Afghanistan Opinion: It's Victory Day But Afghans Are Still Voiceless Decades Later (Mull)

Josh Mull, the Afghanistan Blogging Fellow for The Seminal and Brave New Foundation. also writes for Rethink Afghanistan:

Happy Mujahideen Victory Day! This is the national holiday when Afghans celebrate their victory over the communists in the 1980's. We remember the Mujahideen of course, they're the folks to whom we gave all that CIA training and Stinger missiles so they could kill Soviets. We all at least saw the film version of Charlie Wilson's War, right?

Afghanistan: How Many Soldiers Does it Take to Screw in a Light Bulb? (Mull)

The basic historical narrative is that the Soviet superpower bad guys  (who incidentally invaded in the name of democracy and development) are defeated by the heroic good-guyAmericans, who saved the hapless, incoherent hillbillies, the Afghans, by giving them lots of weapons. Yay for freedom fighters!


The danger, our story warns, is that we abandoned Afghanistan after Mujahideen Victory Day, causing America to become the victims. Blowback! Poor, foolish America should have interfered more with Afghanistan I suppose. But we're ignoring the Afghan version of history and completely missing the point of Mujahideen Victory Day.


Let's take a look at their celebration, via Pajhwok Afghan News [subscription]:

[Deputy President Qasim Fahim] urged Afghan citizens to join together to find a solution to the problems faced by the country.

He said there were some people, both inside and outside the country, who were trying to destabilise Afghanistan.

A strong army, a vigilant fight against corruption and smuggling and respect for good government and the rule of law were some ways in which Afghanistan could retain its strength. Corruption, he said, was the fifth pillar of terrorism.

Fahim delivered a warning to unnamed countries who he said were meddling in Afghanistan's affairs, saying they would find themselves mired in similar problems if they did not leave.

Oh yeah, he's got our number all right. We are definitely "meddling," which is a nice way of saying occupation. And boy are we ever having similar problems! Indeed our meddling mires us in corruption, what with the billions lost to waste, fraud, and abuse by war profiteers. And rule of law is sure out the window since the President can now lock you up forever because he calls you a terrorist or just assassinate you. But notice that the Afghans don't think of the holiday as a time to pine for American intervention: Mujahideen Victory Day is about throwing off any foreign occupation, be it Soviet or American.

And the dirty secret here is that nobody abandoned Afghanistan. We like to take Afghanistan's decades of war and blame it on the Afghans being xenophobic, or "tribal," or some other backhanded way of saying they're all backwards idiots. If only they would just let us manipulate them, they'd have peace. But the history of Afghanistan's "war-torn" decades is a history of nothing but foreign meddling. Take a look at these snippets from the Washington Post:

Already, efforts to jockey for future control of Afghanistan have been seen among Pakistan, India, Iran and even Russia. [...]

Karzai and most Afghans fear that if Washington waits too long to decide about talking to the Taliban, control will fall to the ISI as happened in the 1980s and 1990s -- when Washington abandoned Afghanistan to Russia and Pakistan but the ISI played favorites and was unable to end the civil war among Afghan factions.[...]

Pakistan's maneuvers have prompted India to try reactivating its 1990s alliance with Iran, Russia and Central Asia, which supported the former Northern Alliance in a civil war against the Pakistan-backed Taliban regime.

See all the meddling? Iran, India, Pakistan, Russia, all of "Central Asia" apparently, plus all of our meddling. Everybody had a hand in it. And check out that bias: "ISI played favorites and was unable to end the civil war". Gee whiz, I wonder why they were "unable" to end it when, a few sentences later, we see that a lot of other folks seemed to have been around as well.

Afghans don't need more of us, they need more of themselves. Everyone but Afghans has a say in their affairs. Remember the outrage over President Hamid Karzai appointing Afghans (scandalous!) instead of foreigners to the election commission? Guess how many foreigners regulate the elections in Montana? Zero.

Now, don't misconstrue this as a defense of Karzai's fraud, it's simply illustrative of our rejection of Afghans at every step of the process. We whine about abandoning the women of Afghanistan, instead of letting them do it themselves. We complain that Afghan electricity isn't sufficiently dependent on our puppet in Kabul, instead of helping them develop their own energy capacity. And rather than allow Afghans to develop their own security, we support child molesters and drug addicts who ravage the population.

Just take a look at this movie showing in Afghanistan, keeping in mind that this is only one anecdote, from an American no less:

Last weekend, at the university where I teach, the new documentary film Addicted in Afghanistan by director Jawed Taiman, a British-Afghan, was shown. At point, one of the young boys in the family of opium and heroin addicts the film follows shouts to the camera that his addiction was produced by the U.S.-led occupation. The overwhelmingly student audience erupted into applause. I later heard that some shocked faculty members walked out in disgust with students. One, an American, reportedly said the incident has her reconsidering whether she will return after this semester.

I was stunned that my colleagues were surprised. Our students are not going to speak up in a well-lit classroom in an “American university” and tell their instructor what they honestly think about the United States. Some of the older students lived under Taliban rule. All of the students were directly impacted by the chaos of civil war and the latest bloody foreign occupation. Every Afghan understands that what you say in public can earn your execution.

But in the anonymity of a darkened gymnasium, with abundant peer support, they can exercise their frustration, disappointment, anger or disgust in a collective manner that affords both plausible deniability and little likelihood of reprisals. Popular resistance always finds, or creates, opportunities to express itself.

That's how battered and beat down by foreign interference they are. They can only express themselves anonymously in the dark. They're completely voiceless in the fate of their own country. Then there's that Pajhwok article I noted. They have to hide their exclusively Afghan voices behind loads of ads and a paywall just to keep the lights on.

But there's good news here. You are not behind a paywall, your voice is not confined to the darkness. Listen to what Representative James McGovern said on a recent conference call about Afghanistan:

I have to tell you as a former staffer and as a member of Congress-- pressure works, grassroots pressure works. It really makes a difference here," he said. "And when many people do it it's a movement. And what we need to create here in a very short period of time is a movement to try to change course on Afghanistan.

I was on that call, and I can tell you he very strongly emphasized that point over and over again. Pressure works. Calling your member of congress works. Writing your member of Congress works. Hell, even shutting down their office works. They have to listen to you, they desperately need you to tell them what to do. Unlike the Afghans, your voice still counts for a lot, and you can demand that the US stop interfering in Afghanistan, primarily by ending our bloody and expensive military occupation. Tell them the Afghans need to solve their own problems, they don't need us there manipulating them.

It's super easy, too. Take Peace Action West, for example. They've got a form all ready for you to tell congress to end the war, you just have to fill out your personal details. Click "send" and, poof, it goes straight to your specific members of congress. There are dozens more organizations out there just like that one, too. And of course it's always effective to just straight up call them at their office and speak your mind. And you won't be alone in doing this. Contact your representative, then join us on Rethink Afghanistan’s Facebook page and collaborate with the tens of thousands of others around the country working to bring this war to an end.

