Kyrgyzstan

Is it just random, roving gangs of jihadis, would-be dictators and assorted miscreants who are raising Cain in Kyrgyzstan? Or is the whole show being directed by legitimate and recognizable political entities? For example:

There are so-called Maoists operating in parts of north-eastern India, attacking government installations, derailing trains, killing policemen and so on...

India views the Maoists as a bother and often as an embarrassment. Some claim they have their roots in poverty stemming from inadequate access to government cheese. Their answer would be to develop the areas where Maoists operate and provide opportunity and services for the villagers so that they might be less eager to embrace violence.

At the same time, there has been a festering border dispute between India and China to which no solution is in sight. Add to this China’s stated ambition to see India broken up into autonomous states.

Is it therefore so impossible to believe that the Maoists are in fact China ops, sent there specifically to cause trouble; that it has nothing to do with poverty and insufficient attention from the Feds; that Indian villagers participating (do in fact) do so under duress?

There are proxy skirmishes going on all over the world. They are ugly and draw our attention. At the same time, they obscure the real players in the haze of immediate human brutality and suffering.

Even Chicago gangs need money and supplies. They need direction. The money is filtered through middlemen who almost always have high political connections. The CIA has been accused of funding such gangs all over the world (not under Obama, of course). Iran has Israel surrounded by ops. Russia has its players in place and (we can assume) China has theirs as well. I find it laughable that we break our heads over what North Korea does, when (if we were serious) all we’d have to do is force China’s hand.

I haven’t had time yet to examine what’s going on in Kyrgyzstan and learn who the players are. But you can bet it’s not spontaneous or ‘accidental’. Two or more of the big boys in the region are engaged in a bout of arm-wrestling. They are being very careful not to get their Armani suits dirty.

India's Enemies

India, a leader in the region, also has enemies. The flash points are disputed territory with China to the east, and disputed territory with Pakistan in the (north-)west. Pakistan is a client state (if you can still call it a ‘state’) of China. This is not to say that, if India were to give up all disputed territories unilaterally, there would be peace. Much deeper problems - mostly unspoken - exist between China and India. These are primarily ideological.

China's leadership (as JB has often said) is an unelected tyranny. India is much closer to being a democracy. Looking even casually around the political world shows that these two systems of governance do not easily coexist. Even within our own country there has developed a split, an irreconcilable divide along similar lines.

China continually agitates India. It funds Maoist rebels to create havoc along border areas. It encourages Pakistan to keep up pressure on Kashmir. It releases policy statements saying that India is not a country and should be broken up into parts. And it has clearly used its influence to dissuade the U.S. from favoring India in any matter involving these two nations.

Obama clearly has shown to have greater affinity for tyrants than for the freely-elected leaders of a people. Notwithstanding the huge sums we owe China, our president personally finds far greater kinship with the Communist regime. That much has become obvious from the policy decisions Obama has made since assuming office. And this has not gone unnoticed in the region. It seems to have confounded and perplexed many Indians, though; especially since the roundly despised Bush administration – the demonization of which Indian media has gleefully participated in, not to mention the over-the-top deification of Barrack Hussein Obama – appears to have held India in far higher esteem.