Author: Dabaghian Diana

‘DASHINK’ PARTY LEADER DOES NOT INTEND TO PARTICIPATE IN 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

arminfo
2007-08-13 13:29:00

‘Dashink’ party leader Samvel Babayan does not intend to run as
a candidate for 2008 presidential election, member of ‘Dashink’
party’s political council Gnel Glechyan told ArmInfo.

He said that such a decision was made even during November, 2005,
meeting of the party. At the same time, he did not rule out that if
the oppositional forces cannot consolidate before the presidential
election, ‘Dashink’ party will possibly take neutral position with
respect to the possible candidate from opposition. G. Glechyan
added that ‘Dashink’ does not take part in periodic negotiations of
oppositionists. As he said, the matter concerns the recent meeting of
the opposition’s representatives in ‘Metelitsa’ cafe by initiative of
Paruyr Hairikyan. ‘First of all, we received no invitation. Second,
I consider such negotiations useless since it is not important to
‘Dashink’ party who will pretend to the president’s post. It is more
important to us for a candidate to represent a definite programme and
give guarantees of its implementation’, G. Glechyan said. He added in
conclusion that the final decision of ‘Dashink’ on support of one or
another candidacy will be made during the next meeting of the party
to be held before the election.

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr.Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:

PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon

LIVE TELEVISION BROADCAST VIA SATELLITE FROM ANTELIAS – AUGUST 11th, 2007

On the occasion of the feast of St. Mary’s Assumption, the Noursat Broadcast
will be broadcasting LIVE via satellite the Holy Mass presided over by His
Holiness Aram I.

Place: St. Mary Monastery, Bikfaya, Lebanon
Time corresponding UTC (GMT): Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 16:00

* Check your local listings for broadcast dates and times in your area.

For more details on how to receive Noursat in your area, copy and paste the
following link into your internet browser’s address field:
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Or follow the instructions below:
You can watch Noursat in Middle East, North Africa, Europe, North/South
America, Far East and Australia 7 days a week, 24/24 hours on Hotbird 4,
Echostar, Pas 9 and Pas 8.

For the installation or any technical inquiry kindly
call the following numbers:

Middle East, North Africa and Europe (HotBird 4):
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Downlink Frequency: 10949
Downlink Polarization: Vertical
Symbol Rate: 27.5 M S/S
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961-1-254501/2/3

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Dish Network
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Detroit (U.S.A. – Michigan) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 12:00:00 Noon
Minneapolis (U.S.A. – Minnesota) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 11:00:00 AM
St. Paul (U.S.A. – Minnesota) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 11:00:00 AM
Jackson (U.S.A. – Mississippi) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 11:00:00 AM
St. Louis (U.S.A. – Missouri) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 11:00:00 AM
Billings (U.S.A. – Montana) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 10:00:00 AM
Lincoln (U.S.A. – Nebraska) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 11:00:00 AM
Las Vegas (U.S.A. – Nevada) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 9:00:00 AM
Concord (U.S.A. – New Hampshire) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 12:00:00 Noon
Newark (U.S.A. – New Jersey) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 12:00:00 Noon
Albuquerque (U.S.A. – New Mexico) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 10:00:00 AM
New York (U.S.A. – New York) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 12:00:00 Noon
Raleigh (U.S.A. – North Carolina) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 12:00:00 Noon
Bismarck (U.S.A. – North Dakota) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 11:00:00 AM
Columbus (U.S.A. – Ohio) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 12:00:00 Noon
Oklahoma City (U.S.A. – Oklahoma) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 11:00:00 AM
Salem (U.S.A. – Oregon) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 9:00:00 AM
Philadelphia (U.S.A. – Pennsylvania) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 12:00:00
Noon
Providence (U.S.A. – Rhode Island) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 12:00:00
Noon
Columbia (U.S.A. – South Carolina) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 12:00:00
Noon
Sioux Falls (U.S.A. – South Dakota) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 11:00:00 AM
Nashville (U.S.A. – Tennessee) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 11:00:00 AM
Dallas (U.S.A. – Texas) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 11:00:00 AM
Houston (U.S.A. – Texas) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 11:00:00 AM
Salt Lake City (U.S.A. – Utah) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 10:00:00 AM
Montpelier (U.S.A. – Vermont) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 12:00:00 Noon
Richmond (U.S.A. – Virginia) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 12:00:00 Noon
Seattle (U.S.A. – Washington) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 9:00:00 AM
Madison (U.S.A. – Wisconsin) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 11:00:00 AM
Cheyenne (U.S.A. – Wyoming) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 10:00:00 AM
Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates – Abu Dhabi) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at
8:00:00 PM
Dubai (United Arab Emirates – Dubai) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 8:00:00 PM
Montevideo (Uruguay) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 1:00:00 PM
Vatican City (Vatican City State) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 6:00:00 PM
Caracas (Venezuela) Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 12:00:00 Noon

