The War In Armenia

Robert sits down with Joe Kassabian to talk about the invasion of Armenia by Azerbaijan, and the looming threat of genocide

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, welcome to it could happen here. This is Robert Evans,
and this is a podcast about things calling apart. Uh.
And today we definitely have a thing's well, I don't know,
hopefully not falling apart, but certainly getting fucked up episode
for you. UM. This is going to be been a
part of the world that probably fairly few Americans spend
much time thinking about. UM. It's certainly a conflict that's

(00:27):
kind of been lost in everything that's happening in Ukraine
right now. UM. But Armenia and Azerbaijan, their neighbor have
been at a state of more or less regular war
since UM, since longer than that. But this kind of
latest wave of it started in UM. It was over
a breakaway real while what's often referred to as a

(00:50):
breakaway region that both countries claimed and that stayed kind
of independent for a very long time until invasion by
the Azeris in this air which is majority Armenian UM.
And it was kind of a military disaster for the
Armenian side. The war went very badly, a lot of
troops were killed, a lot of territory was taken, and

(01:10):
ever since the Azeri military has been carrying out border
strikes in and around areas that are kind of near
their shared border with Armenia. UM. Over the last ten hours,
as I record this, and and I'm talking to you
all on Monday, UHT September, over the last about ten hours, UM,

(01:31):
the Azeri military has launched a fairly unprecedented set of
strikes within Armenian territory. UM. So not just kind of
hitting border areas, and not just hitting military targets, but
hitting cities, hitting civilian areas, trying to move troops across
the border. There's video evidence of this. UM. To talk
about what's happening, what's been happening in the past, over

(01:51):
the last couple of years, and what's happening now. UM,
I'd like to welcome on Joe Kasabian. Joe you will
know from his podcast Lions Led by Donkeys, from his
book The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a number of other
books that I think we'll talk about a little bit
at the end here from his appearances on the Behind
the Bastard. Joe, you are an American citizen, but you're
also Armenian and you're currently in our media. Yeah. UM,

(02:15):
I moved here a couple of months ago permanently, Um,
citizenship is we kind of have like our own repatriation laws.
But I'm still waiting on that. UM. And so to
to go off a couple of things that you said,
we've been at a state of war effectively since the
nineties when we first gained independence from the Soviet Union. UM.
Without going into the incredibly complicated history of Nagano Karabach

(02:39):
or Artsach Um Artsak still exists. They did not take
all of it in UM. But Tony Tony was a
military disaster for Armenia unequivably, so we lost over four
thousand people. UM. Huge swaths of territory were uh. Their
population became the victim of a regional genocide. UM. There

(03:02):
are no Armenians that have been confirmed to still be
alive within that territory. UM. There's endless videos of a
ZI troops beheading old men and women and and destroying
homes and cemeteries and churches. UM. And ever since UH
the war ended in a month has not gone by

(03:22):
where UM either art Saw or Armenia itself has not
been attacked. We've probably lost over a hundred soldiers since then. UM.
These are kids, their conscripts. We have um military mandatory
service here. Um. So these are eighteen nineteen year old
kids doing their two years of service. On top of
the civilians that are currently being bombed. We we don't

(03:44):
know how many people are dead at the moment um.
And it's um, it's truly aggravating. I mean, Armenians live
with this all the time. It's a sword hanging over
our heads. When this is going to happen. Um happened
with unpress attended, international support and not only support, but

(04:08):
willing willingly ignoring it. Um. I mean NATO powers helped
as or by Jean dulas Um, Turkey and Israel Israel.
Israeli drone designers literally test flew as suicide drone into
Armenian soldiers to sell it. Um. I mean, it's it's

(04:28):
it's honestly kind of I I don't know what what
to say about it other than that's it should be
another thing that the world should be united against and
they never will. No. I mean, it's it's so frustrating.
One of the things that I have had a lot
of issue with because obviously I, as as you are,

(04:49):
I'm supportive of Ukrainian people's attempts to so far quite
successful attempts to stop Russia from taking over their homes. Um.
But one of the things that's happened alongside this is
a kind of lionization of a specific kind of Turkish drone,
the bractar Um, which was particularly effective in the opening

(05:09):
stages of the war, and military technology military equipment walks
can argue as to whether that was due to Russian
kind of tactical failures and operational failures, or whether it
was due to new realities about how drones function. But
one of the things that was ignored in all of
this kind of fetishization of this drone and people raising
money to buy more of them, is that the drones

(05:30):
were really combat tested for the first time, massacring Armenians. UM. Yeah,
and it's I try not to get too mad when
I see stuff like that, because I understand whether Ukrainians
are happy, of course, and like, yeah, I should point
out unequivvalently I support Ukraine's fight for independence, just like
I wish people um supported ours UM and and the war.