From Nukes to Banks: How Smart is President Obama? (Matlin)

The Department of Defense has announced the deployment of Prompt Global Strike in 2014. According to the US Government, a new conventional warhead of enormous weight, delivered at high speed with precision accuracy, will destroy its target with the destructive power of a nuclear weapon but without the radiation fallout. Because the weapon is not ballistic, it will be easy to control.

Viewing America: North Carolina, Tea Parties, and the Supreme Court (Matlin)

One might think that cruise missiles would be destructive enough for our American cousins, and as for pinpoint accuracy, well, we’ve heard this before. In an episode of The West Wing, President Bartlett is urged by his Chief of Staff to go to the Situation Room to witness the result of the latest Star Wars test.


“Intervention in fifteen seconds,” the President is told by a General.

Twenty seconds later, the President asks, “Did we hit it?”

The General pauses. “Not exactly, Mr. President, one hundred and thirty eight.”

The President leans towards his Chief of Staff, whispering, “one hundred and thirty eight feet, not bad.”

“Actually, it was one hundred and thirty eight miles, sir,” comes the response.

I suppose spending loads of taxpayers dollars on the latest war toy might be justified by the administration because of the huge numbers of people employed in the American munitions industry. But why, in the face of the recent nuclear treaty with Russia, is it necessary to add a new weapon of such destruction to America’s phenomenal arsenal?

I wonder if the administration is playing really cool, getting the Russians to agree to disarm nuclear weapons on a one for one basis. “You disarm a nuclear weapon and we won’t build a GPS missile” could be the deal. If so, what a clever move it might be, especially if this new American weapon system would never have been built in the first place. No money spent and missiles deleted. Obama has demonstrated more than once that he values “smart” as much or more than “tough.”

Is Obama being smart about financial regulation as well? The Republicans in Congress object to new financial regulation rules. These laws challenge the complete freedom hitherto enjoyed by the economic elite on how they run the hedge fund industry, with the federal government seeking to introduce transparency and fairness. Obama’s point is straightforward and well-taken. He has told Wall Street, “Unless your business model depends on bilking people, there is little to fear from these new rules.” into the hedge fund market.

Republicans are protesting on grounds of “more socialism” and “denial of freedom” by the federal government. Yet not so long ago, these same Republicans were very keen to have the federal government bail out their banker friends. Then they stood mute whilst the heads of suspect financial institutions paid themselves huge bonuses, to the disgust of the American taxpayer. Whoever said “the lunatics have taken over the asylum” was right.

Who do these bankers think they are? There seems to be a parallel with the way some Premier League football (soccer) players are treated in England and the acceptance of a separate set of social rules for the sporting prima donnas. The stars can rightfully claim to entertain hundreds of thousands every Saturday as they play the beautiful game, not that this is any excuse for some pretty deplorable behaviour on their part. In comparison, however, investment bankers play their game only for the very few and can make no claim for “the beautiful deal”.

Last week, we, the taxpayer bailers of the banking system, were treated to disclosure of the kind of behaviour that got the global financial world into the disaster from which we all suffered.

In 2007, as the American housing market showed signs of weakness, Goldman Sachs, the doyen of Wall Street investment bankers, sold an investment product based on the housing mortgage market. The product was inherently bound to fail, something which Goldman knew but neglected to mention. Worse, another Goldman client and customer, John Paulson Inc., was certain to profit from the inbuilt capacity for failure of the Goldman investment. As a result, the federal government has commenced a civil suit against Goldman at the very time that the new financial laws are coming to a voting boil in Congress.

I have no doubt that within the hundreds of pages of small print attached to the investment in question, Goldman will have warned buyers that investments can result in losses, that independent advice should be sought before purchase, and probably in a few words buried deep in the documentation, that the buyer would almost certainly lose. However, it is clear to me, as someone who worked in the City of London for many years, is that Goldman has behaved unethically and, in any view, wrongly by breaching conflict of interest principles.

Goldman has already sought refuge that an individual rogue director was solely to blame, claiming that this person was working on his own. That won’t fly. Does Goldman suggests it doesn’t have a vetting process for financial products and that its lawyers don’t write the small print? Methinks this banker doth protest too much.

Still, I dislike the probability that Obama’s administration has manipulated and politicised the Goldman affair, hoping to embarrass Republican legislators into accepting the new financial regulation laws. It may be a smart move politically but this is not the right way to pass important legislation. New law should be judged on merit alone.

It has been timely for me to get away to North Carolina. Beaufort, pronounced “Bewferd,” is a jewel of a town on the Crystal Coast. Part of the Inner Banks, The town was settled in colonial times and there is much West Indian architecture to admire.

I also took a boat ride to the Outer Banks, an Oceanside wilderness which has hardly changed since the founding fathers’ time. I have seen wild horses, all kinds of bird life, dolphins and maybe a whale --- one glimpse was too quick for confirmation. The boat ride, the beauty and peace there, the restaurants --- don’t miss Amos Mosquito ---- and the sights and sounds of the coast provided a refreshing change to large American and European cities.

So while I still ponder whether President Obama, from nukes to finance, is being “smart” as well as “tough”, I do hold this clear, immutable, and unchangeable opinion: on any view imaginable, the Inner Banks and Outer Banks of North Carolina are infinitely better than all of the Wall Street banks.

The Latest from Iran: Dialogue or Conflict? (9 April)

2005 GMT: I have posted a separate entry about the eerie and comic experience of being "disappeared" by Press TV this evening.

2000 GMT: Rahnavard Praises Women Political Prisoners. Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi, has written in Rah-e-Sabz in praise of the perseverance of female political prisoners: “You Can Never Break Women”.

1915 GMT: Poacher or Gamekeeper? First Vice-President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi has responded to allegations by MPs that he heads a corruption ring (see 0445 and 1035 GMT) with a circular to all government agencies calling on them to fight economic corruption. In a follow-up interview, he called those who had leveled accusations against him "spreaders of slander" who did not deserve a response.

Yesterday "principlist" MP Elyas Naderan, supported by lawmakers Ahmad Tavakoli and Ali-Reza Zakani, said almost all members of an insurance fraud on Tehran’s Fatemi Avenue had been arrested, except “the current vice-president”.

NEW Iran: How I Suddenly Disappeared on Press TV
NEW Mousavi: “Can Repression & Brute Force Solve Iran’s Problems?”
Latest Iran Video: Ahmadinejad and the “Non-Crowd” at Orumiyeh
The Latest from Iran (8 April): Speeches, Visits, & Pictures

1755 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The temporary release from detention of Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh has been extended. Tajbakhsh, arrested last July, was originally sentenced to 15 years in prison; this was reduced to five years on appeal.


