Armenia struggles against Greater Israel (Week 29/30)

The President Trump has scored big this week. He is obtaining a Nobel Peace Prize nomination from Armenia and Azerbaijan for negotiating a peace agreement between them. The peace agreement will “recognize” Artsakh, a former state of Armenia that existed as an island inside of Azerbaijan until it was suddenly attacked by the Azerbaijan government in September 2023, with the state destined to be formally dissolved in January 2024.

Overnight in September 2023, hundreds of thousands of Armenians fled Artsakh (aka Nagorno Karabakh) and headed into Armenia. However they were not universally welcomed there, because Armenia is a relatively small country that has also been under economic duress led by a controversial Prime Minister (PM) Nikol Pashinyan. Those who could not make the journey are forced to live amid bombed concrete apartment buildings (like Northern Syria) and endure arbitrary roundups by the army. It is unknown how many Armenians are murdered or fled from Artsakh, as the Azerbaijan government heavily censors the news. The lucky ones are being assimilated into Azerbaijan, probably forced to convert to Islam.

Groong Podcast reports and comments on matters pertaining to Armenia, even if largely from the perspective of its diaspora. These reports are corroborated by similar reports from Syriana Analysis, another podcast by Kevork Almassian, who can sometimes over-attribute his viewpoints as if he were speaking for all Armenians. Nevertheless, his recent interview by The Gaggle with Peter Lavelle was pretty insightful. It was less sobering than his conversation with Prof. Glenn Diesen, whose perspective is that, barring no support from Russia, and being squeezed, Armenia has no choice but to play all political sides, balancing between the Atlantic Axis and the far-fetched opportunity to join BRICS.

All appear to somewhat agree that PM Pashinyan is a Manchurian-type of figure, who has often divided more than united the Republic. For instance, one of his first actions as President was to retire, arrest, and replace capable army generals, those who had successfully defended Nagorno Karabakh from repeated attacks by Azerbaijan over the decades, with an army that proved pusillanimous and ineffectual and forced to retreat.

Rather than invest or use the ICBM bombs and other deadly military hardware which both Russia and Iran would be willing to provide for its defense, Armenia chose to surrender, if not by word, then by action. President Trump who in the earlier stage of the war under his first administration, made campaign promises to “defend Armenia” now appears all too willing to encourage the surrender of Artsakh as part of the Peace Treaty.

Pashinyan a “Globalist”

The Trump and Biden Administration (or more precisely the Atlantean NATO elite) are especially interested in intervening on behalf of both countries because they want to facilitate the construction of a new oil-railroad transportation corridor along the south border of Armenia from Baku, Azerbaijan to Kars, Türkiye. It would run along much of the northwest border of Iran (SW Azerbaijan), pass through Armenia Syunik Province, then through the Nakhchivan Province, an isolated exclave of Azerbaijan squeezed between SW Armenia, NW Iran, and reaching the southeastern tip of Türkiye.

It is obtaining the rights of this Zangezur Corridor through Syunik Province, Armenia, a narrow belt extending from Yerevan through to Iran which is of controversy. Although the width along the Corridor is no more than 62km, the strip of land is what connects land-locked Armenia to Iran, allowing it access to Iranian trade and seaports. It also serves as a vital connection for Iran through to Russia, where there is valuable trade to evade the punitive sanctions which have been enacted upon Iran since 1979. It allows Russian airspace to the Arabian Sea.

Ideally, Armenia would arrange a direct agreement with Azerbaijan for the Corridor, but since the fall of Artsakh, there is animosity from both sides. The President of Azerbaijan is viewed by critics as an aggressor, an extremist who believes in uniting Azerbaijan with all its tribal enclaves whether in Iran, Armenia, or Türkiye. Furthermore, there are others who believe he plays a role not only hosting Mossad and the IDF inside his country, but in greenlighting their terrorist activities. Recently, for instance, there was the 12-Day War with Iran, with possible hidden bases and coordinations taking place from Azerbaijan provinces. Then there has been the string of mysterious deaths, foremost the downing of President Raisi’s helicopter in NW Iran in May 2024. Investigators have explored whether it was a drone strike, a ground-to-air missile strike from Azers who live in NW Iran, or even a pager explosive, since the President was photographed using a hand-held pager-sized phone. Whatever it was, it was extremely odd because of the two helicopter entourage that flew to Azerbaijan to celebrate the opening of a new jointly-owned dam, one successfully flew back to Tehran, while the other struck a mountainside with all its passengers, including the beloved President Raisi, declared dead.