"ARMROSGAPROM" ASSIGNED "B" RATING OF ARMENIAN CB

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Aug 8 2007

YEREVAN, August 8. /ARKA/. The Central Bank of Armenia assigned CBA
"B" rating to the Armenian-Russian Company "ArmRosgasprom", the CBA
press service told ARKA on Wednesday.

The ArmRosgasprom is a monopolist in importing and distributing
Russian natural gas to Armenia.

The Armenian-Russian ArmRosGasProm CJSC was founded in 1997. The
company’s authorized capital makes $398.8mln. The company’s
shareholders are "GasProm" OJSC (57.59%), the RA Ministry of Energy
and GasProm (34.7%) and the Itera oil company (7.71%).

The CBA first published ratings of Armenian enterprises in September
2005. In 2005 the CBA monitoring included 30 enterprises, but only
15 of them received the highest rating. In accordance with the
elaborated principles of assigning ratings, the CBA publishes only
the names of the companies that were assigned high ratings. If a
company was assigned a low rating, the CBA publishes its name only
with their consent.

The bonds of the companies, that were assigned high ratings (A, B,
C), the CBA is ready to take them as a security when making REPO
deals with banks. For the companies with high ratings, the CBA
envisaged preference estimation scale for credit risks when giving
credits.

ARMTECH’07 RESULTS EXCEEDED THE ORGANIZERS’ EXPECTATIONS

arminfo
2007-08-07 18:47:00

The results of Armenian Technology Congress’07 (ArmTech’07)
exceeded the organizers’ expectations, Director General of Technopark
"Viasphere", Co-Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Congress
Aram Vardanian said at a press conference on Tuesday. The Congress
was held in San-Francisco, 4-7 July.

According to him, more than 350 entrepreneurs from Armenia, Diaspora
and big offshore companies participated in the Congress’s work. Not
only big Armenian companies, some of which were granted Diplomas
of California Senate, but also beginners were presented at the
Congress. He noted that the country’s biggest accomplishments in the
spheres of information, high technology and laser technology, the
newest technologies of alternative energy sources, as well as reports,
technical and business articles were presented at the event. "During
the event Armenian companies attracted international investors’
big interest, and some of them got concrete proposals", A. Vardanian
emphasized. He noted that launching of the Congress’s site, opening
of an office in Armenia and organizing of regional smaller similar
congresses are planned till the next ArmTech 2009. It was already
suggested that a regional ArmTech Congress be held in Venice. "As
a result and also thanks to integration into the world community of
high technologies, more than 20 000 work places will be created in
IT sphere in Armenia", he added.

For his part, the coordinator of the data clusters of IT program
USAID CAPS (Competitive Armenian Private Sector) Garegin Chugaszyan
noted that such large-scale congresses are popular particularly in
the countries of East Asia and West Europe.

According to the Director General of SYNOPSYS Armenia Rich Goldman,
entrepreneurs from Armenia, San-Francisco, Los-Angeles, France,
Russia, the Middle East, South America made their contribution in
organizing ArmTech’07.

