Category Archives: Caucasus

The Biologic Urge to Readjust the Map of Europe

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In the two years since Dymphna died I have dedicated myself to putting my affairs in order, so that the future Baron won’t have too hard a time when I shuffle off this mortal coil and go to claim my 72 virgins. One of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks has been to clean out, cull, and reorganize the material in the filing cabinets here at Schloss Bodissey. I have to pull out all the papers and scrutinize them before deciding whether to keep them or not. In the process I have come across a number of delightful surprises, plus a few mysteries.

An example of the latter is a hand-written chart (to be discussed in detail below). It’s in pencil, in my handwriting (and very small — you can tell my eyes were still working), written on the back of a computer printout that dates it to 1990. It’s basically a compendium of territorial changes in Europe between 1916 and 1945.


(Click to enlarge)

The big mystery is: why the heck did I put the thing together? It was written fourteen years before we started blogging. The future Baron was too small at that point for the document to have been one my lesson plans for him. The material in it closely tracks what I had to absorb to take my A-levels (and special papers) in European history. But it was written twenty years after I took my exams, so I couldn’t possibly have been regurgitating it from memory. I can tell I consulted the Harvard Encyclopedia of World History (a 1948 edition inherited from my father that is now held together by duct tape. It is one of the most treasured resources in my reference library, second only to the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology). Alas, I can no longer read it without a magnifying glass, so I won’t be checking any of the dates and facts on my chart to make sure they’re right.

For weeks I puzzled over the document, trying to figure out why I compiled it. My best guess is that Dymphna had been reading something — possibly The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman — and wanted to know about the territorial adjustments made in the map of Europe by the Treaty of Versailles and others that followed in the wake of the Great War. She knew I was well-versed in modern European history, so she must have asked me if I would put something together that would summarize it for her. I would have been delighted by her request, because I love to do that sort of thing — or used to, when my eyes still functioned normally.

The chart is a useful resource, so I took the trouble to transcribe it as well as I could. Doing so brought back memories of all that old A-level material. Vojvodina! I hadn’t thought about that name in a while. And some of the other names — Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Moldavia, etc. — are well-known now, because they’re sovereign states, but they weren’t in 1990; they were still socialist republics within one or the other of the communist superstates.

I can still remember a few more names that didn’t make it to the chart — the Sanjak of Novi Bazar, for example, or Eastern Rumelia.

The map of Europe was drastically reorganized after 1917 (after the Bolshevik Revolution, that is) and then even more so after 1918 in a series of treaties that divvied up the territory of the collapsed empires. Adolf Hitler did his part to rearrange the map even further, and then major revisions took place after the end of World War Two until 1946 or so. After that everything was frozen in place by the Cold War for the next 45 years. Then suddenly in the 1990s you started to see names in the newspaper that hadn’t been there since the 1930s — Montenegro, for instance, and Estonia. And things are still in flux now — who knows what the map of Europe will look like after the EU finally collapses?

Here’s my transcription of the document. I tried to put it in date order as far as possible. I expanded abbreviations when I was sure what they meant; otherwise I left them as-is:

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What Lies Beneath: President Biden’s Deceptive Acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide

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In the following essay David Boyajian makes the case that President Biden’s recent acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide is less than it seems.

What Lies Beneath: President Biden’s Deceptive Acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide

by David Boyajian

President Biden’s April 24 statement acknowledging the Armenian Genocide (1915-1923+) carried out by Turkey was welcome but flawed. Indeed, “Turkey” appears nowhere in the document. Moreover, the State Department swiftly undermined Biden’s virtuous-sounding words.

American acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide isn’t even new. The U.S. House has passed several resolutions on the Genocide. And a nearly unanimous Congress did so in 2019.

Presidents going back to Woodrow Wilson have described the Armenian ordeals with language such as: an effort to exterminate all Armenians; terrible massacres; mass killings; death marches; and an ancient [Armenian] homeland was erased. If these don’t describe genocide, the word is meaningless.

In 1951, the State Department cited the Armenian “massacres [as a] crime of genocide” in a filing at the International Court of Justice. In 1981, President Reagan included “the genocide of Armenians” in a Holocaust proclamation.

Genocide acknowledgements should not — like car insurance — lapse if not renewed annually. Will the Holocaust become a non-genocide next year if the White House happens to overlook it?

Still, the president’s statement is noteworthy. It could even reinvigorate several Armenian American lawsuits against Turkey. But the statement has problems.

It tries to take the heat off today’s Republic of Turkey by blaming only “Ottoman-era … authorities” for the Genocide.

After the Allies defeated Ottoman Turkey in WWI (1918), Ottoman General Mustafa Kemal’s (Ataturk) forces continued to massacre Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks. Kemal also ordered that Armenia be “politically and physically eliminated.” When he established the Turkish Republic in 1923, Kemal appointed Ottoman genocidists and continued to persecute Christians.

