Kyrgyzstan’s president-elect firmly told the United States on Tuesday to leave its military air base just outside the capital Bishkek when its lease expires in 2014.
Almazbek Atambayev is the prime minister but won the presidential election on Sunday. “When I was appointed prime minister last year, and again this year, I warned employees and leaders of the US embassy and visiting representatives that, in 2014 and in line with our obligations, the United States should leave the base,” he said.
Atambayev spoke about potential resentment towards his country from other players in the region for helping America conduct the war in Afghanistan. “We know that the United States very often participates in various military conflicts. It happened in Iraq, in Afghanistan and now there is a tense situation with Iran,” he said. “I wouldn’t want any of these countries one day to make a return strike on the military base.”
The US military uses the base in Kyrgyzstan as a supply route to occupying troops in Afghanistan. The Obama administration has promised to fully withdraw all troops from Afghanistan the same year that the lease for the Kyrgyzstan base expires, 2014.
But military officials and NATO statements have repeatedly contradicted the 2014 withdrawal date and the war is as much a failure now as ever, so many have been expecting an extension of the war well beyond 2014.
After tensions escalated with Pakistan in recent months, the US has been wooing Central Asian countries like Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to operate as supply routes instead of Pakistan. If the administration, the Pentagon, and NATO planned to extend the war beyond 2014, they’ll be further restrained from doing so if soon-to-be-President Atambayev sticks to his promise to dismantle the US base.
This is a dream of americans and have to leave today or tomorrow.
Currently, the U.S. has military bases in more than 130 countries. Now with Afghanistan under occupation, the U.S. has effectively encircled Iran, become proximate to China and Russia, and poised to take advantage of this military presence to exploit the vast energy resources of the Caspian Basin, reportedly exceeding the vaunted oil fields of the Middle East.
Other nations are being denied participation in the exploitation of these fields and unable to engage in the lucrative transit activity due to a weighty and threatening military presence of the U.S.
The sum of this presence is a profound distrust of the U.S. and its intentions. To add to this distrust is the gartuitous war in Afghanistan, a war in which many have concluded that the war was based on failing negotiations with Taliban over the Trans-Afghan-Pipeline or TAP. As the Taliban made numerous gestures to the Bush administration to rid themselves of Osama bin Laden, gestures which fell on deaf ears, many have concluded that the war was not as alleged based on the presence of OBL, but on the pipeline negotians which saw BRIDAS of Argentina gaining the upper-hand.
And right before the BRIDAS announcement, in August 01, Taliban was wined and dined in the White House. When BRIDAS got upper hand, let us not forget what happened to Argentina. Bank of New York pulled the rug, and Argenitine economy plummeted, and presidential office was a revolving door for a while. It took Argentina long time to stabilize, but after that they kicked the IMF habit. As for Taliban, the sudden change from partners to enemies, was spectacular. Before that, they could do no wrong. Taliban name = students, and they were literally the product of multitude Pakistani youth, with US plan, and Saudi money and Saudi wabism extermists. The madrasas, or schools were set up, thousands of them, and Taliban were born. But they went rogue, as usually true believers do. They did not get it: their "truth" was to be sold for money — pipeline money. Then, what was usefull and paid for, became the designated enemy. How can such a good crisis like 911 go to waste? So, Afghanistan was a good stepping stone to permanent warfare.
Dang, Drat, and Darn It!! You mean we have to pay more bribes to keep that base open? Go ahead and pay it; it ain't our money.