"All of them reached their main aim: a long-term partnership network
was established. During the discussions a certain platform was created,
which will serve a basis for further cooperation, for identifying
and settling priority IT problems", he emphasized.

To recall, Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan, Advisor to
the Armenian President on Economic Issues Vahram Nersisian, Synopsys
President and Chief Operating Officer Chi-Foon Chan, the President of
Viasphere International Tony Moroyan and other high rank officials
participated in the ArmTech’07 work. The event is devoted to the
global unification of Armenian society, as well as of specialists
interested in the development of technology sphere in Armenia.

The primary sponsors of ArmTech’07 are VivaCell and Synopsys, Inc.

ARMENIA, ALROSA SIGN DIAMOND POLISHING DEAL

IDEX Online, Israel
Aug 6 2007

Russian diamond producer Alrosa and the government of Armenia signed
today (Monday) a diamond polishing cooperation agreement.

According to a source in Armenia’s Economic Development and Trade
Ministry quoted by Interfax, the agreement also includes cooperation
in the jewelry sector, although no further details on the nature of
this agreement were provided.

The agreement was signed by Alrosa president Sergey Vybornov and
Armenia’s Trade and Economic Development Minister Nerses Yeritsian.

Vybornov is currently in Armenia for the cooperation talks. He is
also scheduled to meet with Armenian President Robert Kocharian and
Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian to discuss further cooperation.

On Sunday, SakhaNews reported that Vybornov plans to open a
Russian-Armenian company, in collaboration with the Diamond Company
of Armenia (DCA), which belongs to Armenian Parliament deputy Gagik
Abramyan.

GEORGIA FOR THE GEORGIANS?
by Oleg Gorupai, translated by A. Ignatkin

Agency WPS
Source: Krasnaya Zvezda, July 28, 2007, p. 3
DEFENSE and SECURITY
August 1, 2007 Wednesday
Russia

MIKHAIL SAAKASHVILI’S POLICY AGGRAVATES ETHNIC PROBLEMS IN GEORGIA;
President Saakashvili’s policy mounts ethnic tension in Georgia and
foments immigration.

Tbilisi invited Tskhinvali to attend a meeting of the state commission
for determination of South Ossetian status within Georgia.

State Minister for Conflict Settlement, David Bakradze, said he had
already cabled the invitation to Tskhinvali. The state commission
was established on President Mikhail Saakashvili’s order. Chaired by
Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli, it includes Interior Minister Gela
Bezhuashvili and some other heads of ministries and departments.

South Ossetia declined the invitation as "groundless", to quote
Foreign Minister Murat Jioyev. "Trying to persuade the West that they
too contribute to the process of conflict settlement, the Georgian
authorities are simply aggravating Georgian-Ossetian relations,"
Jioyev said.

Regardless of what Tbilisi might be claiming, Moscow never received
any cables from it concerning work on the status of South Ossetia,
according to Ambassador-at-Large, Yuri Popov, who represents the
Russian Federation in the Joint Control Commission. Commenting on
Nogaideli’s promise to invite the EU and government of Russia to
participate, Popov said, "Actually, I’m not sure at all that Russia
will want participation because it implies the necessity to negotiate
with Dmitry Sanakoyev, the head of the provisional administration…

Moscow does not regard Sanakoyev as a participant in the talks."

Russia is convinced that no negotiations over the Georgian-Ossetian
conflict settlement or status of South Ossetia are possible without
the actual involvement of the South Ossetian side.

The matter was discussed by President of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity,
and OSCE Chairman’s Envoy, Jose Barella, who told the South Ossetian
leader he knew how dangerous Sanakoyev’s administration was because
its activities could foment another conflict. All the same, Tbilisi
keeps insisting on having Sanakoyev in the talks. The government of
Georgia sponsors his administration and strengthens its security’s
might. Saakashvili needs South Ossetia back under Tbilisi’s control or
everything will have been in vain. Unless the conflicts are settled,
Tbilisi can forget about EU and NATO membership. The premise was
aired by an obscure Lithuanian official, but the implications are
clear. "Established borders are of paramount importance for NATO
and the EU. Even if all membership rules are observed but conflicts
on the borders remain unsettled, Georgia’s entry will be extremely
problematic and everyone knows it," one Kestutis Kriciunas, adviser
to the defense minister of Lithuania, said.