1645 GMT: Khatami's Warning. In a meeting with Tehran University students, Mohammad Khatami said that, if nothing is done, this year will be one of social crisis.

Khatami, criticising the people in charge of the Ahmadinejad Government, said that  the political atmosphere of Iran is very disappointing; as the government has chosen the strategy of lying, many young Iranian people are now questioning the Revolution itself.

1635 GMT: More on the Ahmadinejad Resignation Threat (1445 GMT). Rah-e-Sabz claims that, on state television, the President said that Ali Larijani is doing everything he can to cause problems for the government and thus the government will not allow him to do this: "This government has 24 million supporters and therefore I will defend those supporters."

Ahmadinejad said that, if the government is not powerful enough to defend the Iranian people's vote, he will announce his resignation on TV.

The website claims from sources that the Supreme Leader has assigned two people, Mr. Mohammadi and Mr Firouzabadi, who are close to the government to resolve this conflict.

1450 GMT: For Your Evening Viewing Pleasure. I will be speaking by phone with Press TV at 1930 GMT about Iran's nuclear programme. The other guest will be Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran.

1448 GMT: Bigging It Up. Nothing striking in the Ahmadinejad speech. Instead, Iranian state media is trying to spin nuclear gold from the straw of these announcements:

The head of Iran's atomic energy organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, claims that Iran now has new, "third-generation" centrifuges, "six times more powerful" than previous centrifuges.

Iran now has produced "dummy fuel" for its programme.

The Bushehr power plant "should be operational by the summer".

1445 GMT: The President Talks. We're now watching President Ahmadinejad's speech for National Nuclear Day. So far, no "big announcement", just a repetition of the call for global nuclear disarmament. And, oh yes, he has unveiled --- ta da! --- a new centrifuge which is supposed to be wicked powerful.

So, while we're waiting, this claim from Rah-e-Sabz: Ahmadinejad has threatened to resign if Parliament does not accept his demands over the subsidy and spending plans.

1145 GMT: Friday Prayer Summary. On National Nuclear Day, it's Ahmad Khatami leading the prayers ahead of President Ahmadinejad's appearance. Here's the take-away line: "If America makes a crazy move, its interests will be endangered by Iran's allies around the globe."

1130 GMT: The lawyer for Morteza Alviri, the former mayor of Tehran, has confirmed that Alviri has received a five-year prison sentence, with four years suspended, from an appeals court for participation in the 15 June demonstrations.

1110 GMT: A new website, "Campaign 11 Esfand", for support of political prisoners has been established.

1035 GMT: The Corruption Feud. Ahmadinejad advisors Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai and Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi have hit back at allegations of corruption against First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi (see 0445 GMT), calling for the prosecution of MP Elyas Naderan "and other liars".

0955 GMT: The Parliament-President Battle. Beyond the Motahari attack on the "despotic" Government (see 0950 GMT), a series of interventions in the struggle over the subsidy and spending plans:

Arsalan Fathipour is quoted by Khabar Online as saying that a law ratified by the Majlis must be implemented. If true, that is a marked shift from Fathipour's line two weeks ago that Parliament should authorise an extra $35 billion of spending, much more than the $20 billion allowed in the bill and close to the President's $40 billion demand.

Ali Abbaspour Tehranifard warns that not implementing laws because of personal bravado leads to chaos and says the Government's reaction is "strange".

Seyed Kazem Delkhosh Abatari asserts that meetings between the Government and Majlis looking for compromise have no legal binding and the issues should be sent to a special Parliamentary commission.

0950 GMT: The Majlis and Despotism. We've heard a lot of charges since June that the Government has been despotic. Still, it's a bit different when the claim come from conservative MP Ali Motahari at a press conference:

The Government approach to subsidy reform bill passed by the Parliament majlis tends to despotism. When President Ahmadinejad says I won't enforce a law passed by the parliament, it means nothing except autocracy. Adopting a correct method, he must first begin to implement the plan and if it faced a problem, it will send a bill to the Majlis and resolve it.

It's not an appropriate method for the administration trying to press Majlis to annul its decision while the president begins to threaten the MPs on the issue.

0920 GMT: Bahareh Hedayat, the detained student and women's rights activist, has been nominated for the 2010 Student Peace Prize by the European Students’ Union.

Hedayat was arrested in December of 2009 and is currently facing 16 counts of charges including “propagating a negative image of the regime, taking part in post-election protests, talking to foreign media and insulting the Supreme Leader and the President”.

0840 GMT: Meeting the families of political prisoners Bahareh Hedayat and Ahmad Zeidabadi, reformist leader Mojtaba Tajzadeh --- who is still on a temporary release from prison for and now beyond the Nowruz holidays --- declared that imprisonment is a failed project to suppress people's demands.

0835 GMT: We've posted a full summary of Mir Hossein Mousavi's statement in a Thursday meeting with the reformist Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution party.

0830 GMT: What is Mahmoud's Nuclear Surprise? Earlier this week, the head of Iran's atomic energy organisation said that the President would make a major announcement today about an advance in Tehran's programme, but last night Ahmadinejad was simply restating a vague line.

He told the German broadcaster RTL,"Although we are capable of producing 20-percent-enriched uranium, we still can exchange fuel with no preconditions," without specifying whether that meant a swap could take place outside Iran. He then added his standard self-sufficiency line, "If Iran is not provided with uranium enriched to a level of 20 percent, we will produce it on our own."

0825 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Fereshteh Ghazi, writing in Rooz Online, reports on the thousands of "anonymous" prisoners who face the threat of abuse and adverse conditions.

0640 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Mahmoud Beheshti Langarudi, the spokesman of the Teacher Trade Association, has gone on unlimited hunger strike to protest the harsh conditions of imprisoned teachers such as Rasool Badaghi, Mohammad Davari and Hashem Khastar.

Rasool Badaghi, a human rights activist, is entering the 15th day of his fhunger strike.

0635 GMT: Nuclear Talks. Take your pick of reports on another meeting of the 5+1 powers (US, UK, China, Russia, France, Germany) on Iran's nuclear programme. The representatives said the talks were worthwhile, and there would be more meetings. Press TV emphasises the statement of Russia's Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin for "diplomacy", although the quote from him has a double edge:

I don't think any of us wants to impose sanctions, what we want to have is a diplomatic solution. And all sorts of constructive proposals have been made to Iran. So if, as you mention, Iran wants to negotiate, they should start negotiating.

0445 GMT: After an extended break --- a Ph.D. student of mine went through his final examinations yesterday on his dissertation on Public Diplomacy and Interfaith Dialogue --- let's see if there is any dialogue in Iran this morning.

On the Parliament-President front, the chat isn't very friendly. High-ranking conservative PM Ali Motahari has set down a challenge over corruption to Ahmadinejad: if the accusations against First Mohammad Reza Rahimi in the Fatemi Street insurance fraud stand up, then the President --- if he is serious in his talk about justice  --- should be the first to punish Rahimi.

