Things that make you go, ‘Hmmm’

Perhaps the most ongoingly jaw-dropping, cognitive-dissonance-inducing, and just plain annoying head-scratcher is the continued seat Azerbaijan is given in dignified circles. This is the country that is so unfree that the Europeans have decided not to even bother monitoring the upcoming parliamentary election there. This is the country that is touting its acceptance of a “defector” seeking political asylum from Armenia who has never been heard of in Yerevan’s civic circles. This is the country that is at the highest risk in the South Caucasus of inflicting violence on its citizens. This is the country whose “representatives” attacked an Armenian art exhibit in China. This is the country that “buys” hacks from Israel to the U.S. to write puff pieces about Baku and its resident petty dictator, without disclosing they are being paid to do their dirty work. This is the country that disproportionately deploys its minority soldiers to the Line of Contact with Armenian forces so that they get killed instead of Azeri-Turks. Hmmm…

There is the ongoing saga of Camp Armen in the Tuzla section of Bolis. Its return to its rightful, Armenian institutional owner was promised three months ago. Yet, there is no progress in this respect. It would be natural for the processing of such politically, historically, and legally charged paperwork to take a while, but apparently, there’s just plain no movement, based on the news reports I have seen. Hmmm…

Turkey’s “getting religion” and “joining” the fight against ISIS was very interestingly timed. Not only was it intended to serve the country’s ruling party’s electoral interests, but it came at a time when the Kurds in Syria were making serious progress in clearing out ISIS along a band of territory abutting, and south of, the Turkey-Syria border, starting at the Iraq-Syria border at its easterly end, and approaching the Syrian government-controlled and Alawite-populated Mediterranean coast. This would have cut Turkey off from its ability to continue its SUPPORT of ISIS, thus making it even more obvious that Ankara is not really committed to fighting those religious fanatics. Hmmm…

In Gyumri, Armenia, Russian soldier Valery Permyakov goes AWOL and kills all seven members of a family on a shooting spree. He is apprehended by Russian military authorities, but they won’t turn him over to Armenian authorities for a murder trial. Months go by. Electricity rate increases are approved and people take to the streets in Yerevan, protesting. The company requesting and receiving the rate increase is Russian owned. Next thing you know, the Russians are saying they WILL turn Permyakov over after all. Perhaps their paranoia and self-centeredness leads them to interpret everything in pro- or anti-Russian terms. This might be a tool worth using knowingly in the future. Hmmm…

Deputy Energy Minister Areg Galstian asserts that electricity networks must be owned by a private company to function efficiently. Perhaps he’s unaware of the countless municipal utilities that do a fantastic job of serving their customers in the U.S. It sounds to me that this government official is just parroting the poppycock he has learned from the “advisors” who flooded the former Soviet Union, disseminating absurdly anti-government, laissez-faire capitalist, and robber baron (oligarch) creating philosophies. Hmmm…

Even the U.S. is backing off its “Assad must go” mantra now that the results of Turko-American policies are evident—ISIS. Statements by officialdom now recognize that he must be part of an “interim” solution to the Syrian crisis (more bluntly, quasi-civil war). Is it possible Washington’s Turkophiles just might be waking up to the destructiveness of Ankara’s policies and approaches?

Why is Germany accepting refugees, mostly from Syria, so massively? It’s a bit surprising given the tensions that abound with the Kurds and Turks who have settled there over the past four decades. It is certainly a good policy on humanitarian grounds. But is it possible there are more sinister calculations? Could Berlin be hoping to displace Turkish workers with even cheaper labor? Or perhaps it is calculating that a large proportion of the refugees will be Christians and therefore more “absorbable” and tolerable to native Germans. Hmmm…

Your thoughts?

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Garen Yegparian

Asbarez Columnist

Garen Yegparian is a fat, bald guy who has too much to say and do for his own good. So, you know he loves mouthing off weekly about anything he damn well pleases to write about that he can remotely tie in to things Armenian. He's got a checkered past: principal of an Armenian school, project manager on a housing development, ANC-WR Executive Director, AYF Field worker (again on the left coast), Operations Director for a telecom startup, and a City of LA employee most recently (in three different departments so far). Plus, he's got delusions of breaking into electoral politics, meanwhile participating in other aspects of it and making sure to stay in trouble. His is a weekly column that appears originally in Asbarez, but has been republished to the Armenian Weekly for many years.

Latest posts by Garen Yegparian (see all)

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