Thus, as President Erdogan himself has confirmed, his country is a “continuation” of Ottoman Turkey. Knowing this, the Turkish Republic has always tried to evade accountability for the Genocide.

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Sanction the Axis of Mercenary and Terrorist Evil

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Here’s the latest from David Boyajian on the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Artsakh.


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev — Credit: Asbarez.com

Sanction the Axis of Mercenary and Terrorist Evil: Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Georgia

by David Boyajian

Azerbaijan deployed thousands of mercenaries in last year’s 44-day war that it and Turkey waged against Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabagh and Armenia.

Azerbaijan thereby flagrantly violated the UN’s International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries (UNMERC) which it signed in 1997.

Forty-six countries have signed UNMERC, including Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and Poland.

These mercenaries are not clean-cut military men. They’re terrorists, thugs, jihadis, and fanatics.

The Evidence

They include former ISIS commander Sayf Balud, and members of the Hamza Division, Sultan Murad Brigade, Al-Amshat Militia, Free Syrian Army (FSA/SNA), and other factions.

Many were brought into Azerbaijan before the war began on September 27, 2020. Unknown numbers remain there despite the November 9 armistice.

Armenian forces captured two mercenaries who came from Syria’s Hama and Idlib provinces.

The independent UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has confirmed Azerbaijan’s employing mercenaries. In October, it numbered them at over 2,050 with 145 dead.

Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights has named the chief mercenary commanders, such as Fehim Isa of the Sultan Murad Brigade, and their organizations.

Video and audio recordings have identified many of the mercenaries.

Azeri soldiers have forced some of them into battle at gunpoint and lied about the combat conditions. “Haji… don’t come,” warned one mercenary. “We have been deceived… this is a meat grinder.”

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The Cultural Enrichment of the Public Prosecutor’s Office

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The migrant who infiltrated the public prosecutor’s office in Hamburg is said to be from Abkhazia, the autonomous region of Georgia in the Caucasus. According to Wikipedia, Abkhazia’s largest religious group is Orthodox Christian, although it has a significant Muslim minority and a growing traditional neo-pagan sect. Therefore this case of cultural enrichment may or may not have a Muslim factor.

By the way, I notice that the German word for “infiltration” is Unterwanderung — clearly another cognate of the word “wander”, roughly “under-wandering”.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from PolitikStube:

Consequences of the infiltration — Hamburg: Employee of the public prosecutor’s office arrested

News from the motley Hamburgistan — A worrying incident comes to light more or less by chance, which shows the dramatic consequences of infiltration in sensitive areas by the migrant quota, and how this bears fruit: A 29-year-old employee of the Hamburg public prosecutor’s office from Abkhazia is thought to have revealed numerous investigation results in recent months. The recipient of the official secrets was her friend, a drug dealer known to the police. It is a one-off case, the Abendblatt quotes a spokeswoman for the prosecutor.

It is unbelievable how far the infiltration has progressed, whereby the politically correct blinkers continue to block the view of reality by belittling the discovery as a “one-off case”, i.e. only an individual case, which is more based on pure wishful thinking.

The “individual case”, just the tip of the iceberg, is likely to increase with a further increase in the migrant quota, and the infiltration in all sensitive areas is progressing bit by bit. The main thing is that the left-wing green diversity dream is coming true.

An afterword from the translator:

What amazes me is the amazement of those who cannot see the writing on the wall in front of their noses. But at least we’re politically correct and culturally enriched here in Merkelstan. It doesn’t matter that the hold’s on fire and the ship is sinking, either, because we’re PROGRESSIVE.

Why Azerbaijan is Unfit to Rule over the Armenians of Artsakh

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Below is David Boyajian’s latest report on the aftermath of the recent conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Artsakh.

Why Azerbaijan is Unfit to Rule Over the Armenians of Artsakh

by David Boyajian

Corrupt, sadistic, and run by a hereditary dictatorship, Azerbaijan is unfit to rule over others, least of all Armenian Christians.

Yet that iniquity could materialize due to the recent 44-day war by Azerbaijan, Turkey, and terrorist jihadis against the Artsakh Republic (Nagorno-Karabagh) and Armenia. The November 9, 2020 armistice could force democratic, Armenian-governed Artsakh (pop. 150,000) into Azerbaijan’s (pop. 10 million) despotic grip. Since the war began, though, mainstream media have rarely pointed out Azerbaijan’s depravity and long-standing abuse of Armenians.

In the 1920s, Stalin transferred the ancient Armenian provinces of Artsakh — 96% Armenian — and Nakhichevan to Turkey’s friend, Azerbaijan. The delusional tyrant mistakenly believed that this would lure Turkey into the USSR’s web. That injustice has brought Artsakh nothing but agony. Even before the transfer, Azerbaijan had been massacring Armenians in Artsakh and Baku.

