacres were carried out by Ottoman troops beginning in 1915, before the creation of the republic of Turkey. Turkey rejects characterisation of the deaths as genocide and takes diplomatic and other measures against countries that adopt such a stance.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21183275/

Resolution on Armenia Genocide Opposed

WASHINGTON (AP) — Turkish and American officials have been pressing lawmakers to reject a measure next week that would declare the World War I-era killings of Armenians a genocide. On Friday, the issue reached the highest levels as President Bush and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan talked by telephone about their opposition to the legislation, which is to go before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday. The dispute involves the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians during the waning years of the Ottoman Empire.

Armenian advocates, backed by many historians, contend the Armenians died in an organized genocide. The Turks say the Armenians were victims of widespread chaos and governmental breakdown as the 600-year-old empire collapsed in the years before Turkey was born in 1923. Armenian supporters of the congressional measure, who seem to have enough votes to get approval by both the committee and the full House, have also been mustering a grass-roots campaign among the large diaspora community in the United States to make sure that a successful committee vote leads to consideration by the full House. One interest group, the Armenian National Committee of America, has engaged about 100,000 supporters to call lawmakers about the issue, according to Executive Director Aram Hamparian.

Similar measures have been debated in Congress for decades. But well-organized Armenian groups have repeatedly been thwarted by concerns about damaging relations with Turkey, an important NATO ally that has made its opposition clear. Lawmakers say that this time, the belief that the resolution has a chance to pass a vote by the full House has both Turkey and Armenian groups pulling out all stops to influence the members of the committee. "The lobbying has been the most intense that I have ever seen it," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

Though the largely symbolic measure would have no binding effect on U.S. foreign policy, it could nonetheless damage an already strained relationship with Turkey. After France voted last year to make denial of Armenian genocide a crime, the Turkish government ended military ties. Many in the U.S. fear that a public backlash in Turkey could lead to restrictions on crucial supply routes through Turkey to Iraq and Afghanistan and the closure of Incirlik, a strategic air base in Turkey used by the United States. Lawmakers have been hearing arguments from both sides about those concerns. The Turkish government has been holding back from public threats while making clear that there will be consequences if the resolution is passed.

"There will be a backlash and no government can be indifferent to that," says the Turkish ambassador in Washington, Nabi Sensoy. But Armenian groups charge that behind the scenes, Turkey has been much more clear. "Turkey has been threatening every sort of doomsday scenario," says Hamparian. "We have been saying that Turkey would harm itself more than the United States if it carries through with these threats." Turkey argues that the House is the wrong institution to arbitrate a sensitive historical dispute. It has proposed that an international commission of experts examine Armenian and Turkish archives. In the meantime, the Turkish embassy has been in close contact with lawmakers and is using prominent U.S. lobbyists.

"I have redoubled my efforts," says Sensoy. Turkish lawmakers have also been manning the phones to congressional offices. According to one congressional aide, Turkey's military chief, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, has been calling lawmakers to argue that a vote will boost support for Islamists in Turkey. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. The Bush administration has been telling lawmakers that the resolution, if passed, would harm U.S. security interests. Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said Friday that Bush believes the Armenian episode ranks among the greatest tragedies of the 20th century, but the determination whether "the events constitute a genocide should be a matter for historical inquiry, not legislation."

White House staff have also spoken with aides to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in the hope that she will stop the measure from coming to a vote.

"The administration has reached out to the speaker's office and made our position clear," he said. "We'll see what happens."

Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h...Xm1DAD8S3JKM81

[Armenian]

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

Russia, former Soviet States, and China form the counter NATO alliance



Russia, former Soviet States, and China have come together a long way to form what can be termed as the counter NATO alliance. The SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation), which comprises Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and the CSTO(Collective Security Treaty Organisation), which is made up of Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia and Belorussia agreed to cooperate on Friday in Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan.

The alliance will officially work in security, the fight against trans-national crime and illegal drug trafficking. But in reality it is an alliance to protect central Asian oil and gas reserves from the NATO and Western countries including Unietd States and Europe.

Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia and Belorussia, the CSTO members, have agreed to be ready to provide forces for UN peace-keeping purposes. The Russian and Chinese news media are calling this new agreement as the ‘Russian-Chinese NATO’ that will challenge NATO all over the world.

Source: http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/18471.asp

Armenia to hold rotating chair in CSTO next year - Bakiyev

October 6 (RIA Novosti) - Next year Armenia will hold a rotating presidency in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the president of Kyrgyzstan, which currently chairs the CSTO, said Saturday.

"Next session [of CSTO] will be held under Armenia's chairmanship," Kurmanbek Bakiyev said at the CSTO summit in Tajikistan's capital of Dushanbe. The next summit of the regional security organization will be held in Moscow in May or June 2008 together with the summit of the Eurasian Economic Community (Eurasec), Bakiyev added. Earlier in the day the leaders of CSTO member states signed more than 20 documents.

