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Kyrgyzstan at the Hub of Superpowers’ Plans
Reports of violence in the capital of Kyrgyzstan have prompted the US embassy there to express deep concern, and the Russian government to call for restraint.
The Manas base in Kyrgyzstan is vital for US troops in Afghanistan. (AFP) These reactions help underline the strategic significance of Kyrgyzstan and the region it occupies.
Kyrgyzstan has found itself in the cockpit of what has been dubbed the new "great game" in the region - so-called because the modern big powers jostling for influence there appear reminiscent of the 19th Century contest between the British and Russian empires over access to India.
It has been a scramble for access to energy and other natural resources, trade routes, and more recently Western supply routes for operations in Afghanistan.
For Kyrgyzstan - one of the poorest of the neighbours in this region - the chief international focus has been access for military bases.
The Manas air base has become a key strategic staging post for the US military in Afghanistan - especially after the closure of the so-called K2 base in Uzbekistan .
That itself followed the souring of relations between the US and Uzbek governments in 2005, after the Uzbek authorities cracked down violently on an internal threat posed by Islamic militants.
But the sensitivities have been growing - not least from Moscow, as the US-led operations in Afghanistan, and therefore also Washington's military interest in the region, have become ever more prolonged.
The Kyrgyz authorities have played Washington off against Moscow.
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev had already been pressing Washington for significant increases in the rental payments for Manas.
But in early 2009, on the back of a Russian promise of a huge aid package, he announced that the base would close.
It took a personal intervention by President Barack Obama to keep the Manas base open to the Americans. Even then it was on a compromise basis, under which Manas was to be described as a "transit centre".
But the bumpy nature of relationships in the region has helped fuel a debate over how much commitment the West - and especially the US - should have in the region in the long term, particularly if operations in Afghanistan eventually tail off.
There are broader Western concerns about stability, governance, access to energy, and worries about the spread of Islamic militancy there.
But how these should be translated into long-term policy, against the background of Russian, Chinese and other local sensitivities, is very much open to question.
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23 Comments so far
Show AllBetter hurry and load those great big airplanes with pallets of cash. Then tonite we can sleep safe and sound in the homeland.
Pallets of cash that is ever more worthless.
We should all pay attention and do our own jobs on this end.
Although the images at the NYT are quite telling of what would happen here.
Got Nerve?
Ding, ding, ding,... Time to put aside divisive culture wars bullshit and stage a massive general strike against imperialist war and bank fraud here.
More real news like this less divisive bullshit please CD.
If we move to the border of Russia, then the Russians will be emboldened in Latin America. Empire expansion can make for troble.
The U.S. itself is already emboldened in Latin America.
1. Follow the yellow brick road when it comes to Colombia and the recent deal the U.S. Air Force made for an airbase there (from the fiscal year 2010 budget document re: justification for the deal:
"...provides a unique opportunity for full spectrum operations in a critical sub region of our hemisphere where security and stability is under constant threat from narcotics funded terrorist insurgencies [and] anti-US governments...Palanquero [air force base] supports the mobility mission by providing access to the entire South American continent with the exception of the Cape Horn region if fuel is available, and over half of the continent unrefueled...A presence will also increase our capability to conduct Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), improve global reach, support logistics requirements, improve partnerships, improve theater security cooperation, and expand expeditionary warfare capability."
http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-090511-049.pdf
BTW: The rest of South America was so upset with this that a letter was sent to Hillary Clinton telling her...this was perceived as a potential threat to their autonomy, so in November of 2009 they removed the "offensive" language re: "anti-U.S. governments," "providing access to the entire South American continent, " and "expanded expeditionary warfare capability." Hey, I (and Chavez) feel better already!
2. In 2008 the U.S. Navy's 4th Fleet, which was deactivated shortly after WWII, was reactivated for the purpose of navigating/carrying out military exercises in and around Latin American waters.
http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=36606
Never mind Empire expansion making trouble. Having an American Empire at all is enough trouble. Here is another place you never heard of before---least I never did--Kyrgyzatan. Oh boy!! We are number one in wars and conquest and plunder---and death and destruction too---but not in education, health care, or a nation of law. No democracy and a collapsing economy. Let's go kill that bad guy over in the far away place---don't bother with that homeless sick child who lives with his unemployed mother under the freeway.
Who approved of an 'American Empire'? I didn't!
The WikiLeaks video from Iraq reveal the true nature of the 'American Empire'. Rendition, torture, keeping people in cages, etc, are further pointers.
The 'American Empire' is based on endless war, massacres, stealing resources from poor countries, deception, gang rapes by soldiers, etc.
It's time the civilized world stood up to the 'American Empire' before Big Brother America takes over the world.
www.dangerouscreation.com
You got that right David G.! I have visited your blog before and agree with what I perceive to be your stance that 'left" and "right" are far less important than actually standing up to murderous empire, New World Order, corporate globalism, what it's called is 100% unimportant, ending it is what is important!
Once again the U.S. comes down on the wrong side of a revolution. We prop up a corrupt regime so that we can put an airbase in their country. We need to get back to the revolutionary ideals that our country was founded on. Stop the U.S. empire!
To the point!
fallen world, all imperial nations, and the US especially, favour corrupt regimes that can be bought and/or brutal dictators who can subdue their countries when so instructed. This way the imperial nation can get what it wants while remaining at arms length from torture and violence so as to placate the masses back home.
