ARMENIA vs AZERBAIJAN. THE OPTICS OF DOUBLE STANDARD APPLICATION

One of the things that bother me the most is when a certain opinion is forced on us over and over again. When a certain stance on a matter in question is being imposed on us by the establishment, it is of no importance at all if it is the right thing to do or not. And by the establishment I mean the USA, because we are living in the PAX AMERICANA age after all.

I’m one of those Google earth junkies and I spend a lot of my free time on there looking at the less familiar parts of the globe. I enjoy looking at photos of places that, for the lack of funds, I would not be able to see otherwise. I constantly come across one specific issue that sticks out, and that is the way that the countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan are depicted on maps.

Allow me to give you a bit of a backstory. After the collapse of the Soviet Union these two countries fought a war because of unresolved ethnical disputes. And the result of this conflict is that today we have separatist republic in both countries. Armenia occupied a large part of Azerbaijan and created the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Azerbaijanis created the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic on the territory of Armenia. Now the problem that I have with all this is that on all available maps, apart from those published in Yerevan, both of the separatist republics are shown as part of Azerbaijan. I’m not the only one here seeing the double standard being applied here right? Don’t take my word for it, take a few minutes and go Google all of this, I’ll be waiting here.

So we recognize one separatist republic but not the other? Why would that be the case? I bet right now you’re thinking ’wait isn’t Azerbaijan the country that has all that oil and gas’; and you’d be completely right. We all know how much the U.S. loves those oil rich countries. And as history has taught us, the only thing they love more is a oil rich country run a nice little friendly dictator. If you guessed that already you are right on that as well, Azerbaijan is firmly in the grip of the Aliyev family. Don’t believe me on this too, do a quick search, I’ll still be here.

The stalemate will most likely continue for decades, and the status of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh looks more and more like another Northern Cyprus scenario. And the West will keep supporting the oil rich dictator, because the other side has nothing to offer but rising inflation and a struggling economy.