The California Courier Online, April 4, 2019
1 – Armenia’s Leaders Take Strong
Positions Against US & Azerbaijan
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
2- Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian nominated to receive fourth
star, head USAFE
3 – Lawyer Mark Geragos linked to Avenatti extortion case
4- Commentary: The problem with Turkish nationalism and the
Armenian Genocide
By Sofia Demirturk
5- Papazian Aims to Oust Ocasio-Cortez from Bronx Seat
6- Amid criticism, Montebello council selects Hadjinian as Mayor
By Mike Sprague
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1 – Armenia’s Leaders Take Strong
Positions Against US & Azerbaijan
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
The most noteworthy Armenian foreign policy development of the week
was supposed to be the first negotiating session between Armenia’s
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev
over the Artsakh conflict. But since there was no breakthrough in
these negotiations, we shall focus our attention on important related
issues.
On March 28, 2019, while addressing the Armenian Parliament, Prime
Minister Pashinyan criticized the United States government’s lack of
reaction to last year’s democratic changes in Armenia, dubbed the
“Velvet Revolution.”
This is the first time in a year that Pashinyan has used such strong
language in referring to the United States. “The U.S. has long been
acting as the most ardent defender of democracy in the entire world,”
Pashinyan stated. “I want to ask all of us a question: how did the
U.S. react to the unprecedented democratic change in Armenia? It was a
profoundly and quintessentially democratic change and nobody can doubt
this. I, for example, have told America’s representatives that I
believe that they basically came up with zero reaction. Why?”
Pashinyan then went on to defend Armenia’s independent political line
regardless of the pressures exerted on Yerevan by major powers. “When
we say that our country’s sovereignty is of paramount importance to us
we don’t mean that we need to replace dependence on point A [Russia]
by dependence on point B [the United States]. We take our sovereignty
very seriously and I want to assure you … that our government is
strongly committed to protecting our country’s and people’s
sovereignty in all directions.”
Pres. Trump’s administration has so far paid only lip service to the
dramatic and peaceful changes in Armenia. Pres. Trump sent a
congratulatory message to Pashinyan last September praising the
“Velvet Revolution” and expressing readiness to help the new
government implement sweeping reforms. Likewise, Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo saluted the “remarkable changes” in Armenia. However,
these beautiful words have remained on paper. No concrete steps were
taken to assist Armenia. That is partly due to the fact that the Trump
administration can care less about democratic developments in foreign
countries and also due to Pres. Trump being self-absorbed with his own
ego and personal interests.
Prime Minister Pashinyan’s declaration is a very positive development
for Armenia’s foreign policy and a sharp departure from the previous
Armenian leaders’ position. So far, most of the pressure on Armenia
has come from Russia. This is an inevitable fact given Armenia’s
economic, political and military reliance on Russia. The new
development is that Armenia’s leaders are no longer willing to blindly
succumb to Russia’s desires and orders trampling upon their country’s
sovereignty. When Armenia’s interests are in question, Pashinyan has
neither shied away from criticizing the European Union nor reasserting
Armenia’s sovereignty in his discussions with Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
If the United States wants to win over Armenia, it has to offer a
carrot rather than a stick. As the saying goes, you can catch more
flies with honey than vinegar.
The second most astounding development last week was the declaration
of Armenia’s Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan during his visit to the
United States. “As the minister of defense, I state we have
reformulated the ‘territories in exchange for peace’ approach to ‘new
war in exchange for new territories’ approach,” Tonoyan announced on
March 29 in New York at a meeting with members of the Armenian
community. “We will get rid of the trenches and persistent defensive
stance. We will increase the number of military units capable of
transferring military operations to the territory of the adversary,”
Tonoyan stated. “We will not give up anything.”
While some may interpret the Armenian Defense Minister’s words as
war-mongering, in reality, Tonoyan is responding in kind to the
thousands of threats issued over the years by Pres. Aliyev to conquer
Meghri and even Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. It is time that Armenia’s
leaders speak from a position of strength, not weakness.
Clearly, Aliyev is not ready for war. Otherwise, he would have already
attacked. His threats should not be taken seriously. It is proper to
silence him through counter-threats, and if needs be, preemptive
attacks.
Armenia’s Defense Minister is sending a clear message to Azerbaijan’s
President not to embark on a foolish adventure. Otherwise, his
pipelines and oil wells will come under attack, devastating the
country’s economy and toppling his regime. It is significant that such
a hard-hitting message is being sent to Azerbaijan while Armenia’s
Defense Minister is on U.S. soil.