All good dictators understand that if they do the imperialist's bidding they will be given arms and corrupt payoffs. It's a perfect system unless the dictator gets too uppity and tries something like selling oil in Euros rather than US dollars. In that case public opinion in the masses back home can be manipulated so as to encourage an invasion and the subsequent imposition of 'gunship democracy' and 'freedom'. It may be expedient to do so anyway if there is something like oil that can be had for the taking.
The worst enemy of an imperial nation is a true democracy. All manner of vitriol and distorted epithets (e.g. Communist, horror of horrors Socialist) will be aimed to counteract such a dire threat.
I wonder if the CIA was behind this latest stir? Clearly this will require more military assistance from the US.
spot on.
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Opposition leaders declared they had seized power in Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday, taking control of security headquarters, a state TV channel and other government buildings after clashes between police and protesters left dozens dead in this Central Asian nation that houses a key U.S. air base.
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who came to power in a similar popular uprising five years ago, was said to have fled to the southern city of Osh, and it was difficult to gauge how much of the impoverished, mountainous country the opposition controlled.
"The security service and the Interior Ministry ... all of them are already under the management of new people," Rosa Otunbayeva, a former foreign minister who the opposition leaders said would head the interim government, told the Russian-language Mir TV channel.
[Huff Post]
Now look, what's important here is not the struggle going on inside Kyrg...whateverit'scalled! What's important is the survival of the American military base there.
The Americans have military based spread all over the world, did you know? Yeah, hundred of them. Why you ask? To better enable them to maintain or increase their Empire, silly.
And why do they want an Empire, you ask? So Americans, who make up 6% of the world's population, can enjoy the very best that the world has to offer.
Do all Americans share equally, you ask? No way. A small percentage of the 6% have it all while the rest struggle!
Should the American Empire be dismantled, you ask?
You decide!
WHY WE FIGHT: The Facts on Who has the Goods in the USA and the World:
U.S. 309,023,597
World 6,813,451,641
03:51 UTC (EST+5) Apr 08, 2010
from: http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
so 0.045354926296159% = the USA has 0.04% of the World Population
“the United States has troops in 135 countries. Here is the list:"
from: http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance8.html
“In terms of types of financial wealth, the top one percent of households have 38.3% of all privately held stock, 60.6% of financial securities, and 62.4% of business equity. The top 10% have 80% to 90% of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America.”
from: http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
"At the end of the 20th century, wealth was concentrated among the G8 and Western industrialized nations, along with several Asian and OPEC nations. An Energy Information Administration report stated that OPEC member nations were projected to earn $1.251 trillion in 2008 from their oil exports, due to the record crude prices.
A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. The bottom half of the world adult population owned 1% of global wealth. Moreover, another study found that the richest 2% own more than half of global household assets.[12] The distribution has been changing rapidly in the direction of greater concentration of wealth."
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
lew rockwell is hardly useful as a source for ANYTHING.
To Katrine
They sure do Katrine just like the sun goes down.
Perhaps the future of humanity will be made of 300 to 350
small nations coexisting with extraordinary diversity and
plasticity self regenerating creative interconnected and
multiple levels of cultural scientific & spiritual
exchange beyond imagination. With relatively human and
natural conflict deriving from a world not driven by
extreme competition or the degenerate practices we see
environmentally violent,inhuman, disconnected from all
and everything the blind monopoly as we know it today.
Any entity, force or lobby (corporate, religious other)
that act behind an invisible
wall is doomed to corrupt the system. it's physics
If we don't see it breathing than it will corrupt
and suffocate. The system ceases to function.
Transparency & Accountability is an
evolving science & culture in itself.
A system where whistle blowers are told to shut up or
perish , is a system that has structural damage in the
the very heart of its moral, ethical , economic &
directional compass.
Perhaps a system where putting people in position of
responsibility is based on completely different criteria.
A system where leadership is not one person but many
A system where formation and training is not just maths
or human sciences but a circle of wholesome knowledge &
multidimensional comes with wisdom and a creative
sense of sacredness of life.
Perhaps there will be less of us but more in us.
Take Care
In Soulidarity.
The protesters in Kyrgyzstan seem to have overthrown their government.
Now just what is our own Tea Party up to?
Yeah, the Tea Party - real men of the people.
The Picture shows a row of KC-135 airborne tankers. Now unless the US has plans to corner the world oil market by force, why are we in Kyrgyzstan? The US has some 700 bases worldwide. Why? This sort of insanity sounds like a lead up to at least a hopeful world consent to the US WORLD POLICE. Since the US has no effective ground force, and questionable air forces, one needs to ask, where are US NUCLEAR WEAPONS. One was supposedly "lost or stolen" at Barksdale AFB during yet another Bush criminal act of flying a Loaded B-52 across the US from Minot AFB to Barksdale AFB. Americans cannot afford to remain stupid and uninformed. I voted for the current president, and am currently feeling I should be shot for doing it. The possibilities with this President, are endless and dangerous in the extreme. Americans had better find some common ground with reference to this group of terrorists we euphemistically refer to as a government. We may be called soon to dissolve this criminal cartel and dispatch them forthwith. I believe the world would jump in to help. We're running short on time. Soon we'll be forced to act, or become prisoners of this damned government. I know for myself, there is more than enough tangible data, both factual and evidential, to support the suspicion this government is a rogue, and must be dealt with as the prescription in the Declaration of Independence describes. Freedom from yet another tyrant.
To David G
I HEAR U I SEA U LET THEM HEAR
US LET THEM SEA US.
iN sOULIDARITY.