8 - Turkey still under threat of dismemberment from Russia through Orthodox Christian Armenia

Greater Armenia versus Kurdistan

(The greatest threat for Turkey and Greece are the Muslim Kurds, the fierce mountaineers  used by the Ottomans at the turn of the 20th century to slaughter the civilized Christian Armenians in the valley, the beloved millet in the Ottoman Empire, and stop the Russian drive towards the Mediterranean Sea. For the time being Putin uses Turkey as an ally against NATO but this is against hundreds of years of Russian History of descent through the Caucasus toward the warm Mediterranean Sea. Armenia is traditionaly in good terms with Iran, contrary to the Kurds who have invaded the Turkish coast of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas, replacing Greeks and Armenians and have endangered the civilization of the Ottoman Empire along with the Sunni Arabs. Israel interested in controlling the waterways of Mesopotamia should not support the Kurds but instead the Armenians who occupy the valleys of the same Mesopotamian area. Already after 750 A.D, in Bagdad, the Sunni Arabs seized to have any presence as they were replaced by the open-minded Persians of the "Thousand and one Nights". Dimiti Kitsikis)



8 - Turkey still under threat of dismemberment from Russia through Orthodox Christian Armenia

The warriors were from Eastern Armenia, fighting for centuries wars with Turks and Persians, and guardians of the Byzantine borders. They entered the Byzantine nobility through the military. They lost at Manzikert deep in Armenian territory. Later in WW1 and the Russian invasion into the Ottoman empire, they allied themselves with the Russians. The biggest and bloodiest Ottoman defeat in WW1 was at Sarikamis under a Russian Armenian army. Had there not been the Bolshevik revolution and Russia prevailed under the Czarthis would have added to Persian Eastern Armenia, Ottoman Armenia to the Mediterranean – a tremendous Russian victory for their empire that would have deeply upset the Western Powers. It would have been an extension Russian Armenia taken by the Czar from Persia in the earlier Caucasian wars.

Eastern Armenia independent is closely dependent on the Russian Federation and part of their greater economic zone for which the Western powers intervened and removed the Ukraine and is in dispute with Russia once again over the Crimea.

The wealthy Ottoman Armenian business community were diaspora in Constantinople, Black Sea and Egypt. The Gulbenkian family controlled the oil business in the Ottoman Empire. They developed this originally from Georgia and the Caspian Sea with other Armenians. They also had interests in Syria. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, they moved to London and sold their interests to BP under the Protectorates that the Western powers carved out of the Ottoman middle east. Gulbenkian became Mr 5% because he retained 5% of his former Ottoman holding sold to BP.

The same applies to the Greek diaspora in the Ottoman empire. They controlled 95% of the trading companies in Constantinople. They were everywhere in the Black Sea, Egypt, etc.

When you consider the rubble of modern Greece, excepting the Greek shipping community, this is really a sad mess today…

Diran Majarian                                            13 October 2018

5 - What Americans think of Greece today

5 - What Americans think of Greece today

 (Below is in my opinion a very good analysis of today's Greece's position in Eastern Mediterranean compared to its neighbors, by an American friend - 27 October 2017 - Dimitri Kitsikis)

Israel would have made a good model for Greece to follow when it was still a healthy, emerging market economy until the shame of 1974 and the miserable political class, who took over the leadership and ran the country into the ground and made it into an EU German protectorate.

All this on the idiocy that somehow big brother Brussels is a protection from Turkey.  In Simitis times, they even thought that they could convince Turkey to put itself in the same cage, but the Turks, respecting their succession from the Byzantines and more Greek than the Elladites, were not foolish enough to fall into such a trap. Instead of the present regime in Greece which has not even achieved the level of Turkish GDP back in 1974 – despite the transfer money, loans, etc. – Turkey successfully restructured with the IMF with Kemal Dervis and have a achieved a GDP many times the size of Greece GDP with industry and exports.  Russia is now their major trading partner and they have moved to a partial Russian alignment after the failed US coup.

I think that Erdogan and Putin could achieve a tremendous event for the Orthodox faith with a Russian Patriarch like Kyrillos of Moscow to replace Bartholomeus.   Instead of social events with the Greek elite for society marriages and baptisms, it would transform the Ecumenical Patriarch to something truly vibrant and worthy of its two thousand year heritage, just as it is growing in Russia despite 70 years of attempted eradication and forced Westernization by the Bolsheviks..   The Russians have every excuse to do this given Greece’s current atheist government and a Parliament who are hypocrites with no respect for the Orthodox faith again in favor the present forced Frankokratia here under Greek Bolsheviks. 

The Americans would go crazy with a Russian Patriarch!!!   Already they do not what to do with Erdogan and Putin….   It would be a just punishment for the EU, too.

Greece has valuable resources and human capital and a large Diaspora.  The political elite who rule Greece are totally incapable of harnessing this energy.  They only know how to negotiate bail out loans and cajole  EU transfer money.  Israel a smaller country exports twice what Greece does and with much higher added value.

As for Turkish relations – sometimes good and sometimes bad – but there is mutual respect between Turkey and Israel.  When Ergdogan tried slyly via Flotilla to violate their borders, the Israeli sent three or four Turks back to Turkey in caskets…..  They were not likely to play around with Israel again in these matters.

I met with Nicholas Burnes, former US Ambassador to Greece, recently at a Credit Suisse event.  He sees Macron and Koulis as saviors for France and Greece respectively.  He was cursing Trump every other sentence despite being a former US Diplomat.  I was thinking to myself how many average American voter would support his policies…..  Not many since Trump is now POTUS!

Frankly I do not see elections here until 2019.  Political life in Greece at present has as much interest as it did under Ioannis Rallis and German occupation…..

Diran

27 October 2017