The haste with which Saakashvili is trying to settle ethnic conflicts
in Georgia does not improve the image of Georgia in the eyes of the
international community. Ossetians and Abkhazians are not the only
ones to be encountering problems in its relations with the Georgian
leadership. The Azerbaijani diaspora in the Marneul and Bolnis
districts of the republic regularly complain of harassment. Similar
reports come from Samtskhe-Javakhetia where the Armenians live. The
Greeks are leaving Georgia en masse, clearly scared of last year’s
incidents in Tsalka. The Russian-speakers’ exodus from Georgia is
nearly over. The "Advance guard" of the Dukhobor community from
the Ninotsmind district of Georgia settled in the Tambov region
of Russia over a month ago. Gorelovka, Bogdanovka, Zhdanovka,
Spasskoye and other settlements are abandoned. Over 3,000 families
moved to Bryansk, Voronezh, and other Russian regions. The Dukhobors
discovered their rights encroached on in Georgia. The authorities
refused to sell them land, claiming that their settlements were
located in the five-kilometers wide border zone. The Dukhobors were
left without anything because agriculture and cattle-breeding are
their life. Over 273,500 Russians left Georgia since 1999, depleting
the Russian diaspora in this country by more than 80%.

RA MOD DELEGATION TO VISIT KOSOVO

armradio.am
27.07.2007 13:55

One of these days the delegation of the Armenian Ministry of Defense
will visit Kosovo.

A source in the Ministry of Defense told ArmInfo correspondent that
the visit of the delegation headed by RA Defense Minister Michael
Harutyunyan is expected later this month.

MG CO-CHAIRS EXPRESS CONCERN OVER STATEMENTS ABOUT KARABAKH CONFLICT MILITARY SETTLEMENT

arminfo
2007-07-27 13:02:00 OSCE

OSCE MG co-chairs express concern over statements about Karabakh
conflict military settlement.

Member of the permanent commission of Azerbaijani parliament on
security and defense Elman Mamedov said that such approach will
not contribute to the problem solution. "The co-chairs think that
discrepancy between the parties still exists. What Azerbaijan should
do if Armenia does not want to liberate the occupied lands?", the
deputy asks and immediately replies that "the co-chairs must urge the
occupant to retreat". "The problem solution will be delayed until the
co-chairs adhere such position", E. Mamedov said, the Day.az reports.

DEMOCIDE: DEMOCRATS AND THE AWFUL TRUTH OF GENOCIDE
By J.R. Dunn, consulting editor of American Thinker.

American Thinker, AZ
_democrats_and_the_awf.html
July 26 2007

Since the first of the year, I’ve been working on a project dealing
with the connections between liberal policies and mass mortality –
the easily demonstrated (though somehow never mentioned) fact that,
since at least the 1950s, liberal policies taken to their logical
conclusion tend to create large piles of bodies in a process that
might be called mass negligent homicide. (The technical term for this,
one that I don’t care for, is "morticide".)

This project involves a considerable amount of research into several
distinct events in recent American history – domestic crime and
justice, the Vietnam War and its aftermath, Rachel Carson and DDT.

One of the pleasures of any form of deep research is the surprises
hiding in the material. For instance, in this case, the discovery
that Rachel Carson is not, as a number of observers claim, directly
responsible for the DDT ban – the credit for that and all the deaths
that followed, goes to a grim cabal of assorted bureaucrats. Or the
fact that William Shawcross, a British left-wing journalist whom I had
dismissed as a diehard America-hater, has in recent years rethought
his position in much the same sense as and far more consistently than
Christopher Hitchens.

