Author: Alex Jidarian

Letters to Editor of LAT: Finally, an end to a century of U.S. complicity in Armenian genocide denial

Alex Jidarian
Los Angeles Times


LETTERS to EDITOR

Finally, no more U.S. complicity in Armenian genocide denial – Los Angeles Times

People from the Armenian community celebrate President Biden’s decision to formally recognize the Armenian genocide in Beverly Hills on April 24.
(Los Angeles Times)

1:03 PM PT

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To the editor: There is no greater legacy to the lives of the more than 1 million Armenians who were killed from 1915-17 than President Biden recognizing the genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

In my joy and sorrow, I reread the Jan. 6, 1937, article printed in the Los Angeles Times, “Armenians Mourn Hero: Kerekin Manoukian, Idolized Leader Against Turkey, Dies Here.” Kerekin was my great-uncle who died before I was born, but his legacy and legend were passed down to me by my grandmother and mother, both immigrants from Van, Armenia.

The article chronicles the unbelievable courage my uncle faced as a revolutionary leader against the Turkish oppression beginning in the early 1900s: “For years he was a thorn in the side of the Turkish Empire and had a price on his head.”

At last, when I say my family survived the Armenian genocide, the words take on a much greater meaning.

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Alice Lynn, Pacific Palisades

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To the editor: The Turkish government’s denial of the Armenian genocide compounds the tragedy. This policy kills the victims twice — first the actual murders, then the murder of their memory.

Adolf Hitler is reported to have justified his genocidal intent by asking just before World War II, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

Biden has displayed courage by taking this moral stand. The Holocaust was the next genocide. Perhaps if the free world had spoken out against the Armenian genocide, millions of lives could have been saved.

Steven Ludsin, East Hampton, N.Y.

The writer was a member of the first U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, which created the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

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To the editor: On April 24, Armenians worldwide commemorated the Armenian genocide, while Turkey tried to coerce yet another U.S. president to avoid using the word “genocide.” Last year, then-President Trump said that 1.5 million Armenians “were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in the final years of the Ottoman Empire,” but he stopped short of saying it was a genocide.

Many Turks acknowledge the Armenian genocide, including prominent Turkish historian Taner Akcam.

My father, who survived the genocide and was imprisoned seven times, was brutally tortured and lost vision in his right eye, fondly remembered his Turkish friends who warned him of impending arrests and helped him escape. Yes, there are decent Turks in Turkey and elsewhere.

Bedros Kojian, Orange

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To the editor: For anyone of Armenian decent, there is only one big lie that we are reminded of every time our minds drift to thoughts of our families — the refusal to acknowledge that extermination of our people that began on April 24, 1915, in Turkey, was genocide.

Now, after 106 years, Biden has the courage to tell the world the truth so that decades of denial can finally come to an end, and the process of healing our open wounds can finally begin through dialogue and diplomacy.

Donna Tarzian, Los Angeles

Armenian Genocide discussed at Bulgarian Parliament

Alex Jidarian

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 16:05,

YEREVAN, APRIL 23, ARMENPRESS. Members of the National Assembly (Parliament) of Bulgaria have discussed the topic of the Armenian Genocide during the plenary session on April 23.

MP Arman Babikyan has announced that back in 1975 the lower house of the US legislative body has recognized the Armenian Genocide. “The citizens of Bulgaria have known the truth and have send us for protecting it. Parliamentary group “Rise Up! Thugs Out! calls the murders of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide. Thousands of Armenians wait for that grateful step. We should be grateful to the Bulgarian people who hosted the forebears of Armenians who have survived”, he said.

Tsetska Bachkova from the Democratic Bulgaria group has made a statement on behalf of the coalition about the tragic incidents that happened in the Ottoman Empire. “Bulgarians have demonstrated generosity and compassion by opening their doors before refugees. Thousands of Armenian refugees have received the hospitality of the Bulgarians and decided to stay here. They became a part of the Bulgarian people within the course of the time”, she said, adding that their faction supports replacing the term “mass killings of Armenians” with the term “genocide” in the Bulgarian documents.