Unlike 3,000-year-old Armenia, no country named Azerbaijan existed before 1918. Its inhabitants didn’t even call themselves Azeris until the 1930s.

Artsakh’s Long Nightmare

Artsakh was officially autonomous within Soviet Azerbaijan, but the latter held the real power. Artsakh’s Armenians were persecuted due to raw Azeri fanaticism, not the Soviet system.

  • Armenians sank from 96% to 76% of Artsakh’s population by 1988, the result of repression, deportations, economic warfare, and murder by Azerbaijan.
  • Then-KGB Major General Heydar Aliyev (Azeri dictator Ilham Aliyev’s father) acknowledged importing Azeris into Artsakh to replace Armenians that he’d exiled.
  • Azerbaijan maliciously closed many Armenian schools, orphanages, and libraries.
  • Armenian language inscriptions on ancient monuments were depicted as Azeri.
  • Museums were looted of artifacts that proved Artsakh to be an ancient Armenian province.
  • Even the name Artsakh was banned.
  • Large quantities of meat, dairy products, and wool were directed to Azerbaijan instead of to needy local Armenians.
  • Baku frequently imprisoned local Armenian leaders who protested, but gave Azeri gangs free rein.

Breaking Free

Artsakh voted to exit Azerbaijan in accordance with Soviet law in 1988 and international law in 1991 as the USSR dissolved. In response, Azerbaijan massacred Armenian civilians in Artsakh, Baku, Ganja, and Sumgait. The ensuing war ended in 1994 in victory for Artsakh’s Armenians. Armenians fled the rest of Azerbaijan, and Azeris fled Armenia.

Artsakh became self-governing, reformist, and widely respected. It maintained representative offices in Washington, D.C., Europe, and elsewhere. Azerbaijan proceeded to gorge on revenue from its gas and oil fields. Yet it still mirrored its Soviet self: repressive, corrupt, violent, and anti-Armenian. Artsakh became doubly determined to never again submit to Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan’s Post-Independence Horrors

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Knife Jihad in Grozny

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The following news report describes a knife attack against police in Grozny, the capital of the Chechen Republic in Russia. One police officer was killed in the attack before the mujahideen were shot dead by other police.

The attackers (immigrants from Ingushetia, another Islamic republic in Russia) presumably wanted to take the policemen’s guns for further jihad.

The report is in Russian, with voice-over for the Chechen parts. Many thanks to D@rLin|{ for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:


Video link

Video transcript:

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The Unauthorized Use of the Trademark For OSCE Inc.

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Long-time readers will remember that for more than a decade Gates of Vienna has reported extensively on the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Beginning in 2009, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff and Henrik Clausen worked tirelessly to expose the growing Islamization of the organization. They attended OSCE “Human Dimension” conferences in Warsaw and Vienna to make interventions (short presentations) and hold side events. In later years they were joined by other Counterjihad stalwarts, including Alain Wagner, Dave Petteys, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, Clare Lopez, Katie Hopkins, and others.

Last Friday I received the following letter as a PDF attached to an email from the OSCE (sent by Daniel Stirrat, a Legal Assistant in the Office of Legal Affairs). Interestingly, although it arrived here in the afternoon of December 11, well before midnight CET, it is dated December 12:

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

Office of Legal Affairs                Vienna, 12 December 2020

To whom it may concern,

It has come to the attention of the Secretariat of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) that there has been unauthorized use of OSCE’s trademark, including the OSCE emblem and name, on your website. For ease of reference, please see the following examples:

Please note that the OSCE’s name in English, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish, its abbreviation in all those languages and its emblem are the exclusive property of the OSCE, protected under Article 6ter of the 1883 Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (as amended), and were duly registered with the World Intellectual Property Organization on 31 August 2001. As such, they may not be copied, reproduced, displayed, or used without the express prior written permission of the OSCE.

The OSCE has not consented to the use of its trademark on your website. Any engagement on your side in OSCE activities and/or events does not constitute such consent. In light thereof, you are requested to remove the OSCE trademark from your website immediately and refrain from using it in the future without obtaining the prior express written consent of the OSCE.

Thank you in advance for your co-operation.

Yours sincerely,

 

 

 

Stephen Walsh,
Head of the Office of Legal Affairs

Gates of Vienna
gatesofvienna{at}chromatism{dot}net

Wallnerstrasse 6
A-1010 Vienna, Austria		   Tel:
+43-1-51436-0		   Fax
+43-1-51436-6996		   pm@osce.org
osce.org
 

I had not been aware that the OSCE was an industry, and that it was therefore covered by the 1883 Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. To rectify my error, I immediately went through all the OSCE posts and replaced all instances of the OSCE™ logo with the one shown at the top of this post. Then I wrote the following reply to the OSCE:

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The New Kings of Jihadist Terrorism: Azerbaijan and Turkey

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David Boyajian sends this urgent update on the Azerbaijani-Armenian war.