Ahmadinejad's controvesial aide Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, who is also the target of Parliamentary calls to stand down, has responded that these accusations are put simply to weaken the Ahmadinejad Government.

Ahmadinejad advisor  Mojtaba Hashemi Samareh added a nice twist: Rahimi, like all Government officials, fights economic corruption, and so the allegations against him must be wrong.

Last news about this file is that, Mohammad Dehghaan a member of Board of Governors in Parliament believes that Naderan’s talks are not just random claims, but they are based on the information attained from the judiciary office.
http://alef.ir/1388/content/view/67753/

Kyrgyzstan LiveBlog: Latest from the Uprising

Kyrgyzstan is six hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time:

Kyrgyzstan Analysis: What Brought On the Colourless Revolution? (Madlena)

2045 GMT

Kyrgyzstan's Acting Prosecutor-General, Baltimir Ibraev, says criminal cases against President Kurmanbek Bakiev's two sons, Marat and Maksim, and his brother, Janysh, have been launched by the interim government. Arrest warrants for the three on charges of premeditated murder and attempted murder have been issued.

An investigation has also been launched against former Bishkek Mayor Nariman Tyuleev. Ibraev said that witnesses have testified that looting and disorder in the capital were organized by Tyuleev's supporters.

The whereabouts of Marat, Maksim, and Janysh Bakiev are unknown.



1800 GMT

Interim President Roza Otunbayeva has demanded that ousted President Bakiyev formally step down: "Yesterday he issued a statement saying adamantly that he would not resign. My interim government guarantees him his personal security. We call for his resignation."

1745 GMT

Ousted President Bakiyev has withdrawn his allegation of foreign involvement in the Kyrgyz uprising, now saying, "I do not believe that Russia or the United States of America had a hand in these issues."

Yesterday Bakiyev told Russian radio that it would be "virtually impossible to conduct such a coordinated operation" without outside forces.

1430 GMT

Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the provisional government, has said that it has control over the armed forces but she also warned of continuing resistance from the followers of ousted President President Kurmanbek Bakiyev:

(Bakiyev's) forces are not preparing to surrender. You can see how many incidents of violence there are around the city orchestrated by their side, by Bakiyev's supporters. We have information that there were several bombs planted in three public places in Bishkek.

0800 GMT

CNN reporter in Bishkek says many offices and buildings still closed, but public transport is getting back to normal. The provisional government has dissolved Parliament and declared two days of mourning for those killed in the uprising.

A "high-ranking delegation" has gone to Moscow to discuss economic and humanitarian aid with the Russian Government.

0710 GMT

Speaking from Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan, President Bakiyev has told news outlets, including the BBC and Al Jazeera: "I'm still the president. They are trying to take over the government but they can't do this. Nine months ago, 80 per cent of the people voted for me and things can't change so quickly."

0555 GMT

We have published our first analysis of the events in Kyrgyzstan: Chavala Madlena assesses, "What Brought On the Colourless Revolution?"

0545 GMT

Groups organized by the provisional Otunbayeva Government spent the night fighting looters to return calm to Bishkek. Sporadic gunfire was heard but a provisional government spokesman said nobody was killed.

"It's quiet again in the capital. No one died overnight," said Interior Ministry spokesman Abdykalyk Ismailov. "There are still some groups of looters but the city is largely under control."

0213 GMT

Georgia blames Russia for the uprising in Kyrgyzstan according to Civil.ge. The website published the official stance of the government of President Mikhail Saakashvili today:

Georgia is watching development in Kyrgyzstan with "deep concern", President Saakashvili's spokesperson, Manana Manjgaladze, said on April 8.

"The Georgian President thinks, that it is only up to the Kyrgyzstan's people to decide who should be in the government of Kyrgyzstan," she said. "Despite [Moscow's] denials, according to the information available for us, it is absolutely obvious that Russia is roughly interfering with Kyrgyzstan's internal affairs and is trying to play geopolitical games at the expense of the Kyrgyz people."

"We call on all the forces, including those who are in control of the capital [Bishkek] not to allow outside forces to use you against the fundamental interests of the country," Saakashvili's spokesperson said.

0050 GMT

Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has finally commented on the situation in Kygyzstan, albeit cautiously:

1. On April 7, clashes broke out in Bishkek, the capital city of the Kyrgyz Republic, between the security forces and anti-government protesters including members of the opposition parties, and as the result of open fire by the government side, over forty individuals were killed and hundreds injured. The Government of Japan is carefully observing the development with concern.


2. The Government of Japan expects that all involved parties concerned make efforts towards resolving this matter peacefully through dialogues, and that democracy and constitutional order are restored as soon as possible.

2319 GMT

Reuters reports that a senior figure in the opposition movement has accepted Moscow's role in the ousting of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

Omurbek Tekebayev, a former Kyrgyz opposition leader who took charge of constitutional matters in the new government, said that "Russia played its role in ousting Bakiyev."

"You've seen the level of Russia's joy when they saw Bakiyev gone," he told Reuters. "So now there is a high probability that the duration of the U.S. air base's presence in Kyrgyzstan will be shortened."

The Russian government has officially denied any responsibility in Bakiyev's ouster. Interim-president spoke to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and is soon to send a delegation to Moscow. Meanwhile, President Bakiyev claimed that he did not believe Russia was responsible for his ouster.

So far, the capital and most of the country is in the opposition's hands. They have, however, conceded that the president controlled the second and third largest city of the country, Osh and Jalalabad.

So far, the opposition has indicated that it does not intend to force the US to evacuate Manas Airport.

2225 GMT

President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has released a statement on his son's LiveJournal account. Although the account is confirmed to be authentic by many sources, it cannot be ascertained without a doubt that it is indeed his. The statement is in Russian, but one of our contributers kindly translated it for us. We are posting excerpts only:

2212 GMT

It seems that Maksim Bakiyev, the son of Presdient Bakiyev has made it to the US. Radio Free Europe quoted US State Department Spokesperson Philip Crowley as saying in regards to Maksim:

"We believe he is in Washington.”

Kadyrbek Sarbaev and Maksim Bakiyev were due in Washington D.C. yesterday on a state visit. However, only Sarbaev has so far officially arrived in the US. There are no immediate sources except for the State Department confirming or denying whether he is in the US or not. The trip which was supposed to be for 'consultation' has since been canceled.

2150 GMT

Another source quoting ferghana.ru confirms that President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has indeed moved to the village of Markai, close to Jalalabad in the west of the country. He is reportedly accompanied by his brother and they are being protected by armed groups.

2100 GMT

The US State Department's daily briefing from Washington D.C. yesterday outlines the current US stance regarding the situation in Kyrgyzstan. At the same time, it might also infuriate the Kyrgyz opposition.

