Ara Krikorian,
What the #West did to #Armenia – and, by extension, #Artsakh – will definitely be (or already is) a Langley case study for how effective it was to leverage and weaponize Soft Power.
Just this week, it was clear that out of 368 judges elected before the 2018 Velvet Color Coup, only 14 remain in office. The judiciary has been completely culled and replaced with regime loyalists. This is the same culling and replacement as Armenia’s military, diplomatic corp, and education system saw. For over a decade before Velvet, foreign-funded media, NGOs, and their local jackals in Armenia constantly droned on about #corruption and framed everything as if the average Armenian would become an overnight millionaire and Armenia would become Switzerland if it weren’t for its government and #Russia. Before 2018, Armenia had a burgeoning #democracy and economy – especially compared to its post-Soviet peers and region, but these groups consistently demeaned it. Neither the exaggerated, excessive, and usually fabricated claims about corruption, outright defamation against leaders and institutions, nor the discrediting of its democracy were substantiated – they didn’t need to; if every English-language media company and unqualified talking head with a steady paycheck said so, it just had to be true. There is a beautiful Armenian word that I believe describes our people perfectly, “օտարամոլ”. This translates to xenomaniacal. From
@RFERL‘s own
@azatutyunradio, to
@evn_report, and
@Hetq_Trace, Armenians gobbled up what they assumed was credible information from foreign sources, while ignoring their actual educated and qualified experts, who were systematically dismissed, maligned, and undermined. These methods were not unique to Armenia, they have been used by the West and their local mercenaries to compromise and lay the groundwork for every Color Revolution before – but Armenia had many examples to learn from and avoid the same detrimental path. Today, we ignore and/or make excuses for the rampant
@civilcontractam corruption and their police state. Every day that
@NikolPashinyan clings to power, which has produced a new low and nightmare situation that doesn’t seem to end. We must end the foreign occupation of Armenia. Now, not later.