Occasionally, you come across something more disturbing, some
collection of facts that takes shape out of the material and presents
itself as something bizarre, inexplicable, and utterly out of context,
but at the same time impossible to refute.

I call them "wild cards". You don’t go looking for wild cards –
by definition, there’s no way you can know that they’re there. They
have to come to you. You examine a particular data set, a collection
of documents, a study, and suddenly something jumps out at you.

Something skewed and strange, something nobody had seen before and
that you never expected to see. Something that gives rise to the
eureka response – but with a twist: I have found it, but what the
hell is it I’ve found?

With the exception of physics, wild cards are far from welcome in most
fields. Establishments like stability and consistency, and wild cards
are the enemy of both. Physics, the single great exception, began the
20th century with two of the most consequential wild cards of all
time, Planck’s identification of the quanta in 1900 and Einstein’s
Special Relativity in 1905. Physicists soon got used to wild cards
leaping out at them almost constantly, proving that you can get used
to them if you have no choice.

In any case, the card I was dealt this time went like this:

Almost all the large-scale genocides of the past century have occurred
during Democratic administrations.

Below appears a list of major genocides and democides (a word coined
by the master scholar of mass killing, Prof. R.J. Rummel, and meaning
any mass murder by government) occurring during the 20th century from
the 1930s on. Each of them accounted for something on the order of a
million lives, several of them many more. The approximate number is
followed by the date and the name and party of the U.S. president at
the time.

Ukrainian Famine 1.5 – 7 million 1932 -1933 FDR — Democrat

Rape of Nanking 1 million 1937 FDR — Democrat

Great Purge Up to 10 million 1937 – 1939 FDR — Democrat

The Holocaust 6 million Jews (+ 5 million others) 1942 – 1945 FDR
— Democrat

Operation Keelhaul 600,000 to 2 million 1945 – 1946 Truman — Democrat

Postwar Purge 1 million + 1946 – 1948 Truman — Democrat

Great Leap Forward Up to 45 million 1959 – 1962 Eisenhower —
Republican

Great Cultural Revolution 1 – 10 million 1967 – 1969 LBJ — Democrat

Biafran Crisis 1 million + 1966 – 1969 LBJ — Democrat

Cambodian Year Zero 2 million + 1975 – 1978 Carter – Democrat

Boat People 200,000 – 1 million 1977 – Carter – Democrat

Ethiopian Famine 1 million + 1984 – 1985 Reagan – Republican

Rwandan Massacre 800,000 1994 Clinton – Democrat

Out of thirteen of these atrocities, no fewer than eleven occurred
during the administrations of Democratic presidents. In fact, partially
excepting John F. Kennedy, there’s no Democratic president following
Franklin D. Roosevelt whose term was not marred by at least one massive
foreign bloodletting. In contrast, Republican administrations feature
only two: Mao’s Great Leap Forward, in which a nationwide artificial
famine wracked China from one end to the other, and the Ethiopian
famine, an almost identical episode that struck the ancient African
kingdom in the mid-80s.

Darfur — which straddles both the Clinton and Bush administrations
— may well make this list in due time, but has yet to reach the
level of enormity of the atrocities listed. This is not to slight the
magnitude of the human suffering involved. Darfur is an indictment of
the international system as it currently exists. It could, and should,
be rectified beginning tomorrow.)

Qualifications must be made in only two cases: while the Ukrainian
famine began in 1932, grain seizures started in late Fall, almost
simultaneous with Roosevelt’s election. And while the Cambodian Year
Zero massacres began during Gerald Ford’s term in 1975, Ford was a
caretaker president effectively overseeing a government controlled by
a Democratic Congress. Jimmy Carter’s first full year as president
coincides with the peak frenzy of the massacres. (While it’s true
that the boat people continued arriving into the 1980s, the Reagan
Administration defused the crisis by allowing several hundred thousand
into the U.S. as refugees.)

