LionHeart

Why "democracy" then? Isn't it an oxymoron?

Ara, in connection with the recent events, you described Armenia as a "mafia democracy." What is your definition of that term?

You mean we offered the other cheek. Because 200 years from now the Turks will say "look, even Armenians admit that they were offering us girls." Sorry, I like seeing you screw up and teasing you

Sure, we should always think that. Russia's alliance with Armenia is not absolute. Russia wants Azerbaijan as well. They helped Azeris in 1920, 1921, 1923, and later in 1988-92. During the NK war, Russians were helping both sides, depending on their internal developments and momentary interests. We can never guess exactly what Russia's interests are at the moment. As a general rule, if Armenia is defeated by Azerbaijan, it will lose its value for Russia. If Azerbaijan launches a surprise attack and quickly gains territories, Russia may threaten and stuff, but it will be too late, Azerbaijan will use the new gains to strengthen its position diplomatically (after all, de-jure, it all belongs to them), and again we will be presented with a new harsh reality (just like in 1916, or 1920). Russia will then start courting Azerbaijan i hopes of winning it over to its side. We will be royally screwed. The only way to avoid it is to maintain the clear military edge over Azerbaijan. And with the oil money, it's a question if we can do that.

You mean what happens if we don't fight. Otherwise some Turk will say "Look, even Armenians admit, they fought against Turkey and lost, no genocide" What is Baboonistan, Avo? Never heard that name.

So, my friends, are we saying we are doomed? We can't match Baku's oil revenues. Is this the end?

I wonder if the oil will become Azerbaijan's curse as well. So far it's been benefiting the country, given the annual GDP growth rates. Which is alarming if it gets used for its military. I would hope the oil would have the opposite effect, as in Eritrea, and other oil-cursed areas.

John Perkins said that Israel was the pawn of the US. Isn't it the other way around?

There were around 1 million Azeris and Kurds living in Kelbajar, Lachin, and eslewhere around Nagorno Karabakh before 1991. Do you find any Azeris or Kurds there now? Things change. As long as we keep our dream alive, one day the right opportunity will knock on our door again.

I browsed the history of changes of the article. Seems several Armenians have contributed to the improvement.

Well, Dbachmann, based on his userpage (I am not too familiar with wiki) is not Armenian, but swiss.

They removed the Armenian history tag from "Urartu" page as well in Wikipedia. Someone is removing every Armenian connection in the article.

Do you contribute there as well, anoushik? VartanM and others need many other Armenians to join them in improving those articles. I wish I had the time.

Well, I don't edit Wiki due to time constraints, but from what I have seen, as long as you have good sources and know the rules, the authors' credentials are irrelevant. Right now youngsters searching for Armenia primarily read the Wiki article, so it needs some attention.

Hagob, you can edit Wikipedia if you have all that knowledge, good sources, and time. Currently, Armenian related articles are filled with pro-Turkish anti-Armenian nonsense.

hagopn, 200 years from now the paragraph above could be used by a pro-Turkish scholar as an evidence that Armenians have a weak, undeveloped national identity, and are nothing more than slaves, mentally and emotionally. Just like Ronald Suny distorts Joseph Emin's account of Armenians in 18th c. to pretty much say the same. And without real national identity, we are not entitled to a statehood. And should be happy with the small territory that we have. It only serves Turkish propaganda. I reject the idea of a deep, long lasting psychological handicap applied in general to our nation. As I reject any negative generalization applied to our nation. It only serves as a harmful feedback for us. Any such psychological effect is individual and effemeral--Armenians in diaspora avoid the pro-Armenian theories due to societal pressure. You put such an Armenian in the republic long enough, and he will start thinking differently. It's all about the environment. We are a great nation, albeit with the some of the shortcomings of any other humans, but with a spirit and identity strong enough to create miracles. I agree with the rest of your analysis.

Not to mention that the Treaty of Alexandrapol was never valid--it was signed by an ex-member of the Arm. gov't after the government had resigned, and after the Bolsheviks had taken over. Plus, the ToA was never ratified by Armenia. And Treaty of Kars can't be valid either since Armenia didn't act as an independent state according to its free will. By the way, Hellektor, you realize that the map in your icon is only a fraction of our demanded lands, right? It excludes southern and westnermost provinces.

Where did you get that info, Mosjan?

You are welcome, Acc. By the way, regarding the fact that Azeris are human (with all the associated vices), it's helpful to remember that Armenians are genetically close to Turks and Azeris. It's something that every Armenian should be profoundly proud of (once they realize what it actually means).

Harut, the reason that Hayk and Xald could easily be the same is because in Armenian, "l" and "y" are often interchangable. For example, the word "galis em" in some dialects is "kayis em." Same with H and X--Vanetsis sometimes say "Xayk" instead of "Hayk" even today. The Urartuans could be speaking one such dialect of ancient Armenian, and their god's name could have passed to other Armenian dialects. Lehman Haupt showed that that Urartuans called themselves sons of Khald. Prof. Meschannikov was the one suggesting that Hayk is Xald. In that case, the self-name of Armenians becomes exactly as Khorenatsi described--they identified themselves with their god/patriarch, called themselves sons of Xald/Hayk, and that's the name that they ended up collectively applying to themselves. The Behistun inscription could be saying that the particular person was son of Xald--i.e. "Son of Hayk," meaning Armenian. Remember what medieval Armenian historians called all Armenians--Haykazun, i.e. "son of Hayk."