Protests in Kyrgyz Republic/U.S. Deeply Concerned About Reports of Civil Disturbances and Possible Loss of Life/Closely Monitoring the Situation/U.S. Deplores the Violence/Urge All Parties to Show Respect for Rule of Law/Manas Airbase is Functioning/U.S. Embassy in Bishkek is Presently Functioning Normally/Maxim Bakiyev and Foreign Minister Sarbayev Will Be Arriving in the U.S. Today for Previously Scheduled Consultations

While President Bakiyev's son Maksim Bakiyev's trip was scheduled in advance, some might take it as a sign that the US is supporting President Kurmanbek Bakiyev even though it has no link to the current uprising. It is worth noting that his house was burnt during the uprising yesterday and he remains a deeply unpopular figure within the country.

It is unclear whether Maksim Bakiyev made the trip indeed along with the Foreign Minister. Unconfirmed sources have reported that he has. There is speculation among opposition activists that he might not return to the country if he has indeed made it to the US.


2022 GMT

Earlier, it was reported that President Kurmanbek Bakiyev might be in his hometown of Osh. New reports now indicate that the president might have fled close to Jalalabad - Kyrgyzstan's third largest city. According to some sources, he is currently in the village of Markai and is preparing to defend his presidency.

This comes as other sources are making claims of the blockage of the highway between Bishkek and Osh, making movement between the two parts of the country very difficult. This could not be immediately confirmed, though.

1800 GMT

While it seems the situation in Bishkek might have finally calmed down after a night of sporadic gunfire, the world is still disunited in the face of Kyrgyzstan's uprising. The US and Russia are showing markedly different approaches to the Kyrgyz uprising. While the US seems to be more cautious, Russia looks to be slowly warming up to the opposition which is now in charge of Kyrgyzstan. Reuters reports:

A U.S. official said Obama and Medvedev considered issuing a joint statement on the crisis, since both had an interest in stability, but no such initiative was forthcoming.

Instead, a senior Russian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters afterwards: "In Kyrgyzstan, there should be only one base -- Russian." The U.S. official responded that the two leaders had not discussed the notion of closing the U.S. air base.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin effectively recognized the interim Kyrgyz government formed by opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva on Thursday, speaking to her by telephone, his spokesman said. But the U.S. official said it was unclear who was running Kyrgyzstan, although he said Washington did not see the upheaval as a Russian-sponsored or anti-American coup.

1735 GMT

Even as interim-leader Roza Otunbayeva continues to claim Bishkek is under control, reports of gunfire continue to arrive from capital. Twitterati in Kyrgyzstan or with first hand knowledge through relatives and friends continue raise concern. Here are some of the tweets from David Gullette a few minutes ago:

Deputy Nazarov said at 22:30 that in two hours the city would be quiet. It's now 23:15 and there is gunfire in the area.

We are hearing shots in central Bishkek.

Others are sounding hopeful. Mirsulzhan Namazaliev, who is co-founder of the Central Asian Free Market Institute, tweets:

Everything is being normalized, guys! Multiple police sounders in the city center of Bishkek.

Great! Everything will be fine very soon! Kyrgyz Police say: Wee repress acts of looters near the Osh Bazaar

But there is alarming news which is as yet unconfirmed that the army has been given orders to shoot anyone who is out looting.

1705 GMT

As with all news stories, there are reports that cite sources who completely miss the point. 'Managing to Miss the Point of the Day' goes to International Crisis Group's analyst Paul Quinn-Judge who is based in Tajikistan. Speaking to Foreign Policy, Quinn-Judge, a former Time Magazine reporter had this to say about the Kyrgyz people:

Quinn-Judge says the discontent with Bakiyev's government that led to today's events has been building for weeks, and was driven less by political repression than by bread and butter issues.

"A few weeks ago, the government sudden raised the prices on gas, water and electricity," he said. "This turned out to be quite literally the final straw for a population that is generally very apolitical and willing to take whatever is thrown at them by the regime."

Wait? 'A population that is generally very apolitical' and 'willing to take whatever is thrown at them by the regime'? Our readers might remember Kyrgyzstan's 2005 'Tulip Revolution'. But few are talking about protests in Kyrgyzstan in 2006 and 2007 - caused by discontent with the government. The swiftness with which the government was removed from power shows anything but apathy.

It's quite simple. The Kyrgyz people have done this before. They have been voicing their concerns before with Bakiyev. He didn't listen. They acted. Alas, if only every bad president/leader/king/Imam was at the helms of 'apolitical' citizens like the ones in Kyrgyzstan...

1635 GMT

Sounds of gunfire are rocking the Kyrgyz capital again. The Associated Press reports:

Associated Press reporters in Kyrgyzstan are hearing sustained automatic weapons fire breaking out as night falls in the capital of Kyrgyzstan...

Meanwhile on Twitter, Kyrgyz twitterati also reported hearing gunshots. Many reported seeing looters on the streets. Others reported that the Kyrgyz police was taking action. Scattered reports of looting in Osh were also reported. Meanwhile, interim-leader Roza Otunbayeva used Twitter to thank the volunteer militia for helping to maintain peace in the Kyrgyz capital. She later tried to calm tensions by tweeting:

The situation in Bishkek is under control. Police and armed forces will keep the peace tonight

1330 GMT

President Bakiyev has said that he will not resign but has conceded that ministries and security forces are now under the control of the provisional government of Roza Otunbayeva.

1310 GMT

NewEurasia offers the summary that President Bakiyev has not officially resigned, although it appears that the prime minister and much of the Bakiyev Government have quit.

The site also features this incisive commentary:

Seriously, what are we going to call what just happened? The “Second Tulip Revolution” sometimes sounds very poetic, one of the few times when a Hollywood sequel was better than the original. But “uprising” just has a far more fitting connotation, doesn’t it?

For one, because a revolution has to be something a lot more deep than just shuffling a president. Maybe that’s what will happen. I’m curious about how such a disparate group of neo-liberals, ex-leftists, semi-Islamists, and sort-of-Akayevniks like the Kyrgyz opposition will actually govern the country. Perhaps by committee, hopefully with more transparency, but whatever they choose, I doubt it will be revolutionary in any real meaning of the word.

For another, because uprising really captures the spirit of what’s happened in Kyrgyzstan. There will be endless speculations about whether the Russians or the Americans somehow instigated this. But I tell you: the frustrations of the Kyrgyz people are real. Even if there was a foreign agent provateur, he didn’t have to provoke very much.

0830 GMT

A spokesman for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says that the leader of the proclaimed Kyrgyz Government, Roza Otunbayeva, has told Putin by telephone that she is in full control of the country.

0700 GMT

In addition to echoing the points below, made again at Otunbayeva's press conference, CNN's reporter in Bishkek says capital is now calm, with improvised rallies and speakers  in the streets.

