Azerbaijan launches operation against Nagorno-Karabakh and demands surrender
bbc.com
Azerbaijan has said its military measures in Nagorno-Karabakh are continuing for a second day, having launched what it calls "anti-terror" operations in the enclave.
It says it will not stop until Karabakh's ethnic Armenians surrender.
Tensions in the South Caucasus have been high for months around the breakaway region, recognised internationally as part of Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan and Armenia last went to war three years ago.
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You know why we in the west suck? We never do the right thing unless in benefits us directly. We've known for years that this was going to happen again and did jack shit to help the Armenian people secure themselves against it. We will go to the ends of the earth to protect Israel, but Armenia? Sorry y'all, your genocide just don't hit the same.
For anyone who wants to know more about Karabakh and the horrible shit Azerbaijan has been pulling, I recommend checking a few of the more recent episodes on the "Popular Front" podcast. Also, send love and respect to people like James Adomian and Joe from "Lions Led By Donkeys" podcast, who repatriated to Armenia over the past few years. If there's any justice in this world then hopefully some non-asshole power will lend Armenia the strength to defend itself.
Wait so if we suck for never always doing the right thing, how bad is everyone outside the west for not even doing it some of the time?
I dunno, the majority don't really go around acting like world police in the first place, so it's not really a comparable thing? Also, it's not like we just have a "whoopsy" and do the wrong thing every so often. It's a big old shit layer cake all the way down with a non-awful icing on top named WWII. We can topple democratic governments so that banana prices stay low, but if there isn't an obvious benefit or a lobbyist throwing money at it, then it doesn't happen. No country should be acting in the way America does to begin with, but if we're doing it anyway, we may as well at least try to demonstrate some measure of compassion and altruism in providing defensive aid.
What we're really talking about (or should be) is the elimination of war in modern society and that was the goal of the League of Nations and it's successor the United Nations. That in of itself was intended as a way for countries large and small to maintain the peace and contribute troops to defensively stopping wars from happening. I'm gonna say we suck yet again though, as the US/West just couldn't get off that sweet war juice and dismantle it's military industrial complex. War is money to a lot of folk, so the "defense" industry can keep greasing the right palms to keep the machine moving. We do what we want, regardless of what the U.N. or I.C.C. dictate, and in not being able to be held to account, we nullify the validity and effectiveness of those institutions.
ACAB, especially the world ones.
The west is not just America.
Didn't say that it was? If we're having a discussion on military spending, global policing, western powers military's and their combined lack of action, then the singular country accounting for 40% of all military spending worldwide (that's part of the west) deserves a bit more emphasis in my opinion. They're all failures, some failures just deserve more credit.
I kinda wonder if Russia could just invade Armenia, just to get them some NATO guns to defend themselves with.
Armenia is a member of the CSTO, right? That's the NATO alternative run by Russia, as I understand it. Russia has no ability to actually help Armenia in this conflict, though.
I agree that the west is awful about doing the right thing if there's no compounding factor to juice it like oil.
But Armenia made a decision to ally themselves with Russia for protection. That has proven to be a terrible mistake. Let's not pretend this was a completely unavoidable situation that the west could just walk into and stop. Armenia's membership in CSTO complicates that greatly.
So .. gonna go with "a little of column a, a little of column b" here. I wish the west was more righteous and less greedy. I wish Armenia had chosen better friends.
From what I know, the roots of CSTO basically go back to the early 90's and a time where a collective guarantee of regional safety largely made sense after the fracture of the soviet states. There was a lot of hope for Russia back then, and at the time, it probably made a lot of sense 30 years ago. New Russia, not so much...
So I see what your saying but also fully understand why a country of under 3 million and a very sparse economy would take the deal to defend against a territory hungry dictatorial petro state. How about we nudge that 50/50 to a 70/30?
I hear you, but they didn't timewarp from the late 90s to today, either. 2014 would have been a good time to think carefully about their defensive coalition membership.
Edit: I want to finish by saying I wish the US lived up to our ideals more often and that I also wish Armenia had better protection through their defense pacts.
It was, Armenia hasn't ever been offered an alternative. So let's not pretend that "the West" is clean of complicity in a genocide here.
It didn't choose, don't pretend, again. NATO has Turkey as a member, and supports that member, and that member supports Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan is attacking Armenia.