(05:54):
The wars effectively have the same kind of propaganda angle. UM. Obviously,
before Russia invaded Ukraine, they're talking about you know, DENOZI
vacation or demilitarization, when when you look at their speeches
and the rhetoric, it's that they believe that Ukraine does
not have the right to exist and that Ukrainians are
either are Russian or they also should not exist. And

(06:17):
that's effectively what we're looking at. Two. UM. This is
why Armenians constantly compare what is happening now to nineteen
UM asba Jean continuously says they want art Sah or
the Nogana Karabak, they they want it back, but that's
not what they're attacking right now. UM. If you look
at the rhetoric of Aliev and his government going all

(06:38):
the way back to the nineties when his dad was
in charge, in a few other people, UM, their ideology
is that Armenia is not a real state. They have
claims over our capital yur Ivan. They have they have
claims over the south where they're invading right now, and
everywhere those soldiers go they wipe out the local poppy

(07:00):
relation of Armenians. There are no Armenian survivors and Hadrud
or Shushi or any of these other places they took,
they do not exist. And ever since then they've been
purposely going through and destroying any evidence that Armenians ever
lived there, which is ridiculous. Armenians have been living in
these places since before Rome was fucking established. Yeah, um,

(07:23):
I mean, and this is obviously we're talking about the
Armenian genocide, which occurred during kind of the concurrent to
the kind of late stages of World War One. UM,
and uh was unrecognized by the United States until what
was that now two years ago Joe's yeah something, finally
became the first president, first US president, to recognize it.

(07:46):
And and this is because we we've mentioned Turkey a
couple of times that there's a couple of reasons for this,
but most of them boiled down to not wanting to
piss up, piss off the Turkish government. Um. The Turkish
government has strong attitude dudes that essentially everybody in Anatolia
is Turkish and always yes, there were no Greeks, there
were no Kurds, there were no Army. And this has

(08:08):
led to, I mean, it's led to ethnic cleansings and
genocides against the Armenians and against the Kurds. One of
the things that was being done in Rojava, UM that
I found so compelling was was an attempt to educate
an attempted by the Kurds there to educate people who
were joining the YPG about Kurdish complicity in the genocide
against Arminia because they recognize themselves as victims of the

(08:30):
same thing. You know, starting I think you know all
of the it's hard to say starting in right, because
we're trying to talk about concurrent conference. They all go back.
Everything's going back quite a while. You mentioned Ali of
a little bit ago, and I don't want to talk
about him. Um, we're talking about il Ham Aliev, who's
the current president of Azerbaijan, the fourth UH and of
course the the son of the former leader, which is

(08:52):
always a recipe for a good functional des Also his
wife is vice president. Yeah, and his wife advice, which
is nice. It's just like it's just like house of cars. Yeah,
he's the Kevin spacey. Um. His his attitude and rhetoric
towards Armenian in general is eliminationists at best. Um, like

(09:16):
he's I mean, the country's put out stamps that show
Armenia being fumigated like dirt went during the height of
the pandemic, which like as a genocide scholar. You know, generally,
when I see a picture of a place being gassed,
I get suspicious. Um Uh, they've taught, they've talked about

(09:36):
how it was a good thing that in the nineties
Armenians were driven from Baku and the Bukoprograms and a
few other places. Um, I mean weren't there like literally
like some of those trophies at arms shows and stuff,
like pieces of captured equipment with blood on it and stuff. Yeah,
and they also had, um honestly one of the weirdest,

(09:57):
Like it's incredibly offensive and racist, h the these um
caricatures of our of Armenian soldiers who like, at the
same time they're like racist towards Armenians but also vaguely
anti Semitic, Like they looked like a character of a
Jewish person to come out of their sturmer um with
like you know, and I understand how stereotypically people think

(10:21):
Armenians look in like these racist art where we have
you know, big hooked noses and big eyebrows and things
like that, which admittedly I know I meet both of
those personally, but that's besides the point of Like if
you look at the pictures and they were taken down
because like even like Israel was like, oh that's a
bit much, and like they help that happen. Um. But

(10:42):
like also to talk you can't talk about as by
genre without talking about Turkey because they have this ideology
that's like two people, one state. They they do believe
in like Pan Turranism, especially urd iwan Um. I mean
he's been ever ever since, he's gone like full fascist.
That's something he's been hammering the drum on and like
this is an extension of that. He's effectively a neo Ottomanist.

