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The Other Armenia

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  • #21
    Re: The Other Armenia

    Armenians and Progressive Politics

    APP Panel on Foreign Aid Deconstructs Armenia’s Corruption and Where the Goodwill Buck Actually Stops

    By Andy Turpin

    NEW YORK (A.W.)—On May 31, as part of APP’s 3rd annual conference, panelists held a discussion entitled, “Foreign Assistance to Armenia: Toward Prosperity or Dependency?”

    The panelists included University of Massachusetts professor of sociology Levon Chorbajian and human rights advocate and researcher Karen Hakobyan. Writer and solidarity worker Markar Melkonian was represented in absentia on the panel by xxxxran Kaligian, chair of the ANCA Eastern United States and an ANCA national board member.

    Elizabeth Chouldjian, communications director of the ANCA, was a discussant on the panel and provided its introduction, stating, “The goal of this panel is to problemitize foreign aid to Armenia, which is often considered inherently good.”

    Chorbajian spoke first, stating, “Much of my research presented here today comes from an earlier paper I presented at the first Progressive Armenians conference [then Armenians and the Left], but there’s a new chapter on neo-liberalism and globalization.”

    “Globalization over the last half of the millennium refers to significantly powerful European states that were able to take over the world. Globalization eliminates any critical examination of these systems,” he explained.

    Comparing modern day U.S. heads of state to the British sovereign whose economic polices instigated the American Revolution, Chorbajian stated, “Bush, Clinton, Carter—who they are structurally is George III in foreign garb. However, with the advent of neo-liberalism, you no longer have to own the colonies. You just have to be in a position to allow multi-national corporations access to the resources.”

    Speaking of today’s international financial institutions, he continued, “When you look at what the WTO and the World Bank actually do, they break down protectionist legislations erected by nations over their raw materials. If they go against these organizations, they are considered to be ‘impeding free trade.’”

    “Because of these constraints,” he added, “third world countries are often forced to reduce expenditures on welfare policies like education, public transit, housing, etc. There are dissenters from this program, but that’s the program.”

    He noted, “There are definitely economic classes that benefit from such programs but the reality of globalization and neo-liberalism has to be hidden to present it as something contrary to what it really is, in order to rope people into going along with it.”

    Chorbajian compared Jamaica and its recent history to Armenia’s present situation, saying, “When we look at what’s happened in Jamaica we can get an idea of what’s probably going to happen in Armenia in the future. … Their government’s been told by the U.S. that they cannot give low-interest loans to their farmers because it interferes with the free markets of U.S. farmers. As a result, it’s destroyed Jamaica’s dairy industry.”

    “Many people in Armenia now live off charities, aid, remittances, and soup kitchens. When I visited Armenia in 1986 in the Soviet period, the standard of living was actually rather good, but I don’t want to endorse that there weren’t many problems in that system.”

    Chorbajian pointed out that the public and the Armenian diaspora should not be led astray by Armenian government number padding, saying, “We do have good news from Armenia in terms of growth in the GDP and GNP, but this growth is misleading. The Armenian government has a standard for poverty that is so low that there are vast amounts of people not counted as poor in studies. USAID is a central conspirator in globalization and neo-liberal programs and even they say the poverty measuring standards are low.”

    He added, “Remittances are now amounting to a billion dollars a year. For many families there is no other system or source of income, but remittances and university fees are now a significant barrier for students not attending college.”

    Citing a major problem in Armenia, Chorbajian spoke to the country’s healthcare crisis, saying, “Since 1993, hospitals have been allowed to deny services if individuals cannot pay. The infant mortality rates in Armenia are currently double the rate of Russia, with the rate of death of mothers in childbirth seven times that of in western Europe.”

    He stated poignantly that “another benchmark is who owns the means of production in Armenia—and it’s not Armenians, it’s Russians. Russians are now heavily invested in all sectors of the Armenian economy.”

    He ended saying, “Armenia has chosen a late-19th century U.S. economic model based on robber-baron capitalism. Eighty percent of the U.S. population has not benefited from such systems in the last 30 years—nor have Armenians.”

    Hakobyan spoke next on “Armenian Foreign Aids: A Means of Corruption.” He precluded his remarks by warning of the deception of language in public policy and its often stark contrast to reality, saying, “For all aid programs, ‘help’ is a main word and ‘help’ is always correlated with a better economy, better life and with ‘democracy.’”

