Nagorna-Karabakh, sitting in both Armenia and Azerbaijan, is controlled by Azebaijan. Armenia is fighting for it and both countries have their bigger and stronger allies – Russia and Turkey. Former CIA Chief of Station, Brad Johnson, discusses the nature of conflict and players’ motives. Brad is President of Americans for Intelligence Reform, a non-profit and source for info not seen on mainstream media.
https://youtu.be/9qt-VTA4Er8
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brad johnson july 13th uh yet another
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regional border disputes happening this
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one you know is i
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the first question is are the two
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countries you’re going to discuss are
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they both muslim countries
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who’s backing which countries does have
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anything to do with islam
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or is this just an ancient geopolitical
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sort of eastern european balcony thing
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uh i this is uh the countries that we’re
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discussing here are azerbaijan
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and armenia and uh there was uh
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uh there’s a disputed region uh that’s
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called nagorno-karabakh
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this had been under uh azerbaijani
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control
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and was taken by armenia and one of the
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flare-up wars that took place after the
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breakup
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of the soviet union now uh it does it’s
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this goes back certainly to the ottoman
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empire and azerbaijan
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and azerbaijanis are basically turkish
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people
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and that remained in that region after
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the collapse of the ottoman empire
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and so it’s it’s a majority
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uh azerbaijan are are turkish people
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muslim
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and armenia is a
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christian country they are armenian
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orthodox
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although they are not uh part of the
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orthodox church like if you take uh
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russian orthodox uh serbian orthodox
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greek orthodox you take the other
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orthodox churches they’re
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interrelated as orthodox uh but the
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armenian church is not recognized as
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orthodox by the orthodox church they
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split off and are their own
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orthodox church and they control some of
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the
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uh uh christian sites in
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uh jerusalem and things like that
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there’s sort of like a third force if
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you will you’ve got the orthodox
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the catholic and the armenian orthodox
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so probably more than anyone wanted to
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ever know about that
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but what happened in this border
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skirmish is the same scenario that we’re
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seeing play out
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with turkey in a number of areas and
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this is something i’ve mentioned
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repeatedly in a lot of different
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interviews but turkey is trying to
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re-establish the ottoman empire it’s
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playing out in greece and in libya and
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other places in the world
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this is one more so turkey is backing
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azerbaijan
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who then has re uh essentially
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attacked into nagorno-koro karuba the
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disputed region
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trying to take it back and so far this
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appears to have been repulsed by the
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armenians
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and the armenians are backed by russia
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so the armenians are not particularly
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friendly to the united states they’re so
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so they’ve got a great relationship with
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russia
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azerbaijan are more friendly to the
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united states but are
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are far more closely tied to uh turkey
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and so this is that same uh
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kind of surrogate war playing out there
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so azerbaijan their military
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capabilities have been slowly growing
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where the economy of armenia has been
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relatively stagnant they’re
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they’ve got a lot of problems with
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corruption and these sorts of problems
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so the economy
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hasn’t really taken off as you find in a
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number of other former soviet republics
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so they’re a little bit stagnant by
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comparison so over time
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azerbaijan has been gaining enough
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strength to begin to challenge
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this is the first step in that challenge
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this is
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going to continue in that area and
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azerbaijan the turkish backing is
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bound and determined to take back
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nagorno-karabakh
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there are some natural resources in that
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area it’s a beautiful beautiful region
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very picturesque not particularly
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populated
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there’s not a lot there but it is a
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pretty region with with
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some uh natural resources timber and
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different things of that nature i don’t
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know how much by way of minerals i don’t
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think
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too much although a couple of things so
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it’s not a big industrial region with a
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lot of wealth and value
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but it is something they’re definitely
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going to fight over and it’s it’s
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it remains to be seen how much backing
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armenia can get out of russia and that’s
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going to be the key
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if they don’t get uh substantial aid out
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of russia
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to fight back against azerbaijan and
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backed by turkey
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then they’ll lose it eventually because
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the population and azerbaijan is growing
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the
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are the one in armenia is stagnant at
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best and their capabilities are growing
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so
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eventually they’ll get to the point
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where they are their army’s big enough
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and well-equipped enough well-trained
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enough that they are
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that they’ll break through the armenian
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lines and take back nagorno-karabakh
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uh without something else to impact it
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so the only way that can be done i think
