WEBVTT - The War In Armenia 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:07.480 Hey, welcome to it could happen here. This is Robert Evans, 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:11.280 and this is a podcast about things calling apart. Uh. 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:14.280 And today we definitely have a thing's well, I don't know, 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.200 hopefully not falling apart, but certainly getting fucked up episode 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:20.400 for you. UM. This is going to be been a 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:23.959 part of the world that probably fairly few Americans spend 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:27.120 much time thinking about. UM. It's certainly a conflict that's 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:29.680 kind of been lost in everything that's happening in Ukraine 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:33.920 right now. UM. But Armenia and Azerbaijan, their neighbor have 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:38.560 been at a state of more or less regular war 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.559 since UM, since longer than that. But this kind of 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:46.840 latest wave of it started in UM. It was over 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:50.000 a breakaway real while what's often referred to as a 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:54.160 breakaway region that both countries claimed and that stayed kind 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:58.800 of independent for a very long time until invasion by 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.760 the Azeris in this air which is majority Armenian UM. 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.200 And it was kind of a military disaster for the 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:07.800 Armenian side. The war went very badly, a lot of 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.800 troops were killed, a lot of territory was taken, and 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:14.279 ever since the Azeri military has been carrying out border 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.840 strikes in and around areas that are kind of near 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:22.440 their shared border with Armenia. UM. Over the last ten hours, 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:24.760 as I record this, and and I'm talking to you 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:30.520 all on Monday, UHT September, over the last about ten hours, UM, 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:34.920 the Azeri military has launched a fairly unprecedented set of 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:38.319 strikes within Armenian territory. UM. So not just kind of 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.240 hitting border areas, and not just hitting military targets, but 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.959 hitting cities, hitting civilian areas, trying to move troops across 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:48.440 the border. There's video evidence of this. UM. To talk 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.520 about what's happening, what's been happening in the past, over 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:54.120 the last couple of years, and what's happening now. UM, 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:56.960 I'd like to welcome on Joe Kasabian. Joe you will 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.680 know from his podcast Lions Led by Donkeys, from his 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.440 book The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a number of other 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:05.120 books that I think we'll talk about a little bit 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:07.680 at the end here from his appearances on the Behind 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:11.360 the Bastard. Joe, you are an American citizen, but you're 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:15.120 also Armenian and you're currently in our media. Yeah. UM, 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:18.200 I moved here a couple of months ago permanently, Um, 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:22.239 citizenship is we kind of have like our own repatriation laws. 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:26.760 But I'm still waiting on that. UM. And so to 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:28.360 to go off a couple of things that you said, 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:30.520 we've been at a state of war effectively since the 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:34.600 nineties when we first gained independence from the Soviet Union. UM. 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:39.000 Without going into the incredibly complicated history of Nagano Karabach 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:43.600 or Artsach Um Artsak still exists. They did not take 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.520 all of it in UM. But Tony Tony was a 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:52.600 military disaster for Armenia unequivably, so we lost over four 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:58.799 thousand people. UM. Huge swaths of territory were uh. Their 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.280 population became the victim of a regional genocide. UM. There 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:05.280 are no Armenians that have been confirmed to still be 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:09.320 alive within that territory. UM. There's endless videos of a 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.440 ZI troops beheading old men and women and and destroying 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:19.680 homes and cemeteries and churches. UM. And ever since UH 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:22.639 the war ended in a month has not gone by 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:26.120 where UM either art Saw or Armenia itself has not 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:32.480 been attacked. We've probably lost over a hundred soldiers since then. UM. 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:36.520 These are kids, their conscripts. We have um military mandatory 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.200 service here. Um. So these are eighteen nineteen year old 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:41.600 kids doing their two years of service. On top of 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.000 the civilians that are currently being bombed. We we don't 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:48.280 know how many people are dead at the moment um. 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:54.920 And it's um, it's truly aggravating. I mean, Armenians live 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:58.120 with this all the time. It's a sword hanging over 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.760 our heads. When this is going to happen. Um happened 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:07.480 with unpress attended, international support and not only support, but 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:12.240 willing willingly ignoring it. Um. I mean NATO powers helped 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:16.880 as or by Jean dulas Um, Turkey and Israel Israel. 