The documents stipulate the formation of a coordinate council on illegal migration and extraordinary situations, a legal basis of peacekeeping activities, and military and technical aid. In particular, the CSTO countries will be able to buy Russian weapons and military equipment on Russian domestic market prices, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

"Significant concrete results were reached [at the CSTO summit], mainly in the sphere of military and technical supplies. We have agreed on and finally adopted a list of documents allowing the CSTO states to buy Russian weapons and military equipment on Russian domestic prices for their armies as well as for special services," Putin said.

Meanwhile, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon called on the organization to play a more active role in strengthening the peace process in Afghanistan.

"We [the leaders] have discussed the reinvigoration of our efforts in regard to the Afghanistan issue so that the CSTO could considerably contribute to the peace process in this country," Rakhmon said adding that the CSTO turned into an effective and internationally acknowledged organization since it was formed 15 years ago.

Tajikistan has an acute problem with the narcotics trade, due to the constant flow of illegal drugs from neighboring Afghanistan, which supplies over 90% of the world's heroin. Heroin production in Afghanistan has increased 20-fold since the Taliban was toppled by allied forces in December 2001. Tajikistan is now a transit country for Afghan narcotics bound for Russian and European markets. The CSTO comprises Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. This year the organization will mark a 15th anniversary.

Source: http://en.rian.ru/world/20071006/82766465.html

[Armenian]

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

The Sino-Russian Alliance: Challenging America's Ambitions in Eurasia


(The China-Russia Symposium on Engineering Science and Technology)

Encircling Russia and China: Anglo-American Global Ambitions Backfire

“Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force – military force – in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts. As a result we do not have sufficient strength to find a comprehensive solution to any one of these conflicts. Finding a political settlement also becomes impossible. We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way.”

-Vladimir Putin at the Munich Conference on Security Policy in Germany (February 11, 2007)

What American leaders and officials called the “New World Order” is what the Chinese and Russians consider a “Unipolar World.” This is the vision or hallucination, depending on perspective, that has bridged the Sino-Russian divide between Beijing and Moscow. China and Russia are well aware of the fact that they are targets of the Anglo-American alliance. Their mutual fears of encirclement have brought them together. It is no accident that in the same year that NATO bombarded Yugoslavia, President Jiang Zemin of China and President Boris Yeltsin of Russia made an anticipated joint declaration at a historic summit in December of 1999 that revealed that China and the Russian Federation would join hands to resist the “New World Order.” The seeds for this Sino-Russian declaration were in fact laid in 1996 when both sides declared that they opposed the global imposition of single-state hegemony.

Both Jiang Zemin and Boris Yeltsin stated that all nation-states should be treated equally, enjoy security, respect each other’s sovereignty, and most importantly not interfere in the internal affairs of other nation-states. These statements were directed at the U.S. government and its partners. The Chinese and Russians also called for the establishment of a more equitable economic and political global order. Both nations also indicated that America was behind separatist movements in their respective countries. They also underscored American-led amibitions to balkanize and finlandize the nation-states of Eurasia. Influential Americans such as Zbigniew Brzezinski had already advocated for de-centralizing and eventually dividing up the Russian Federation.

Both the Chinese and Russians issued a statement warning that the creation of an international missile shield and the contravention of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) would destabilize the international environment and polarize the globe. In 1999, the Chinese and Russians were aware of what was to come and the direction that America was headed towards. In June 2002, less than a year before the onslaught of the “Global War on Terror,” George W. Bush Jr. announced that the U.S. was withdrawing from the ABM Treaty.

On July 24, 2001, less than two months before September 11, 2001, China and Russia signed the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation. The latter is a softly worded mutual defence pact against the U.S., NATO, and the U.S. sponsored Asian military network which was surrounding China.[1] The military pact of the Shanghai Treaty Organization (SCO) also follows the same softly worded format. It is also worth noting that Article 12 of the 2001 Sino-Russian bilateral treaty stipulates that China and Russia will work together to maintain the global strategic balance, “observation of the basic agreements relevant to the safeguard and maintenance of strategic stability,” and “promote the process of nuclear disarmament.” [2] This seems to be an insinuation about a nuclear threat posed from the United States.

Standing in the Way of America and Britain: A “Chinese-Russian-Iranian Coalition”

As a result of the Anglo-American drive to encircle and ultimately dismantle China and Russia, Moscow and Beijing have joined ranks and the SCO has slowly evolved and emerged in the heart of Eurasia as a powerful international body. The main objectives of the SCO are defensive in nature. The economic objectives of the SCO are to integrate and unite Eurasian economies against the economic and financial onslaught and manipulation from the “Trilateral” of North America, Western Europe, and Japan, which controls significant portions of the global economy.