Iran has suffered such a string of recent attacks by Israel from drone strikes upon its defense leaders, to strikes upon leading nuclear scientists, to bombings of its suspected nuclear enrichment facilities, yet as even UN Special Rapporteur Francisca Albanese has asserted, Israel never endures any sanctions by the UN, because it knows it has the United States to veto in its favor at the UN Security Council. According to retired intel Alistair Cook interviewed by Judge Napolitano on July 28th, Israel will sooner see more strikes against Iran than allow for any potential peace agreement to take place. Already the IAEA has signaled that Iran possibly has “more hidden enrichment facilities” in its territories, providing the aggressive IDF/Central Command with new pretexts for strikes.

Therefore the idea that President Trump and his foil, PM Netanyahu, the “psychopathic demon” are nominated for the Nobel Peace prize, or that the Zangezur Corridor will be renamed the “Trump Corridor” can be seen as the worst possible joke. Of course that may have been the original intention of Nobel, to instill the worst irony that all its laureates are named after a bomb-inventor. But The Gaggle is calling it the worst type of concession by Armenia in the name of “peace”: Armenia will now become another massage point in the ring of NATO satellite states surrounding Russia. The Corridor Agreement calls for U.S. defense forces or defense contractors to be present, presumably to protect the corridor, but will it not also be an excuse to riddle the country with new airbases, THAAD surveillance systems, sponsorship of foreign fighter units, moving in all manners of bombs and military hardware to ready for any offensive needed to attack Iran (on behalf of Israel) or Russia (on behalf of Ukraine)? 

What is left of Armenia with the 99-year lease to the United States as operator of “Trump Corridor” will be a “rump state,” cut off from Iran. Observers feel that between Azerbaijan and Türkiye, Armenia is willing to even commit cultural and spiritual suicide to remain intact. The icy and eccentric Pashinyan is said to act without care of what his people think; that is the style now for these world leaders who operate under the “cult of personhood”: increasingly just a corporate executive. Groong has commented that Pashinyan is arresting more and more dissident Armenians at the drop of a hat. He has even recently arrested a couple of high-ranking Armenian Orthodox Church clerics, along with opposition politicians, lawyers, writers, and activists. As a globalist, it is as if Pashinyan does not respect the place that the Armenian Orthodox Church has held in unifying and protecting Armenian culture.

However thirty-percent profit from a potential 50-billion dollars worth of oil and natural gas transport from Baku and the Caspian is, of course, still quite profitable, especially from the U.S. perspective. The Pentagon generals are no doubt congratulating themselves over this strategic placement in the chess-game of geopolitics. According to a 2023 video from Real Life Lore, “Why Israel and Iran are Always at War,” the narrator believes that Iran holds a lot of cards thanks to Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen, and assets capable of striking gas fields whether off the coast of Israel, naval vessels, or even Aramco. Further, the Armenia north-south corridor allows Iran to flourish despite sanctions, and so has its remote connection with the Silk Road Project of China. At the very least, water dependent Israel could not withstand drone strikes to one of its six water desalination treatment plants.

Now, with Armenia positioning itself to become like Germany or South Korea, it is as if all the arm-chair generals from the deep-state had replayed the video over and over, entered the play-by-play possibilities into the AI wargaming algorithms, and generated the winning moves. It is no coincidence that “normalizing with the United States” now demands that Lebanese, Syrians, Druze, Iraqis, or other terrorist-labeled governments “completely disarm.” This is demanded no doubt of the West Bank Palestinians who are now undergoing brutalist roundups, imprisonment, takeover of their properties, and IDF-supported attacks by bands of Israeli armed “settlers.”

There are even video-tape of these bandits being handed out guns by the Israeli authorities for “self-protection.” These hostile invaders of Palestine-occupied land are using these arms to shoot at unarmed Palestinians because once the land is taken over, the land becomes legally a part of Israel, part of its increased land boundaries.