(11:07):
He wants to reunite the empire, which is fucking insane
but also has real life things, you know, but also
to bring us, you know, to the conflict that Americans
are more focusing on. As we've talked about before, this
is another similarity between what Russia is doing in Ukraine
and what is Ervajan and Turkey are doing in Armenia.
They're both these kind of um redemptionist dreams of people

(11:30):
who want to bring back some sort of lost imperial
splendor right and are are utilizing kind of the tactics
that the technics of genocide in order to try to
make that happen. Yeah. I think for Turkey it's a
lot of this lost splendor, especially as their economy ships
itself from mismanagement, and I think for Azerbaijan it's the

(11:52):
other way around. In the nineties, when we fought the
first car Bah or Armenia UM, I mean, it wasn't
from being militaries military, militarily superior, having more money. It
had to do with two largely unorganized forces in the
fallout of the Soviet Union, and Armenia end up winning. UM.

(12:14):
And ever since then, that loss has been something of
like national It's like it's kind of like the national
mythos of Azebaijan, because before then Azebaijan is a national
identity simply didn't exist. It's relatively new UM. And that
loss in that war became the defining moment. That's where UM,
the lost Armenia was internalized and like it became school

(12:38):
curriculum that Armenians were the were at fault for everything.
We're sub human. We've been compared to cockroaches. Like for instance,
if you have, say my last name, you cannot legally
enter the country of Azebaijan, like you cannot enter that
country with an Armenian last name, it's racism, and fascism
is state doctrine there. So when you know their oil

(13:00):
production kicked back up from after the war damages and
after the fallout of the Soviet Union, on top of
military reforms that have been lasting for thirty years, they're
the ones on the up swing now, not Turkey in
my opinion, and it also helps their fighting someone like Armenia,
which no Armenians that we have military history and everything,
but we have no fucking money, we have no natural resources,

(13:21):
we have no allies, we have no one's gonna air
drop palettes of fucking high Mars and Yerevan like, nobody's
coming to help us. We have a k S that
fought in the First War. We have BMP ones that
have probably seen more combat than most people who are
still alive. That's an armored personnel carrier. Essentially, we we
have nothing. Um, I'm not going to speak about the

(13:43):
cape bills of the Armenian military, but like you can
imagine what a small landlocked country with a small population
not a lot of money, can field. It's not a lot. Um, Yeah,
it's not a lot. And this kind of gets us
to another topic that has to be broached with his
which is kind of talking about the relationship of rush
you to all this because one of the things that's
very frustrating about this conflict is that Americans particularly tend

(14:08):
to want things very simply. So you hear you've got
a Russian client state, which is how it's not what
Armenia is. I'm not saying that, Joe, obviously, but is
how it's easy to course, especially like kind of in
the boil out, sort of break things out as it's like, Okay,
you've got this state backed by Russia and then you've
got this other state fighting that that's backed by Turkey. Well,
Turkey's part of NATO, they're part of, you know, the

(14:29):
fight against Russia, so they must be the good guys.
And none of that's accurate. But I think it's I
think it's important to explain why. So, I mean, it's
it's really hard to explain Armenia and Russia's relationship other
than imperialism. Um. Obviously, Armenia has been conquered by countless
countries throughout our fucking long history, but the most recent
one being the Soviet Union, which we did not join willingly. Um.

(14:52):
And then after the fall of the Soviet Union and
the Russian Federation. Um, we're solidly within Russia's fear of
influences by no active choice of ours. We're members of
the cts O, we're members of the Eurasian Economic Union,
and neither of those were by choice. We were strong
armed into it because there's no there's nothing else, there's
no other option. UM. And as far as it goes,

(15:13):
is is like the brotherly relationship or this client state.
It would be exactly like someone blaming Ukraine for what
happened in Maidan, or blaming Ukraine for what happened in
or what happened now because they're trying to get away
from that. I mean, we can't. We don't have the
resources to do it. Just just for an example of

(15:37):
how Armenia plays like tight ropes. This ship. Never once
if we voted in favor of Russia during this war.
We like they're like our representatives to the U n
our our Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Our prime minister is
solidly neutral because that's the best he can do. UM. Right,
you know, he's either voted against UH, he's voted h

(15:57):
he's abstained. He's never voted for to support Usha during
this ward all um. Now, obviously, back in there was
a different Armenia. UM. We had a pro EU movement
here that was quite strong. This is before I lived here,
of course, UM that voted to declare our intentions to
want to join the EU. I believe this is under
President Sergisan Um. And it passed overwhelmingly in the popular vote,

(16:24):
because unlike the people invading us, we are a free
and fair democracy with the freedom of speech and expression
and everything else that people like to claim they want
to defend, but they don't UM. And after a five
minute meeting with Putin, it was gone. There's no more referendum,
and we decided not to join the EU anymore. But
we I mean the president. After that we had our

(16:44):
Velvet Revolution which got rid of him um and distance
ourselves from Russia as much as we realistically could. So
I believe, for instance, Armenia kind of slight least supported
Russia when it came to annexing Crimea. And now you
can kind of see why the president was a fucking stooge.