Another set of qualifications, having no effect on the premise itself,
has to do with numbers. Most of the mortality figures are ranges,
many of them no more than estimates, and that they will remain. Few
of the killers were as meticulous in their record-keeping as the Nazis
were with the Endlosung. That said, some of the estimates, such as that
of the Ukrainian Famine from Robert Conquest’s The Harvest of Sorrow,
and the Great Leap Forward from Jasper Becker’s Hungry Ghosts. Mao’s
Secret Famine, are very solid.

The figure for the rape of Nanking also includes the other massacres
in the Yangtze valley during 1937, as derived from Iris Chang’s The
Rape of Nanking.

Another troubling point is that in most cases, very little was done in
response to the crises. Many of the episodes, as we’ve grown used to
seeing, are accompanied by open denial or an almost willful refusal to
admit that any such thing is happening. Denial is usually the product
of individuals or groups sympathizing with or aiding the killers –
the Communist Party during the 1930s, the New Left following the
Vietnam War. Unwillingness to believe, though much more common,
is not often a product of evil intent, but simply an inability to
acknowledge that horror on such a scale is possible.

(This is best illustrated by Justice Felix Frankfurter’s response to
an eyewitness of the Holocaust in 1943: "I cannot believe you. I’m
not saying that you’re lying. But that I cannot believe you.") While
understandable, this remains a human failing and needs to be faced
as such.

Because the result is paralysis or hesitation in confronting such
events. While only one was carried out with the full cooperation of
Western governments (Operation Keelhaul, the forced repatriation of
Russian collaborators, prisoners, and expatriates at the close of
WW II. Cooperation was compelled by the text of the Yalta Treaty.),
a much larger number occurred with no intervention or often even
comment by the civilized world. These include the Ukrainian Famine,
the Rape of Nanking, the Great Purge, the Holocaust, the Soviet Postwar
Purge, the Cultural Revolution, the Year Zero, the first three years
of the boat people’s exodus, the Rwandan Massacre, and is now being
repeated in Darfur. Only two exceptions exist in which the killings
were matched by an extensive rescue effort – the Biafran civil war
and the Ethiopian Famine.

The correlation between large-scale atrocities and Democratic
administrations appears clear. There is no denying it. It is one
of the most disturbing things I have come across in twenty years of
writing history.

But what can it possibly mean?

Some of these events don’t require special explanation. The Holocaust
occurred because Hitler had a major war to cover the working out of
his ruling obsession, the destruction of the European Jews. Operation
Keelhaul and the events following the Vietnam War occurred because
the perpetrators had been effectively assured that there would be no
reaction – they could do whatever they pleased, and not a hand would
be raised to stop them.

But unless we’re willing to accept the most moronic level of conspiracy
theorizing, there is no straightforward explanation for the overall
pattern. It simply can’t be explained by conventional means. There
is no demonstrable connection between the Democratic Party and the
squalid crews responsible for these crimes. No easy correlation
involving behavior or ideology exists – these atrocities were
carried out by groups ranging from the right to the left to primitive
tribalists. Certainly not even the sleaziest American politician –
much less an entire political party – would make an attempt to benefit
from such events.

Which leaves us to fall back on sheer speculation, always keeping in
mind that these are stabs in the dark

* To take the most esoteric first: could it be something structural,
some process operating well below the current level of our awareness?

A Democrat gets elected and for totally unrelated reasons, as
a product of social or political forces of which we know little
or nothing, dictators are encouraged to deal mortally with their
perceived enemies. Global human society is a complex system, in the
mathematical sense, ruled by laws and relations as yet unknown to us.

Could this be a product of complexity?

