phantom22

Ara, Do Armenians realize that their intelligentsia has been wiped out thanks to the Ittihadists and the Stalinist regime? They are too oblivious to care. Our community is lead by merchants and religious figures. It is their world views that lead the community. No wonder so many Armenians continue to slavishly support Bush and Co. despite his back-tracking on his promises to us, and his administration targeting Armenians as terrorists. As an American-born Methodist with very middle-of-the-road political beliefs (I was a moderate Republican for awhile), I am incensed that his administration would denigrate Armenians as a group. If they want to go after individuals who have made trouble fine, but not to blanketly include Armenians as a group to be targeted!

Armenians and Jews are in a class by themselves, when it comes to suffering. There is more to this than meets the eye. It is part of the greater scheme of things.

Domino, This is not the first time I have stated that you are an expert in Armenian Genocide issues and Armenian issues in general. I stated that well before we had our altercation. However, I believe that you have extremely jaded views in other areas as to the right of certain persons to exist on this earth. That is what led to my wish to have you crucified.

Domino, in this area of expertise you are brilliant. AMAZING the depth to which you have studied the issues. If you were not "in the closet" about your identity, I would nominate you for an Armenian honorary award.

I had only one relative in Armenia and he died many years ago. He went there during the 1918-1920 Armenian Republic and lived out his life there. Most of our relatives were massacred. The remnants wholeheartedly embraced the West. Even those of us with no relatives in Armenia send money.

I am no supporter of Bush, but I believe that Armenia and Azerbaijan are part his adminstration's plan for an democratic upheavals similar ot the Ukraine and Georgia. They also want to see regime change in Teheran. My problem with Bush is mainly in his domestic policies, catering to the rich while driving the middle class into further debt.

There are some greedy bastards in Armenia who are destroying the country. The parks are being turned into more restaurants and coffeehouses. The older architecture is being summarily destroyed. The nor-harousts, who are well connected-many being former KGB-are not insuring that the masses get enough to eat. Phd's are begging for a living and eventually leaving the country. These are patriots?

Edward, Alleviating traffic in LA requires a well-oiled, efficient operation. This means streamlining the processes required to build and maintain adequate transportation facilities and getting the most competent people to lead the way, not the woman with the best legs, nor the after-hours basketball buddies of the boss, nor someone's nephew. Indicative of these problems is the plight of the unfortunate Armenian-American who got crushed to death in Orange County when a portion of a highway bridge fell on him.

Edward, LA traffic is the result of decades of of poor municipal planning, giving development companies a free-hand without requiring them to throw in money to alleviate the problems they cause (therefore shifting these costs to the taxpayers) and an incompetent, nepotism-laden state transportation agency where competence takes a backseat to personal and sexual relationships.

Hey Verginne, Do you reside in Orlando and did you once post under the name "Anoush?"

Artaxias, You are allowing your "Aryan" ideology to cloud your thinking. You don't give a damn about Assyrians? Well you have one here (part-Assyrian) to deal with every day.

Follow the Tufenkjians and the guys who developed the Marriot Hotel in the old Hotel Armenia. It shocks me every day when odar people do not even know that a country named Armenia exists. Needless to say, Gams has a point. The Turks are hitting the ROA below the belt economically. Our only weapon is to deprive them of their greater economic success. Do you think that if they were not trying to enter the EU that there would be any discussion at all about "the events of 1915-23?" Economics is a lever. They must be shown that coming to terms with the truth will help them economically. Isolated revolutionary acts by a few, who are fed up with Ottoman abuse, does not warrant the eradication of a whole people. ...and where did they come up with 523,00 Turks killed by Armenians. Was it the "magican" Halacoglu who pulled that rabbit out of his hat, conjuring this up "out of whole cloth?"

