Investing. For Victory!

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by Nathan Hamm on 1/26/2012 · 1 comment

A curious press release went out today that urges the US public and government to support investment in Central Asia, especially in Uzbekistan. (Unsurprisingly, it is currently the top news item at The American Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce at the moment). The release casts US business as the force that should be left behind to [...]

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Talking Politics in Afghanistan

by Joshua Foust on 1/26/2012 · 6 comments

On Tuesday, I had the unexpected pleasure of sitting on a panel with Michael O’Hanlon and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul McHale to talk about the future of American strategy in Afghanistan. That’s the video of the event. In case you don’t want to sit through 90 minutes of jabbering, I’m pasting my comments [...]

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Kazakhstan’s Elections: Aspirations for Democracy amidst Expectations of Paternalism

by alima_bissenova on 1/26/2012 · 0 comments

The background to the January 15 Kazakhstan’s parliamentary elections has been most unfavorable. The image of stability that Kazakhstan’s government had carefully cultivated over the years has been tarnished with the outbreak of violence in an oil town of Zhanaozen. In neighboring Russia, on which Kazakhstan depends both culturally and politically, dozens of thousands of [...]

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The Truly Bizarre Case of the Uzbek Rights Activist Turned Terror Suspect

Thumbnail image for The Truly Bizarre Case of the Uzbek Rights Activist Turned Terror Suspect by Joshua Foust

I wrote earlier today about the weird trumped up Uzbek Terror hype machine, and how it might have snagged a man for committing, essentially, a thought crime. Jamshid Mukhtarov is currently in custody on suspicion of providing material support to the Islamic Jihad Union. We’ll set aside questions of whether the IJU exists anywhere outside [...]

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The Crazy, Trumped Up Uzbek Hype

by Joshua Foust

Yesterday, U.S. federal counterterrorism agents descended on O’Hare International Airport to arrest an Uzbek man, Jamshid Muhktarov, on charges of terrorism. According to U.S. investigators, Jamshid Mukhtarov was working with Islamic Jihad Union, an affiliate of al-Qaeda, when he was arrested Saturday night at O’Hare while changing planes for an overseas flight. Mukhtarov, 35, a [...]

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Turkmen Government Ratchets Up Pressure on Political Prisoner

by Joshua Foust

Dr. Andrea Rauter sends along this very bizarre story of the Turkmen government harassing a horse breeder. She provided this translation from the German: The presidential elections in Turkmenistan scheduled to take place on 12 February this year bring new harassment and threat to Geldy Kyarizov, former director of the Government Association Turkmenatlary (Turkmen Horses) [...]

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Monitoring the Monitors

by Casey_Michel

Over the last few days, there’s been an ongoing debate on my Facebook wall as to the merits of the OSCE’s criticisms that came out following Kazakhstan’s recent Majlis election. After I posted Nazarbayev’s response to the criticisms – that is, his refusal to allow future critical monitors into his nation – a series of Kazakhstani friends came out in [...]

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Democracy’s Miller Test

by Nathan Hamm

Joshua Kucera has a very good article at EurasiaNet on the deflection of election criticism by Kazakhstani officials and a handful of DC analysts. They argue that the deficiencies in the parliamentary election are less important than overall progress toward democracy. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in particular have argued that they are on gradual, managed path [...]

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Uzbekistan’s National Security Waiver

by Joshua Foust

BILLS 112hr2055enr Much ado has been made about the U.S. decision to reengage with the government of Uzbekistan as a part of a regional strategy to both lessen American dependence on Pakistan and possibly chart some sort of regional strategy going forward. Human rights groups are, naturally, aghast at the idea because the Uzbek government [...]

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Crusaders, Vietnam, Whatever: Inside the Thomas Johnson Afghanistan Kaleidoscope

by Joshua Foust

My favorite ABD Professor of Afghanistan things of all time — seen here making things up, comparing the Taliban to Irish people or maybe Native Americans, and talking very ignorantly about Vietnam — is back. The Vietnam thing continues in his latest article, co-written with eternal collaborator M Chris Mason, for the AfPak Channel. “Our [...]

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The Bizarre Kazakh Election Whitewash

by Joshua Foust

The OSCE is fairly unambiguous: Notwithstanding the government’s stated ambition to strengthen Kazakhstan’s democratic processes and conduct elections in line with international standards, yesterday’s early parliamentary vote still did not meet fundamental principles of democratic elections, the international observers concluded in a statement issued today. This probably surprises no one, since Uncle Nazzy declined to [...]

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