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:21.960 Israeli drone designers literally test flew as suicide drone into 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:28.240 Armenian soldiers to sell it. Um. I mean, it's it's 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:31.560 it's honestly kind of I I don't know what what 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:36.599 to say about it other than that's it should be 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:40.000 another thing that the world should be united against and 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:45.520 they never will. No. I mean, it's it's so frustrating. 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:47.240 One of the things that I have had a lot 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.680 of issue with because obviously I, as as you are, 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:54.159 I'm supportive of Ukrainian people's attempts to so far quite 0:04:54.160 --> 0:05:00.359 successful attempts to stop Russia from taking over their homes. Um. 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.360 But one of the things that's happened alongside this is 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.719 a kind of lionization of a specific kind of Turkish drone, 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.840 the bractar Um, which was particularly effective in the opening 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:15.200 stages of the war, and military technology military equipment walks 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:17.160 can argue as to whether that was due to Russian 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:19.880 kind of tactical failures and operational failures, or whether it 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.440 was due to new realities about how drones function. But 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:25.279 one of the things that was ignored in all of 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:28.039 this kind of fetishization of this drone and people raising 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:30.440 money to buy more of them, is that the drones 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:36.800 were really combat tested for the first time, massacring Armenians. UM. Yeah, 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:41.040 and it's I try not to get too mad when 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:43.799 I see stuff like that, because I understand whether Ukrainians 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.440 are happy, of course, and like, yeah, I should point 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:50.080 out unequivvalently I support Ukraine's fight for independence, just like 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:54.320 I wish people um supported ours UM and and the war. 0:05:54.520 --> 0:06:00.120 The wars effectively have the same kind of propaganda angle. UM. Obviously, 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.480 before Russia invaded Ukraine, they're talking about you know, DENOZI 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:06.960 vacation or demilitarization, when when you look at their speeches 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:09.480 and the rhetoric, it's that they believe that Ukraine does 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.680 not have the right to exist and that Ukrainians are 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:17.320 either are Russian or they also should not exist. And 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:20.200 that's effectively what we're looking at. Two. UM. This is 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.159 why Armenians constantly compare what is happening now to nineteen 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:29.720 UM asba Jean continuously says they want art Sah or 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:32.520 the Nogana Karabak, they they want it back, but that's 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:35.400 not what they're attacking right now. UM. If you look 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.640 at the rhetoric of Aliev and his government going all 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.400 the way back to the nineties when his dad was 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:46.000 in charge, in a few other people, UM, their ideology 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:48.880 is that Armenia is not a real state. They have 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.680 claims over our capital yur Ivan. They have they have 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:55.080 claims over the south where they're invading right now, and 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:59.960 everywhere those soldiers go they wipe out the local poppy 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:04.520 relation of Armenians. There are no Armenian survivors and Hadrud 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:06.440 or Shushi or any of these other places they took, 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.880 they do not exist. And ever since then they've been 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:15.320 purposely going through and destroying any evidence that Armenians ever 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.240 lived there, which is ridiculous. Armenians have been living in 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:22.920 these places since before Rome was fucking established. Yeah, um, 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:25.600 I mean, and this is obviously we're talking about the 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:30.960 Armenian genocide, which occurred during kind of the concurrent to 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.640 the kind of late stages of World War One. UM, 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:39.560 and uh was unrecognized by the United States until what 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.160 was that now two years ago Joe's yeah something, finally 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.880 became the first president, first US president, to recognize it. 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:48.720 And and this is because we we've mentioned Turkey a 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:51.040 couple of times that there's a couple of reasons for this, 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.520 but most of them boiled down to not wanting to 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.200 piss up, piss off the Turkish government. Um. The Turkish 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:02.880 government has strong attitude dudes that essentially everybody in Anatolia 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:06.040 is Turkish and always yes, there were no Greeks, there 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:08.280 were no Kurds, there were no Army. And this has 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:10.600 led to, I mean, it's led to ethnic cleansings and 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.640 genocides against the Armenians and against the Kurds. One of 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.920 the things that was being done in Rojava, UM that 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:19.840 I found so compelling was was an attempt to educate 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:23.360 an attempted by the Kurds there to educate people who 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:27.280 were joining the YPG about Kurdish complicity in the genocide 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.880 against Arminia because they recognize themselves as victims of the 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.280 same thing. You know, starting I think you know all 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:36.160 of the it's hard to say starting in right, because 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:39.080 we're trying to talk about concurrent conference. They all go back. 