    USAID, he said, has contributed $1.2 billion annually since 1992, but “the Armenian government spends no money on civil society, which makes the people themselves dependent on foreign aid or making friends in government.”

    Hakobyan has been at U.S. aid organization pitch meetings and decried, “Armenians are very good at saying we believe in democracy, but in responsiveness, many Armenians don’t actually believe in democracy at all. We’re very good at creating the right texts and words to get money. We have very bright people working at desks.”

    Not laying blame, however, exclusively on the U.S., Hakobyan spoke of Britain too, stating, “DFID [British aid to Armenia] has given 1.8 million pounds annually, and 2.5 million pounds annually since ‘04-‘06. But there was no regulation on the spending processes and the Armenian government workers weren’t interested in regulation because it was their extra salaries.”

    Of the root causes of corruption in Armenia, Hakobyan said, “No one is going to complain and no one is going to watch. In our mentality, we always make room for corruption. I think it exists in every country, but in Armenia we’re a talking about a homogenous country.”

    “People are being physically beaten now, in Armenian courtrooms, during proceedings on foreign aid monies,” he added. “You wouldn’t believe it’s true until you see it broadcast on YouTube.”

    Speaking of the IMF/World Bank’s role in the problem, Hakobyan stated, “From ‘04-’08, the World Bank and IMF instituted the Country Assistance Strategy Programme. It’s interesting how this is a key point of corruption. The IMF doesn’t care about corruption at all, as long as you’re committed to their policies.”

    Like Chorbajian, Hakobyan pointed to Russian economic buyouts as a major roadblock to reform in Armenian society, stating, “All the industries in which we could makes changes are all under Russian control now.”

    Speaking about potential solutions to the corruption problems, Hakobyan advocated the eminent need for aid money oversight from donor nations. “If oversight is not controlled here in the U.S. and other aid countries, problems will be doubled when they reach Armenia,” he said. An audience member noted in consensus with Hakobyan that the State Department is not accountable to Congress for its fund expenditures.

    Hakobyan explained how aid organizations perpetrated their corruption under benign guises day-to-day. “Corruption is implemented in NGOs and aid organizations and when resistance occurs in the form of people not willing to enable corruption, then the group changes its ‘goals of their main idea’ in order to shut out the resister,” he explained.

    He concluded by admonishing the long-term challenges of Armenian corruption, saying, “Real democracy never actually comes to Armenia. You just get people professionally good at corruption.”

    Comment


    • #22
      Re: The Other Armenia

      Armenians and Progressive Politics

      Where to, Armenia?

      NEW YORK (A.W.)—Panelists Armineh Arakelian, www.ArmeniaNow.com creator John Huges, and blogger Simon Maghakyan tackled the question “Unrest in Armenia: New Seeds of Democracy or Destabilizing Acts?” The panel was moderated by Kim Hekimian-Arzoumanian.

      Spiritual divide

      “My life in Armenia is shaped by my interaction with common folk,” Hughes explained, “and perspectives I give may not be academic but anecdotal and often personal. I fear that will make me sound naive, but I hope that voices that don’t come from textbooks—but just from the mouths of average people—will have a place in this debate.”

      “Armenians themselves must find a way to end the polarization that either through apathy or through misplaced passion has created political divide that threatens to sink Armenia rather than steer her,” he said. “That has created a spiritual divide that has turned this Haiastan into a rancorous community, hardly recognized by those of us who have known her only a short time.”

      Throwing a bullet on the table, Hughes added, “[This is] my reminder that something awful happened and all of us should hope never happens again. This is a spent round from a gun meant for defense of a country, not for the death of its own people.”

      He noted that the soldiers who took part in what happened on March 1 say they were caught between the imposed interests of the state and the safety of their own people.

      Speaking about the larger picture, he noted, “Locals are fed up, re-pats are nervous, the international community wishes it would all just go away, and the diaspora...well you can tell me.”

      He added, “There’s plenty that still needs to be said about March 1.And there’s so little solution in the corrective methods that have so far been implemented.”

      Two-way process

      In turn, Maghakyan said, “No one in the diaspora expected Armenians to go out into the streets and kill each other. But the situation of March 1 needs to make us address some questions of why it happened, what was the message, and what we can do about it.”