(17:08):
That's not the case anymore. We now have a parliamentary
system and as much as I am not the biggest
fan of Prime minister or Bashionon, He's not that guy.
That's not like and Armenia is a different world. Um.
And I know, like like you said, people really like
to simplify these things. They want this to be a
team sport. They want this to be NATO versus Russia,

(17:29):
and you know, people like Belarus or whoever else. But
there's a there's a pretty big fucking difference here. We
have not actively supported this war. There has been anti
war protests outside my fucking windows since the war has started.
Ukrainians have flooded here by the thousands and they have
met nothing but Armenians who have welcomed them with open arms.

(17:50):
Russians have come too, and we're not the biggest fans
of them. But what can you do about it? Um?
You know, like, yeah, we're we're solidly neutral in this.
And it's one of the things that fucking and I
mean granted neutral government wise, people wise. Absolutely, we're not neutral. Um.
And one of the things that pisces me off the
most is that people can see the realities of the

(18:13):
war in Ukraine where they can see right through Russian
propaganda when it's like demilitarization, denoification, whatever, and they can
see on its face that's complete and utter bullshit. But
like when because you know, Ukraine is fighting for their sovereignty,
their independence and the right to exist that we all
have um, and when it comes to us, we don't

(18:35):
get that, like, oh, well, we're calling for both sides
a de escalate and maybe our Menia shouldn't have started this.
We haven't done anything. It was fucking midnight last night
and the South started being bombed. What the fund is
there to be de escalated. You can't de escalate self defense,

(19:01):
So you have what is a really uncomfortable situation. From that,
a lot of people don't like talking about the reality
of it because essentially, when you have a country like
Azerbaijan that is insisting on repeatedly violating the territory of
its neighbor um and that has proven not just a
willingness but an eagerness to engage and engage in acts
of ethnic cleansing and genocide, you have two options for

(19:24):
dealing with that other than let them do it right.
Option one is send in peacekeepers to stop the aggression.
Now Russia has troops that were called peacekeepers in the area. Um,
you know, there's you could debate prior to the invasion
of Ukraine how good they were at that job. Um,
but they certainly are not capable of doing it now. Um.

(19:47):
So then the question is, Okay, who else? Who? What?
Who else is peacekeepers are gonna come in? Right? And
if that's not a realistic solution, and you don't want
to let Azerbaijan just do a genocide, then what you
do issue give them weapons Armenia weapons, not as people
already doing that part unfortunately the US. And yeah, indeed, um,

(20:08):
And again there's this we're all kind of in terms
of like the discourse around this in the United States,
living in the shadow of the War on Terror, in
which an irresponsible quantity of weapons were handed out to
an irresponsible variety of groups. Um, and many of them
went to bad ends in bad places. Um. The reality

(20:31):
is that you know, we're sitting on a fucking stockpile
of weapons here in the United States as tall as
the sky and handing over a tiny percent of that.
When people talk about like that we're giving this much
aid Ukraine, We're not spending that much cash straight on
a d Ukraine. We're picking up ship we have in mothballs,
and well, we're handing it to them because we've spent
all of our treasure on on a pile of guns

(20:52):
larger than you can conceive of in terms of its
actual size and weight. UM. And I don't know, like
when when I think about what is to be fucking
done here realistically, UM, I would like for Ourmnia to
have access to javelins and send some stingers. Even One
of the things that pisses me off is like, like

(21:12):
you said, there's two options here, you do nothing and
you're complicit in a genocide. That's what this hits like.
It's it's like being silent and you know, um and
in nineteen it's being silent. In nineteen fifteen, it's being
silent Rwanda. We were silent during most of those things,
and we saw how they all were. Like, there's only
one way this fucking ends if we don't get guns,

(21:34):
and that's with a lot of dead Armenians. That that
that by supporting Ajerbaijan or sitting out, that is what
you explicitly support is thousands and thousands of dead civilians.
Like that's the only way this ends. And it is
again and I hate keep that we keep going back
to Ukraine but it's relevant because it's the the the

(21:57):
it's the conflict that people are actually focusing on the
people who are counter on on anti side, providing weapons
to the Ukrainian military and make claims about corruption, which
they could also make about the Armenian government, um, and
claims about you know, arms trafficking and all that stuff.
But so far, and Ukraine, by the way, is a
country with a deeper history of corruption, significantly in the

(22:20):
Armenian government even um, we haven't seen government is less
corrupt than Ukraine's. Yeah, um, you haven't seen a ton
of that happening. What you have seen is the weapons
that have been handed to them, blowing up invaders, tanks
and aircraft. Um. And the sheer quantity that has been
destroyed is evidence that that weaponry has been used pretty responsibly.