The New Kings of Jihadist Terrorism: Azerbaijan and Turkey

by David Boyajian

The vicious war against the Armenian Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh) and Armenia by Azerbaijan, Turkey, and thousands of their jihadist terrorists has passed the one-month mark.

The presence of jihadis, which include ISIS, is consistent with the debauched political cultures and national ambitions of Azerbaijan and Turkey. It also tells us that the U.S./NATO/EU stance towards those countries continues to be dangerously passive.

Just days ago, right in our nation’s capital, Azeri demonstrators chanted “jihad, jihad, jihad” and flashed the hand signal of Turkey’s homicidal, neo-fascist Grey Wolves.

It’s not surprising. Azerbaijan and Turkey are longtime Turkic allies of jihadist terrorists.

Turkic Jihadist Terror

  • In the early 1990s, Azerbaijan deployed thousands of jihadis and terrorists, including Afghan Mujahedin, Chechens, and Grey Wolves against Artsakh’s Armenians who had voted for self-determination. Turkish army officers also took part.
  • Al-Qaeda cells in Baku, Azerbaijan helped to plan the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. A dozen Americans and 212 others were killed.
  • The U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center reports that ISIS ranks have included over 900 Azerbaijanis and 7,400 Turks.
  • Ahmet S. Yayla, Turkey’s chief of counterterrorism from 2010-13, wrote: “Turkey was a central hub for the travel of over 50,000 ISIS foreign fighters, and the main source of ISIS logistical materials … making Turkey and ISIS practically allies.“
  • Secret wiretaps revealed that Turkey has supplied ISIS in Syria via Ilhami Bali, codenamed Abu Bakr, a 36-year-old Saudi-born Turk.
  • Columbia University has issued two valuable studies: ISIS-Turkey Links and Turkey-ISIS Oil Trade.

Today’s Turkic Jihadist Terror

  • Since September, Azerbaijan and Turkey have brought in ISIS commander Sayf Balud, the Hamza and Sultan Murad Brigades, Syrian terrorists, and thousands of other jihadis to battle Armenians. Many were present even before September.
  • Some of the jihadis had committed atrocities against Christian Armenians and Assyrians, Kurds, Yazidis, and others in Syria and elsewhere.
  • Azerbaijan is using some jihadis as human shields for its soldiers. Others are thrust into battle while Azeris point guns at their backs to prevent retreat.
  • Armenian forces have dealt them severe blows. One jihadi warned, “Jihadi, don’t come, we have been deceived, everything is a lie. This is a meat grinder.”

Artsakh’s Ordeals

In the early 1920s, the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin transferred the ancient Armenian territory of Artsakh (96% Armenian) to Azerbaijan to indulge Turkey. No country/people named Azerbaijan/Azeri had ever existed before 1918.

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The Case for Affirming the Independence of the Armenian Republic of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabagh

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David Boyajian sends this update to his earlier reports on the ongoing conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The Case for Affirming the Independence of the Armenian Republic of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabagh

by David Boyajian

In recent years, many territories’ declarations of independence have been justifiably affirmed through international agreements. The Republic of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabagh’s declaration of independence from Azerbaijan three decades ago is as legitimate as any of those. Artsakh is the republic’s ancient Armenian name.

Artsakh and Christian Armenia have been under attack by Azerbaijan, Turkey, jihadist terrorists, and ISIS since September 27. Turkey is using its army, American-built F-16 jets, drones, and other weapons against Armenians. Azerbaijan’s arsenal comes mostly from Israel, including illegal cluster bombs being targeted against civilians. Israel is currently resupplying Azerbaijan.

Artsakh, like Armenia, is thousands of years old. In contrast, no country named Azerbaijan existed before 1918. It was cobbled together out of a diverse population of what were called Muslims or Tartars, as well as Armenians, Persians, Russians, and others. No such identity as ‘Azeri’ had ever existed.

We’ll show that Artsakh justifiably and legitimately voted for self-determination as it separated from Azerbaijan, its previous temporary but brutish overlord.

The Stalinist Giveaway

Turkey and Azerbaijan speak Turkic dialects. Therefore, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin fantasized (incorrectly, as it turned out) that Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) and his incipient Turkish Republic could be lured into the USSR’s web. So in the early 1920s, Stalin transferred Artsakh — then 96% Armenian — and the Armenian territory of Nakhichevan to Azerbaijan. Stalin’s blunder is the root cause of the present impasse over Artsakh.

Shortly before the transfer, Azerbaijan massacred Armenians in Artsakh, Baku (Azerbaijan), and elsewhere. These crimes were part of the Armenian Genocide that Turkey had already been committing from 1915 on.