      He said there needs to be more justice in Armenia in terms of having an accountable and responsive government, “which unfortunately is not the case since 1991.”

      “But I’d also suggest it’s not just the government that’s had corruption and no respect for the people,” he added. “On many levels of society there’s corruption going on, everywhere from kindergartens to universities. So the question we get is, Can you change the institutions before changing the society? Or maybe it’s a two-way process.”

      Disgraceful and stupid

      Arakelian called the events of March 1 a “disgraceful, stupid action by the Armenian rulers, political elite, and intellectuals with very serious consequences for Armenia, Karabagh, and Armenians in general.”

      She asked, “Could we have expected this? Yes, if we were really following what was happening in Armenia after independence. Could we avoid it? No. We didn’t have progressive thinkers and actors in Armenia and Karabagh and outside who are well organized, well-mobilized, to make these rulers and the opposition led by Ter-Petrossian be wiser and think, for once, for the interest of nation and society.”

      “We have to fight the mentality that the people that we are electing are our masters, and we their servants. They are elected to serve us,” she noted.

      “At this moment, genocide [recognition] for me is not a priority. For me, the future of the state, the future of Karabagh is what is important,” she said, explaining that if we don’t have a strong state, we will lose everything.

      On a positive note, though, “There is hope, but it depends on us,” she said. “If we don’t do anything, the instability is going to continue.”

      Comment


      • #23
        Re: The Other Armenia

        Armenians and Progressive Politics

        APP Student Panel Discusses Armenian Activism

        By Andy Turpin

        NEW YORK (A.W.)—On May 31, APP panelists held an Armenian student activist discussion titled “New Work of an Activist Bent.”

        Panelists included Celina Agaian, a graduate student at CUNY Hunter College majoring in socio-cultural anthropology with a concentration in Armenian culture and identity; Lori Janbazian, a masters student in political science focusing on international human rights and genocide; and Zohrab Sarkissian, a business graduate from the American University of Beirut and McGill. APP conference facilitator Arousiag Markarian moderated the discussion.

        Janbazian spoke first, stating, “I’ll be focusing on issues of cultural genocide as they relate to international law.” She said that Raphael Lemkin first coined a definition for cultural genocide in 1948; however, at the times most cases of cultural genocide were still regarded as mere vandalism. The UN created a draft declaration with an inclusive clause for cases of cultural genocide and action to be taken by the international community against the perpetrators of such acts. But, as Janbazian noted, “Since the declaration is only a draft, it is not legally binding.”

        Janbazian recounted the final destruction of the Old Julfa monuments and khatchkars [Armenian cross-stones] in Nakhichevan in 2006 at the hands of Azeri soldiers with pickaxes and parallel cases of ruin that have occurred within Turkey’s borders. She explained that Nakhichevan’s destruction appalled the Canadian Armenian youth and activists who “vowed we would fight. We organized a peaceful protest in front of the UNESCO building in Ottawa. We became participants and not just spectators. We were able to raise awareness in Canada of actions against the Armenian people.”

        She stated of the necessity for Armenian youth activism and its methods that, “We need to get inside power structures in order to make changes.”

        Janbazian continued, “We [Armenian youth activists] should be using the media more. It is important that language be accurate and precise to avoid misunderstandings later. Using the media involves making press releases and giving interviews.” She also cited the importance of letter-writing campaigns.

        Janbazian then commented on the importance of Armenian political lobbying to invoke change, stating, “Why do we lobby? We believe it will get us what we want, that our point of view is correct, and that it will benefit us and the greater community.”

        Sarkissian spoke next, prefacing, “I will be speaking about preserving our Armenian identity and using components of our identity to prevent assimilation.”

        He gave a historic overview of the culmination of events, including the genocide, that led to the creation of the Armenian diaspora and its unique nuances of Armenian identity.

        Sarkissian explained his views on Armenian identity, stating, “The Armenian family is the foundation on which any Armenian-ness is based. The family is the key to the survival of the Armenians. The challenge is to create an environment conducive to learning the Armenian language.”

        He added, “The Armenian language is in danger of disappearing in some parts of the diaspora. In order for our culture to survive, we must speak, read, and write Armenian.”

