Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 10/5/23 Dennis Marburger on the Fall of Nagorno-Karabakh

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

Scott was joined by Dennis Marburger to discuss the shelling and invasion of the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as the Republic of Artsakh. Last month, after a ten-month siege, Azerbaijan invaded and forced nearly everyone living in the enclave to flee. Marburger lays out what happened and explains how listeners can help those suffering in this largely ignored humanitarian crisis.  Discussed on the show: Armenian Missionary Association of America | Donate Here  Follow Dennis Marburger @DennisMarburge1 This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Pools Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the brand new, enough already, time to end the war on terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton.4 you can sign up to the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show okay you guys on the line again i have our good friend dennis marburger and he's just been a great friend of the show for i don't know 20 years or something like that and a good friend of mine and he's an armenian-american and he's upset as about what's going on in what's called Artsock or Nagorno-Karabakh, which is an Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan as the borders have shaken out in the post-Cold War world here.

And as we discussed on the show a few weeks ago, the Azerbaijani's had launched a major assault as we covered for the last year or so on the show with Dennis. they had instituted a much tighter siege and virtually closing the so-called humanitarian corridor through there and all that. And now matters are much worse. Welcome back to the show, Dennis. How are you, sir? Thanks, Scott. Doing well. But as you say, the news from Artsakh is disastrous. it was or is an independent republic and what was left of it this the what was then the surviving unoccupied remnant was totally surrounded by annexationist Azerbaijani aggressors and after

starving the people there for about 10 months and doing different things to debilitate their situation. In addition to that starvation blockade, Azerbaijan launched on September 19th, indiscriminate shelling of Artsakh, military and civilian areas. They sent infantry and I think armor too, but infantry following the shelling across into the territory, the small Artsakh defense army, which is it was outnumbered and outgunned by huge amounts, fought very bravely for about a day, day and a half.

And then finally it became clear it was just, it was futile. And since the Azerbaijani's is their practice, which they deny, but has been documented, they were attacking civilian areas as well as the, where the military troops were. And so they surrendered. There were some areas that were cut off and surrounded and people weren't sure it was going on there. It's worth noting that one of the first things that they did in this assault was to knock out many of the communications and monitoring facilities. And so the concern is that atrocities may have been committed in areas where it wasn't, where people couldn't monitor them

or verify. So there have been some stories that have come up from people that came from those areas, but that's not been verified yet. So we can't say that for sure happened. But it would be consistent and with past practice. But so the end result of all this is that a few days ago, there was basically an exodus. There's no other way to describe it. Roughly 120,000 people, that's all that was left. But they were there, men, women, children, elderly.

They left that area through the Lachine Corridor in a very arduous trip where they reported, sometimes the cars would move for a couple of minutes and they'd stop for an hour. to move for a couple of minutes, stop. And what was normally a two-hour drive became like 50 hours, but it looks like they got virtually everybody out. There were a few left. There were a few infirm people that are still there, and so they're trying to get them evacuated.

But this is an area like we talked about before, Scott, for millennia, as Armenian. And this area that hadn't been occupied yet had very low Azerbaijani population. It was never part of, actually, it was never part of Azerbaijan, not of the sovereign Azerbaijan. It never was. So it wasn't really political. inside Azerbaijan. But then

they've just taken it and Ali of rationalized it with his lies. And now the thing that people are working on the most is to try to get help for these 120,000 people that were forced out of their homeland.

And so this is essentially, and if I hear you right, and if I understood what I had read in the New York Times and their coverage of this, that this is essentially, When you're saying, you know, there's nobody left, it's at the infirm. That's, you mean, in the entire area, all of the Armenians have now been cleansed and forced through this corridor into Armenia itself.

Is that correct? Other than just the very oldest people left behind. Right. There's just some infirm. And, of course, you know, dogs, cats, and some, you know, animals. Yeah. Because all you could take, you just had to get what you could quickly and get in the car. and go.

Well, but so what are the greatest humanitarians in the world the American State Department saying about this, Dennis? Oh, geez, well, okay, five days, it's very interesting you should ask to that, Scott, because five days before this assault was launched, the acting assistant secretary of state,

I believe her name is Yuri Kim, was testifying to a Senate committee. And she testified that the United States would not tolerate any additional Azerbaijani aggression against Artsakh, Nagorno-Karabakh, that whole thing. And those words were made a mockery. She, I think, visited Armenia. I think she was there with Samantha Power.

Oh, and she's another one, U.S. what, the Agency for International Development. And Samantha Power made a name for herself saying, oh, genocide is terrible. We have to prevent genocides. Not a word. well, this was going on. She wouldn't even acknowledge that it was ethnic cleansing, much less genocide, okay, you know. And so there has been, Scott, as we talked about before, U.S. financial support for Azerbaijan and for Aliyev and his aggression.