“Bulgaria, which speaks about murders, must recognize the Genocide with a decision or a statement of the National Assembly, as it has been done by dozens of states”, the “Rise Up! Thugs Out! parliamentary group said.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Letters to the Editor: Ireland must recognise Armenian genocide

Alex Jidarian
         
The Armenian genocide began in 1915 during the First World War causing the deaths of more than 1.5m Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian people

People hold portraits of Armenian intellectuals — who were detained and deported in 1915 — during a rally in Istanbul in 2018, held to commemorate the 103nd anniversary of the 1915 mass killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Picture: Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images

Fri, 23 Apr, 2021 – 09:30

Genocide is the most serious crime against humanity. The Holocaust caused the deaths of 6m people.

The UN was founded to prevent such crimes against humanity and the Genocide Convention was passed in 1948 to ensure the words ‘never again’ actually meant what they said.

Genocides occurred prior to the Holocaust, committed against indigenous people in the Americas; by Germany in south-west Africa, and by the Ottoman Turkish government during the First World War.

Genocides have continued to occur in breach of the Genocide Convention, especially in Cambodia, East Timor, Bosnia, and Rwanda.

Genocides will continue to occur unless positive actions are taken to prevent or stop genocide, and its perpetrators must be exposed and held to account.

The Armenian genocide began in 1915 during the First World War causing the deaths of more than 1.5m Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian people.

Subsequent governments of Turkey have denied that what occurred was genocide, thereby avoiding accountability or reparations. Recent conflicts across the Middle East from Libya to Myanmar have the potential to lead to acts of genocide.

Now is the time to act to prevent further acts of genocide.

The Armenian genocide has been recognised by the parliaments of 30 countries including 16 EU countries, the US Congress, and the EU Parliament.

Ireland has so far failed to do so.

We the undersigned call on members of the Oireachtas, including the Dáil and Seanad to pass a motion formally recognising the Armenian genocide as an initial step towards helping to prevent further acts of genocide.

Mairead Maguire, cofounder of The Peace People; Roger Cole, Peace and Neutrality Alliance; Barry Sweeney, World Beyond War, Ireland Chapter; John Lannon, Shannonwatch; Davy McCauley, Derry Anti War Coalition; Edward Horgan, Veterans For Peace Ireland; Niall Farrell, Galway Alliance Against War; Joe Murray, AFRI, Action From Ireland, and Martin Leavy, Yearly Meeting Quaker Peace Committee

Beirut: Aoun Invited to Attend Armenian Genocide Anniversary

Alex Jidarian
NaharNet, Lebanon
April 16 2021

President Michel Aoun received an invitation from his Armenian counterpart to attend the anniversary of the Aremnian genocide on April 24, the National News Agency reported on Friday.

NNA said Aoun received at Baabda Palace Armenian Ambassador to Lebanon Vahagn Atabekyan.

Atabekyan conveyed an invitation to Aoun from the Armenian President to attend the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, which will be held in Armenia on April 24, 2021.

Armenia President: We Armenians created artificial barriers with and were afraid of the Diaspora

Alex Jidarian
News.am, Armenia
00:27, 17.04.2021

I can’t grant the title of People’s Artist of Armenia to an Armenian figure, if he or she is not a citizen of Armenia since that would be absurd. This is what President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian told Armenian reporters in Tbilisi, recalling, for example, the fact that Sofiko Tchiaureli was a People’s Artist of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic.

“We Armenians need to change our attitude towards Armenia-Diaspora relations. I believe we built artificial barriers between Armenia and the Diaspora and were afraid of the Diaspora for a certain period for some reason, but the Diaspora is our real and most important asset. Of course, it’s clear that there need to be certain restrictions in terms of public service, but we need to be able to engage everyone, not divide people. We won’t get anywhere, if we don’t work together,” he said.

Tbilisi hosts photo exhibition on Armenian Genocide

Alex Jidarian
Public Radio of Armenia
 

An exhibition of paintings entitled “The Armenian Genocide” was held in Tbilisi’s Freedom Square, the Armenian Embassy in Georgia informs.

The exhibition featured paintings of the Armenian Genocide, the pogroms in Baku and Sumgait, as well as Armenian cultural monuments that fell victim to Azerbaijani vandalism in Artsakh and Nakhichevan.