The SCO charter was also created, using Western national security jargon, to combat “terrorism, separatism, and extremism.” Terrorist activities, separatist movements, and extremist movements in Russia, China, and Central Asia are all forces traditionally nurtured, funded, armed, and covertly supported by the British and the U.S. governments. Several separatist and extremist groups that have destabilized SCO members even have offices in London. Iran, India, Pakistan, and Mongolia are all SCO observer members. The observer status of Iran in the SCO is misleading. Iran is a de facto member. The observer status is intended to hide the nature of trilateral cooperation between Iran, Russia, and China so that the SCO cannot be labeled and demonized as an anti-American or anti-Western military grouping.

The stated interests of China and Russia are to ensure the continuity of a “Multi-Polar World.” Zbigniew Brzezinski prefigured in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and the Geostrategic Imperatives and warned against the creation or “emergence of a hostile [Eurasian-based] coalition that could eventually seek to challenge America’s primacy.” [3] He also called this potential Eurasian coalition an “‘antihegemonic’ alliance” that would be formed from a “Chinese-Russian-Iranian coalition” with China as its linchpin. [4] This is the SCO and several Eurasian groups that are connected to the SCO.

In 1993, Brzezinski wrote “In assessing China’s future options, one has to consider also the possibility that an economically successful and politically self-confident China — but one which feels excluded from the global system and which decides to become both the advocate and the leader of the deprived states of the world — may decide to pose not only an articulate doctrinal but also a powerful geopolitical challenge to the dominant trilateral world [a reference to the economic front formed by North America, Western Europe, and Japan].” [5]

Brzezinski warns that Beijing’s answer to challenging the global status quo would be the creation of a Chinese-Russian-Iranian coalition: “For Chinese strategists, confronting the trilateral coalition of America and Europe and Japan, the most effective geopolitical counter might well be to try and fashion a triple alliance of its own, linking China with Iran in the Persian Gulf/Middle East region and with Russia in the area of the former Soviet Union [and Eastern Europe].” [6] Brzezinski goes on to say that the Chinese-Russian-Iranian coalition, which he moreover calls an “antiestablishmentarian [anti-establishmentarian] coalition,” could be a potent magnet for other states [e.g., Venezuela] dissatisfied with the [global] status quo.” [7]

Furthermore, Brzezinski warned in 1997 that “The most immediate task [for the U.S.] is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role.” [8] It may be that his warnings were forgotten, because the U.S. has been repealed from Central Asia and U.S. forces have been evicted from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

“Velvet Revolutions” Backfire in Central Asia

Central Asia was the scene of several British-sponsored and American-sponsored attempts at regime change. The latter were characterised by velvet revolutions similar to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia. These velvet revolutions financed by the U.S. failed in Central Asia, aside from Kyrgyzstan where there had been partial success with the so-called Tulip Revolution. As a result the U.S. government has suffered major geo-strategic setbacks in Central Asia. All of Central Asia’s leaders have distanced themselves from America.

Russia and Iran have also secured energy deals in the region. America’s efforts, over several decades, to exert a hegemonic role in Central Asia seem to have been reversed overnight. The U.S. sponsored velvet revolutions have backfired. Relations between Uzbekistan and the U.S. were especially hard hit. Uzbekistan is under the authoritarian rule of President Islam Karamov. Starting in the second half of the 1990s President Karamov was enticed into bringing Uzbekistan into the fold of the Anglo-American alliance and NATO. When there was an attempt on President Karamov’s life, he suspected the Kremlin because of his independent policy stance. This is what led Uzbekistan to leave CSTO. But Islam Karamov, years later, changed his mind as to who was attempting to get rid of him.

According to Zbigniew Brzezinski, Uzbekistan represented a major obstacle to any renewed Russian control of Central Asia and was virtually invulnerable to Russian pressure; this is why it was important to secure Uzbekistan as an American protectorate in Central Asia. Uzbekistan also has the largest military force in Central Asia. In 1998, Uzbekistan held war games with NATO troops in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan was becoming heavily militarized in the same manner as Georgia was in the Caucasus. The U.S. gave Uzbekistan huge amounts of financial aid to challenge the Kremlin in Central Asia and also provided training to Uzbek forces. With the launching of the “Global War on Terror,” in 2001, Uzbekistan, an Anglo-American ally, immediately offered bases and military facilities to the U.S. in Karshi-Khanabad.

The leadership of Uzbekistan already knew the direction the “Global War on Terror” would take. To the irritation of the Bush Jr. Administration, the Uzbek President formulated a policy of self-reliance. The honeymoon between Uzbekistan and the Anglo-American alliance ended when Washington D.C. and London contemplated removing Islam Karamov from power. He was a little too independent for their comfort and taste. Their attempts at removing the Uzbek President failed, leading eventually to a shift in geo-political alliances.