Hey, Turkey is still playing lovey-dovey with Israel and visa-versa even when anti-Semitism is rampant in Turkey. Meanwhile, Turkey is cozying up to the Arab states. Armenia could play the same role between Iran and Israel that the Turks are grooming themselves for between the Arab world and Israel. When business between nations is good many sins are quickly forgotten. Do you realize how many cars and electronic appliances Germany and Japan sell a year in the US? Between 1941 and 1945 these were the arch-enemies of the USA. I have had Jews help me many times in my life and career, knowing full-well that I am an Armenian, albeit a germag Hye Pochcagan. I have in turn helped many Jews. Turkey is playing diplomacy, why shouldn't we. The 10 Armenian families who saved Jews are well-displayed at Yad Vashem. (The leader of a underground group in France composed primarily of Jews was an Armenian). We should do the same, document the Turks and Sephardim who saved Armenian lives at risk of their own and create a honorarium to these persons at the Genocide memorial in Yerevan.

I have been to Yad Vashem. It is a holy place. My relatives are one of the 10 Armenian families honored there. As for Israel, they will soon have egg on their face.

The student is not a Turk, but a Kurd. Stop making this into blood feud. Perhaps he bought some books but was ignorant of the law. It is not like he stole Armenia's military top secrets. Armjan, stop hating for hate's sake. Use your brain to win for your cause. The common Turk has been brainwashed for 80 years that this was a war between Armenians and Turks. I guess my two-year old aunt whose head was crushed was armed and dangerous.

Too bad that I left the smoggy land of Sodom & Gomorrah. I would have just loved to attend this seminar at UCLA.

Getting married is very easy, especially if you elope and do it at a resort. Getting divorced, however, is rarely easy. You can always get married. These days women are having children in their 60's. Charlie Chaplin had children in his 80's. That actor from the "Odd Couple," Tony Randall, had his first child in his late 70's.

The Georgian Whites who were the family of my close friend told me that they knew they could NEVER go back. They waited tables in Paris for awhile but eventually married into American aristocracy.

What idiocy is in that compels Armenians not to support the Pontic Greek and Assyrian causes? Armenian organizations are clamoring about the genocide in Darfur, but some Armenians ignore those of their neighbors? Now who are the village idiots?

Ara, you are ahead of your time. You may die in poverty but one day your works will be widely read and acclaimed. In this regard you are not alone. Many now famous authors died without being recognized.

Were the books from the Matenadaran, or did he purchase them privately from an Armenian?

The few remnants of our family have one of the strongest cases for retrieval of our properties in Turkey. We have all our papers thanks to an Arab friend who smuggled them out of the Armenian hinterland to my grandmother in Bolise. Our ancestors were also so well known that we are documented in the history of the era. It is imminent that we will seek legal counsel to pursue this.

Perhaps the Turkish student was not aware of the Armenian law restricting the removal of books over 50 years of age from the country. This is no excuse, but could explain what transpired. Possibly there was no criminal intent, just ignorance of the law. The books were about Armenian culture and history. Were they the only existing copies?

There are Armenians who consider even those with only one non-Armenian great-grandparent to be not Armenian. This is counter to our cause. What transpired was the eradication (there's a new word for you all) of almost all the Christian people within the borders of present-day Turkey. Others have suffered under the Turkish yoke as well. We should definately broaden the scope of our cause to include Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, etc.

The answer to my question: ARMENIAN NATIONAL SECURITY ARRESTS TURKISH STUDENT ON CHARGES OF SMUGGLING YEREVAN, JUNE 17, ARMENPRESS: Armenian national security officers arrested a Turkish student who they said was trying to smuggle out of Armenia tens of books "of historical and cultural value" dating back to 17 and 20 centuries. A statement by the national security service said Ektan Turkilmaz, 33, a Turkish citizen from Istanbul and a student of a US-based Duke University, in North Carolina, was arrested aboard a plane bound from Yerevan to Istanbul. It said the books were about Armenian religious rites, history and culture, Armenian traditional parties. Turkyilmaz, who speaks Armenian, was the first and so far the only Turkish scholar given access to Armenia’s state archives. He was taught the language by an Armenian teacher in Istanbul, and arrived in Armenia to work on his doctoral thesis that focuses on the creation and activities of Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian parties during the final decades of the Ottoman Empire. The national security service said a criminal case was opened to investigate how the student was able to take hold of these books.