Otubayeva told the CNN reporter at the press conference that the fate of the US airbase is "one of the less important things" on the agenda of her proclaimed government.

0655 GMT

Opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva has told the Russian-language Mir TV channel, "The security service and the interior ministry, all of them are already under the management of new people." Other opposition leaders said Otunbayeva would head the interim government for the next six months.

"The interim government will remain in place for half a year, during which we will draft the constitution and create conditions for free and fair elections," Otunbayeva said.

0630 GMT

The "interim Defence Minister" says armed forces and border guards are under control of the Otubayeva movement.

0614 GMT

Opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva warns at her press conference in Bishkek that President Bakiyev is trying to rally supporters and defend his position.

0550 GMT

The New York Times makes its priority clear in the opening paragraph of its report, "The bloody protests against the repressive rule of the president of Kyrgyzstan which forced him to flee the capital of Bishkek could pose a threat to a pivotal American military supply line into nearby Afghanistan."

The story makes no reference to statements of the opposition that it intends to take no action regarding the US airbase at Manas.

0445 GMT

This is perhaps the decisive moment for Kyrgyzstan's government. If the president is forced to flee the city, the country's south will also fall into the opposition's hands and then Bakiyev won't have any more chips to expend.

0413 GMT

Reports are slowly emerging that protesters have started to gather in Kyrgyzstan's second largest city Osh. EurasiaNet reporter David Trilling tweets:

Osh witness reports crowds gathering there.

Akipress reports white house [Kyrgyz Presidential Palace] on fire, 1000 gathered in front, people have free access.

Vesti.kz: [President] Bakiyev flew from Kazakhstan to Osh.

Osh mayor says Bakiyev is in his "southern residence" (not far from UN office in Osh). http://bit.ly/bSb8ON

diplomatic sources say bakiyev flew to osh and may have moved to hometown of Jalalabad

0405 GMT

Two new stories have emerged. Opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva, now in charge in Bishkek is going to be holding a press conference in an hour (1100 AM Kyrgyz Time). As all eyes are turned towards her, new reports have emerged of what the protesters demanded. Several sources on Twitter who are in Kyrgyzstan right now are claiming that the protesters did not demand that the US pull its troops out of Manas Airport.

This story was repeatedly reported by several Western media outlets. According to these outlets, the protesters demanded an end to corruption, lowering of utilities' prices and the evacuation of US Forces from Manas. TIME even published a story claiming Russia might have instigated the uprising to force the US out of Kyrgyzstan. This story is, however, now being hotly contested by Kyrgyz opposition twitterers. It is worth noting that Otubayeva earlier hinted that the US can keep its base in Manas for the time being and no violence was directed at US forces there.

0326 GMT

International reaction to the Kyrgyz uprising has been one of concern over violence and there have been calls for calm.

Russia's president was the first to speak. Most important task at the moment is to prevent new losses of human lives in Kyrgyzstan, which is swept by disturbances, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday. His Press Secretary Natalia Timakova echoed his sentiment:

This situation is Kyrgyzstan’s internal affair but the form in which the protests erupted testifies to the utmost degree of discontent that the actions of the authorities produced among the rank-and-file people....Kyrgyzstan has always been and will remain a strategic partner for Russia and that’s why we’ll continue watching the course of developments there closely.

US National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer urged calm:

We are concerned about reports of violence and looting and call on all parties to refrain from violence and exercise restraint... So far the situation there has not affected any of the US personnel assigned either at the embassy or at Manas.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle expressed his concern on Wednesday toward the violence in Kyrgyzstan.

I am very concerned about the clashes between protesters and government in Kyrgyzstan... I call upon both sides to exercise restraint. Instead of violent actions, peaceful dialogues, are the only correct way to calm down the situation on the ground.

0310 GMT

News has emerged from Kyrgyzstan that the official death toll from the violent protests yesterday in Bishkek is 65. The number was confirmed by the Health Ministry, which had earlier claimed the toll to be 40. Opposition groups, however, claim that the number is as high as 100.

Yesterday's protests were extremely violent as both the government and the opposition used firearms. Scenes of protesters using AK-47s to push back security forces and government snipers shooting at people were shown across several TV stations.

The new report emerges as several outlets such as TIME are hinting that Russia might have had a hand in the new Kyrgyz uprising. This seems to entirely miss  the point that the Kyrgyz president had already faced similar protests in 2006 and 2007 and that the election that brought him to power was marred by fraud. The reports also miss the fact that the current protests were sparked by a hike in utility bills.

0245 GMT

Reports have now emerged that Kyrgyz opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva intends to stay in power and lead an interim government for six months which will write up a new constitution for the county. This could not be confirmed immediately by all sources. In the morning after protesters ousted the government in Bishkek and took over government buildings, the city is still reeling from the looting done the day before. Bishkek Municipality workers are out cleaning the streets. (See pictures below)

However, no reports of new violence from the capital have emerged. Some Kyrgyz netizens reported that the situation was relatively calm and that some people had even gone to work. The opposition earlier declared that they have appointed new ministers of interior and defense and were working to restore calm in the capital.

0216 GMT

Russia Today reports that the Parliament has been occupied by protesters as well. President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's house and his relatives' houses have been burnt down. The station also confirms that the president has reportedly fled the country. They also confirm that opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva is in charge and has dissolved the parliament and taken over the presidential palace. Russia Today also confirms that protests are ongoing in at least four cities.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSfnax1yWMQ[/youtube]

0211 GMT

Morning after the uprising, and Kyrgyz capital Bishkek shows signs of wide-spread looting:







Check the live journal for more pictures.

0144 GMT

The leader of the Kyrgyz uprising has a Twitter account and has been tweeting for the past 24 hours. Her first tweet in English is from 17 hours ago:

We want #freekg #kyrgyzstan ! Bakiev and his cowards are no match against the will of the #kyrgyz people!

Bakiyev, stop shooting at your own people! You will never be forgiven!

She then reverts to tweeting in Russian. A simple translation of her tweets from five hours ago are as follows:

We call on the workers of  KТР, Channel 5 and НТС and other mass-media to show the REAL situation in Kyrgyzstan!

Authority is in the hands of the national government. People have been appointed to key positions. We are working to restore calm.

In the city [Bishkek] national combatants, veterans and others are patroling. Civilians are organized.

The Ministry of Interior Affairs is working to restore calm.

0125 GMT

The BBC reports that Kyrgyzstan's new government's stance on the US base in Manas Airport in the country is unchanged. The report also quotes the opposition's main leader and self-proclaimed interim-leader Roza Otunbayeva claiming that they have appointed a new Interior and a new Defense Minister and they would be dealing with the unrest from now on.

The former Interior Minister was killed yesterday by angry protesters.