(22:44):
And when you were talking about a group of people
facing annihilation, I'm simply not worried that they're going to
sell their stingers to fucking Isis or wherever that who
are going to have turkey in one side the Georgia.
That's actually fine, Like you know, and that's why I
think people are fucking gutless. Um, you saw this happen

(23:06):
in February, before they're in January, before the war in
Ukraine started, when people like, oh, weapons are only gonna
make it worse. No, they're fucking not. You know what's
worse than than an armed population defending itself is an
unarmed one being murdered anyway. And we in case nobody
has paid attention, because they probably didn't, you can go
back and look at the video footage of what happens

(23:27):
to unarmed Armenians, and it's the same fucking ship Isis
did to yuzd S. It's the same fucking ship they
did occurreds, and it's the same fucking ship that will
happen again if we do not get what we need
to defend ourselves. And I don't give a funk if
you don't like Russia. I don't fucking like Russia either.
But it's the reality that we live in. If you're
if you're fucking intelligent enough to realize the diplomacy and

(23:51):
geopolitics of how Ukraine ended up in the war that
they're in now, you should understand why we are in
the situation that we are into. You cannot realistically believe
we deserve what is happening unless you also believe Ukraine
deserves what's happening to them. It's impossible. I don't know.
This is obviously how could this not be like emotional

(24:15):
and it is just feeling like I can't and it
must be so much worse. Obviously you just being there,
but like this, this feeling of a fucking train coming
at you, and people aren't gonna do ship because there's
this fucking problem with optic and it's more complicated when
we talk about I'm talking about we're gonna talk about optics.

(24:35):
I guess we're talking about discourse. When it comes about
like why politically the United States is unlikely to do
anything like what we suggested, It's more complicated than that,
and a decent amount of it comes down to the
fact that we have what is it, thirteen nuclear weapons
stationed in Turkey right now, land stolen from Armenians from
the genocide. Great stuff America we really knock out of

(25:00):
the park. What is it that people can do to
help outside of trying to become informed about the conflict,
which I think we can talk about some sources at
the end of this. Are there places, you know, Red

(25:20):
Cross style things that people can donate to to help
to the extent that that's kind of a thing is helpful. Yeah, Um,
I mean, you know, generally crowdfunding for weapons systems is
illegal unless you're Ukraine nowadays, so I'm thinking more about medical. Um.
The Armenian Red Cross is always a good option. They
helped a lot in they still help now, we still

(25:42):
have a ton of internally displaced people. Um. There's also
the hind drum In Fund, which directly funds wounded servicemen
because we really don't have a v A exactly here. Um.
There's quite a few other ones, but the the Armenian
Red Crosses of course the most reliable and easy to

(26:04):
donate if you're in the West. For sure. You don't
have to navigate any confusing Armenian language websites because it's
it's hard and isn't great with the internet, so like
most of them don't have translations. Um. But you know
it's yeah, I understand, I'm a little bit more emotional
than most people. Probably hear me on podcasts, but like, um,

(26:24):
I'm mad, I'm mad, I'm fucking frustrated. Um. I don't
know how much longer people can let this kind of
thing happen. Um. I hope the e use gas this
winter is fucking worth it, because this is what you've got.
This is what that deal got us. So I hope
you're nice and warm in the fucking winter because we

(26:45):
probably won't have power or we'll have more dead or whatever.
But real glad you pivoted away from Russian gas and
sign a deal. Fucking ashby Jean, you spineless fox. And
it's a I mean, it goes the spinelessness is deeper
than that, right, because the reason why the fucking gas
crunch that led to that deal happened in the first

(27:07):
place was among a number of things, years of seeding
to Russian government aggression in places like Georgia, in places
like Ukraine. And you've got that, you know, here you
have the invasion by a Zerbaijan almost like two years
ago now and then and and no pushback right when

(27:28):
you this is this is the thing is And this
is not a popular kind of thing to go to
talk about on the left, but but it's true. If
you want to pay attention to why why that whole
World War two situation got so goddamn bad, A big
part of it is they're not being any kind of
effective rules based international order to stop bigger countries or

(27:50):
at least more aggressive ones, from fucking with their neighbors.
And one of the things we were supposed to have
learned from that war is that you don't let people
do that. It's bad, yea that when a mother shows up, Yeah,
like it shouldn't be that hard. Tis I don't care
what your politics is. I mean, everybody knows that we're
both very left wing. But when someone comes continuously fox

(28:14):
with you, the only way to make them stop is
by hitting them in the goddamn face until they realize
it's not a good idea like this, Like diplomacy doesn't
work when one side only wants you dead. You can't
debate my right to live, or my neighbor's right to live,
or these kids right to live wherever they're fucking schools
bombed right now, there's no debate to be had. You