Peace Through Grace

Today, the “Peace through Strength” concept is what justifies trillions of dollars in U.S. defense spending. We need money to fight war in Ukraine, Syria, Lebanon, support Israeli aggression and espionage activities, support hundreds of overseas bases, upgrade the nuclear stockpiles, support arms sales, build new warplanes, support Homeland Security, support National Security, pay for additional war funding and defense-related activities, support a new Space Command, and this is not counting pensions and retirement benefits for military retirees.

It is this huge budget that is eating away at the American infrastructure spending, on the national needs, and on societal needs including healthcare, education, childcare, retirement savings of ordinary citizens. And it is not buying much more “peace” within America, as one can see from the protests, marches, shootings, crimes, vagrancy, drug-use, prostitution, and homelessness that has increased since 2000. It even enables more white-collar crime.

Peace comes from having a peaceful heart, peaceful mind, peaceful intention, peaceful pursuit, peaceful thoughts, peaceful perception and understanding, peaceful action, peaceful speech, and peaceful perspective. It comes through thinking and studying about peace, however clumsily presented at World Beyond War “Peace Wave,” or however painful it may be journaling about an unpleasant encounter and preparing a future peaceful, civilized response.

We may have to do civil disobedience for peace, but it is still done without spite, malice, intention to harm, and certainly not without arms, which are for hugging, not fighting. One may even interpret the Old Testament and all that fighting and killing and bloodshed for the sake of the Chosen People as a metaphor: When the Jews were in the desert for 40 years, doing penance, bonding together as a community under duress, God blessed them even more. Once they arrived in the land of milk and honey, and their so-called God became the God of War, their fighting and infighting never ceased. Because they rejected Jesus and even call him “the one who must not be mentioned,” there is it seems no belief in plenary indulgence, in making peace, in perpetuating love and forgiveness, in compassion.

Is this really the way to peace and wisdom for society and the world, when more and more resources must be allocated for war, to the point of robbing and enslaving poor people for what tiny pensions and savings they have? 

In Chapter 8 of Proverbs, Wisdom cries out for humankind to take heed, to create something as worthy as Nature:

“The fear of Jehovah means the hating of the bad. I hate self-exaltation and pride and the evil way and perverse speech. I possess good advice and practical wisdom. Understanding and power are mine. By me kings keep reigning, and high officials decree righteousness.” Proverbs, 8:13-15

In Ecclesiastes, Chapter 4, the Prophet describes the futile efforts of jealous and rivalrous people:

“Again I turned my attention to all the acts of oppression that go on under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, and there was no one to comfort them. And their oppressors had the power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I congratulated the dead who had already died rather than the living who were still alive. And better off than both of them is the one who has not yet been born, who has not seen the distressing deeds that are done under the sun.” Ecclesiastes, 4:1-3

But these values are also mirrored in other well-practiced religions, be they Islam or Buddhism. Tzu-Chi routinely honors those who perform genuine community service with a sincere heart, volunteering to take care of the elderly, rebuild homes and schools following a typhoon, offer medical care for the infirmed. They show videos on how to exemplify love and compassion, such as training parents to care for their disabled children, providing vegetarian meals to teach people that all forms of violence, including violence against animals, is cruel. To give up violence, we must practice ending violence in all its forms, therefore growing in love and appreciation of lives.

Those beings in return offer us intangible benefits: the wisdom of the elderly, the joy of friendship, the happiness of being closer to Nature. It explains why even in the wilderness, animals try to live compatibly; there are no wars being conducted by animals against one another with mass butchery; only homo sapiens seems to do that.

This is why even Pope Leo is calling for an August Intention “For Mutual Coexistence”:

“Let us pray that societies where coexistence seems more difficult might not succumb to the temptation of confrontation for ethnic, political, religious, or ideological reasons.” —Pope Leo, August Intention

As The Last American Vagabond often discusses, it is as if humankind is at a collective crossroads. Are we surrendering our humanity for the sake of artifice, a new world run completely by technology? Will our young and old become zombies, trained to use and trust AI Chatbots to run their lives, offer intimate advice, and even allow the intelligence-operated programs to alter our conscience and consciousness? Only by having a keen perception attuned to peace and grace will we be guided to mediate the paths we choose for the betterment of humanity.

More details will be provided in a follow-up by AGN on this developing story
Image from Real Life Lore (YouTube) “Why Israel and Iran Are Always At War”