0108 GMT

New reports have emerged that Kyrgyz Prime Minister Daniar Usenov has tendered the government's resignation and that Baikyev's government's no longer legitimate. This comes amid mixed reports that the President may have fled the country entirely or is in the southwestern city of Osh, his power base. Amid news of wide-spread looting in the city, some observers claim that if Bakiyev manages to keep control of Osh and southern Kyrgyzstan and the opposition remains in the north only, it could mean instability for the country.

EurasiaNet reports:

Although political support for Bakiyev has evaporated in northern Kyrgyzstan, leaders of the provisional government now worry that Bakiyev might try to rally support in the South, his home region. While it seems doubtful that the military and Interior Ministry forces will now follow his orders, as long as Bakiyev remains on Kyrgyz territory he could make trouble for the provisional government. His presence in Osh could exacerbate long-standing North-South tension in Kyrgyzstan, something that could lead to a prolonged period of political confrontation in the country.

0054 GMT

New reports emerging from the country illustrate the extent of people's anger. Protesters have reportedly stormed government institutions all over the capital and have even freed political prisoners in some cases. Opposition leaders claim they are in complete control of the capital and protesters are reportedly mobilizing to take control of other cities in Kyrgyzstan as the day starts.

Reports have also emerged that President Bakiyev has left the city of Osh and is not in Kyrgyzstan anymore. Opposition leaders have reportedly set up a new government in the capital, headed by former Foreign Minister Roza Otunbayeva and are in the process of appointing new ministers.

2353 GMT

New reports by CNN and New York Times suggest that the opposition is in complete control of the capital and were in the process of forming a new government under former Foreign Minister Roza Otunbayeva. Various news sources reported that Otunbayeva claims to be the interim leader of Kyrgyzstan. So far, the wherabouts of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev are unknown. Sources claim he may have left the capital for the southwestern city of Osh, others claim he may have left the country entirely.

The New York Times reports:

The United States Embassy in Bishkek issued a statement saying that it was “deeply concerned about reports of civil disturbances.” By late evening in Bishkek, it appeared that the opposition had succeeded in taking over the national television channels. In a speech to the nation, an opposition leader, Omurbek Tekebaev, a former speaker of Parliament, demanded that Mr. Bakiyev and the rest of his government resign.

Mr. Tekebaev was arrested earlier in the day along with some other opposition leaders, but was later released.

CNN adds:

Bishkek resident Munarbek Kuldanbaev told CNN that opposition leaders went on the state television network and called for calm, but clashes between opposition supporters and police continued into Wednesday night. Another Bishkek resident, who asked to remain anonymous because of security concerns, said there was machine-gun fire around the city and blood stained the streets in front of the presidential palace.

In Washington, a senior Pentagon official told CNN that the turmoil has interrupted flights into and out of Kyrgyzstan's Manas Air Base, an important link in the supply line for U.S. and NATO forces in nearby Afghanistan. It was unclear when those flights would resume, the official said, but the U.S. military has contingency plans to deal with the situation.

Roza Otunbayeva is one of they key leaders of the Tulip Revolution, which ousted then-president Askar Akayev in 2005, as well as a member of the Kyrgyz parliament. She is a former Kyrgyz Ambassador to Malaysia and later the United Kingdom and also the first ambassador the to United States and Canada and served as the deputy head of the United Nations special mission to Georgia from 2002 to 2004.

Russian officials have called for calm in the republic and asked the government and the opposition to settle their differences peacefully. As a new day begins in Kyrgyzstan, it looks unlikely that the violence will stop.

Background:

This is the second time Kyrgyzstan will see an uprising sweep away the government. In 2005, protesters stormed the capital and other large cities, forcing President-turned-dictator Askar Akayev from power in what observer dubbed 'the Tulip Revolution'. After elections were held in July of 2005, Kurmanbek Bakiyev was elected to lead the country amid allegations of wide-spread fraud.

However, Bakiyev ousted other leaders of the revolution quickly, starting with Prime Minister Felix Kulov, solidified his hold on power and based on accounts by the opposition and independent observers started to enrich himself and his family. He has faced protests twice before in 2006 and 2007 when opposition demanded that he follow through with promises of reform, restricting the power of the president and clamp down on corruption and crime.

He was elected to a second term in 2009 amidst more allegations of fraud. Among his key decisions was to declare that Kyrgyzstan would evict the US and international forces from Manas Airport, which they use to supply NATO and ISAF troops in Afghanistan.

Bakiyev also restricted media freedoms..

2330 GMT

Latest update: Protesters seem to be in control of Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.

Raw video footage from Bishkek showing protesters clashing with security forces. Images could be disturbing to some viewers:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igghSmJZrm0[/youtube]

Footage from protests in the rally in the city of Naryn:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNuoFpFf72E[/youtube]

2313 GMT

Scope: Currently protesters have shown up in the capital Bishkek where they seem to be mostly in control. Protests in Talas, west of the capital seem to be steady as well and have now spread to the city of Naryn.

Protesters' Demands: End to corruption, lowering the cost of utilities and removal of US forces from Manas Airport. Different sources have quoted different demands, but everyone seems to agree on these three.

State of Affairs: Government forces attempting to control Bishkek and stop violence from spreading to countries two largest cities besides the capital, Osh and Dzhalalabad.

Government: President Kurmanbek Bakiyev is reportedly in Osh in southwestern Kyrgyzstan. The capital so far neither in control of the government nor the protesters.

Casualties: The Health Ministry claims 40 people have been killed by security forces, while opposition leaders claim the number to be over 100. Interior Minister Moldomusa Kongatiyev has been beaten to death by the protesters, according to the AP.

2150 GMT

Protesters furious over Kyrgyz government's ineptitude have seized several key government institutions and the headquarters of one of the country's state TV stations. Opposition leaders claim that at least 100 protesters have been killed in the clashes with security forces, while the Health Ministry of Kyrgyzstan claims the number to be less than half that. Protesters were demanding an end to corruption, media reforms and an end to US presence in Manas Airport, which as well as being the country's main airport is also the site of the Transit Center at Manas, a US Air Force base supporting US and international troops in Afghanistan.

Protests started in the northern city of Talas, west of the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, on Tuesday over a 200% hike in electricity bills and quickly spread to the capital where protesters first took over the  State-run TV, then the office of the country's main intelligence agency. They later put the Attorney General's Office on fire and attempted to seize the government headquarters.

The violence in the Kyrgyz capital continued late into the night and early morning hours. Fore now, it seems the government of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev is fighting hard to keep control of the capital. Tanks were seen guarding the presidential palace. More updates with background information in a few minutes.

