KULOB, Tajikistan – At the request of the Tajikistan government, Third Army in support of U.S. efforts donated a C-17 load of tents to provide shelter to some of the more than 2,000 people who were affected by the flooding in Kulob, May 7.
"It is our privilege to help our partner and friend, the people of Tajikistan, in their hour of need," said Col. Michael J. Keller, 1st Theater Sustainment Command, Civil Military Operations Center commander. "Our engineering and medical teams will continue to assess the situation to determine where further assistance is required."
Well that's selfless of them, to help out the victims of flooding. And naturally such a humanitarian gesture was done in the low-key, understated way that the U.S. is well known for. Oh, wait...
Young soldiers in the Tajikistan army look out the back of a truck as a pallet full of tents, covered with an American flag, passes by. Third Army Soldiers delivered over $250,000 worth of tents to Kulob, Tajikistan, while answering the nation's call for help due to recent floods. (Photo by Dominic Hauser, Civil Military Operations Center)
Have you noticed that the speculation over the fate of Manas Transit Center has slowed down quite a bit? Stars and Stripes -- a newspaper targeted at the U.S. military -- noticed, too:
One of the first moves of Kyrgyz interim leader Roza Otunbayeva after coming to power last month was to promise renewal of the lease for the key U.S. air base near Bishkek, the country’s capital.
Days later, her foreign minister criticized Americans for worrying only about the base — officially called the Transit Center at Manas — at the expense of supporting democratic values.
Now, leaders of the new government are hesitant to say anything publicly about the base.
“We have said enough,” said interim government spokesman Edil Baisalov. “We don’t have any views on the base.”
The story goes on to note that there is a lot of public disapproval of the base, and of the interim government as well, and so the government may not be willing to stick its neck out to preserve the base.
Last week, I wrote about the U.S. ambassador to Kyrgyzstan's clumsy defensiveness regarding charges that she ignored the former opposition for the sake of maintaining the U.S. air base there. Apparently she had a reason to feel defensive: Steve LeVine reports that the ambassador is on her way out:
In Washington, I am told that prior to these latest events there already had been a senior-level Administration decision to pull Ambassador Tatiana Gfoeller several months prior to the end of her scheduled rotation out in Fall 2011. Gfoeller will return to Washington after a few months, I am told, after an interval from the April 7 ouster of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
The apparent decision comes against the backdrop of bitter complaints by members of Kyrgyzstan's provisional government -- most prominently those of leader Roza Otunbayeva -- that Gfoeller met with them only infrequently while they were in the opposition to Bakiyev. ... In fact, Gfoeller appears to have raised not only Otunbayeva's bile, but also that of Bakiyev, who railed against the Embassy meeting with the opposition at all.
Ribbon-cutting at the opening of KAZBRIG Training Center by Ambassador Richard Hoagland and General Adilbek Aldabergenov
Discussions of the military aspect of Kazakhstan's "multi-vector diplomacy" usually conclude that, whatever happens with oil and gas and other trade, the country's armed forces are likely to remain oriented toward Russia. That's because language limitations mean Kazakh officers who train abroad are most likely to do so in Russia, and of course because the military's legacy equipment and doctrine is Russian.
That's why an interview that Kazakhstan's defense minister gave to Kazakhstanskaya Pravda this week is kind of curious (not online; via BBC Monitoring). The language that he uses to describe the direction the military is going in will be unmistakeable to anyone who follows the Pentagon:
The main principle that we are using in building our armed forces is a brigade-based army. ... a compact, mobile and effective armed force which would be able to carry out the whole spectrum of tasks connected with the state's military security ... improve the communication system and electronic forms of military management.
Whole-spectrum, brigade-centric, network-centric... sounds straight out of an Art Cebrowski briefing from the early 2000s.
But, the Kazakhs could also just be learning to talk the talk: The U.S. has also just opened a language-training center in Almaty, apparently to get Kazakhstan's peacekeeping soldiers to speak better English to be able to better serve abroad. Said the U.S. ambassador at the center's opening at the end of last month:
Taitiana Gfoeller and Michael McFaul at the May 5 press conference in Bishkek
Reading through the transcript of the press conference during this week's visit by Michael McFaul (President Obama's director of Russian and Central Asian affairs at the National Security Council) to Kyrgyzstan, it's impossible not to get the sense that the U.S. is now on the defensive there. They were clearly stung by accusations that, in an effort to curry favor the previous government to keep access to the air base there, they had ignored human rights problems and blew off the opposition until the April 7 riots that resulted in the overthrow of the government. McFaul spent his entire opening statement refuting that notion. His words rang a bit false, given that pretty much every analyst, and members of the current government/former opposition, are pretty much in a consensus that those accusations were 100 percent correct.
The U.S. ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Tatiana Gfoeller, chimed in to make the same point. And this is how she explains it:
On a personal note I would like to point out that all of the main opposition leaders have received numerous invitations to my home. I don’t know how many ambassadors you know personally, but I would have to confess that probably among ambassadors, I tend to be a very informal person. So I tend to like to invite people just over for a cup of tea to my residence to talk things over, or to a reception or do some kind of get-together in a very informal way.
Deep in this story about the alleged polygamy of deposed Kyrgyzstan president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, is an intriguing detail:
Bakiev was doing his best to prove the image of family man. He gladly talked about two sons – Marat (the former deputy head of National Security Service) and Maxim (the manager of financial sector of national economy) – wife Tatiana whom he met during studies in Kuibishev (Samara). Allegedly, the elder son was involved in special anti-terrorist operation in Batken while the younger one was the financial guru.