* Could it be some sort of unconscious signaling? Some
misinterpretation of something completely unrelated by the dictators
planning these massacres? Or perhaps, not so unconscious? Did
somebody, God forbid, say something? Some remark that could have
been taken as approval by one set or another of these goons? (This
can happen. In1969, Henry Kissinger, generally despised as a war
hound of the first order, may well have halted WW III by refusing
to say anything at all to a Soviet diplomat who sidled up to him
to suggest that the U.S. and the USSR cooperate in a nuclear first
strike against China. Kissinger hurried away with a word – any answer
under the circumstances could have been taken as agreement. And let’s
not forget April Glaspie, whose diplomatic choice of words convinced
Saddam Hussein that the U.S. would overlook his invasion of Kuwait.)

* Or is it simply a matter of the record? Dictators know their history
– nobody better. They’re well aware that responses to such crimes
are rare, and rarest of all with a Democratic administration.

The record is perfectly clear on this, the point reiterated with
each failure to act. Dems are reluctant to get involved even when
they’re fully aware of what’s happening – look at Carter’s behavior
in reference to both the boat people and the Cambodian democide. In
neither case did Carter make a single move – even as much as an
official protest – before the rest of the world, in the form of the
UN and various NGOs, was already involved. And tyrants do in fact
think in such terms. Consider Hitler’s answer when asked about the
worldwide response to targeting the German Jews: "Who now remembers
the Armenians?"

Or could it be coincidence? Correlation, after all, does not
demonstrate causality. Overwhelming as the evidence seems, it could
be a product of pure chance. Though I have my doubts – it all fits
in too well with what we know to be true about the Democrats, their
weaknesses and failings, the kind of disasters and blunders that
accompany their rule.

The fact is, we don’t know. And we need to know. If a mass murder were
to occur every time the optometrists held a convention, somebody would
investigate. Here we have entire populations disappearing whenever
the donkeys blow through town. It deserves a closer look.

But it won’t get one. It won’t get one because the people most
qualified for the task – the academics – are almost uniformly
left-wing. Such a study truly requires the skills of specialized
historians and social and political scientists. But the chances
of such a group carrying out an in-depth historical investigation
involving their representative party is precisely nil.

But it won’t get one. It won’t get one because the people most
qualified for the task – the academics – are almost uniformly
left-wing. Such a study truly requires the skills of specialized
historians and social and political scientists. But the chances
of such a group carrying out an in-depth historical investigation
involving their representative party is precisely nil.

Contrast this with the attempts to associate the GOP with various
atrocities from the Holocaust to Darfur, always on dubious grounds.

(Recent examples include efforts to implicate the Reagan administration
in Saddam Hussein’s 1980s war crimes – a war in which a leading
Republican said, "We’d like to see both sides lose", and The Lancet’s
Iraqi "civilian casualty" survey, which produced results ten times as
high as estimates by the UN.) These claims have always been justified
as expressions of concern for the victims. We look forward to seeing
how strongly that sense of concern is maintained in this case.

So for the time being, the ghostly connection between the Democrats
and the wagers of genocide must remain a shadow on our knowledge
of history. A reminder of how complex things actually are, and how
little we truly know.

Though it does throw a new light on 2008, doesn’t it?

ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY WELCOMES KARABAKH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

EurasiaNet, NY
Mediamax news agency, Yerevan, in Russian
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from BBC Monitoring
July 24 2007

The Armenian Foreign Ministry issued a statement today in connection
with the presidential election held in Nagornyy Karabakh republic
[NKR] on 19 July.

"Holding elections is one of the pledges to ensure democracy and the
rule of the law in Nagornyy Karabakh. The legally-elected government
successfully ensures security and stability in this region even
in the absence of a final settlement. It is clearly mentioned in
the documents of the OSCE and in other international documents that
Nagornyy Karabakh should be a party to the settlement talks, and the
elected authorities should represent the people of Nagornyy Karabakh,"
the Armenian Foreign Ministry’s statement reads.

"Ignoring this election is unfair and is against modern political
values," the statement says.

"In contrast to other conflicts, the population of Nagornyy Karabakh
has always had to ensure its security without the help of the
international community. They achieved similar success in ensuring
democracy and domestic stability," the statement further reads.