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2 – Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian nominated to receive fourth
star, head USAFE
By: Stephen Losey
Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, an Armenian-American, now the deputy
commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa, has been
nominated to receive his fourth star and to lead the command.
If confirmed by Congress, Harrigian would succeed Gen. Tod Wolters,
who on March 15 was nominated to be the next supreme allied commander
of NATO.
The Senate received Harrigian’s nomination for his fourth star Monday.
Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek confirmed he has been nominated to
command USAFE.
Harrigian is a fighter pilot who graduated from the Air Force Academy
in 1985. He has more than 4,100 hours flying the F-22, F-15C and MQ-1
Predator, and flew combat missions to support the invasion of Panama,
Operation Desert Storm and Operation Inherent Resolve.
Harrigian has been USAFE’s deputy commander since last September.
He previously headed U.S. Air Forces Central Command and the combined
forces air component of U.S. Central Command for two years, where he
oversaw the air wars against the Taliban and ISIS. And he served as
the director of the F-35 Integration Office at Air Force headquarters
in the Pentagon from April 2015 to July 2016.
During his time in the Middle East, Harrigian closely watched how
Russian military forces operated in Syria. Shortly before leaving
AFCENT last August, Harrigian said in an interview with Defense News
that the Russians used their Syria mission as an opportunity to test
their newest military capabilities, and also to get a chance to
observe American aircraft such as the F-22. But the Air Force also
gathered information on how Russia used assets such as their Su-34 and
Su-35 fighter jets.
“Certainly, we’ve learned a lot about some of the capabilities that
the Russians have brought to Syria,” Harrigian said.
USAFE-AFAFRICA has a wide area of responsibility. As its commander,
Harrigian will oversee operations to support combatant commanders
operating across 104 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle
East, as well as in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.
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3 – Lawyer Mark Geragos linked to Avenatti extortion case
By Christopher Weber
LOS ANGELES (AP)—Attorney Mark Geragos has had a long career
representing high-profile clients including Michael Jackson, Colin
Kaepernick and Jussie Smollett. Now Geragos might need a defense
attorney himself after being named in a case accusing lawyer Michael
Avenatti of trying to extort Nike.
Geragos is not charged with a crime but two people familiar with the
investigation confirmed Monday that he is the unidentified
co-conspirator in court papers charging Avenatti with attempting to
shake down Nike for $25 million by threatening the company with bad
publicity. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because the
information was not made public by prosecutors.
Geragos, 61, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
For decades the media savvy attorney has defended headline-grabbing
cases involving troubled Hollywood stars like Winona Ryder and Chris
Brown and wife killer Scott Peterson.
A longtime CNN contributor, Geragos appeared on the network this month
to discuss the case against his client Jussie Smollett, the “Empire”
actor accused of fabricating a racist, anti-gay attack in Chicago.
Within hours of the extortion case breaking, CNN cut ties with him.
Prosecutors in Chicago on Tuesday abruptly dropped all charges against
Smollett, although there was no indication it had anything to do with
the latest development involving Geragos.
“He is in many ways the face of the legal profession because of his
years on CNN,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School
in Los Angeles, where Geragos earned his law degree. “For people who
are in the know in Los Angeles, they can name a couple of lawyers, and
he is one of them.”
Levinson said she was surprised by Geragos’ connection to the
extortion case. He has a solid reputation in the profession and no
history of misconduct, she said.
Last year, Geragos helped negotiate a multiyear, multimillion-dollar
deal between Nike and Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL player known
for inspiring other players to protest police brutality, racial
inequality and other social issues. In announcing the agreement on
Twitter, Geragos called Kaepernick an “All American Icon.”
Geragos’ website bio describes him as “the only lawyer besides Johnnie
Cochran ever named ‘Lawyer of the Year’ in both Criminal and Civil
arenas.”
He was admitted to the bar in 1983 and made his name in the 1990s when
he got an acquittal in an embezzlement case against Susan McDougal,
who was previously convicted in the Whitewater scandal involving
President Bill Clinton. A few years later he represented Clinton’s
brother, Roger Clinton, in a drunken-driving case.
He got probation for Winona Ryder after the actress was convicted by a
jury in a felony grand theft case, and for Chris Brown, the singer who
pleaded guilty to assaulting his then-girlfriend Rihanna.
Perhaps most prominently, Geragos represented Michael Jackson after
the pop superstar was accused of child molestation. Jackson ultimately
replaced Geragos, saying he wanted a lawyer who would devote his full
time to the case.