(28:34):
have to hit them until they fucking stop. There's like,
I'm sorry, there's not gonna be any de escalation of
fucking genocide. Like that's not how this works. People tend
to get this in the immediate sense when you're talking about,
you know, some fucking bigot in front of you, everybody,
everybody loves, you know, cheering on a video of some guy,

(28:55):
you know, dropping a racial slur and getting knocked to
the ground. Obviously those are a lot of um. But
the the the moral is that if you let assholes.
The actual moral of like why it's important to punch
Nazis in the face when they're doing Nazi ship is
that if you just let them do Nazi ship and
you try to like appease them and calm them down,
you'll often calm them down here and there, and they're like,

(29:17):
back off, but they'll have gotten a little bit more,
They'll have gotten a little bit of what they want,
they'll have gotten a little bit further, and they just
keep making ship worse until somebody actually does fucking drop them.
And it's the same with you know. And again I
I we just talked about with the great lesson of
World War two should have been and the thing that
actually happens the generation that took power in the United

(29:40):
States and in a lot of other Western countries after that,
not exclusively the West, but I think we're talking about
our our our people here. Um immediately went and fucked
around and carried out acts of aggression all over the world. Um,
but that doesn't mean the basic lesson is bad. The
lesson is don't let pete. We should not have been
allowed to do that, um, but we shouldn't like that

(30:02):
should not be a thing that the world accepts, Like
the you can't just sit back and be like, oh, well,
that country's gonna go do a genocide now, but it's
far away, so there's nothing to be done other than
continue to buy the oil of the people doing the
genocide and thereby fund the genocide, right like it's it's
fucking unconscionable, man like, and even if you want to

(30:25):
look at this as like the West also funcked around
during the coldar which like, yeah, you know what, everybody
did you stop them? They didn't funk around so much
in Southeast Asia after the US got punched in the
fucking face in Vietnam, did that? That's right? Yeah, well
it was a lot less. It shouldn't be this fucking complicated.
I don't I don't care what political ideology you subscribe to,

(30:45):
Like it's self defense, like it's collective defense, mutual self defense.
When we need help, you give us fucking help. Like, yeah,
it shouldn't be that fucking hard. I mean to be
fair for for some people who will never really matter
because they don't see countries like Armenia or countries like
Azerbaijan is having agency to do their own things and

(31:08):
want their own things. Um. And if that is you,
I hope to see your house on sn end one day. Um.
But like you know that does there should be like
that sounds like, um, like an old Russian curse, like me,
your house beyond the sea, and I believe it's from
the Balkans. Yeah, yeah, but I can imagine yes, a
little old ladies saying that to you. We we have

(31:30):
the right to freedom as much as anyone else. And um,
not only that we've achieved it, Like Armenia is a
is a moderately progressive place. I mean we're still working
on some things. We have the freest democracy in the region. Um.
We have great standard of living for most people. Um,
and it was only getting better. This is a place
as freer and fairer elections and virtually anyone else over here,

(31:54):
to include Russia, to include fucking Ukraine, to include Turkey,
to include all these places that people insists are worth defending.
I'm just curious why we're not like, why are like,
why are Armenians less than? What did we ever fucking
do to deserve this? It's it's incredibly depressing, um. And

(32:14):
maybe we're not the right shade of white. I don't.
I don't fucking know anymore man Like it's it's it's
really weird to me. Um. Even like internationally geopolitically, you know,
the Secretary of State blinken urged both sides of de escalate,
Suck my fucking dick. What are we de escalating? They're

(32:34):
invading us? I would like to ask al Qaeda would
really like to ask the city of New York to
de escalate. When planes flew into the World Trade cent
are like, get the funk out of here, Like, how
do you de escalate this? They're bombing cities like it's
it's maddening, um, and it's not gonna end. It's not

(32:56):
gonna end until someone fucking ends it. We can't. We
we just had a generationally destroying war two years ago
that we have not recovered from. We have an entire
society that's dealing with various different forms of PTSD. UM.
We don't have the the institutions to take care of
all of the victims from two years ago. Um, we

(33:16):
didn't get any help that either, and we're not gonna
get any help now. I uh yeah, you know. I
think again, there's this, there's this tendency towards isolationism and
the left brought on by the Iraq War. But none
of this, if nothing is done, if there's no international

(33:39):
response to this, and if these areas aren't aren't stopped
by you know, in auto cathonic resistance, Um, then it
won't stop with Armenia, because violence of this sort never does.
There's a there's a book I'm interested in your thoughts
on it, actually, Joe, but I found it quite eliminating
a number of years ago, An Inconvenient gen Aside by