The tragic events of Andijan on May 13, 2005 were the breaking point between Uzbekistan and the Anglo-American alliance. The people of Andijan were incited into confronting the Uzbek authorities, which resulted in a heavy security clampdown on the protesters and a loss of lives. Armed groups were reported to have been involved. In the U.S., Britain, and the E.U., the media reports focused narrowly on human rights violations without mentioning the covert role of the Anglo-American alliance. Uzbekistan held Britain and the U.S. responsible accusing them of inciting rebellion.

M. K. Bhadrakumar, the former Indian ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998), revealed that the Hezbut Tahrir (HT) was one of the parties blamed for stirring the crowd in Andijan by the Uzbek government. [9] The group was already destabilizing Uzbekistan and using violent tactics. The headquarters of this group happens to be in London and they enjoy the support of the British government. London is a hub for many similar organizations that further Anglo-American interests in various countries, including Iran and Sudan, through destabilization campaigns. Uzbekistan even started clamping down on foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) because of the tragic events of Andijan.

The Anglo-American alliance had played its cards wrong in Central Asia. Uzbekistan officially left the GUUAM Group, a NATO-U.S. sponsored anti-Russian body. GUUAM once again became the GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldava) Group on May 24, 2005. On July 29, 2005 the U.S. military was ordered to leave Uzbekistan within a six-month period. [10] Literally, the Americans were told they were no longer welcome in Uzbekistan and Central Asia. Russia, China, and the SCO added their voices to the demands. The U.S. cleared its airbase in Uzbekistan by November, 2005.

Uzbekistan rejoined the CSTO alliance on June 26, 2006 and realigned itself, once again, with Moscow. The Uzbek President also became a vocal advocate, along with Iran, for pushing the U.S. totally out of Central Asia. [11] Unlike Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan continued to allow the U.S. to use Manas Air Base, but with restrictions and in an uncertain atmosphere. The Kyrgyz government also would make it clear that no U.S. operations could target Iran from Kyrgyzstan.

Continued:

Source: http://www.payvand.com/news/07/sep/1274.html

[axel]

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

I don't know Russian, but if you are referring to the poster it says - "Glory to the Great [Stalin crossed out] Putin."

Ok. So the question is why do you knowledgeably post a propaganda poster equating Putin with this monstrous dictator?

some reading for you

http://www.amazon.com/Gulag-Archipelago-1918-1956-Experiment-Investigation/dp/0813332893

[Armenian]

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

Ok. So the question is why do you knowledgeably post a propaganda poster equating Putin with this monstrous dictator?

some reading for you
http://www.amazon.com/Gulag-Archipel.../dp/0813332893

Relax, it was done in jest. Besides, in Russian history Stalin actually played a crucial role by turning Bolshevism from a Joo lead movement into a Russian movement. The bottom line is, Putin will eventually be remembered as one of the greatest rulers Russia has had. And as ruthless as Stalin was, he is also numbered amongst the greatest.

[skhara]

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

Relax, it was done in jest. Besides, in Russian history Stalin actually played a crucial role by turning Bolshevism from a Joo lead movement into a Russian movement. The bottom line is, Putin will eventually be remembered as one of the greatest rulers Russia has had. And as ruthless as Stalin was, he is also numbered amongst the greatest.

Stalin played a crucial role in liquidating the joo led international bolshevism. No matter his ruthlessness, in some ways, he did a greater good.

[crusader1492]

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

Stalin played a crucial role in liquidating the joo led international bolshevism. No matter his ruthlessness, in some ways, he did a greater good.

I didn't know that...now all we need is an American to follow in Stalins footsteps.

[Armenian]

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

I didn't know that...now all we need is an American to follow in Stalins footsteps.

No one knows whether he did it knowingly or unknowingly, however, the end result was that he cleansed the Bolshevik movement of Joos (who were a majority in the movement prior to his rise to power) and gave it a Russian face. Stalin resorted to ruthless tactics to consolidate power because the environment he had to operate in at the time was ruthless and demanded such tactics. He, in essence, held together a vast troubled empire that was also severely vulnerable.

[axel]

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

В последние годы жизни Сталина определЈнно стал намечаться и поток
евреев (с 1950-го года они уже понемногу тянулись как космополиты). Для того
было затеяно и дело врачей. Кажется, он собирался устроить большое еврейское
избиение.46
Однако, это стало его первым в жизни сорвавшимся замыслом. Велел ему
Бог -- похоже, что руками человеческими -- выйти из рЈбер вон.

http://lib.ru/PROZA/SOLZHENICYN/gulag.txt

[axel]

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

Stalin played a crucial role in liquidating the joo led international bolshevism. No matter his ruthlessness, in some ways, he did a greater good.

not only are the facts quite disputable but, morally speaking, such arguments are totally unacceptable.