The exhibition was organized by the “Armenian Community of Georgia” non-governmental organization.

Has Azerbaijan’s Use of Drones in Karabakh Transformed Warfare?

Alex Jidarian
The National Interest
March 30 2021

The strategic lessons drawn from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict were not the dazzling use of drones but the importance of using airpower for close air support missions and battlefield interdiction strikes.

by Adam Leong Kok Wey

The recent Nagorno-Karabakh War has generated lots of interest and excitement about the domination of drones and the purported transformation of future warfare. Azerbaijan forces had used Turkish Bayraktar TB2 Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAV) and IAI Harop “kamikaze” loitering drones extensively in attacking Armenian ground forces, armor, artillery, and tactical ground-based air defense systems. Pictures and videos circulating on the internet provided clear evidence of the staggering destruction unleashed by Azerbaijan’s drones against Armenia’s ground forces. The results speak for themselves. It is estimated that Armenia lost 185 T-72 main battle tanks (MBTs), ninety armored fighting vehicles (AFVs), 182 artillery pieces, twenty-six surface-to-air-missile (SAM) launchers, and fourteen radars. In contrast, Azerbaijan lost just twenty-two MBTs, forty-one AFVs, and twenty-five drones in the war. The massive destruction unleashed by attack drones combined with a successful ground offensive by the Azerbaijanis forced the Armenian government to sue for peace and turn over swathes of contested land to Azerbaijan.

But has the usage of drones by the Azerbaijanis transformed modern warfare? The persuasive answer lies in lessons from strategic history.

Drones (at least the powered versions) had first been experimented with during World War I as target practice for pilots and anti-aircraft artillery gunners. Drones continued to be developed during the interwar years. During World War II, the Germans had built remotely piloted vehicles such as anti-ship missiles, and the V1 and V2 rockets. What was more interesting was the U.S. Navy’s usage of Interstate TDR-1 attack drones that proved the concept in a combat environment.

The TDR-1 was originally built for the U.S. military as a target drone and it was only later that television and advanced remote-control and data communications were built into it. The TDR-1 can carry a 2,000 lb bomb or a torpedo and was flown remotely piloted by a controller in a Grumman TBR Avenger mothership. The U.S. Navy formed three Special Task Air Groups (STAG) to test and use the TDR-1 against Japanese targets in the Pacific. STAG-1 started deploying to Bougainville Island in 1944 and conducted tests before later flying attack missions, often through thick anti-aircraft artillery fire, against Japanese naval and ground targets. Later, the US Navy used the TDR-1 as a “kamikaze” drone by having the TBR-1 drop its bomb on a target and then loiter and attack any other target of opportunity by crashing into it.

However, the TBR-1 also suffered from mechanical failures and occasional problems in remote controlling it effectively. It was reported it had a slightly better than 50 percent mission success rate. More importantly, STAG-1 did not lose any pilots in these dangerous combat missions. The U.S. Navy however, cancelled the drone attack program at the end of October 1944 as by then, the United States had the massive industrial capacity necessary to build large numbers of combat aircraft and the capability to produce sufficient numbers of highly trained pilots, rendering the asymmetrical usage of drones unnecessary.

The operational deployment of TBR-1 drones by the U.S. Navy during World War II presaged the usage of today’s Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAV) optimized for precision airstrikes and suicide missions.

The strategic lessons drawn from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict were not the dazzling use of drones but the importance of using airpower for close air support missions and battlefield interdiction strikes. The Nagorno-Karabakh air campaign proved that air power’s strategic utility also resides at the tactical end and not only in chiefly striking at strategic targets, challenging the popularly held belief of some airpower theorists that propounded strategic bombing and parallel airstrikes. The second lesson is the extreme importance of having an up-to-date integrated air defense system (IADS) that can defend a contested air space with multilayered air defense systems coupled with the latest anti-drone countermeasures, which the Armenians did not have.

