I have received two e-mails in regards to the article I reposted about vandalism at an Armenian Church in California. A painting of what appeared to be Turkey’s flag was deemed as a ‘hate crime’ by the local police. And while a Turkish-American who had nothing to do with the vandalism says he regrets the crime, the Armenian priest of the church says there was no vandalism and, thus, no need to apologize for it.

The first e-mail to me - the subject of which read, “i regret that your church was vandalized………..from a Turkish-American” - stated:

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I regret what happened and I hope the culprit in the church vandalism is found soon.

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Another e-mail, from a member of the church that was vandalised, informed me of a blog post by the church’s priest who sees no hate in the church vandalism. Fr. Vazken writes:

They did it to us again. After going through what we did after Christmas, the Glendale Newspress, showing its best side as a little town paper that’s trying to make it big, came out with a “Hate Crime” story: http://www.glendalenewspress.com/articles/2008/02/20/publicsafety/gnp-vandalism20.txt

It started Sunday - we noticed a child’s drawing on the wall. It was a moon and a star. I received a call later in the afternoon from an officer at the Glendale Police Department. The graffiti-art had been reported as a hate crime to the department.

Monday morning, a reporter from the Glendale Newspress came by the church looking for the evidence. Horizon (Armenian TV) sent a camera man. The Diocese (one of the priests) called and asked “What happened? Did someone paint a Swastika on your church?”  By midday, a non-story was taking form and shape.

And so… this morning, it didn’t surprise me when the Daily News headlined, “Vandal spray-paints Turkish flag on Armenian church wall”

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_8304985

Wow! A moon and a star had now been transformed into a Turkish hate crime against the Armenians!  What is it about hatred and evil that makes good copy? I guess it sells newspapers. 

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Although it is amazingly kind of an Armenian priest not to see hate in the drawing, it is interesting that he refuses to call it a vandalism either.

Showing off? Perhaps, not. I have personally met Fr. Vazken and he is a very good person. This is the guy who organizes “Blood for Blood” event in April asking Armenians to donate blood in commemorating the Armenian genocide by the Turks.

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Azerbaijan’s regime is pulling its NATO troops from newly-independent Kosovo in apparent fears that the west’s recognition of the tiny state might serve as precedent for Nagorno-Karabakh independence.

Reuters reports:

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has asked parliament to vote to withdraw the ex-Soviet country’s peacekeepers from Kosovo, an Azeri official said on Thursday.

Aliyev submitted the initiative to a parliamentary committee this week, and the vote is expected on March 4. The proposal is expected to pass into law with little opposition.

Azerbaijan has had 33 soldiers serving in Kosovo since 1999 with a Turkish battalion under NATO command.

Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov said Kosovo’s recent declaration of independence from Serbia had “sharply changed the political scene”.

“Azerbaijan, as well as a host of other NATO partner-countries, is now re-examining the position of its peacekeeping platoon,” Azimov told reporters.

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Karabakh, an indigenous Armenian enclave that Stalin annexed to Soviet Azerbaijan in the 1920s, is de facto independent from Azerbaijan after a war in the 1990s that killed thousands of people on both sides. Azerbaijan’s regime has said it will do everything to return its Soviet territory.

Since Turkey has hailed Kosovo’s independence, it will be interesting to see how fiercely Azerbaijan will deny Kosovo’s independence given Turkey’s and Azerbaijan’s close relationship.

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The New York Times has an interesting article on the popular fear of Obama being assassinated in which it makes clear that almost everyone but Obama think of a possible attempt on the Democratic candidate’s life:

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That afternoon, Mr. Obama’s motorcade passed Dealey Plaza and the Texas Book Depository building, where the fatal shot was fired at President Kennedy in 1963. Several campaign aides looked out their windows, silently absorbing the scene.

Not so for Mr. Obama, who later said he had not realized he was passing the site. And no one in his car pointed it out.

“I’ve got to admit, that’s not what I was thinking about,” he said. “I was thinking about how I was starting to get a head cold and needed to make sure that I cleared up my nose before I got to the arena.”

With KKK membership growing in the United States and some nationalist circles calling for “repairing [Obama's] damage” it seems logical to expect violent attempts on the Illinois senator’s life. But the latter groups perhaps realize that such a crime would most likely start riots in America and a social revolution that even Obama’s victory would not bring.

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A columnist at an Armenian-American newspaper has written a piece on ARMENPAC activist and Clinton campaigner Annie Totah’s e-mail to some Jewish circles in which she had included an anti-Obama article - condemned by many Jewish leaders - that alludes the Illinois senator of being a Muslim and an anti-Semite. I blogged about the e-mail a few weeks ago.

The columnist writes:

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Annie Totah’s e-mail, presumably sent to a Jewish audience to demonstrate the superiority of her chosen candidate (Hillary Clinton), may or may not sway its intended readers. Frankly, I don’t care. In fact I wouldn’t even care if the other candidate were targeted. That’s not the point. Totah and ARMENPAC have chosen to support Clinton. That’s actually good. This way, regardless of who wins, with the ANC’s endorsement of Obama, one faction of our community plugged in.

But resorting to sleazy, innuendo-laden tactics like using this article reflects poorly on us as a community. It certainly reflects poorly on the organizations in which Totah holds high positions. But then, in the Assembly’s case, perhaps this is to be expected. Remember, they won the “coveted” SpitRain Award last August. In case you think I’m overreacting, here’s how Ben Smith describes Totah: “a Washington society figure and Armenian-American activist who’s also a member of Clinton’s finance committee.” Those who don’t personally know any other “Armenian-American activists” might, given human nature, attribute to the rest of us a love of gutter politics.

I’m not starry-eyed, nor delusional. Politics is blood sport. Of course these kinds of things will be done. But there’s a wisdom that’s expected of those holding visible positions in organizations. They cannot be associated with this kind of activity because it reflects poorly on the organization. For all I know, the Clinton campaign may have been following exactly this line of thinking by feeding Totah Lasky’s piece to disseminate.

Please call on Annie Totah, ARCA, ARMENPAC and the Armenian Assembly to apologize for this embarrassing gaffe. If she refuses, those organizations and others she serves should remove her from any offices she holds.

If they don’t, then we the community will know how to judge and not support them in the future.

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A highly-disliked Associated Press article titled “Obama may face grilling on patriotism” - rated 2.5 out of 5 stars by Yahoo! users - seems to take the somewhat xenophobic definition of “patriotism” by Red Scare-style conservatives for granted.

The Associated Press article starts off by stating:

Sen. Barack Obama’s refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin along with a photo of him not putting his hand over his heart during the National Anthem led conservatives on Internet and in the media to question his patriotism.

Now Obama’s wife, Michelle, has drawn their ire, too, for saying recently that she’s really proud of her country for the first time in her adult life.

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Although the article does end up reporting factual information and interpretation that disclose the black pr against the Democratic candidate later in the article, the anti-Obama lynching campaign by some conservative and nationalist circles to label the Illinois Senator as “un-American” seems to satisfy the Associated Press to use the word “patriotism” without quotation marks in reporting the hateful attempt to make an enemy of a person millions of Americans have voted for.  

And while the lynching campaign against Barack Obama by nationalist circles comes as no surprise - and will definitely become worse in the months to come - it is surprising to see the Associated Press stating that “Obama may face grilling on patriotism” suggesting that it has been somehow demonstrated that Obama is not a “patriot.” The Associated Press is the one that should face grilling… on (un)ethical journalism.

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