Geragos was simultaneously representing Scott Peterson, a California
fertilizer salesman who was eventually found guilty of murdering his
pregnant wife.
He later represented Jackson in a separate case and settled a lawsuit
for $2.5 million against the owner of a charter jet company that
secretly recorded the singer while he flew on a private plane. A Los
Angeles native with Armenian roots, he’s been a champion of efforts to
have the 1915 Armenian Genocide recognized at the national level. It’s
unclear what his connection is with Avenatti, the bellicose attorney
best known for representing porn actress Stormy Daniels in lawsuits
against President Donald Trump. Avenatti said he’s confident he’ll be
“fully exonerated” after being arrested last week on charges including
extortion and bank and wire fraud.
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4- Commentary: The problem with Turkish nationalism and the
Armenian genocide
By Sofia Demirturk
Being born in an ultra nationalist Turkish family, the Armenian
genocide was once a story about an imperialist conspiracy against our
sovereignty, how Armenia had their eyes on our country, and how
ungrateful they were for all the years we spent together in the lands
of Anatolia.
My father used to tell me about the lies that Armenians told to the
world, and how we Turks should never trust anyone, as every other
nation is busy conspiring against us. The history classes we had back
in school were no different, telling us about the impaled pregnant
Turkish women and the villagers killed by Armenian militias. This
would create an image of Armenians like that of monsters from
mythology books — a depiction of ultimate evil. No wonder millions of
Turkish citizens are in denial about the tragedy that happened 104
years ago at the hands of our ancestors, which cost 1.5 million lives.
I was in college when I had my moment of epiphany. It was my first
year of economics and we had a compulsory social sciences class, which
no one seemed to care about ( we attended it just to receive credits).
I was astonished when the tutor, a young lady of 26-27, asked us how
we felt about the Armenian genocide. Being a small town girl, I knew
that Armenians had faced problems in history, but we were taught that
it was not a genocide but deportation, it was the condition of the
desert, it was anything but the state’s fault.
Welcome to Being Turkish 101 – the state is above everything, and
everything that happened in the past is the fault of others, never the
state itself. Living in a country whose pillars, whose very foundation
is based on nationalism and a lighter form of xenophobia, it is never
easy to question the credibility of what you have been taught, even if
this challenges almost everything you have seen and heard.
Numbers being necessary for a solid hypothesis, harsh statistics are
usually used to show reality, rather than making people feel the
actual stories behind them. However, I am never fond of studying
atrocities based on numbers, but prefer to study through the
experiences of those who actually faced the consequences. I came to
know of families, grandchildren of survivors, how families were torn
apart and how, sadly, our history is about the sorrow and misery of so
many.
Each family I met has their own share of it: grandparents witnessing
the deaths of their family members; a young Ottoman-Armenian soldier
fighting in the campaign of the Dardenelles, only to come back to his
village to see nothing left; siblings meeting decades after the
genocide only to discover one of them is now a Muslim and the other a
proud Christian.
Of all these stories, one reality touched me the most — that I have
dozens of cousins, uncles and aunts, able to have big family dinners
on special occasions, whilst my Armenian friends were simply robbed of
this opportunity, having their families scattered here and there and
mourning for their close relatives.
Denial is not just being indifferent to the first genocide of the 20th
century, but it is also making the survivors go through their trauma
again and again in their quest of honouring the memory of their loved
ones. Armenians all over the world, be it the Armenian diaspora in
Marseilles or a young Armenian girl in Yerevan, Armenia, should now
get the apology they deserve, and talk about the lives their ancestors
had here before 1915.
After 104 years, we are still stubborn and indifferent, making
campaigns and spending millions of dollars to argue, “But it was The
Ottoman Empire”, “ASALA (Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of
Armenia) killed Turkish diplomats” — anything to justify the silence
we had for all of these 101 years.
I know that saying “I am sorry” would never bring back the ones who
are long gone, but this is the least we can do to remember the
victims. It could be a very small piece of justice and a fresh start
in repairing the bonds between Armenian and Turkish societies.
Gulnur “Sofia” Demirturk is your average Turkish accountant based in
Istanbul. Apart from worrying about balance sheets and income
statements, she is interested in financial crimes, politics, feminism,
Abrahamic religions and Bollywood. She is an ex Muslim but still feels
Islam is an important part of her identity.