Stalin also transferred Armenian land to Azerbaijan such that Artsakh became geographically cut off from Armenia. Many majority Armenian areas were also excluded from Artsakh. The latter became a nominally “autonomous” region within Soviet Azerbaijan but, in reality, under the latter’s heavy jackboot.

Artsakh voted for self-determination in accordance with Soviet law in 1988 and international law in 1991. Self-determination and territorial integrity have equal standing under international law. In response, Azerbaijan massacred Armenians in its own cities of Baku, Kirovabad/Ganja, and Sumgait. A war ensued which the outnumbered and outgunned Armenians won in 1994.

Artsakh’s long nightmare through seven decades of Azerbaijani rule was due not to Communism but rather to raw Azeri ethno-racial fanaticism.

Artsakh’s Long Nightmare

Under Azeri rule, Artsakh’s Armenians dropped from 95% to 76% of the population — the product of deportations, exile, murder, theft, oppression, and Azerbaijan’s calculating importation of Azeris to replace the Armenian majority.

The KGB’s Heydar Aliyev — father of current Azeri dictator Ilham Aliyev — admitted to exiling Artsakh’s Armenians and bringing in Azeris. Reported Russia’s REGNUM news agency: “I tried to increase the number of Azeris and to reduce the number of Armenians.”

Armenian historical figures’ titles were crudely Islamized to “Pasha” or “Bey.” The fifth-century Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi became Muhammed al-Khojayi.

References to Armenian history in textbooks were excised. Even the written word Artsakh was banned.

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Religiously-Motivated Attacks on Armenia and Artsakh

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David Boyajian, writing for Armenian Americans for Human Rights (AAHR), has issued another press release about the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh). In a prefatory note, he says:

AAHR respectfully encourages readers — wherever they live — to ask the USCIRF to condemn aggression against Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh) by Azerbaijan, Turkey, and terrorists, and to ask all countries to cease supplying weapons to Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Please also ask USCIRF to relay its statement to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

You may use the two USCIRF email addresses below (and request that your message be forwarded to all USCIRF Commissioners and Staff):

media@uscirf.gov
esingshinsuk@uscirf.gov (Ms. Erin D. Singshinsuk, Executive Director)

October 12, 2020

Armenian Americans for Human Rights (AAHR) Asks the Official United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in Washington, DC to Condemn Azerbaijan’s Aggression Against Armenians

AAHR sent the following letter on October 9, 2020 to the USCIRF’s Commissioners and Staff.

Dear USCIRF Chair Manchin, Vice-Chairs Perkins and Bhargava, Honorable Commissioners, and Staff:

I am the Chair of the Armenian Americans for Human Rights (AAHR).

Armenian Americans, Armenia, and the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh) have not characterized the ongoing conflict with Azerbaijan as religious in nature.

However, given the deliberate attack (September 27, 2020) by Azerbaijan, Turkey (using Turkish military personnel and American-supplied F-16s), and their explicitly anti-Christian jihadi/terrorist allies, those parties clearly intend religion to be a major factor in their war against Armenians.

  • Jihadis/terrorists have come from Syria and elsewhere specifically to attack Christian Armenians. ISIS is also present.

    This is no surprise. Azerbaijan used mujahedin and similar jihadists against Armenians in the early 1990s.

  • On October 8, 2020, Azerbaijan deliberately targeted and severely damaged the well-known Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi, Artsakh.
  • Over the years, Azerbaijan’s army used pickaxes and dump trucks to destroy the 9th century Armenian Christian cemetery in the Azerbaijani territory of Nakhichevan (formerly Armenian, but cleansed of Armenians over the course of the 20th century). Please see this live video, “New Tears of the Araxes”.

Given the above, AAHR finds it perplexing that USCIRF has apparently issued no statement condemning the current religiously-motivated attacks on Armenia and Artsakh.

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The Exploitation of Turkish Nationalism in the Armenian-“Azerbaijani” War

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The essay below was originally published by World Geostrategic Insights in a slightly different form.

The Exploitation of Turkish Nationalism in the Armenian-“Azerbaijani” War

by David Davidian

As the signal-to-noise ratio decreases in the reporting of events surrounding the September 27 Azerbaijani assault on the Armenian-inhabited region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a much more surreptitious current has received virtually no reporting: Iran. Influential think tanks generate their well-crafted equivocation and prevarication, never really following the evidence, and keeping readers cleverly occupied and furious at claims such as “there have been some reports of Jihadists being recruited by and transported to the region by Turkey,” when it is not only clear they have been recruited, with videos of scores being slaughtered by Armenian forces and transcripts of radio transmissions in Arabic suspiciously ignored.

