by Raoul Lowery Contreras

April Fools Day came late this year. It came on April 14 when the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) sent a letter to U.S. Congress members. It demands expansion of aid to Armenia and to a figment of Armenian imagination — Artsakh. It is an imaginary Republic not a single world government recognizes including Armenia and Russia.

ANCA wants to expand aid to Armenia/Artsakh from $47 million to $150 million.

ANCA is a U.S. lobby group for Armenia that lobbies Congress and the administration. It is not a registered foreign agent.

ANCA is generally credited with fomenting violence in Los Angeles by immigrant Armenians and first- and second-generation Armenian Americans. Example: a riot on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica in 2020 outside the Azerbaijani Consulate. Injuries were numerous and LAPD officers were attacked and injured by rioters. The LAPD announced persons of interest are actively being sought. They are not Azerbaijanis.

According to the April 13 edition of Armenian Weekly, "The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) is (demanding)...$150 million in US aid to Artsakh and Armenia’…, (in the) Fiscal Year 2023 foreign aid bill. ANCA demands these millions for “funding to strengthen the U.S.-Armenia strategic partnership…”

My questions:

• What “strategic partnership?” Since it left a crumbling Soviet Union, did Armenian infantry or air forces join us in relieving Iraq of Saadam Hussein or battling Al Qaeda and/or the Taliban in Afghanistan? No and no.
• Did Armenia send troops to Syria to help Russians murder hundreds of thousands of freedom-seeking Syrians, many of them Eastern Rite or Roman Catholics and, of course, Muslims? Yes.
• Did Armenia honor U.S. sanctions against Iran? No.
• Does Armenia honor U.S. and European Union sanctions against Russian Vladimir Putin's family, Putin-friendly Russian oligarchs, Russian banks, etc. — punishments for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? No.
• Does Armenia officially support Russia in its invasion of Ukraine? Yes.
• Does Armenia publicly object to obvious Russian atrocities, crimes against humanity and — by legally defined “genocide,” something Armenians claim to know something about? No.
• Does Armenia support Russia’s Ukraine campaign with fighting Armenian “volunteers.” Yes.
• Does Armenia support Russia’s Ukraine invasion to eradicate “Nazis?” No.
• Does Armenia adore and commemorate real Nazis, including the “Armenian Legion” that was part of Nazi Germany’s World War II forces? Yes.
• Is it a fact that Armenia has over 20 statues, memorial parks and streets named for World War II Armenian generals who served in the German Army and commanded troops that fought American troops (in France) and Russia on the Eastern Front? Yes and yes.
• Does Armenia honor international terrorist and murderer Californian Monte Melkonian who, for cash, ordered assassinations of Christian Lebanese and personally murderd a 14-year-old daughter of a Turkish diplomat? Yes.
• Did Armenia honor international terrorist and murderer Melkonian by naming its (West Point-like) military academy for the University of California graduate? Yes.
• Does Armenia honor Armenian assassins who murdered three Turkish diplomats in California? Yes.
• Did Armenia reject Armenian terrorists who planted bombs in Califfornia in the 1980s and did Armenia support these terrorists. No and yes.
• Did Armenia expel close to a million nextdoor neighbors from their homes between 1988 and 1994 and illegally occupy 20 percent of the neighbor — Azerbaijan — for almost 30 years? Yes and yes.
• Did the United Nations repeatedly demand that Armenia quit its occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijan? Yes, many times.
• Does Armenia host the Russian Army and have its borders protected by Russians? Yes and yes.
• During the 2020 44-day war, which combatant used guided missiles against civilian populations far from the war’s front line? Armenia!

Despite all this, ANCA demands that $150 million American taxpayer dollars be appropriated to Armenia and its imaginary puppet country — Artsakh. Why and what for?

It wants “$50 million in humanitarian and development (aid) for Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).”

It wants “the suspension of all US military assistance to Azerbaijan.”

It wants “$100 million in security and economic assistance to Armenia.”

Mexicans would label ANCA’s request for $150 million for Armenia/Artsakh to be “sin verguenza” — without shame. Jewish commentators would call it “chutzpah.”

Americans? Call it BS. Americans should say not-a-dime until the day Armenia signs a mutually agreed to peace treaty with the victorious winner of the 2020 war — Azerbaijan. It is a two-decade ally of the United States in the War on Terror.

Raoul Lowery Contreras is a U.S. Marine veteran, journalist, author and host of the YouTube/Facebook “Contreras Report.”

Imperial Valley Press newspaper