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5- Papazian Aims to Oust Ocasio-Cortez from Bronx Seat
A Republican from the East Bronx who said she is fed up with Rep.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) spoke exclusively to Martha
MacCallum about her new 2020 campaign to unseat the democratic
socialist. MacCallum said that Ocasio-Cortez’ successful bid to keep
Amazon out of the New York City borough of Queens was the last straw
for medical magazine writer Ruth Papazian.
Papazian, a lifelong Bronxite and daughter of Egyptian immigrants,
said that if Ocasio-Cortez was set on “fighting to keep Amazon out of
Queens, she should’ve been fighting to bring Amazon to the Bronx.”
Papazian said Ocasio-Cortez “parachuted” into Rep. Carolyn Maloney’s
(D-N.Y.) neighboring Congressional district and succeeded in killing
the Amazon deal in Long Island City, Queens. She said that
Ocasio-Cortez, who is also from the Bronx, should know how important
the borough’s warehousing industry is to working-class people in her
district. “What about all those construction jobs that went bye-bye?”
Papazian asked. “She wants to defund ICE, open the border to all
comers, and unionized Americans now need to compete with illegal
aliens for construction jobs.”
Papazian called the Green New Deal a “jobs killer” and said that she
is ready to take on Ocasio-Cortez in the 2020 election, despite a
large deficit in the number of Republican-to-Democratic voters in the
district.
She told MacCallum that although Republicans are widely outnumbered
and out-represented—there are no Congressional Republicans in the
Bronx, and Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. is a Democrat—she believes
she has a chance to beat the 29-year-old former bartender.
Papazian said that there are a large number of “Reagan Democrats” in
her part of the Bronx and Queens, voter turnout is low in the borough
and that many Republicans “secretly” register as Democrats.
She added that, of Donald Trump’s small cache of Bronx Republican
votes in the 2016 election, most came from her home district, which
includes City Island, East Tremont and Westchester Square. The New
York Post spoke to several members of the community about Papazian,
including a man from the Throggs Neck neighborhood who said that he
would vote for Papazian over Ocasio-Cortez even if he did not know the
challenger’s name. Papazian is also the administrator of a Facebook
page devoted to criticizing Ocasio-Cortez, called the Bronx Bolshevik
Bulletin, according to the Daily News.
This article appeared in Fox News Insider on March 28, 2019.
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6- Amid criticism, Montebello council selects Hadjinian as Mayor
By Mike Sprague
After more than seven months without a mayor, Montebello City Council
finally found one Wednesday, March 27. But it came only after
Councilman Salvador Melendez turned down his own nomination and then
provided the key vote to select Councilman Jack Hadjinian for the
honorary post. Since Mayor Vanessa Delgado resigned in August to
become a state senator, the council has been mayor-less. Hadjinian,
who was then mayor pro tem, ran the meetings.
Then on Election Day in November, all three incumbents lost. In March,
another newcomer, David Torres, was elected to Delgado’s seat. But
until he took his seat this week, the council was down a member,
creating the possibility of a tie.
On Wednesday, Councilwoman Kimberly Cobos-Cawthorne—who supported
Melendez for mayor in December as the council deadlocked—again
nominated him, and with Torres, voted against Hadjinian. Councilwoman
Angie Jimenez, who supported Hadjinian in December, kept her vote the
same. Melendez turned down his nomination, offering Hadjinian for the
job. As he put it, he’s afraid of dividing the city.
“That’s something I won’t tolerate,” Melendez said. “We have bigger
issues we need to address. This is more of a ceremonial position. We
need to work together.”‘
As Melendez made his comments, members of the public—who earlier told
the council that one of the newcomers should be mayor—booed him.
“We are looking for change,” Montebello activist Maribel Briseno said,
referencing a state audit released in December that said the city of
Montebello is on unsure financial footing. The audit questioned the
Montebello’s reliance on one-time sources of money, a lack of
competitive bidding and its enterprises in running a golf course,
hotels and a water system—all of which may need subsidizing. “We want
to have a new mayor and mayor pro tem,” Briseno said. “It’s the only
way our city will move forward. We do not need the same ol’, same ol’.
What’s going on has brought us the audit.”
In December, Cobos-Cawthorne said she nominated Melendez because he
received the most votes in November’s election. She nominated him
again, she said, because the community clearly wants change.
This will be the second time that Hadjinian has served as mayor. He
was tapped in December 2014, becoming the first Armenian-American to
be selected to that position.
Hadjinian said he is honored to be serve again and is looking forward
to the responsibilities. And he’s also ready for any challenges.
“If there’s nobody there to challenge you, it takes all of the fun
out of it,” he said.
This article appeared in Whittier Daily News on March 29, 2019.
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