Martuni or Bust has an interesting perspective on Bush administration’s budget request for the fiscal year 2008, unveiled on Monday, which calls for $35 million in economic aid to Armenia, sharply down from the 2006 level of $69 million, and which would also cut U.S. aid to the Armenian military by more than 30 percent to $3.3 million. In fact, Ara from Martuni or Bust applauds Bush, and says this move is for once trying to do something to avoid “feeding into corruption” in Armenia, and suggests, that Armenian lobbyist groups – AAA and the ANCA should:
“instead of attacking George, praise him for starting to put an end to the problems that you have been involved in perpetuating since the early 90’s with the welfare you have worked so hard to secure for Armenia, which has made many people lazy, corrupt and added to the country not developing into what I could and should be“.
Ara Manoogian makes his point by concluding:
Now we just have to work on getting all aid cut and make sure the the $236 million MCA funds never makes their way into Armenia.
However, this approach was unique and agnry tones prevail. Blogian for example criticizes Bush plans for Armenian aid cuts aggressively:
America’s so-called president George
aBush has introduced his glorious budget, that like last year’s, gives reduced economic and military aid to Armenia and much more aid to Armenia’s friendly neighbor and the most tolerant country in the world – Oilzerbaijan. Moreover, the Bushdickcandy administration is apparently cutting humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh.