More disturbingly, the furious protests by Armenians against their government for losing the war (they even lynched the Armenian Parliament’s speaker), reflected the intense anger, humiliation, and frustration of the Armenians. It appears that the recent ending of the war may not last long. Liddell Hart, a prominent strategic thinker of the 20th century once said, “The legitimate object of war is a more perfect peace.” The ghost of Versailles may haunt the bitter ending of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Adam Leong Kok Wey is associate professor in strategic studies, and the Deputy Director of Research in the Centre for Defence and International Security Studies (CDiSS) at the National Defence University of Malaysia. His latest books are Strategy and Special Operations: Eastern and Western Perspectives (forthcoming mid-2021 by NDUM Press) and Killing the Enemy! Assassination Operations during World War II, published by Bloomsbury (2020).



Armenpress: Pashinyan extends condolences over passing of “embodiment of patriotism” commander of 1992 Battle of Shushi

Alex Jidarian

Pashinyan extends condolences over passing of “embodiment of patriotism” commander of 1992 Battle of Shushi

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 17:07, 31 March, 2021

YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan offered condolences over the death of Major-General Arkady-Ter Tadevosyan, a renowned retired military commander who died at the age of 81 today in Yerevan.

“It was with deep sorrow that I learned about the passing of Hero of Artsakh, legendary military commander, Major-General Arkady-Ter Tadevosyan – our dear Komandos.

Arkady-Ter Tadevosyan passed a brilliant military path and with his activities served his country superbly by participating in the shaping of the glorious victories for the Armenian people, Armenia and Artsakh. He is a hero of the Artsakh Liberation War, the commander of the military operation for the liberation of Shushi, which is famous for being a textbook example of military studies and is a testament to Komandos’ military expertise.

Hero of Artsakh Arkady Ter-Tadevosyan is the embodiment of patriotism and high professionalism. His name will remain with eternal glory in the Armenian history as a worthy son to the Armenian nation and a devoted military serviceman whose entire career has given pride and the joy of victory to the Armenian people.

My condolences to Major-General Arkady Ter-Tadevosyan’s family and friends, and us all.

Eternal glory to his memory,” Pashinyan said in the message.

Major-General Tadevosyan, known by his nom-de-guerre Komandos, died in a Yerevan hospital on March 31. The cause of death wasn’t immediately reported.

Tadevosyan is best known as the commander of the military operation which liberated Shushi in 1992.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

Unprecedented: Armenia National Football Team wins 3 times in a row

Alex Jidarian

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 21:49, 31 March, 2021

YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. Armenia hosted Romania in the third round of the World Cup qualification.

ARMENPRESS reports no goals were scored in the first half.

In the 56th minute the Armenians were able to score a goal, but in the 62nd minute Romanians equalized. After the 1st goal, Romanians took the initiative and scored the 2nd goal.

In the 77th minute Puskás received a red card, leaving the Romanian team with 10 players. AT the end of the match the Armenian National Team was mainly attacking and soon the Armenian equalized. Minutes after the Romanians violated the rules and the Armenian team gained a 11-meter strike, which was perfectly implemented, making the score 3-2.

This was a historical victory for the Armenian team, since for the first time it wins 3 times in a row in the World Cup qualification.

Photos by Gevorg Perkuperkyan


Armenia Special Investigation Service prohibits ARF-D member from leaving country for 3 days

Alex Jidarian
News.am, Armenia
April 2 2021
23:35, 02.04.2021

Member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun political party Ishkhan Saghatelyan posted the following on his Facebook page:

“As you know, since November 2020, I am charged within the scope of a criminal case regarding the organizing of an illegal assembly. They tried to arrest me illegally, and after they failed, they applied another pre-trial measure — signature to not leave the country, and with this, they restricted my right to freedom of movement.

I had to leave for abroad to carry out a major task related to the political party and had addressed the Special Investigation Service of Armenia with the request for permission to leave the country for three days. Yesterday I received the decision on rejection. The investigator substantiated the rejection with the fact that it might be impossible to oversee my proper line of conduct from a distance.

I get the impression that the investigator didn’t even try to give a justification that is well-grounded in the legal sense. Once again, I record the fact that the Special Investigation Service continues to fulfill the illegal orders and decisions of a mad man and are committing illegal acts.”