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.480 Everything's going back quite a while. You mentioned Ali of 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:44.199 a little bit ago, and I don't want to talk 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:46.600 about him. Um, we're talking about il Ham Aliev, who's 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:49.960 the current president of Azerbaijan, the fourth UH and of 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:52.760 course the the son of the former leader, which is 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:57.080 always a recipe for a good functional des Also his 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.520 wife is vice president. Yeah, and his wife advice, which 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:04.320 is nice. It's just like it's just like house of cars. Yeah, 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:08.559 he's the Kevin spacey. Um. His his attitude and rhetoric 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:14.439 towards Armenian in general is eliminationists at best. Um, like 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:20.040 he's I mean, the country's put out stamps that show 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.840 Armenia being fumigated like dirt went during the height of 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:28.160 the pandemic, which like as a genocide scholar. You know, generally, 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.079 when I see a picture of a place being gassed, 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:35.920 I get suspicious. Um Uh, they've taught, they've talked about 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:38.439 how it was a good thing that in the nineties 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:42.719 Armenians were driven from Baku and the Bukoprograms and a 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:47.800 few other places. Um, I mean weren't there like literally 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:50.480 like some of those trophies at arms shows and stuff, 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.920 like pieces of captured equipment with blood on it and stuff. Yeah, 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:57.520 and they also had, um honestly one of the weirdest, 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:02.360 Like it's incredibly offensive and racist, h the these um 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.360 caricatures of our of Armenian soldiers who like, at the 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.920 same time they're like racist towards Armenians but also vaguely 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:14.079 anti Semitic, Like they looked like a character of a 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:16.760 Jewish person to come out of their sturmer um with 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.680 like you know, and I understand how stereotypically people think 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:23.720 Armenians look in like these racist art where we have 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:26.720 you know, big hooked noses and big eyebrows and things 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.800 like that, which admittedly I know I meet both of 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:33.880 those personally, but that's besides the point of Like if 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:35.680 you look at the pictures and they were taken down 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.880 because like even like Israel was like, oh that's a 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.920 bit much, and like they help that happen. Um. But 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.240 like also to talk you can't talk about as by 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.760 genre without talking about Turkey because they have this ideology 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:52.480 that's like two people, one state. They they do believe 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:57.040 in like Pan Turranism, especially urd iwan Um. I mean 0:10:57.120 --> 0:10:59.880 he's been ever ever since, he's gone like full fascist. 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:02.360 That's something he's been hammering the drum on and like 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:06.920 this is an extension of that. He's effectively a neo Ottomanist. 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:10.680 He wants to reunite the empire, which is fucking insane 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.840 but also has real life things, you know, but also 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.640 to bring us, you know, to the conflict that Americans 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:19.600 are more focusing on. As we've talked about before, this 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.520 is another similarity between what Russia is doing in Ukraine 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.160 and what is Ervajan and Turkey are doing in Armenia. 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:30.280 They're both these kind of um redemptionist dreams of people 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.800 who want to bring back some sort of lost imperial 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:40.280 splendor right and are are utilizing kind of the tactics 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.400 that the technics of genocide in order to try to 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:46.240 make that happen. Yeah. I think for Turkey it's a 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.120 lot of this lost splendor, especially as their economy ships 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:52.640 itself from mismanagement, and I think for Azerbaijan it's the 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:57.240 other way around. In the nineties, when we fought the 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:02.040 first car Bah or Armenia UM, I mean, it wasn't 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:06.880 from being militaries military, militarily superior, having more money. It 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:10.000 had to do with two largely unorganized forces in the 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:14.640 fallout of the Soviet Union, and Armenia end up winning. UM. 