        Sarkissian ended, “Our Armenian culture should become a daily and crucial component in our lives. Simply feeling Armenian is purely symbolic.”

        Agaian spoke third, stating, “I want to talk about this term ‘identity.’ I want to talk about how we’re viewed as a stagnant group obsessed only with the genocide. I want to talk about museums and how they are generators of identity.”

        Contrary to Sarkissian’s checklist style notion of indicators that do, or do not, compose a true individualized Armenian identity, Agaian noted, “With time, culture changes. This idea of identity is very flexible.” She explained of diasporan Armenian identity, “The host country molds the hybrid identity for Armenians in each country. The shared past should be held in reverence, but always with care.”

        She commented on the typical Armenian diasporan family that sets high achievement goals for its children as a form of guilt and compensation for relatives lost during the genocide; that chooses traumatic events as integral parts of their identity; or sees less intermarriage compared to other ethnic groups.

        Agaian said of Armenian museums in the diaspora that they “are translators of identity and help shape the emergent model of what an Armenian is, especially in the host country.” With this thought in mind, she explained, “How is a non-Armenian going to understand Armenian identity if they’re only shown relics of genocide? Museums have a special place in the representation of facts.”

        Agaian admonished that Armenian museums should work to preserve all aspects of the Armenian identity and experience, but should not be so strong in their genocide emphasis and so exclusively geared only to educate fellow Armenians that they perpetrate a purely victim identity to the non-Armenian world.

        She ended by noting, “My intentions are not to denounce any museum on Armenian identity that has or will exist.”

        Comment


        • #24
          Re: The Other Armenia

          Armenians and Progressive Politics


          The People vs. the ADL

          NEW YORK (A.W.)—The panel on the ADL issue, titled “The ADL and the Armenian Genocide: Pursuing Common Goals Through Grassroots Activism,” brought together Boston area activists Sevag Arzoumanian and Laura Boghosian, xxxcy media president Joey Kurtzman, and Professor Jack Nusan Porter. Armenian Weekly editor Khatchig Mouradian was moderator.

          Grassroots democracy

          Arzoumanian and Boghosian provided a detailed account and analysis of the ADL issue. Arzoumanian noted how over 25 public, town hall meetings took place in the late summer and fall of 2007 to persuade Massachusetts towns and cities to sever ties with the ADL. He noted that the meetings “all had the feel of a general uprising, or an exercise in radical democracy. … It was grassroots democracy at its best.”

          “So what made this movement ‘progressive?’” Arzoumanian asked. “First and foremost, it was the fact that this was a movement initiated and propelled by ordinary people, not by political or social elites. It was ‘power percolating upwards from the people,’ as one of the activists put it at the first Newton meeting.”

          He went on to explain that traditional Armenian organizations, political leaders, and elected officials were either silent or kept a very low profile during the first few weeks of the campaign. “The exception, of course, were the Armenian National Committees of Massachusetts who were the only entities sticking their necks out during those first few weeks,” he said.

          A contest of power

          Boghosian asked, “What made this campaign so successful?” At first glance, she said, it appeared highly unlikely that a handful of Armenians could realistically challenge an organization as powerful as the ADL. She then quoted grassroots organizer Saul Alinsky who said, “It becomes a contest of power: those who have money and those who have people. We have nothing but people.”

          Boghosian explained, “Although the Armenian National Committee coordinated efforts, this was a classic grassroots movement using classic grassroots tactics. Beginning in Watertown, news spread through word-of-mouth and sometimes people who did not even know each other formed committees to coordinate local efforts. It didn’t matter what political organization or what community they were affiliated with—as Armenians, they came together to seek justice.”

          She noted that in taking on the ADL, Boston area Armenians forged ties with several xxxish organizations, both progressive and mainstream. “Although Armenian and xxxish genocide scholars have been working together for years, often those links were nonexistent at the local level despite our shared history as victims of genocide. That is now changing,” she said. “ With so many xxxs advocating for recognition of the Armenian Genocide, it was clear that the leadership of the national xxxish organizations was not speaking for the community as a whole.”

          Moral sensitivity

          Both Porter and Kurtzman talked about the role the xxxish community in the U.S. and the Israelis can play in the issue. “Israel needs a new generation of young people,” noted Porter. “The average Israeli is on your side. The average Israeli wants to do the right thing and recognize the Armenian Genocide.”

