Azerbaijan’s American Media Manipulation by Casey Michel

The past two years have seen a flurry of analyses on Azerbaijan’s moves to whitewash its dictatorial image for American audiences. Slathered in hydrocarbon profits, the autocratic government of Ilham Aliyev has unleashed spin-doctorsduped reporters, and led one of the most brazen pushes to abuse American lobbying loopholes of any foreign government. All of this, while Azerbaijan’s First Family has taken rank advantage of offshore avenues and shell corporations to bilk unknowing taxpayers.

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How soldiers were recruited in Baku in the early 90s

A short story of my life where I almost became a warrior

The beginning of the 90s. Battles were fierce in Karabakh and the surrounding areas. People came to power by walking over the corpses of their compatriots from Khojaly, adored by all Heydar Aliyev “The Bloody”, because he was the president of Azerbaijan. Having estimated the situation in the country and the permanent defeats at the battlefront, the first thing Heydar decides to do was to declare a total mobilization. Only this was not a mobilization like in civilized countries. Aliyev knew perfectly well that the people do not want to fight, so he ordered to forcefully force them to be dragged to the battlefield. The propaganda machine was then in its infancy and had little effect on the fragile minds of the population, but the decision had already been made. A decree was issued to grab all young people right from the streets and to send them to the battlefront!

The methods used at that time were similar to fascist. They would grab everyone indiscriminately as if the police were given not just an instruction, but a direct order to fulfill a definite number of soldiers to be sent to fight. The more rams they send, the bigger bonus they would receive. Therefore, even gray-haired and elderly people were grabbed, who did not fall under the age of conscription at all.

The capture

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