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:17.440 And ever since then, that loss has been something of 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.360 like national It's like it's kind of like the national 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:23.720 mythos of Azebaijan, because before then Azebaijan is a national 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:28.040 identity simply didn't exist. It's relatively new UM. And that 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:33.240 loss in that war became the defining moment. That's where UM, 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:38.160 the lost Armenia was internalized and like it became school 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.040 curriculum that Armenians were the were at fault for everything. 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.720 We're sub human. We've been compared to cockroaches. Like for instance, 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.040 if you have, say my last name, you cannot legally 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:50.320 enter the country of Azebaijan, like you cannot enter that 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:56.040 country with an Armenian last name, it's racism, and fascism 0:12:56.320 --> 0:13:00.600 is state doctrine there. So when you know their oil 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:04.280 production kicked back up from after the war damages and 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:06.960 after the fallout of the Soviet Union, on top of 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:09.960 military reforms that have been lasting for thirty years, they're 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:11.760 the ones on the up swing now, not Turkey in 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.080 my opinion, and it also helps their fighting someone like Armenia, 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.559 which no Armenians that we have military history and everything, 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:20.920 but we have no fucking money, we have no natural resources, 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.720 we have no allies, we have no one's gonna air 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:27.040 drop palettes of fucking high Mars and Yerevan like, nobody's 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.720 coming to help us. We have a k S that 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:33.000 fought in the First War. We have BMP ones that 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:35.560 have probably seen more combat than most people who are 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:39.480 still alive. That's an armored personnel carrier. Essentially, we we 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:43.199 have nothing. Um, I'm not going to speak about the 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:45.280 cape bills of the Armenian military, but like you can 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:48.680 imagine what a small landlocked country with a small population 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:53.400 not a lot of money, can field. It's not a lot. Um, Yeah, 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:55.800 it's not a lot. And this kind of gets us 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:57.760 to another topic that has to be broached with his 0:13:57.880 --> 0:13:59.960 which is kind of talking about the relationship of rush 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.160 you to all this because one of the things that's 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:08.319 very frustrating about this conflict is that Americans particularly tend 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:10.440 to want things very simply. So you hear you've got 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:13.880 a Russian client state, which is how it's not what 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:16.360 Armenia is. I'm not saying that, Joe, obviously, but is 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.080 how it's easy to course, especially like kind of in 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:22.000 the boil out, sort of break things out as it's like, Okay, 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:24.360 you've got this state backed by Russia and then you've 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:26.920 got this other state fighting that that's backed by Turkey. Well, 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.400 Turkey's part of NATO, they're part of, you know, the 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:31.400 fight against Russia, so they must be the good guys. 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:33.960 And none of that's accurate. But I think it's I 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:37.080 think it's important to explain why. So, I mean, it's 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:40.080 it's really hard to explain Armenia and Russia's relationship other 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:44.600 than imperialism. Um. Obviously, Armenia has been conquered by countless 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.440 countries throughout our fucking long history, but the most recent 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:52.080 one being the Soviet Union, which we did not join willingly. Um. 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:54.080 And then after the fall of the Soviet Union and 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.760 the Russian Federation. Um, we're solidly within Russia's fear of 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:00.960 influences by no active choice of ours. We're members of 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:04.160 the cts O, we're members of the Eurasian Economic Union, 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:06.760 and neither of those were by choice. We were strong 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:09.560 armed into it because there's no there's nothing else, there's 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:13.040 no other option. UM. And as far as it goes, 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.760 is is like the brotherly relationship or this client state. 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:21.360 It would be exactly like someone blaming Ukraine for what 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.240 happened in Maidan, or blaming Ukraine for what happened in 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:27.600 or what happened now because they're trying to get away 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:32.200 from that. I mean, we can't. We don't have the 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:37.040 resources to do it. Just just for an example of 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:41.720 how Armenia plays like tight ropes. This ship. Never once 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:43.720 if we voted in favor of Russia during this war. 