          In a poignant talk, Kurtzman—whose blog/magazine has been at the forefront of the struggle for ADL’s recognition of the genocide—explained, “I was raised in a community that taught me very effectively that essentially the spirit of Raphael Lemkin is what we have. We have a moral sensitivity that came from a history of suffering, and this is what we came into the world with. And I believed it. I really valued it. And I thought I was lucky to be born into this community.”

          He added, “I learned that genocide is not something that can be used as a political football. It’s not something you play tactics with, for geo-political advantage. I assimilated this lesson better than the xxxish community is going to wish that I had.”

          Talking about his experience with the ADL issue, he called it “a profound challenge.” He added, “This is an issue I won’t ever let go.”

          Comment


          • #25
            Re: The Other Armenia

            Armenians and Progressive Politics

            Coalition Building

            NEW YORK (A.W.)—The closing plenary, titled, “Coalition Building Among Dispossessed Peoples,” featured panelists Tariq Ali, David Barsamian, and Prof. Nubar Hovsepian, with Antranig Kasbarian moderating.

            The panel looked at possible coalition-building strategies for dispossessed peoples—including, but not limited to the Armenians. It also looked at those issues that can unite or separate the Armenian Cause from other, similar movements.

            The non-Armenian Armenian

            I’m going to explain to you first what I am not, in order to engage in a dialectical fashion what I might be,” Hovsepian started. “Building on an essay by Isaac Doiter titled, ‘The non-xxxish xxx’—in which the author extrapolates the need for a universal sense of belonging and identity—allow me to speak as the non-Armenian Armenian. My students at Chapman University hear me say that I am the ‘non-Political science political scientist,’ because I disdain the field because most of my colleagues want to serve power while I want to deconstruct power. They are dying to be budding Machiavellis and I am opposing political power.”

            Hovsepian, recounting some of his experiences as an Armenian growing up in Cairo and later, revisiting the country, said, “The strength of the Middle East is in its diversity.”

            “I don’t have a Yerevan experience, but I do have a Cairo and Beirut experience,” he added.

            Hovsepian said that what animated him was the struggle for justice in the Middle East. “That struggle was intricately connected with the injustice endured by the Palestinians and the possibility of building a non-sectarian political order in Lebanon.” He noted that Palestinians could very well become the perpetual exiles that Armenians had become. “I am an Armenian—probably not a good one—but the Armenian in me requires that I deal with this question.”

            “As an Armenian, I have to exist in a larger society and my impact has to be within the larger society. There is a relationship between the particular and the universal,” Hovsepian concluded.

            Bigger than a particular crime

            “What is the price of independence if you have to be permanently on your knees before an Imperial power. How are you independent? It’s not independence, it’s just a tiny league getting a lot of money and a few people getting very rich,” Ali said.

            “The issues that we have to discuss are much bigger than a particular crime and a particular nationality, especially in the 21st century and especially in this country. This [The U.S.] is an Imperial country that creates mayhem in large parts of the world. And it suits the needs of the state perfectly if people remain divided. What doesn’t suit it is a larger, more universal way of understanding what is going on,” he added.

            Breaking borders

            “Many Armenians in this country, especially the older generation, have forgotten their own background and do not feel very generous with immigrants today,” Barsamian said. “It takes a hell of a lot for someone to leave their land and to give up everything. For example, why are millions of Mexicans leaving Mexico and coming to a much colder country—literally and figuratively—where they don’t speak the language, where most people are not catholic, where they don’t feel welcomed? It’s U.S. economic policy, under these so-called free-trade agreements, that is absolutely destroying the agricultural sector in rural Mexico.”

            “How to break borders, build coalitions? I think a lot of us—and I am not excluding myself—live in a kind of mental straightjackets. And we need to get out of it. There is a great deal of wealth in the rainbow, in the many colors. Moving from the micro to the macro doesn’t mean you abandoned who you are, you never speak Armenian, you anglicize your name, etc. It means opening to a larger political and spiritual possibility,” he noted.

            Comment


            • #26
              Re: The Other Armenia

              Armenians and Progressive Politics

              Empire and Its Discontents

              NEW YORK (A.W.)—The conference’s plenary session on “The New Imperialism” featured noted progressive intellectuals Tariq Ali, David Barsamian, and Neil Smith, who discussed the politics of empire and globalization, and how these might affect dispossessed peoples and fledgling nation-states such as Armenia.