After last July’s border flare-up, with its display of gross Azerbaijani military incompetence, Turkey proclaimed active support for Azerbaijan. Within days of the flare-up’s subsiding, Turkey began war games in Azerbaijan on Armenia’s borders. Turkey never brought home its advisors, trainers, or equipment. Turkey actively recruited and transported Libyan and Syrian Jihadists over Georgian airspace into Azerbaijan to act as cannon fodder in place of Azerbaijan soldiers. One need only peruse flightradar24’s archives to verify this activity. Turkey’s F-16s and AWACS have participated in fighting Armenians. On September 30, the Turkish military assumed control of Azerbaijan’s Air Force. On October 10, an elite force of some two hundred Turkish soldiers attacked an Armenian town many hours after the recent humanitarian cease-fire was to have commenced. Turkish soldiers are embedded within the Azerbaijani army and its command and control.

Rather than deter Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman designs, some regional and world powers appear to have used his Nazi-like dreams in their own interests. Just as Jihadists that are fighting against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad can be useful idiots in the short-term, Turkey has been directly encouraged twice to increase its recent expansionist actions. The first was when US President Trump gave Erdogan the green light to enter Northern Syria, which is now under Turkish occupation. The second was when US Secretary of State Pompeo described the current Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict as one over real estate, interpreted by the Turks as another green light. Without even mentioning Turkish actions against Armenians, NATO’s official website posted, “Turkey is a valued NATO Ally” in its report on NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s October 5 visit to Turkey. This comes on the heels of Erdogan’s vow, in a July 14 governmental address, “to complete what their ancestors began, this time in the Caucasus,” Erdogan was referring to the 1915 Turkish genocide of the Armenians.

The last time rabid Turkish nationalism was used to such an extent was in the lead-up to and during the First World War and British backing of Arab nationalism to dismantle the Ottoman Caliphate. One outcome of such virulent Turkish nationalism was the genocide of the Armenians, as they were in the way of a Pan-Turkic Empire. Does anybody care if Erdogan proclaims Jerusalem as his city? Apparently not, as Israel tolerates such outbursts along with Turkey’s anti-Semitism.

However, it doesn’t appear that the grand prize is eliminating the Armenians, but rather dragging Iran into a confrontation, probably with Turkey. There have been several reports of Azerbaijani UAVs and shells falling in Iran. Of particular interest is that on October 7, Azerbaijani troops attempted to provoke Armenians into firing into Iran. Many hundreds of Azerbaijani troops purposely placed themselves in a position where Armenian artillery would violate the Iranian frontier. The Azerbaijani soldiers were trapped between Armenian forces and the Iranian border and were decimated by the hundreds. The Armenians urged Iran not to allow Azerbaijan troops to escape into Iran. With northwestern Iran populated with Azerbaijani-speaking Iranians and the Iranian military on high alert along its entire border with Azerbaijan, Iran could be dragged into this conflict. It is no secret that not only has Israel been arming Azerbaijan with well over $5B in high technology weaponry, but Amnesty International said on October 6 that Israeli-made cluster bombs are being used against civilians by Azerbaijan.

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Azerbaijan’s War Against Artsakh and Armenia

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Azerbaijan’s ongoing aggression against Armenia began more than a week ago, but has not been widely covered by the mainstream media. Of special interest is the fact that Turkey has funded the movement of ISIS mujahideen from Syria to the Caucasus to act as mercenaries for Azerbaijan.

Armenian Americans for Human Rights (AAHR) was founded in Massachusetts in early 2018. Its chair is David Boyajian, a number of whose essays have appeared in the past at Gates of Vienna (see the list at the bottom of this post).

Below is a press release issued yesterday by AAHR.


Map: Regions of the Caucasus (See Note 6)

AAHR Calls for an Immediate End to Aggression Against Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh) and Armenia

We strongly condemn the latest aggression by Azerbaijan against the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh) and the Republic of Armenia.

On Sunday morning, September 27, 2020, Azerbaijan flagrantly violated a negotiated ceasefire by launching a massive, unprovoked attack on Artsakh and Armenia.

In Azerbaijan, the NATO member Turkey has deployed and is using its own armed forces and advanced arms, including American-supplied weapons such as F-16 jets, to attack Artsakh/Armenia.

Using American-supplied weapons for other than self-defense is a grave violation of American law for which the United States must bear full responsibility.

Azerbaijan and Turkey have been deliberately targeting innocent civilians, schools, and homes in Artsakh, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries, including those of children.

Turkish President Erdogan and his country have no business intruding into this conflict — particularly on the side of the aggressor.

For years, Israel has been selling billions of dollars in armaments, including advanced attack drones, to Azerbaijan for use against Armenians. Israeli personnel have even fired such weapons against Armenians.

Israel is now resupplying these weapons to Azerbaijan.

This is not surprising, because Israel, which demands worldwide acknowledgement of the Holocaust, has always refused to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide committed by Turkey from 1915-1923.