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.040 We like they're like our representatives to the U n 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:49.840 our our Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Our prime minister is 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:53.400 solidly neutral because that's the best he can do. UM. Right, 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:57.840 you know, he's either voted against UH, he's voted h 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:00.520 he's abstained. He's never voted for to support Usha during 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:04.680 this ward all um. Now, obviously, back in there was 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:09.400 a different Armenia. UM. We had a pro EU movement 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:11.440 here that was quite strong. This is before I lived here, 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:15.640 of course, UM that voted to declare our intentions to 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:17.680 want to join the EU. I believe this is under 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:23.920 President Sergisan Um. And it passed overwhelmingly in the popular vote, 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.200 because unlike the people invading us, we are a free 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:29.640 and fair democracy with the freedom of speech and expression 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:31.640 and everything else that people like to claim they want 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:36.360 to defend, but they don't UM. And after a five 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.600 minute meeting with Putin, it was gone. There's no more referendum, 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:41.920 and we decided not to join the EU anymore. But 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:44.480 we I mean the president. After that we had our 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:50.280 Velvet Revolution which got rid of him um and distance 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:54.160 ourselves from Russia as much as we realistically could. So 0:16:55.600 --> 0:17:00.600 I believe, for instance, Armenia kind of slight least supported 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.520 Russia when it came to annexing Crimea. And now you 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:07.520 can kind of see why the president was a fucking stooge. 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:10.480 That's not the case anymore. We now have a parliamentary 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:12.760 system and as much as I am not the biggest 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:15.400 fan of Prime minister or Bashionon, He's not that guy. 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:20.920 That's not like and Armenia is a different world. Um. 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:24.480 And I know, like like you said, people really like 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:26.399 to simplify these things. They want this to be a 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:29.560 team sport. They want this to be NATO versus Russia, 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.720 and you know, people like Belarus or whoever else. But 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:36.639 there's a there's a pretty big fucking difference here. We 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:40.719 have not actively supported this war. There has been anti 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:43.720 war protests outside my fucking windows since the war has started. 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.520 Ukrainians have flooded here by the thousands and they have 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:50.040 met nothing but Armenians who have welcomed them with open arms. 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:52.680 Russians have come too, and we're not the biggest fans 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:56.159 of them. But what can you do about it? Um? 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.439 You know, like, yeah, we're we're solidly neutral in this. 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:01.760 And it's one of the things that fucking and I 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:06.600 mean granted neutral government wise, people wise. Absolutely, we're not neutral. Um. 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:09.159 And one of the things that pisces me off the 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:13.240 most is that people can see the realities of the 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.240 war in Ukraine where they can see right through Russian 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:20.680 propaganda when it's like demilitarization, denoification, whatever, and they can 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:24.320 see on its face that's complete and utter bullshit. But 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:29.000 like when because you know, Ukraine is fighting for their sovereignty, 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:31.600 their independence and the right to exist that we all 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:35.400 have um, and when it comes to us, we don't 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.760 get that, like, oh, well, we're calling for both sides 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:41.320 a de escalate and maybe our Menia shouldn't have started this. 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:44.760 We haven't done anything. It was fucking midnight last night 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:47.359 and the South started being bombed. What the fund is 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:51.000 there to be de escalated. You can't de escalate self defense, 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:06.000 So you have what is a really uncomfortable situation. From that, 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:08.600 a lot of people don't like talking about the reality 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:11.000 of it because essentially, when you have a country like 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:15.040 Azerbaijan that is insisting on repeatedly violating the territory of 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:18.600 its neighbor um and that has proven not just a 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.320 willingness but an eagerness to engage and engage in acts 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:24.560 of ethnic cleansing and genocide, you have two options for 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.520 dealing with that other than let them do it right. 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:31.520 Option one is send in peacekeepers to stop the aggression. 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:36.960 Now Russia has troops that were called peacekeepers in the area. Um, 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:40.320 you know, there's you could debate prior to the invasion 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.479 of Ukraine how good they were at that job. Um, 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:47.080 but they certainly are not capable of doing it now. Um. 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:49.760 So then the question is, Okay, who else? Who? What? 