U.S. military collaboration with Azerbaijan and Ali even his aggression. Same thing with support from the European Union and NATO. And so then all of a sudden people, oh, it's just. there's a problem here. And this has been going on for years and years, and these people have been abandoned. Yeah. And even in the last 10 months, there was even at one point, there was a large humanitarian convoy that was these trucks that were sitting right by this illegal checkpoint that

Azerbaijan had set up. They just, they never let him in. Yeah. I mean, Dennis, in it the case that we can always tell the difference between when the State Department is really upset versus when they're issuing some kind of pro forma statement. oh geez we don't like this versus when they're really serious i mean it doesn't even necessarily have to come with threats but the tone is always very very clear when they mean it versus when it's coming with a wink and a nudge here right right and in fact the state department spokesman

i can't remember his name not was not kirby but somebody else that was in washington and being uh the press were asking him these questions uh i'm going to say the name was Matthew Miller, but maybe that's, maybe I've got the wrong guy in mind here. But anyway, he wouldn't call it epic cleansing or genocide or anything like that. And there's been very much, you know, both sidesism going on at all. We wish the two sides would talk and have dialogue instead of, well, one side is attacking and trying to destroy the other. And they're not willing to identify it or do anything about it. And so they say that they should talk about it. It's like, it's just beyond words, just how useless and infuriating it is.

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And in other words, if they really meant what they said, it would be, we are calling on the Azerbaijani's to X, Y, Z, blah, blah, blah, not, oh, you boys better work it out when it's being worked out with facts on the ground right now. And we know what's going on. I mean, well, let me ask you this. I only know of two excuses, no good reasons. I wonder if you know of any more. But this really just comes down to America has NSA listening stations. in Azerbaijan, and they have an oil pipeline running through there.

The BTC, the pipeline from hell, Romando called it, that runs from Baku, Azerbaijan, through Tbilisi, Georgia, onto Jaya and Turkey in the port on the Mediterranean Sea there. And that's it. And that's why they don't care what happens to the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, or Art Sock, as you call it? Yeah, well, and so I think the other excuse, those are, what you've mentioned, I believe is true.

And, of course, there's also Nord Stream. Again, let's recall what happened to the Nord Stream pipeline. If Biden truly is the Nord Stream bomber, which some people say, then he had an even bigger role in this than we had thought previously, because with that pipeline going out, oh, now they've got to turn to the other pipeline. And ironically, of course, as you know, it's a lot of this is, it's still rushing gas that's going through to Europe, but now it's coming through Azerbaijan, so so Aliev gets a taste of it, you know, so that it bolsters him and gives him more money. So it's really a rotten thing. But I think the other thing, too, is there's geopolitical. Some people are saying, oh, yeah, well, we want to do something because maybe in some way this will harm Iran in some way. So I think then that ties into your NSAid listing station thing, too. So there's some of that that's going on. And some people say, oh, this somehow harms Russia. But then he Wait, wait, wait. So on Iran, they're really following this, they'll say, well, gee, Russia seems to have, you know, there were Russian peacekeepers, so-called, and they did hardly anything. I mean, they didn't. They just saw what was going on. And some people allege that not only was Turkey really backing up Azerbaijan, as we know they would be, not only did Azerbaijan have all these sophisticated Israeli weapons, not just the drones, but other things, too, huge arms trade between Israel and Azerbaijan. And not only were said the U.S. and NATO and the EU that were complicit in this, but Russia.

uh the same thing you know now machine you know it is people say he's sort of turned us back on put and for a while he's been saying oh we we want to change our geopolitical stance um and people say well it looks like maybe the russian said okay and both in words and deeds said okay well here you go bad choice and uh so allegedly this was going to hurt russia but we know that ali of and putin have been very close on some things um and as i think we said before ali of and uh also erdogan in turkey they're playing both sides of that nato russia war in ukraine but so but i do think that there are people that will claim in fact and i i know of one in particular that he's here in michigan a former state republican party chairman who was just

awful things about this and he and he tries oh the gorgda karbaka rots arcsock oh they like the donbos republics well the donbos republics declared independence and as americans we'd say hey we're separatists we understand that and they only got into ukraine in the first place because you know lennon did an edict just like uh khrushchev did with crimea and like stallin did with artsok and that Kijavan. So what's so sacred about that sort of thing? But in the case of Artsakh, just to reemphasize for anybody that's listening, those people are not separatists. They were already independent. They were independent of the Soviet Union before it finally imploded and before Azerbaijan itself became a sovereign state, so called. So Azerbaijan has no claim about

territorial integrity over Artsakh. And so everything they say about it is a lie. But not only that, even if they did have a claim, it's up to the people to decide, self-determination. And and the right to alter or abolish tyrannical government. We as Americans believe that that's in our DNA, but the Azerbaijani dictator, the tin pot despot, of course, he doesn't believe in any of that. He mistreats the people in Azerbaijan terribly. Of course, he does terrible things to the Armenians and on top of that,