Leading Jewish American organizations (ADL, AJC, AIPAC, and others) had long colluded with Turkey and Israel to deny/diminish the Armenia Genocide and/or actively defeat Armenian Genocide resolutions in the U.S. Congress[1].

For years, Israel has also been guiding Jewish writers to publish falsehoods about Armenia, Artsakh, and Armenians.

The American people and the international community will ultimately not tolerate such hypocrisy.

Consistent with American interests and values, for nearly 30 years America and the American people have generously provided economic, charitable, and political support to Armenia and Artsakh, which also have excellent relations with the European Union.

Armenia participates in NATO’s Partnership for Peace and has supported the U.S. in Afghanistan.

America, the European Union, and NATO must act now, not merely talk, to stop Azeri/Turkish aggression.

Artsakh and Armenia are democracies. Azerbaijan is headed by dictator Ilham Aliyev, and, like Turkey, imprisons political opponents and journalists.

America is now energy independent. It need not sell itself to corporate interests whose only goal is profiting from Azerbaijan’s gas and oil deposits.

Azerbaijan has threatened to bomb Armenia’s Metsamor nuclear power plant, a crime against humanity that would spread radiation throughout the world.

Turkey has now sent jihadist terrorists from Syria, Libya, and elsewhere to Azerbaijan to fight against Armenians[2].

Former ISIS commander Sayf Balud is going to Azerbaijan, courtesy of President Erdogan[3].

This continues Turkey’s practice of supporting terrorist organizations such as ISIS[4].

The U.S. State and Defense Departments as well as Congress should be embarrassed that they have long turned a blind eye to Turkey’s support for terrorists — thereby making a mockery of America’s “Global War on Terror.”

In the early 1990s, Azerbaijan deployed Afghan Mujahedin, Chechen militants, Turkish Grey Wolf neo-fascists, and others to fight Armenians.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given his financial investments in Turkey and deep ties to the corrupt Erdogan family, President Trump is ignoring Turkey’s support for terrorist factions, aggression against Armenians (and others), and illegal use of American-supplied weapons.

Similarly, the Democratic Party and its presidential nominee Joe Biden have said little about Turkish and Azeri aggression against Artsakh/Armenia. This implicitly aligns Mr. Biden and Democrats with President Trump with whom they allegedly disagree on issues involving Turkey and Erdogan.

Artsakh is Armenian

In 1921, the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and Bolsheviks used “divide and rule” tactics to place Artsakh inside Azerbaijan, even though Artsakh was Armenian and Armenians constituted 95% of the population.

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Turkish Aspirations From the Aegean to the Crimea

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The waning of European power in the first two decades of the 21st century has emboldened the Turkish government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose ambition to head a reborn Ottoman Caliphate is unconcealed. Mr. Erdogan evidently has plans to harness the awakened Islamic vigor of the Turkish state to push westward into Europe and northeastward into the Caucasus.

For months Turkey has been exhibiting provocative behavior towards Greece and Cyprus, exploring for mineral wealth inside Cypriot territorial waters, conducting military overflights of Greek airspace, and asserting territorial claims over islands in the Greek archipelago of the eastern Aegean.

Angela Merkel and her pro-Turkish German government have given Greece the cold shoulder on the issue of Turkish belligerence. Since the foreign policy of the European Union is steered mainly by Germany, the collective attitude of the EU towards the plight of the Greeks has remained cool and restrained.

France, however, is another matter entirely. It seems the French government has decided to pursue its interests in the Mediterranean by assisting the Greeks unilaterally. The following excerpts from article in InsideOver, an offshoot of the Italian daily Il Giornale, shed some light on events in the eastern Mediterranean:

The Alleged Rafale Deal: French-Greek Rapprochement in the Troubled Eastern Mediterranean

by Alex Kassidiaris
September 4, 2020

Since late July 2020, we have been witnessing the most severe escalation in Greek-Turkish relations in decades. It seems that both sides are pushing for a definitive solution on the long-term pending issues of the maritime boundaries across Eastern Mediterranean, changing the regional dynamics and prompting new geopolitical alliances to emerge in the region.

French-Greek Political and Security Rapprochement

The current Greek-Turkish crisis has created the appropriate circumstances for a new approach in relations between Athens and Paris.

On the one hand, France is concerned about the rise of Turkey as a considerable power in the Mediterranean region. Ankara is gaining significant momentum in an area that is actually connecting France with Africa, the continent where traditionally vital French interests are at stake. A potential Turkish dominance in the Mediterranean at the expense of Greece, would be catastrophic not only for Athens but also for Paris, since it could possibly disrupt the French maritime routes to Africa.

At the same time the current framework is the perfect chance for President Emmanuel Macron to showcase that France could still be seen as one of the key players within the European Union, a role that has gradually been overshadowed by Berlin, especially in the past decade.

