Free Republic

US scatters bases to control Eurasia By Ramtanu Maitra The United States is beefing up its military presence in Afghanistan, at the same time encircling Iran. Washington will set up nine new bases in Afghanistan in the provinces of Helmand, Herat, Nimrouz, Balkh, Khost and Paktia. Reports also make it clear that the decision to set up new US military bases was made during Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's visit to Kabul last December. Subsequently, Afghan President Hamid Karzai accepted the Pentagon diktat. Not that Karzai had a choice: US intelligence is of the view that he will not be...

The people of Kyrgyzstan have spoken -- and acted. As they storm presidential palace and government buildings in the capital Bishkek, the government is paralyzed and impotent. The resignation of President Askar Akaev is the best way out of the crisis. Otherwise, the country will be facing a civil war, a bloody uprising, a possible disintegration, or all of the above. What's more, turmoil in Kyrgyzstan may destabilize its large neighbors, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, with catastrophic consequences of inter-ethnic and political violence. To prevent bloodshed, the US and its allies must act quickly to convince President Akaev to step down...

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - President Askar Akayev and his family left Kyrgyzstan's capital by helicopter Thursday evening, the Interfax news agency reported, hours after protesters seized government headquarters in Bishkek and claimed control of state broadcasting facilities. The report, which cited unspecified sources and could not immediately be confirmed, said the helicopter was headed toward Kazakhstan. During the takeover, about 1,000 protesters cleared riot police from their positions outside the fence protecting the building, and about half entered through the front. Others smashed windows with stones, tossed papers and tore portraits of Akayev in half and stomped on them.

Like a giant political tsunami swamping defunct old dictatorships in its path, the after-effects of Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" are sweeping across Central Asia. But it remains an open question, to say the least, whether stable, successful democracies will emerge from the upheavals. Only two months after Viktor Yushchenko was triumphantly elected by a 52 percent to 44 percent vote in the re-run second round of the Ukrainian presidential election in January, the shock waves of democracy are cracking open Kyrgyzstan, one of the five, remote, land-locked former Soviet republics in Central Asia. Opposition forces were reported in control of the...

A Kyrgyz-Russian expedition has embarked for an ancient city covered by Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan, local media reported Wednesday. Issyk-Kul, 2,250 square miles in area, is a mountain lake in the north of the country. Historians and legends tell about a disappeared island in the lake with fortifications near the north coast where Tamerlane, the Tartar conqueror in southern and western Asia and ruler of Samarkand, held noble prisoners in the 14th century, the Vecherniy Bishkek newspaper said. People have reported seeing stone buildings in on the bottom of northeast Issyk-Kul, not far from the mouth of the Tyup River....

Archaeologists to seek Kyrgyz Atlantis Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Jul. 21 (UPI) -- A Kyrgyz-Russian expedition has embarked for an ancient city covered by Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan, local media reported Wednesday. Issyk-Kul, 2,250 square miles in area, is a mountain lake in the north of the country. Historians and legends tell about a disappeared island in the lake with fortifications near the north coast where Tamerlane, the Tartar conqueror in southern and western Asia and ruler of Samarkand, held noble prisoners in the 14th century, the Vecherniy Bishkek newspaper said.