              Carte Blanche

              During his presentation, Barsamian said, “Turkey bombs Iraq, that’s all OK. As long as you are on the side of empire, you have carte blanche; you can do anything you like. But if you are a designated enemy, then look out. All aspects of international law will be applied, you’ll be held under great scrutiny and you’ll be subjected to boycotts, sanctions and military attacks.”

              Barsamian noted that although the U.S. is posing as a kind of honest broker in the Middle East peace process and trying to deliver confidence-building measures, the fact of the matter is that Washington is far from being honest and fair. Going beyond the Middle east, he said, “I have been spending a lot of my time in West Asia and South Asia, and more and more people are telling me that they think the policy of the U.S. is basically to keep the region in turmoil, constant upheaval, because this allows for the presence of American military bases, the sale of weaponry in tens of billions of dollars.”

              He ended with a comment from Frederick Douglas, an African-American freedom fighter, who once said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand, it never has and it never will.”

              The world is flat, not!

              In turn, Smith said, “Today’s imperial wars have managed to collapse any social and geographical difference. This is a war over Muslim and Arab bodies in particular, but also a war that is just supposed to protect the security of certain white bodies.” He added, “This is also, simultaneously, a global war. The war is very much about U.S. global power. But not just U.S. global power. It is also a project of transnational grouping.”

              He explained, “Thomas Friedman has told us that the world is flat. The evidence is coming out about the extraordinary unevenness, disparity, inequality that’s being created by a globalization processed that was supposed to level the playing field, if you still remember that phrase. But in order to understand Friedman, you have to have a class perspective and understand the class from which Friedman comes. In the first pages of his books, he tells us about flying to India where he certainly has this revelation: ‘Honey, the earth is flat.’ It’s very easy at business class, at 35 thousand feet, to think that the world is flat!” He concluded, “It’s very easy at business class, at 35 thousand feet, to think that the world is flat!”

              According to Smith, imperial wars are always justified on the basis of, if not human rights directly, some form of civilizational conquest. So it’s not at all an accident to hear Bush arguing that “freedom is the direction of history.” He said, “Just in case Bush of course has the U.S. military at hand to make sure history gets it right in this process.”

              He noted that what is new is a shift from a geo-political calculus to a geo-economic calculus around imperial war. “Instead of geopolitics being a strategy (which is true for the British Empire in the 19th century—to take land, because land was power. The ultimate goal was economic but the strategy was geopolitical). Now, the strategy is geo-economic. There is no requirement to hold the land. The military bases, yes, but not the land. The geo-economic calculation is the strategic calculation and geopolitics becomes tactical.”

              Because we could

              Talk about the Post-Soviet era, Ali noted, “People began to imagine that because the Soviet Union had collapsed, perhaps imperialism too had ceased to exist. If you had used the word empire and imperialism in the late 90s, people would have laughed at you, saying you are living in the past, you are dinosaurs; you don’t know what’s going on in the world. But essentially, there was absolutely no reason why the U.S. as the world’s largest and most powerful empire also ceased to exist simply because it’s old enemies had collapsed. What it had to do was to readjust itself to the new world order.”

              Ali explained how the history of 19th and 20th century imperialism was the history of imperial states fighting each other. Both the first and second world wars were largely fought between imperial states fighting for colonies, more land, markets, and profits. “And some of the worst atrocities that took place were as a result of these conflicts, including the three best known cases of genocide; the wiping off of 12 million Congolese in the Belgian colonialism of the Congo, (The Congo was one of those great colonies that was the personal property of the king of Belgium. Actually his personal property. Then he transferred it to the Belgian state. And Adam Hochschild’s book “King Leopold’s ghost” gives a very moving and horrific account of what they did to the Congolese.) The second genocide is of course you are familiar with, which took place with the break up of the ottoman empire, which was the wiping off of whatever figure you agree on of Armenians, and the third was of course the Judeocide of the second world war, which actually was decided on at the height of the war in 1942.”