The Greek Perspective

Meanwhile, Greece is actively looking for a reliable partner, a country with substantial international standing and with aligning interests, which could be used as a counterbalance and a deterrence for the Turkish claims in the Mediterranean. The unsympathetic role of Germany in the last months has prompted Greece to turn to France for this sought-after assistance and assurance. Macron in mid-August — at a moment that the Greek-Turkish dispute seemed to be reaching its peak — publicly adopted an unambiguous position in support of Athens. In response the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, thanked the French President with a tweet in French, making clear that Athens has a strong ally by its side.

Apart from the close bilateral relations in political and diplomatic level, there have been some critical moves in a military context.

By late August, with the Turkish unauthorized research activity still ongoing in the Greek continental shelf, a joint Cypriot, French and Greek naval exercise took place, in the area of interest. French Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly publicized the activity through her Twitter account sending a political message to all the parties involved.

The developments have been even more interesting in the field of armament programs. Following some failed —possibly due to German and US involvement— negotiations in July for a major upgrade of the Greek Navy, Athens and Paris are currently holding fresh talks about the acquisition of a significant number of Rafale jet fighters.

Potential Rafale Acquisition; a Tactical Rather than Strategic Advantage

The Greek Ministry of Defense has been considering over the previous year the purchase of the fifth-generation Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter aircraft. However, the latest developments and the rapprochement with France have put on the table the potential acquisition of 18 fourth-generation (or 4.5 generation) Dassault Rafale.

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A Triple Unsolved Murder: Unconnected Dots

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Time and again police forces in the West “search for a motive” for the latest attack. The following essay was published at Liberty GB in May of 2013, three weeks after the Boston Marathon bombing. It exposes the handicap facing law enforcement if they have no information or training about jihad.

A Triple Unsolved Murder: Unconnected Dots

by Michael Copeland

On 12th September 2011 Boston police were called to a triple homicide in an apartment. Three men, stabbed in the neck, had bled to death. There were no signs of forcible entry: “It does look like the assailants and the decedents did know each other… it does not appear to be a random act”, police said.

The neighbours had heard nothing, even though windows were open. Some $5,000 cash was found in the apartment, so robbery was not considered to be the motive. Unusually, marijuana had been spread on the bodies. The incident was deemed to be some sort of drug-related killing, and was effectively left no further investigated. Police found no dots to connect.

The US police operate deprived of training about Islam. To someone who HAS looked at these matters, though, there are several ‘dots’ to connect. The killing, though reported on September 12th, actually took place on the evening before, the 11th. The observant will spot that that was the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Muslim jihadis go in for anniversaries. Osama bin Laden chose 9/11 because it is the anniversary of a dire defeat for Islam at the Gates of Vienna in 1683, when Ottoman forces, invading Austria in an aggressive jihad, were defeated by the timely help of King Jan Sobieski of Poland. That was a pivotal event: it prevented Europe from falling to Islam’s conquest at that time. Osama bin Laden’s spectacular attack was carefully timed to balance the account, and renew the world conquest by Islam.

It is not only the date of the killing that has Islamic significance. The victims, too, have a significance: they were Jewish, the race for which Islam’s texts command “animosity and hatred forever” (Koran 60:4), “Be apes despised and hated by all” (2:65), “…those whom Allah has cursed; who have been under His wrath; some of whom were turned into apes and swine” (5:60) and so on. There is no difficulty in perceiving the message there.

The method of killing has an Islamic significance. “Stabbed in the neck” seems to be a police cover-phrase for throat-slitting. Slitting the throat is traditional Islamic halal slaughter, as used for animals. In the Koran Jews are likened to donkeys (62:5) as well as apes. “As for the Jews, you kill them physically”, recommended Abdullah el-Faisal (Undercover Mosque, Channel 4). “Praise be to you, our Lord, you have made our killing of the Jews an act of worship through which we come closer to you”, proclaims an Imam on TV (“Voices of Islam”, by David Horowitz, Frontpage Mag, 16 April 2012). Throat-slitting is apparently a speciality of Muslims in Chechnya.

One of the victims, Brendan Mess, was keen on keeping fit and working out at the gym. The instructor there remembers one of his ace boxers introducing him as “my best friend”. Who was that ace boxer? It was a Chechen Muslim named Tamerlan Tsarnaev, fit, strong, and an accomplished fight-winner. As a youth he had been granted asylum with his parents and younger brother as refugees. He had been helped with state schooling, college scholarship, welfare, and so on, and was married with a young child. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, police found recently in enquiries that could have been made at the time, had previously been a user of alcohol, forbidden by Islam, and of tobacco, but since becoming a much more hard-line observant Muslim, had given up both of them. His younger brother, Dzokhar, apparently had been a user of marijuana. Tsarnaev had been observantly attending the Boston mosque (associated with hard-line jihadi speakers), and had a police record for being physically violent to his American-born wife to oblige her to wear the hijab.

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