17 Jul, 2015 09:16

‘US interest in Kyrgyzstan: Strategy of global dominance’

Washington has given a human rights award to a Kyrgyz man who was arrested for instigating ethnic strife in his country, in yet another example of the US exerting its strategy of full spectrum global dominance, political experts tell RT.

The US State Department has decided to hand its Human Rights Defenders Award to Kyrgyz national, Azimzhan Askarov, who, in 2010, played an active role in ethnic riots between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in his country. Askarov was arrested during the violence and convicted of taking part in the murder of a Kyrgyz police officer.

RT: Askarov was actively supported by US diplomats. Richard Miles even called him ‘the father of the colored revolutions’. What’s the significance of his involvement?

Srdja Trifkovic: When he’s on the scene, you can be sure that there can be destabilization of the regime under the auspices of 'democratic change.' The context is quite clear. Only ten days ago, Kyrgyzstan officially became a member of the Eurasian economic union, after passing the accession process by the parliaments of other members: Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Armenia - which, of course, is a red flag to the State Department. A year earlier, the US lease at Manas Air Base had ceased, and effectively, the US was watching one of the putative, important geostrategic assets in Central Asia slipping away. It’s curious that they weren’t so concerned about this particular human rights case – as they call it – while they were still in possession of the Manas Airport. The sentencing came in 2011, several months after the ethnic riots, and secondly, there’s no doubt we’re witnessing an activist for Uzbek separatism being lionized in much the same way as Albanian separatists in Serbia, who were actively involved in the clashes with police and the military in the late 1990s, were being celebrated and feted in Washington as human rights activists and victims of violence.

So this is just more of the same: whenever relations between the US and a certain country deteriorate because the country is no longer keen to be the US strategic asset - like a joker from the sleeve - human rights activists are produced, in this particular case, most likely, guilty of grievous crimes.

RT: Let’s speak more about the significance of Kyrgyzstan. The US had a presence at the country’s Manas Air Base for many years. How important is the country to the Americans?

ST: It’s funny that there is no country in the world that isn’t important to the Americans nowadays. Central Asia is the very heart of what Scottish geographer [Halford] Mackinder would have called the heartland. And it’s obviously an area where ostensibly the US doesn’t have vital interests. It’s a land-locked country, one of many in the former Soviet Central Asia, an area which is logically – if we look at the map – a field where Russia, China, and perhaps to a lesser extent, India, have vital interests – but certainly not the US. The US interest in Kyrgyzstan is purely the reflection of the strategy of full spectrum global dominance. In other words, there isn’t a single square foot in the world where vital US national interests are not involved.

I’m rather glad that Kirgizstan has seen the light and decided to throw in its lot with Eurasian Economic Union, because in practical terms, in terms of its economic development, especially agriculture; and in geopolitical terms that’s where it should look for its future, that’s where the future investment will come from. Depending on an umbilical cord that is 7,000-8,000 miles long, with distant friends on the other side of the Atlantic in this particular case, would not have been a rational strategy for the nation.

Award is pure politics

Brian Becker from the Answer Coalition beleives the award is an attempt by the US State Department to lend its support to the political opposition.

RT:How much politics is involved in the State Department's award?

Brian Becker: The State Department’s award is pure politics. This is designed to support the opposition. Here’s an individual who is in prison facing life imprisonment for murder, for incitement against other peoples, a major crime. Whatever the outcome of the trial, it’s pure politics on the part of the State Department to award this medal and clearly designed to support and stimulate the opposition inside the country.

RT:It's been reported that Azimzhan Askarov was actively supported by U.S. diplomat Richard Miles who some call the father of the colored revolutions. What's the connection here?

BB: It’s pure politics. You have the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan. We have the State Department and the CIA having fallen upon this device of the color revolution to carry out regime change in all of the non-Russian, former Soviet republics and with allied countries from Central and Eastern Europe all with an effort to not bring human rights, not to bring democracy, but to move these countries into the US’s sphere of influence. So you have the stimulation of opposition forces to carry out coordinated so-called color revolutions which are really coordinated by CIA operatives and NGOs working with the CIA, and it’s all for their purpose to absorb these countries into America’s sphere of influence. That’s it.

RT:The US had a presence at the Manas airbase in Kyrgyzstan for years. What importance does the country have for the Americans?

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has wanted to establish military basis in throughout Central and Southern Asia with the hope of gaining geostrategic and military power in this region. It’s of course a crossroads between Europe and Asia and the Middle East; it’s the old Silk Road, it’s also got vast possibilities in terms of natural resources including energy supplies. The US saw the military base there as a foothold for a larger American presence in this geo-strategically and resource rich part of the world. The loss of that airbase is considered a big wound for the Pentagon and for American influence in the region

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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