Amid all the hullabaloo around Obama's decision to shut down Gitmo within one year, is Gitmo's brother, the Bagram Air Base prison in Afghanistan. The air base is home to an important prison system that holds some of ‘worst of the worst’. The US considers the 600 or so inmates prisoners of war and holds […]
It was just last week that I put in a blog piece that the EU's chances of diversifying their gas supplies were extremely poor. Even though the Georgia-Russian war and even more recent Ukraine-EU gas pipeline was shut off by Moscow, seemingly bringing Europe to their energy knees once again, I pretty much agreed with […]
There is much happening in US-Afghanistan relations and policy in the last week. Former Clinton super diplomat, Richard Holbrooke, was chosen by the Obama administration to be a special envoy for Afghanistan-Pakistan, a region Obama called the ‘Central Front’ in war on terror. Just as I write, Obama's Afghan policy is literally hitting the ground […]
All things Afghanistan today: US Assistant Secretary Boucher went into the ‘Kleig Lights’ early this year in front to the press in Kabul to discuss, you guessed it, all things Afghanistan. He went over US-Pakistan relations, Afghanistan-Pakistan relations, troop deployment strategy, Obama and the US's committment to the nation, the Taliban's resurgence and governance in […]
So it appears that Ukraine and Russia have finally come to terms on a Gas Transportation deal that will allow the former Soviet state to receive gas and send it on to Western Europe. This is just the latest in a long line of dramas involving the transport and ownership of energy reserves between the […]
Eurasianet writer Joshua Kucera reported on an interesting story involving former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's new foundation, which focuses on the Central Asian region. Kucera starts out skeptical of Rumsfeld and his foundation's motivations at first, neoconservative policy pushers?, but his research seems to lead him to conclude that their goals are of a […]
I was lucky enough to have a piece of mine, ‘Terrorism in Central Asia‘ be published on FPA's main page. The piece deals with the rise in terrorism from and in the Central Asian states, mainly from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and how it is impacting the stability near the Afghan/Pakistan border. Here is an excerpt: […]
Though the state of Turkmenistan still has to be considered one of the world's most oppressive societies, ever since the death of President Saparmurat Niyazov, a man who seemed to rule over his people like he was trying to ensure a spot in the Dictators Hall of Fame, slight signs of progress have been made […]
The Chinese government released a report in one of their official publications detailing the number of arrests for ‘endangering state security’ in the past year and unfortunately the news was not good for the Uighurs of Xinjiang Province. According to the report 1,154 Xinjiang citizens were indicted for crimes against state security in 2008, which […]
Vice President-elect Joseph Biden stopped over in Afghanistan the day before yesterday, right after a visit in Pakistan with Prime Minister Gilani and just before he was due to stop in Iraq. Biden did not just stop in Kabul, but actually spent his time in Afghanistan's south, mainly in Kandahar, where the insurgent presence has […]
Yesterday, I was able to attend a lecture and Q & A by Professor William Wood from Point Loma Nazarene University hosted by the World Affairs Council of San Diego. Wood is a Central Asian regional expert who has done much research throughout the region, including during the period just before the CA states gained […]
In the early 90s, I used to listen to a Radiohead song called "Electioneering" from their groundbreaking album, OK Computer. The song bitterly bemoans the UK/US electoral process and vote getting tactics by politicians and parties. Though the song brilliantly and rather accurately portrays some of the unfortunate truths of our electoral system, it is […]
As the worldwide economic downturn continues it is showing its frightful face in many ways. The World Bank has just reported that worldwide remittances, money sent from immigrants back to their homeland, are drammatically slowing down and causing further impoverishment for the families back home. This is especially serious for the Central Asian states as a […]
I am currently working on a longer piece for the Foreign Policy Association's main page and newsletter on the spread of terrorism and extremism in Afghanistan and Central Asia. It will concentrate on the recent influx of Islamic militants from the Stans’ into the Pakistan-Afghanistan shared border region. The recent make up and activities of […]
In 2006, Kazakh President Nazarbayev made an impressive speech promoting the idea that the country he ruled would continue to grow in the years ahead and soon be among the world's top 50 economically competitive nations. Unfortunately, the economic downturn and lowering of energy prices have made this promise unfulfilled as of yet as Kazakhstan […]