now they've been kidnapping. I'm not sure if you saw this, but they've been kidnapping and abducting political leaders from Artsakh and former military leaders, falsely charging them with things like terrorism or separatism. They're probably abusing these guys. guys are probably going to try to get some sort of confessions, so-called, or propaganda statements out of them. It's really outrageous. And by the way, as people point out, in one case, it's this fellow Rubin Vardagnan who was close to Putin at one time. And he's, Ruben Vardinian

was a very successful man. He could have stayed out of it and lived a very comfortable life, but he went to Ardstock because he knew that the people needed help and assistance and wanted to do whatever he could. Now he's been illegally and immorally kidnapped by Azerbaijan, false charges against him. He's, you know, in a bad situation there. but you don't see anybody lifting a finger for all these prisoners. Plus, Azerbaijan's got a bunch of POWs from the earlier 44-day terror war of aggression they launched. And it's a humanitarian nightmare, and it's also a geopolitical one because what the United States has done by winking at this and by not enforcing Section 907, by giving him money and the military collaboration, they're growing a monster.

You know, John Quincy Adams says, if we don't go abroad and search of monsters to destroy, the United States government has gone abroad in search of monsters to grow, and Azerbaijan has been one of them, and they can deny it all they want, but it's the truth. Yeah, well, and, I mean, you just can't overstate the irony and the sickness. It's not just a backing a dictator, but Aliev's the son of the guy who was a KGB enforcer in the battle days and who overthrew a democratically elected

president I'll say his name wrong, Eletchebe or something like that. Oh, Elshabe. Yeah, yeah, that guy, right, right. They overthrew him. It was British Petroleum in the MI6 overthrew him in 1993 and installed

this KGB thug to replace him. And we're sitting here in 2023 talking about his son, the dictator, ethnically cleansing this enclave. And this is a guy who, His, just like his father's been backed by the United States ever since then.

It's the greatest of outrageous. It's just unbelievable. And you're right, Scott. And it isn't for the money. It's not for the money. What's the point of the BTC pipeline? The point of the BTC pipeline is that it doesn't go through Russia. That's the entire point of all of this.

Why does Azerbaijan matter to America? Because it matters to Russia, and so we want to keep it away from Russia. as simple as that. Yep. And I think the anti-Iran thing is another part of it. And then the, you know, the general policy. I wanted to ask you about that. You mentioned it's being said that the Iranians are benefiting from Azerbaijan's victory

over the Armenians here. Can you elaborate about that? It's because they're fellow Shiites. Well, actually, yeah, that's an interesting point. Before the 44-day terror war in 2020, a lot of folks, thought the Iranians were more likely to lean towards the Armenians. And there could have been a couple of several reasons for that. Now the Iranians themselves have said, so here's the other thing. We're talking about Artsok. I mean, Aliyah isn't stopping here. He's planning on invading

Armenian. That's what he wants to do. So this problem is growing. And the Iranians have previously told them, don't do that. If you do, we'll attack you. And they've got a lot of military weaponry. They've developed at home over that. And so now, the Iranian government has, so they talk about the territorial integrity of Armenia, which Ali doesn't care about. He uses territorial integrity as a propaganda point. He doesn't care about that. So the Iranis have said that, which would be sort of a pro-Armenian thing.

Then sometimes they said, oh, yeah, well, Azerbaijan, you know, liberated their own territories, which is not true. But on the other hand, maybe they say, well, this guy was the winner, you know, and so they're trying to play the diplomatic game or whatever. But I don't think they look at it like they benefited from this, actually, Scott. And they do not want, for everything I can tell, they do not want Turkey and Azerbaijan to take the southern part of Armenia called Sianuk and linking up. They want to maintain that route through Armenia and they don't want Armenia to be destroyed. They don't want Azerbaijan and Turkey taking all that over.

But the American government or the United States government, not the American people, of course, but the United States government might look at that differently. And, you know, a lot of times, as you know, talking to Gareth Porter and other experts on this, there's been so much false narrative about Iran and the Iranian nuclear program and all the different geopolitical aspects that that has, including, you know, vis-a-vis Israel and, you know, the United States government and that sort of thing, that maybe there are people in the U.S. government that see this, and I think they do, is a way to hurt Iran. And the people that will suffer be damned from the standpoint of the savages and business suits. in washington dc yeah of course that's how they always see that all right listen man i'm so sorry

to cut you loose right now but i'm so behind schedule here i absolutely have to run but um first of all i'm very sorry um but very appreciative for your time and uh for the update here dennis well thanks scott you're welcome i understand you got to run just real quickly folks if you would like to donate to help the humanitarian situation uh one group that's very good is the armenian Missionary Association of America, you can study them. And if you're so moved, feel free to donate to help the people that are in great need over there. Good deal. All right. Thank you very much, man. Really appreciate it, Dennis. You're welcome. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Scott Horton, show, anti-war radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A.

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