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is again is if russia intervenes in the
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medium term to build them back up so
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opening salvo
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this is again that same war playing out
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and it’s the two opponents here
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russia and turkey and these are the
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surrogates fighting over
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nagorno-karabakh
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so this will be the third regional
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conflict in which turkey
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and russia are backing opposite sides
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very interesting so i
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i got to ask you this one question
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hopefully you know we can point form
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this
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um but turkey did i mean they’ve been
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threatening for years and years
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as a kind of a geopolitical joker card
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uh they’ve been threatening to turn the
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hagia sofia
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into a mosque and then never doing it
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they do brinksmanship with it having
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prayers outside of it and talking about
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doing it
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and the other day last week they
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actually pushed the button
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and it’s now officially been turned into
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a mosque and it’s official and prayers
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are going on inside and they’re going to
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renovate i’m sure
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and uh that feels like that could be
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that was more than a provocation the
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provocation was threatening to it
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but this was doing it do you think
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that’s going to have consequences
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well yes certainly it’s a stick in the
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eye
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of russia the orthodox church the
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eastern
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christian christian dumb if you will uh
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so yes i think it is something that’s
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that is
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uh provocative and will will have some
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consequence and maybe
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this raised level of pushback on the
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part of russia
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is is is as a result at least in part of
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things
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like that and i think one of the things
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you’re going to see very quickly
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excuse me is uh the the man
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when the ottoman empire fell the man to
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re-establish
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uh government and authority in turkey
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was uh
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ataturk and uh that’s not his
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birth name that was the name he took
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upon which i believe it’s like father
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something like that and so ataturk’s
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tomb
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is also in the capital city of ankara in
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in turkey and i’ve been there a couple
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times it’s a big
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serious beautiful mausoleum-esque
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sort of uh tomb for him there or a
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memorial there for attiture
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and i guarantee you this uh former
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christian church
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being converted to a mosque is one of
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the steps that he’s taking to
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reestablish the ottoman empire and one
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of the things he has to do
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is the first chance he gets he’s going
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to move or get rid of or somehow destroy
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the tomb of ataturk in ankara the
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capital because that again
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is a stick in his eye and he’s not going
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to be able to tolerate those things and
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this is
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one of those things where he we see
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him he’s more and more encouraged by a
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lack of pushback
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to continue to do more and more and more
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which let me say
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uh every every dictator to be born
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uh on earth and and get into power and
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and try to push for more and more and
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more power they’re all the same
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and these are the same behaviors we saw
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by hitler until he just went absolutely
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ballistic and created a whole new world
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war that on a massive scale
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and he just he kept expanding expanding
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and expanding
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and you know taking austria taking part
08:01
of czechoslovakia
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all these things that he was able to do
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but essentially because he was unchecked
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they’re all the same and that’s
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precisely what we’re seeing act out now
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by a number of different people but
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certainly prominently
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um what we’re seeing take place in
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turkey by the president there so
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this is a danger this is one of those
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things we’ve got to watch out for yeah
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you’re right his
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his aggressive nature and his
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provocative
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provocative acts are getting more and
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more aggressive because
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uh who did anything about any of this
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stuff you know nobody’s pushing back on
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any of it i mean you don’t even really
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hear it discussed on mainstream media
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i was outside of our interviews and a
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few other people that
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point out the importance of this it’s
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ignored now
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inside the orthodox church that has not
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been ignored
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and uh but what can they do
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so well i mean they could they could not
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they could knock down a few mosques
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in fact i think greece is planning on
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doing that in athens so
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yeah well that doesn’t smooth road to
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peace does it so yeah i mean but that’s
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uh
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well hopefully we’ll see we’ll see some
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uh people always talk about this with
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president trump they want some
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you know adult leadership in the room
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and i wish we could see that in turkey
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but
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uh not gonna happen because in turkey to
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try and do that sort of thing and just
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get you shot in the back of the head
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[Music]
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you
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