Hi Everyone,
Sick of hearing and reading about feeding tubes, political grand standing and vegetative states? Well how about a little revolution? This latest one is in Kyrgystan...one of the countries that supported the US invasion of Afghanistan. It seems an opposition leader, Felix Kulov, was arrested by President Akayev since 2000 on charges of embezzlement (Kulov was Akayev's VP, Akayev has been President of Kyrgystan since independence). Opposition supporters have taken to the streets and there are rumors that Mr. Kulov has been freed and that President Akayev's whereabouts are unknown. There have been street fights between opposition demonstrators and Akayev loyalists. For the moment there appears to be no ethnic dimension to this. However, a region of Kyrgystan in the south west of the country is populated largely by ethnic Uzbeks with traditions of practicing a stricter form of Islam than the majority Kyrgyz. Al Qaeda is reported to be influential in Uzbek areas. Akayev blames the United States for starting riots.
In other "War on Terror" news, Ukraine is pulling its troops out of Iraq. Italy is also pulling its troops out of Iraq after US troops fired on a Italian journalist who had just been released by an insurgent group following negotiations with an Italian agent. The agent was killed in the shooting by US fire. These events got mostly missed in the media amid the rush to give the neo-cons credit for anti-Syrian demonstrations in Lebanon (which were portrayed, not without some justification, as pro-democracy demonstrations). The Ukraine and Italy were two of the largest international troop contributers in Iraq. Unlike Spain's removal of several hundred troops, these moves involve thousands of soldiers. The bottom line is that it seems that the coalition of the willing is getting smaller and smaller.
Comments?
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Revolution in Kyrgystan etc
Posted by Raised By Republicans at 6:09 AM
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LA Times reports the uprising started when a pro-government group began throwing stones at a peaceful protest: "The people got infuriated and charged forward in large numbers, crushing police lines and taking the White House [the seat of government] by storm," [Emil Aliev, vice chairman of the Ar-Namys Party] said. "It was an unforgettable sight — a human wave carrying the flags of the opposition, pouring into the stronghold of tyranny and oppression! It took us five years... It is an inexplicable feeling to see all this happen in just one day.""
The Times continues: "Almost immediately, the nation's Supreme Court annulled the results of March 13 parliamentary elections, whose alleged violations sparked the popular uprisings that culminated in the fall of the government."
A five-year political nightmare ended in a single day, the Supreme Court annulling flawed elections, the People storming the White House to toss out an unpopular President... [yawn, rub eyes] What was that? More news about Social Security "reform"? Sorry, I was just having this most wonderful daydream...
Al Qaeda is a myth, do stop participating in the "big lie" small groups of terror groups who occaisionally talk to each other, usually to argue, is not a world wide terror network, and you americans invented "Al Qaeda" to keep your sheep quiet
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