(34:00):
Adam Hosschild, which is about the Armenian genocide and its
influence on Hitler, making the point that even though Hitler
never was anywhere close to Armenia, neither were any fucking
German troops for that matter, particularly close Imperial German troops
were Oh yeah, we're we're very much in charge of

(34:20):
a lot of different death squads. It's it's a it's
a weird story. Hitler's Hitler's gerofe of course I apologize,
I meant, I meant THEE. But the point that host
Child was making was that Hitler was not engaged in
the Armenian genocide, but he paid attention to it and

(34:41):
the fact that the young Turks got away with it,
um and and got to take that let take land that,
as you pointed out, is currently occupied by some US
nuclear war heads. Um was was part of what emboldened
him to do not just the Holocaust but everything he
did in Europe. And there was a line specifically in
reference the Holocaust from Hitler I but it was during

(35:01):
this table talk that was like essentially he was saying, well,
of course we'll get away with it. Nobody remembers Armenians anymore. Yeah,
it's literally on the wall. Yeah exactly. And that's the
thing is like it goes back right, like everybody was saying,
because I mean, I understand the politics behind our sock
are messy for people who are not from this region,

(35:23):
and I'm I don't have enough time to go into them.
The majority of Armenian population that was given to Azerbaijan
by the Soviet Union with absolutely no process, and they
attempted to vote to join Armenia while we were still
in the Soviet Union, which is well within the rights
according to the Soviet Unions constitution if such rights functionally existed,

(35:46):
which they did not. Um, And that's what started the
first war, but in every war has been about that
ever since, effectively, at least politically on its surface, because
internationally is recognized as part of Azerbay Sean because they
go off old Soviet maps for fucking reasons. I don't know.
I mean we can talk exactly, um, but like you know,

(36:10):
in people were saying that, like, oh, if this will
all end if Armenia simply gives up art stock, which
we don't claim art so nobody, I mean, some some
people do. The government does not. Um, we don't recognize
it as an independent country either, which they themselves have
declared themselves. It's it's messy, I understand, but um, it's

(36:32):
it's not within the Republic of Armenia to negotiate the
non existence of the Republic of Artsach. That is their
right to self determination, that is politically what the government believes.
Now they were saying, well, now that these areas have
been taken over by age by Jean, we can finally
move towards peace. There's fucking peace talks. A week ago

(36:53):
the Prime Minister pashion Yan met with Aliev. I believe
in Belgium, and I'm not entirely sure they literally met
a week ago, maybe it was two weeks ago, like
it was very recent. But the thing is is every
time this peace process starts again, this happens because it's
not about Arsa, it's not about Naganokarla, it's not about
any of these. It's it's about our right, our fundamental

(37:15):
right to exist. They do not believe in it, like
it's not just like it wasn't about um Jews being
involved in business, so it wasn't about Jews marrying Germans.
It was about their fundamental right to exist. Like it's
it's all it is. It's the same can be said
for Palestinians. This is this isn't about palest I mean

(37:35):
thinking of which fucking Israelis are just just placing Armenians
in Palestine as well, Like it's it's not about it's
not about these these small little nibbles that they're taking.
It's not about the freedom of movement. It's not about
your right to date someone which came up recently they
made some Israeli la against that you have to declare
your romantic intentions before you go into the West Bank

(37:57):
or whatever like. It's not about those things. Those are
Maybe that'll make maybe that'll make it easier to get
the the American leftists on this one. Right, No, no, guys,
it's Israel is bad. The bad guys here. We can
do genocide. Yea, Actually that's not entirely true. He probably would,
but m the thing is that it's not about these

(38:20):
small nibbles. It's not about your right to do X,
or your right to do why. It's not about art
socks right, the freedom it's it's it's they don't believe
you should exist, and they will take and take and
take and take until you're fucking powerless and they can
wipe you out. That is their role. I mean, you
can see that in Palestine, you can see that, in Arsa,

(38:40):
you can see that increasingly in Armenia. You can see.
That's what Russia's goal was in Ukraine, it was Russia's
goal in Georgia. It's how imperialism fucking works. It doesn't
have to have an American flag or British flag over it.
For that to be what it's culled, it's genocidal imperialism.
And like if if you're too dumb to fucking see that,
I don't know what else to tell you, Like, I

(39:03):
don't know how else these are. Do you need me
to draw and fucking crayon? Yeah? And I think we're
both getting angry here, primarily at groups of people who
I don't believe are the primary listeners that will have
on this. Not necessarily but but but I get it.
Like no, it's it's this constant fucking thing you have
whenever there's a war anywhere, and you are like, well,

(39:24):
what is the solution, Well, the people who are the
victims need to have access to weapons? Um. Yeah. And
if you're and if you're saying, which I agree with,
sending in US or whatever troops to ex country usually
it doesn't work out, then what are what is the
option give them fucking weapons? Yeah? And honestly, like what
would make the situation worse if we had American soldiers here?