Afghanistan: Death And The Prices We Pay for Intervention

Stephen Walt ,  writing on Foreign Policy about the recent Wikileaks release on the killing of civilians in Iraq in 2007 by US forces, touches on the idea that massacres like the one in the Wikileaks video are to be expected as part of the price of our interventionist policies:

Notice that I am not suggesting that the personnel involved failed to observe the proper "rules of engagement," or did not genuinely think that the individuals they were attacking were in fact armed. Rather, what bothers me is that they were clearly trying to operate within the rules, and still made a tragic error. It reminds us that this sort of mistake is inevitable in this sort of war, especially when we rely on overwhelming firepower to wage it. When we intervene in other countries, this is what we should expect.

Afghanistan: The Humanity Missing From Our Debate

It's an excellent point, but unfortunately it's too easily dismissed with the old "war is hell" cliche, as in this piece from Bouhammer:

Soldiers cannot get wrapped around every single life they are forced to take by virtue of being in combat. Soldiers (and I use soldiers generally describing all service-members), use dark humor and take it all in stride when they have to take lives. They can’t be effective by getting wrapped around the axle over taking human lives. So what you hear in this video is soldiers being soldiers. Nobody likes killing innocents, especially children and that is evident when the soldiers on the ground immediately start calling for a MEDEVAC to come get the wounded children.

Clearly not everyone sees killing people as an unacceptable price of war, particularly when it's soldiers doing it. Bouhammer simply took Walt's adviceand expected the horrible deaths as a natural result of the policy.

But there is a bit more to the price of war than just the loss of lives. So let's get a little cold-hearted for a moment and just accept that we need to murder these people as part of our strategy. Even if we're OK with that, the price of this strategy is still astronomically expensive.

Let's start just with the cost of transporting supplies to our troops. Not the supplies themselves, just the cost of transporting them. Tom Engelhardt explains:

Believe it or not, according to the Washington Post, the Defense Department has awarded a contract worth up to $360 million to the son of an Afghan cabinet minister to transport U.S. military supplies through some of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan – and his company has no trucks. (He hires subcontractors who evidently pay off the Taliban as part of a large-scale protection racket that allows the supplies through unharmed.) This contract is, in turn, part of a $2.1 billion Host Nation Trucking contract whose recipients may be deeply involved in extortion and smuggling rackets, and over which the Pentagon reportedly exercises little oversight.

That'sthe US taxpayer, paying $2 billion just for trucks run by corrupt warlords and Taliban interlopers who will use them to smuggle  God knows what, possibly drugs or guns used to kill our soldiers. Lovely. But we have to pay that, because in order for our war strategy to work we've got to have soldiers in "some of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan".

That's just for the trucks. How do we get the supplies on to those trucks? Well, they come through an airbase in Kyrgyzstan. The price for that is the usual support for a police state dictator and paying rent with US taxpayers' money. And that price is about to go up:

The news of ongoing unrest in the central Asian republic has been received with concern by Washington. The U.S. embassy in Bishkek said it was "deeply concerned" about "civil disturbances" in the country, in a statement released on Wednesday.

Saying that the situation in Kyrgyzstan was "still very fluid", John Kerry, the chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, expressed "regret for the loss of life" in the country and called on all sides to be "calm and refrain from violence". He called upon Kyrgyz parties to address the "underlying political, economic and social issues" in a "transparent process that brings stability and fundamental rights to all."

The U.S. State Department said that transport operations at the Manas military installation outside Bishkek have been "functioning normally." The U.S. military has used the base over the past several years as a staging post for its operations in Afghanistan. Despite the call for the base’s closure by opposition leaders reportedly in charge now, it remains to be seen whether the new government will take practical steps toward that end.

There are worries in the U.S. that the new opposition-led government may increase the rent for Manas base by renegotiating the terms of its agreement with the U.S., according to Foreign Policy’s Cable blog. Such a renegotiation, Cable said, may offer Russia an opportunity to influence an agreement over the base.

So our pet dictator was ousted in a violent uprising (I won't get into the awful stuff he did to deserve that here), and now the new opposition government is going to be raising the rent, if not evicting us completely. This also apparently gives Russia, who we desperately need in other matters like the Iranian nuclear file, a bargaining chip to play against the US.

But the cost goes beyond rent or trucks or anything you can put a dollar sign on. We're also actively working to subvert European democracies as part of the cost of our war:

A newly leaked CIA report prepared earlier this month analyzes how the U.S. Government can best manipulate public opinion in Germany and France -- in order to ensure that those countries continue to fight in Afghanistan. The Report celebrates the fact that the governments of those two nations continue to fight the war in defiance of overwhelming public opinion which opposes it -- so much for all the recent veneration of "consent of the governed" -- and it notes that this is possible due to lack of interest among their citizenry: "Public Apathy Enables Leaders to Ignore Voters," proclaims the title of one section.

We're paying the CIA to figure out how to screw over the voters of France and Germany, and I wouldn't be surprised if the same chicanery was happening in American politics. We're way past blowing taxpayer funds and into the territory of destroying our own national values. And for what? Who actually stands to benefit from all of these prices that we're paying?

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has slammed Western backers for the second time in a week, accusing the United States of interference, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

In a private meeting with up to 70 Afghan lawmakers Saturday, Karzai also warned that the Taliban insurgency could become a legitimate resistance movement if foreign meddling in Afghan affairs continues, the Journal said, citing participants in the talks.

During the talks, Karzai, whose government is supported by billions of dollars of Western aid and 126,000 foreign troops fighting the Taliban, said he would be compelled to join the insurgency himself if the parliament does not back his bid to take over Afghanistan's electoral watchdog

That's right, we're paying a couple billion to Taliban warlords over here, propping up a police state over there, subverting democracies all over the place, and all for a corrupt mountebank like Karzai who wants to join the Taliban. And remember, I'm just picking examples out of thin air here; the cost of trucks, the Kyrgyz airbase, the CIA memos. These aren't even the total cost of the war which will wind up costing in the trillions.

Let's go back to Walt's piece:

It reminds us that this sort of mistake is inevitable in this sort of war, especially when we rely on overwhelming firepower to wage it. When we intervene in other countries, this is what we should expect.

See, Americans do expect these costs. They understand the cliches that "war is hell" and, indeed, expensive. But Americans do question why they're paying these costs only to prop up criminals like Karzai. Why are we paying billions to Taliban smugglers and police states and anti-democratic intelligence operations just to build a country for a guy who wants to join the Taliban? And he's the best thing we've got over there, we've been there for over 9 years, there is no one else.

Americans aren't opposing the cost of this war because they magically turned into pacifist hippies, they oppose the cost because we're paying for nothing over there. The best case scenario for the current price we're paying is we shell out trillions in deficit money, leave our soldiers to keep dying and killing innocent civilians for the next few years, subvert democracies worldwide, and destroy our own national values. All so Karzai will maybe not join the Taliban. Whatever goals we have in Afghanistan are simply not worth the price we're paying.

Josh Mull also writes for The Seminal and Rethink Afghanistan.