I was hoping Accelerated would ask me why I believe that Azeris killed their own by mistake. Since he accepted my version uncritically, I will need to do some explaining:) There is one VERY important fact that is unknown by many about the Khojalu event, even though it's undisputed--the location of the massacre. The Kjojalu massacre didn't happen in Khojalu. It happened about 10 km away from the village, right next to the Azeri positions (a few hundred meters away). That's where the dead were found. There is a second important fact, interestingly used by Azeris agianst us, but actually proving our innocence. Some of the bodies were shot blank point. And some were mutilated. And get this--they weren't mutilated when foreign journalists first visitted the area--they were mutilated by the time the journalists returned there a few days later. Now, Azeris don't dispute any of this. What the Azeris say is this: Those evil Armenians let Azeris leave the town, and once they got to the border, Armenians killed them. Then, a few days later, Armenians came back to mutilate them. The reason this is absurd, and the reason those two facts prove our innocence, is pure logic. The shootings lasted for 7-8 hours. There is no way on earth that Armenians would be able to massacre hundreds of Azeris, for hours, under the nose of well-armed Azeri troops, who were just meters away. At the very least, the Azeris would provide a cover fire (firing at Armenains), so the civilians could cross over to them. Armenians would be shot and killed--especially if they tried to shoot Azeri civilians point blank. And Azeris were pretty heavily armed--the nearby city of Ahgdam itself had huge arsenal of heavy weaponry and ammo. There is also no way that Armenians could come back and spend hours mutilating the dead Azeris, again without being shot at by the Azeri troops. And let's think about this--why would Armenians let Azeris leave Khojalu, have the walk for 10 km, and then kill them--in the most dangerous (for Armenians) position? When they could easily kill the Azeris right in Khojalu, during the fight, and easily explain it all as collateral damage? Doesn't make sense. What clearly happened is that the Azeri troops didn't know that Khojalu residents were coming their way. They saw dark figures against the snow in the distance, panicked, assumed that Armenians were again attacking them, and kept firing at them. The Khojalu Azeris themselves assumed they were being fired at by Armenians. And how do we know that the Azeri soldiers didn't know that Khojalu residents were coming their way? Because (again this is another undisputed fact) they themselves instructed the refugees to go to the village Nakhichevanik, mistakenly thinking that the village was under Azeri control. The village was actually under Armenian control, and there was a brief skirmish between the armed residents of Khojalu and Armenians of Nakhichevanik, and here Armenians were defeated. What this means is that the Azeris somehow had false intelligence about the positions of Azeris and Armenians, which lead to the mistaken massacre. By the way, there is a very good chance that the massacre was orchestrated by Turkey--with the purpose of removing pro-Russian Mutalibov. From Turkish newspapers, we konw that Turkey had something to do with Mutalibov's removal. Turkish agents could have easily manipulated the intelligence sources of Azeris, giving them false info. Oh, and who scalped and mutilated the dead "Azeris?" The Azeri soldiers themselves, once they realized their mistake, and decided to scalp a few cadavers and put a few pullets at close range, to make it seem it was a brutal genocide by Armenians. And most likely the cadavers were not those of Azeris, but those of Armenians taken hostage by Khojalu Azeris themselves (those hostages are still unaccounted for). By the way, those who read Russian, here is an excellent discussion of all this evidence I talked about, complete with sources: http://www.armenianway.com/aw/News/levon/Khojalu/index.html.

Hellektor, when I say Azeris are human, I mean that they are guided by the same human instincts as everyone else. They hate us, and would do the most brutal acts against us. That's human. They do not hate their own, and they would not massacre their own. That too, is human. Mutalibov said what he said because he was angry at his opposition, and decided to pain them as evil. Chingiz was killed because he uncovered that Azeris killed Azeris, not because he uncovered an conspiracy on the part of Azeris to kill Azeris. The unfortunate result of Mutalibov's statement is that it gave Armenia false assurance--Armenians though "well if Mutalibov says it, we can quote him and have credibility." They didn't realize that Mutalibov's version makes no sense, and that prevented them from pursuing the more logical version--i.e. massacre by mistake (which is supported by evidence).

That's actually the official version of the Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia. I think it's a good one.

Accelerated, don't believe everything you read on Wikipedia. You will be surprised at the amount of trash posted there by Turko-Azeri propagandists. Me and a few other Armenians (who are members here, though I will protect their identity) are actually working there to clean up much of the mess (including the Khojalu page). Our ranks there are currently few, so we do need many many more interested, dedicated, and knowledgable Armenians joining Wikipedia. So, do not hesitate to do it. Make sure to thoroughlly study the 3-4 pages on Wiki policy--they will be extremely helpful in making your work effective. I agree, the scenario of Azeris intentionally killing their own for political gain is unlikely. They are humans after all, and humans do not usually do that. What happened actually is quite simple. Only 10 Azeri civilians died in Khojalu. Armenians let the rest of the Azeris leave. Once they got to the border, they were shot down by Azeri soldiers, who took them for Armenians. It was not a massacre for political gain--it was a massacre of mistaken identity.

Error 404, you have valid questions about the linguistic difference between Urartuan and Armenian. It's sometimes good to think outside of the box. What makes you think that Urartuans spoke Urartuan? We don't have audio files from the period, after all.