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.040 Who else is peacekeepers are gonna come in? Right? And 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:54.560 if that's not a realistic solution, and you don't want 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:58.520 to let Azerbaijan just do a genocide, then what you 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:02.960 do issue give them weapons Armenia weapons, not as people 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:08.480 already doing that part unfortunately the US. And yeah, indeed, um, 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:13.760 And again there's this we're all kind of in terms 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:15.639 of like the discourse around this in the United States, 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.439 living in the shadow of the War on Terror, in 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:22.720 which an irresponsible quantity of weapons were handed out to 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:26.840 an irresponsible variety of groups. Um, and many of them 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:31.000 went to bad ends in bad places. Um. The reality 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:33.480 is that you know, we're sitting on a fucking stockpile 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:35.520 of weapons here in the United States as tall as 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:38.800 the sky and handing over a tiny percent of that. 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:40.680 When people talk about like that we're giving this much 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:44.119 aid Ukraine, We're not spending that much cash straight on 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:46.720 a d Ukraine. We're picking up ship we have in mothballs, 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:48.600 and well, we're handing it to them because we've spent 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:52.120 all of our treasure on on a pile of guns 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:55.560 larger than you can conceive of in terms of its 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:59.280 actual size and weight. UM. And I don't know, like 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:01.320 when when I think about what is to be fucking 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:05.080 done here realistically, UM, I would like for Ourmnia to 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:10.400 have access to javelins and send some stingers. Even One 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:12.800 of the things that pisses me off is like, like 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:14.800 you said, there's two options here, you do nothing and 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.199 you're complicit in a genocide. That's what this hits like. 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:21.720 It's it's like being silent and you know, um and 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:25.280 in nineteen it's being silent. In nineteen fifteen, it's being 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:28.280 silent Rwanda. We were silent during most of those things, 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.840 and we saw how they all were. Like, there's only 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:34.640 one way this fucking ends if we don't get guns, 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:37.040 and that's with a lot of dead Armenians. That that 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:40.479 that by supporting Ajerbaijan or sitting out, that is what 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:46.600 you explicitly support is thousands and thousands of dead civilians. 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:49.919 Like that's the only way this ends. And it is 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:54.600 again and I hate keep that we keep going back 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:57.639 to Ukraine but it's relevant because it's the the the 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:00.520 it's the conflict that people are actually focusing on the 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:04.440 people who are counter on on anti side, providing weapons 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:07.440 to the Ukrainian military and make claims about corruption, which 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:10.919 they could also make about the Armenian government, um, and 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:14.000 claims about you know, arms trafficking and all that stuff. 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:16.720 But so far, and Ukraine, by the way, is a 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:20.560 country with a deeper history of corruption, significantly in the 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:25.520 Armenian government even um, we haven't seen government is less 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.960 corrupt than Ukraine's. Yeah, um, you haven't seen a ton 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:32.119 of that happening. What you have seen is the weapons 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:35.959 that have been handed to them, blowing up invaders, tanks 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:39.240 and aircraft. Um. And the sheer quantity that has been 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:44.200 destroyed is evidence that that weaponry has been used pretty responsibly. 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:46.080 And when you were talking about a group of people 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:49.679 facing annihilation, I'm simply not worried that they're going to 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:53.160 sell their stingers to fucking Isis or wherever that who 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:57.440 are going to have turkey in one side the Georgia. 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:02.639 That's actually fine, Like you know, and that's why I 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:05.800 think people are fucking gutless. Um, you saw this happen 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:08.159 in February, before they're in January, before the war in 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:11.640 Ukraine started, when people like, oh, weapons are only gonna 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:14.840 make it worse. No, they're fucking not. You know what's 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:18.439 worse than than an armed population defending itself is an 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:22.080 unarmed one being murdered anyway. And we in case nobody 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:25.119 has paid attention, because they probably didn't, you can go 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:27.359 back and look at the video footage of what happens 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:31.440 to unarmed Armenians, and it's the same fucking ship Isis 0:23:31.440 --> 0:23:33.959 did to yuzd S. It's the same fucking ship they 0:23:33.960 --> 0:23:36.000 did occurreds, and it's the same fucking ship that will 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:38.639 happen again if we do not get what we need 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:40.760