              Ali noted that the Iraq war was not about oil as such, though every conflict in that region concerns oil in some way or the other. “I’ve always thought of the war in Iraq was a war to assert U.S. global hegemony. In the early days, when they were confidently triumphalist about it, one of the neocons, when asked why the U.S. invaded Iraq, he said ‘because we could.’ Which is not a totally wrong answer, by the way. They thought there was no power in the world that could stop them from doing what they want. They thought this would be a model both for transforming the Middle East the next targets were Syria and Iran. I don’t know if you remember, the day after Baghdad fell, before the resistance began, the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. congratulated to U.S. and said don’t stop now, forward to Tehran and Damascus. That was the plan. A year and a half later, when asked what went wrong in Iraq, Wolfowitz said we never predicted a resistance.”

              “Why the hell didn’t you predict a resistance?” Ali asked.

              Comment


              • #27
                Sefilian Released!

                Jirayr Sefilyan Has Been Released From Jail

                Vahe Sarukhanyan June 09, 2008

                On Monday morning, June 9th, Jirayr Sefilyan was released from the Vardashen criminal detention center. Although Mr. Sefilyan, a Karabakh War veteran who commanded a special unit that participated in the liberation of Shushi, was sentenced in the summer of 2007 to 18 months imprisonment for the illegal possession of a handgun, he actually had been incarcerated since December of 2006.

                Awaiting his release outside the prison walls were friends and family who greeted Mr. Sefilyan with an oversized Armenian passport. This was a symbolic slap in the face to the Armenian government which has continued to refuse the granting of citizenship to the Lebanese-born war hero ever since 2003.

                Presently, the government has begun deportation proceedings against him.

                Upon his release Mr. Sefilyan stated that, “Today I would like to thank, first and foremost, those journalists who covered my case and, to the dismay of the authorities, were able to convey my message to the people. Naturally, I have a lot to say regarding recent political developments and I will do so in the coming days at a press interview.”

                The former commander declared that he would continue “being involved in the same work as before his unjust arrest. They wanted to hold me for 2 years. They can jail me for 20, nothing will change. They should be worried about themselves.

                ” The oppositional activist had the following to say about being granted citizenship, “I believe that in the end this issue will have a positive outcome. Right now, whatever they do is their problem. I am certain that our country’s true president will set matters aright in the end. I can’t think of an example where a country’s military commander isn’t a citizen of that nation.” Commenting on plans to deport him, Mr. Sefilyan, whose been residing in Armenia since 1990, said, “If you follow the actions taken by this regime you’ll notice that each successive step they take is more inane than the preceding one. They’ve been discredited and it’s now up to them to decide whether they want to continue in such a scandalous manner or not. We have our work set out for us. Together, we will ultimately build the state we all dream of.”

                After his release Mr. Sefilyan, along with his supporters, made their way to the Yerablur war memorial cemetery on the outskirts of Yerevan where a number of former freedom fighters had been staging hunger strikes demanding the release of friends now being held as political prisoners.

                During his meeting with the hunger strikers Mr. Sefilyan stated, “I don’t believe that hunger strikes are the most effective means of struggle but I respect all those who have taken this extreme path and I can’t rule out the possibility of joining them as well. In two days time I will make myself available to those involved in the struggle. I believe that our struggle has borne fruit and that in large part regime change has taken place. I’m also of the opinion that the upcoming rally on June 20th will be of pivotal significance.” Mr. Sefilyan was quick to add however that it was possible to give a specific timeline for victory. “I don’t think the problem will end with June 20th. The struggle can last for 2 days, 20 weeks or for 10 months. We’ll continue to struggle for as long as it takes.”

                At the Yerablur cemetery Mr. Sefilyan visited the graves of fallen Karabakh combatants. When asked if he had plans to meet with the Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Armenia’s first president, Mr. Sefilyan responded, “If Mr. Ter-Petrosyan has the time, of course I’d love to meet him.”

                Comment


                • #28
                  Re: The Other Armenia

                  Saturday, June 14, 2008

                  Pashinian: Sargsyan vs. Aliyev -- a screw-up.

                  I wrote about the Armenian-Azerbaijan situation a few days ago. In this article published in Paykar on the 11th of June, Pashinian discusses Sargsyan's meeting with Aliyev.

                  Nikol Pashinian, Untitled.

