BlackFive

El Capitan (an AF Officer) spent some time in Kyrgyzstan and has a short thought to share along with some links to the change in Kyrgyzstan.

Hopefully, Bush and Rice will stand up to the Russians.  But since the Russians are well rested (mostly), we'll see what happens.

Update 03-25-05:  El Capitan writes a lot more of his experiences in Kyrgystan.

I arrived in Kyrgyzstan in January 2003 for an assignment at Ganci Air Base, which was a U.S./European/Multi-national air base established months after Sept. 11 to support air operations over Afghanistan. Having researched Russian and Central Asian history for my graduate work a few years prior, I thought I was at least slightly prepared for what I was getting into. Of course I wasn't.

Since Kyrgyzstan sits in the middle of Asia, and was ruled by a quasi-European country for several generations, things look different there. The South is mostly nomadic and tribal, yet they still have medium sized cities. The North is more Western and developed, and is a main cog in the Asian trade system. The people are either Chinese-looking, or white-European looking. The national languages are Russian and Kyrgyz...