(39:47):
Like yeah, I mean I just don't. I just don't
think that's a thing that logistically the US military can do. Well. Um,
but like yeah, like there's some situations where Yes, military
assistance could make a situation worse. Bad things will happen.
You cannot deploy large amounts of weapons or soldiers to

(40:08):
a specific area without there being some kind of negative effects. However,
you have to realistically weigh the good and the bad. Yeah,
the world military the Allies bombed Germany flat, but they
stopped the fucking holocaust. Yeah, we blew up a fair
amount of people in the nineties. We stopped a genocide,

(40:31):
like we blew up the ship out of Isis, and
there was also some civilian casualties, which fucking sucked quite
a few. You stop the Aziti genocide with the assistance
of the PKK and and the YPG and the y PG, like,
you cannot unleash military power without the acceptance that innocent
people are going to die. The way that you weigh

(40:53):
that is more fucking people are going to die if
you don't. That's that's I think the key of it,
and probably the point to close on is that it's
not a decision do we do we bring violence to
this situation or not the situation. The question is how
how lopsided will the violence be? Will the violence be

(41:15):
one state armed by its allies massacring an under you know,
equipped military and then civilians until there's no one left
of the people who inhabited that area. Um or will
those people have the equipment to defend themselves? Like that?
That's the question. There's no, there's no the situation. The
only way for the situation to not be violent is

(41:37):
for Zerbaijan to not do what they're doing right now.
Um And hey, if if some sort of fucking diplomatic
pressure works, I will I will be unbelievably psyched to
eat both of our words in this if the fucking
blinken manages to I don't. I don't. Yeah, I have
no idea, like how how you actually have an impact here,

(41:57):
but that would be lovely. I just don't think it's likely. Yeah,
there's I mean, don't be wrong. There's a time for diplomacy,
and that time ends when troops attempt across the border
or they start cluster bombing our cities. Like there's there's
a time for diplomacy and not that you can do
two things at once. And and to be completely clear,
I'm not calling for like the hundred and first to
fucking land in Yovan or whatever, Like I don't want

(42:19):
the American military to come here. We'll take care of ourselves,
but we need the tools to do so. And the
fact remains is like you can be vehemently against war.
I know I am. I fought in them. They fucking suck.
I do not want war to happen to anybody, But
when they when it comes, talking is over, or at

(42:39):
least it it hits the back burner. Like there's negotiations
going on in Ukraine and Russia that we don't hear about.
But at the same time, Ukraine knows they have to
continue doing violence in the meantime, Like you can't. You
can't just like whoa, guys, let's just hit the brakes
and let's like have a fucking peace conference in Belgium
or whatever. Like soon it is being bombed, glorious is

(43:01):
being bought, like our Meenians are dying. Like there's no
words that will fix that, but we'll fix it. Is
fucking artillery systems, high mars, GPS, guided weapons, fucking body armor.
We don't even have first aid kits, like there's there's
there's things that we need that can happen in addition
to political pressure, because political pressure is great. If we

(43:21):
ever have it, but there needs to be something in
the meantime. Like the director of Doctors Without Borders one
time said, um, something that was incredibly controversial when he said,
because he's a doctor and he runs, you know, a charity,
he said, you can't stop at genocide of doctors. And
he meant that you need to give people fucking weapons
because you know there's like like we already said, and

(43:44):
then I'll promise they'll stop talking. Um, there's two ways
that this ends. We defend ourselves and we survive, or
you sit by and you do nothing, and uh, there's
thousands of more graves full of Armenians by the end
of this. That's it. I mean, once upon a time
the world said never again, and that ship has had
a big fucking asterix next to it ever since. And
people need to prove themselves. You need to fucking prove

(44:06):
the words actually mean things. If you want to defend
democracies and ship like you do in Ukraine. I have
a fucking democracy for you to defend, and we need weapons. Yeah.
I think that's as good a note as I need
to end on. Jok a sabian Um host of Lions
led by Donkeys, author of The Hooligans of Kandahar. You've

(44:27):
got other bunch of other books that have come out now. Yeah,
I have the Victory of Death series out if you
enjoy military sci fi. Uh, and I have another one
coming out in October called The Frontier Corps. You can
preorder it now. Um. If you look on my Twitter, um,
you can find a link to preorder it. It's free
if you have UM Kindle unlimited, so you know if

(44:50):
for the book, um so yeah. Also if you don't
feel like giving me money, that's that's great to donate
to the Armenian Red Cross. They need more than I do. Yeah. Um,
all right, everybody, that's the episode. Um. I It could

(45:13):
Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media or
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