You mean the same anti-terrorist center that the U.S. was funding? I asked Kyrgyzstan analyst Erica Marat, and she said yes, he was involved in the development of that center, though she wasn't aware of anything published linking him to the center. This would seem to take on a bit of a sinister cast given the ongoing investigations into alleged Pentagon corruption involving the Bakiyev family and fuel contracts at Manas Air Base. Was the Batken center wrapped up in this?
Marat says that the Batken center was genuinely desired by the previous Kyrgyzstan government, especially defense minister Baktybek Kalyev, as a bulwark against Uzbekistan aggression in southern Kyrgyzstan. And she notes that the cost of the center -- $5.5 million -- isn't so high. Still, I would hope that the congressional investigators looking into the fuel contracts take a look into the Batken center that, as well.
376th Air Expeditionary Wing Command Chief Master Sgt. Jim Dowell helps a Kyrgyz soldier unload flour from a Transit Center at Manas truck in TokMok, Kyrgyzstan, April 29, 2010. Airmen honored five fallen Kyrgyz men who, among many, were slain during the recent unrest in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. Airmen donated dry and household goods to assist their surviving family members.
4/30/2010 - Transit Center at Manas Airmen honored five fallen Kyrgyz men in a ceremony in TokMok, Kyrgyzstan, April 29, 2010.
Five brave men, among many, were slain during the recent unrest in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. Airmen donated dry and household goods to assist their surviving family members.
"We bring small tokens of friendship for the families who are going through so much difficulty right now," said Transit Center director Col. Blaine Holt. ...
"Whether you read the local newspaper or the international press, there are many political discussions about the Transit Center," Colonel Holt said. "But the reason I'm here today is just to tell you that we are in the community and we want to continue to help."
Of all of the accusations that have recently been flying in Baku about the U.S.'s alleged pro-Armenian bias, this is perhaps the silliest:
According to MP Eldar Ibrahimov, the United States is planning to use Armenia for offensive against Iran.
“The United States intends to dislocate its military bases in Armenia”, Public TV channel reports that the due statement was made by chairman of the committee on agrarian policy of Milli Medjlis Eldar Ibrahimov at a meeting with representatives of the Iranian parliament on April 27.
Ibrahimov went on to say that the U.S. approached Azerbaijan for help in launching an attack on Iran, but was rebuffed, and thus turned to Armenia.
It's worth noting that, while his allegations have been widely reported in Azerbaijan, the English-language Iranian media -- which are usually not shy at all about speculating about American aggression against Iran -- seem not to have mentioned this in their reports about the meetings.
The move toward trying to open up to the public the arrangements by which the U.S. government bought fuel at the Manas base in Kyrgyzstan appears to be gaining momentum. There was a terrific investigative piece in The Nation last week, which anyone interested in this issue should read in full. It involves a former U.S. defense attache in Bishkek, a whole host of extralegal (to put it gently) contracts and even Bob Dole (somewhat indirectly). This is the gist:
Officials in Kyrgyzstan's provisional government say it straight out: Mina Corp., the affiliate of Red Star, was paying funds to Maksim Bakiyev, the president's son. The new government's chief of staff Baisalov says that in order to keep the air base secure and supplied with fuel, the United States essentially "bribed the Kyrgyz ruling family. First it was Akayev and then it was Bakiyev. On one hand, the White House and the US State Department, they announce these noble goals, democracy, good government, and on the other hand, the military comes in and overrides everyone else." The Defense Logistics Agency, which oversees the Defense Energy Support Center, wouldn't comment specifically on that, even to deny it. "We can't speak to that," said DLA spokesman Dennis Gauci. "You'll have to speak to Mina Corp."
But the devil is in the details, and that piece is full of good ones.
Still, that piece raises many more questions than answers. And it seems there are two primary lines of questioning that we'll look at going ahead.
An Azerbaijani newspaper has a new take on the cancellation of the U.S.-Azerbaijan military exercises. Most media accounts -- and Azerbaijani analysts -- interpreted the move as Baku's signal to Washington that it was unhappy with the U.S.'s involvement in the Armenia-Turkey reconciliation process. But the Baki Xabar newspaper (via BBC Monitoring) suggests that it is not a cancellation, but merely a postponement, and that it may have had to do with Russian pressure on Azerbaijan:
The daily quoted Milaz news agency's report that talks with the USA on conducting the "Regional Response 2010" exercises are still under way. "Defence Minister Safar Abiyev and US Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Michele Flournoy discussed the matter on 17 April and agreed to continue bilateral cooperation". Milaz quoted an anonymous source in the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence as saying that the exercises are likely to be held in June or July 2010.
Meanwhile, the Doktrina journalistic centre for military research says that the root of the problem lies in Russia's opposition to signing the second stage of the working plan between Azerbaijan and the USA, Baki Xabar reported. "There is serious pressure from Russia to prevent Azerbaijan from signing the document and this leads to certain problems for Azerbaijan's military cooperation with the USA," Casur Sumarinli, director of the Doktrina centre, said. He added that the second stage of the working plan envisages setting up radar stations along Azerbaijan's border with Russia and Iran. "I believe that the Azerbaijan-USA military exercises envisaged for 2010 will go ahead, but signing the second stage of the working plan remains questionable," Sumarinli told the newspaper.