                  I followed the Serzh Sargsyan-Ilham Aliyev meeting with great consternation through the media, awaiting news of the the inevitable scandal. The awaited news, however, was not announced in the daily reports, which means that the scandal has not taken place; moreover, pictures were published of Serzh and Ilham lost in smiles at one another like long-lost brothers who have chanced to meet on the street.

                  And why was I awaiting a scandal? If you remember his mid-March online question and answer blog, Serzh Sargsyan announced that he is going to confront Ilham Aliyev during his very first meeting with him: If he, meaning Ilham, thinks that the resolution of Mountainous Gharabagh is going to take place at the UN according to the arguments put forth by Azerbaijan, meaning according to Azerbaijan's principle of Azerbaijani national sovereignty, then he, meaning Serzh, doesn't have anything to talk to him about, meaning Aliyev. In making this announcement, Serzh was thinking that he was going to meet with Aliyev at the beginning of April, sometime during the NATO Summit at Bucharest. But the meeting never took place because Aliyev refrained from meeting Serzh and in this way forced the other leaders as well as Serzh to ask for a meeting with him [Aliyev. Italics mine for clarity]. I did not make a mistake in counting Serzh among the ranks of the leaders doing the asking, because a meeting with Aliyev was the only way that Serzh could have proven himself as a legitimate ruler of Armenia in front of the international community. Aliyev could not have been ignorant of the fact that, in agreeing to this meeting, he would be rendering an important service to Serzh, and, naturally, [Aliyev] could not have gone through with it without making the power of his position known, which he did at Bucharest to score definite political points, which he did at Moscow. No one noticed in Armenia that he made an announcement about the Sargsyan-Aliyev meeting during the Foreign Minister's trip to Moscow. Nalbandian had gone to Moscow to ask the Russians to persuade Ilham to meet with Serzh at St. Petersburg and not change his mind at the last minute. And Ilham, at the Russian Federation, exacted a heavy price for his agreement to meet with Serzh. RF President Dmitri Medvedev not only heaped praises upon him, his Azerbaijani counterpart, but he is getting ready to visit Baku in early July. It is understandable that under these conditions, Serzh Sargsyan could not remember what to say to Ilham; isn't it true that politics is the art of the possible [1]? It is simply not a good thing that during his very first visit with the President of Azerbaijan, he is found in a situation that the petitioners surrounding him consider to be, in a word: fuflo [2].

                  1. Otto von Bismarck said this; he is remembered for unifying Germany.
                  2. Fuflo is, I think, Russian slang for "screwing up." If someone knows for sure, please let me know.

                  Comment


                  • #29
                    Re: The Other Armenia

                    Originally posted by Armenian
                    The biggest obstacle of the Armenian Republic today is Armenian.
                    .....

                    Comment


                    • #30
                      Re: The Other Armenia

                      Originally posted by Armenian
                      Take a close look at this thread; it's simply meant to attack the Armenian Republic without taking into any consideration geopolitical factors, socioeconomic situation, regional history, objectivity, rational, human nature, etc.
                      Fear tactics. Reminds me of Nazi propaganda.


                      Originally posted by Armenian
                      So, the problem seems to be, in essence: Armenia did not transform itself overnight into a happy-go-lucky Switzerland...

                      How dare there be corruption and inequality in the fairytale land of Armenia...
                      I see that you have no political maturity. "Switzerland" became "Switzerland" because those who really cared fought against corruption, police brutality and other shortcomings.


                      Originally posted by Armenian
                      On one hand we have a spoiled snot-nosed twenty year old with a Turkish core named TomServo trying to make a point, then we have a psychotic/obsessive he/she called Siamanto joining him to spite, and now we have a brand new totally ignorant asswipe named Zeytuntsi who signed into this forum simply to express his anti-Armenian rants and colorful brainfarts. Soon, these intellectual dwarfs with serious emotional and psychological problems will be joined by an annoying assclown called FreakyFreaky, and perhaps the self-centered hippy name Sip, and the deranged oldfart with a serious case of senility named Ara Baliozian... Only God knows what other irrational self-hating vermin is waiting to jump in and express their hate of the Armenian Republic as well.
                      I'm so proud that I do not correspond to what you consider a "good" Armenian.

                      Originally posted by Armenian
                      And idiots in our community still talk about unity...
                      When some are as politically immature as you are then it becomes harder.
                      Last edited by zeytuntsi; 06-16-2008, 09:37 AM.

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