Up until now I haven't found the gumption to put up a diary entry of my own, but I just read something that seemed pretty incredible, and I haven't read anything about it here on dKos yet.
Secret report of the U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyz Republic
This is supposedly a letter from the U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, describing how the U.S. has been interfering in that country. We all "knew" that this kind of thing was going on, but reading it from the horse's mouth is a very different thing, and given the overthrow that happened last week, well... you connect the dots.
More on the flip.
Some excerpts (all bolds are my emphasis):
As regards China, the prospect of Central Asia development puts Beijing into dependence on the Kyrghyz hydro-electric resources and electric power potential. Thus Kyrgyzstan foreign policy is aimed at trade and economic expansion that coincides with Chinese further plans, in particular those concerning electric power and water distribution. This reason should be taken into consideration when shaping a policy towards Beijing and its presence in the region.
In this connection, for better planning of pre-election tactics we ought to remember that Russia remains the basic employer in Kyrgyzstan. Both the pro-Russian public opinion and popularity of the Russian president are rather strong in some northern regions of the country.
We have mostly succeeded in developing contacts with another leader of the opposition -- R.Otunbaeva, ex-Minister for Foreign Affairs. Through the funds allocated to her we managed to lobby setting up and promoting certain NGOs as well as organizing a
unified system of mass media for better coverage over the country to spread her statement about
non-interference of Russia in internal affairs of Kyrgyzstan.
With a view to providing favorable conditions and helping democratic opposition leaders come to power, our primary goal for the pre-elections period is to arouse mistrust to the authorities in force and Akaev's incapacitated corruption regime, his pro-Russian orientation and illegal use of "an administrative resource" to rig elections. In this regard, the embassy's Democratic commission, Soros Foundations, Eurasia Foundation in Bishkek in cooperation with USAID have been organizing politically active groups of voters in order to inspire riots against pro-president candidates.
In the view of the pit-election situation and effort to provide fair and democratic elections in the KR and retain our positions in mass media and contacts with the opposition leaders, I advise focusing on
discrediting the present political regime, thus making Akaev and his followers responsible for the economic crisis. We should also take steps to spread information on probable restriction of political freedoms during the election campaign.
It is worthwhile compromising Akaev personally by disseminating data in the opposition mass media on his wife's involvement in financial frauds and bribery at designation of officials. We also recommend spreading rumors about her probable plans to run for the presidency, etc. All these measures will help us form an image of an absolutely incapacitated president.
Taking into account arrangements of the
Department of. State Plan for the period of 2005-2006 to intensify our influence in Central Asia, particularly in Kyrgyzstan, we view the country as the base to
advance with the process of democratization in Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and limit Chinese and Russian capabilities in the area Setting up democratic legitimate opposition in the parliament of Kyrgyzstan is extremely important. To reach the target we should attract groups of independent observers from western humanitarian: organizations, OSCE, and people from Kyrgyz offices of the UN Program of Development. That is necessary:
to get control of the election process and eliminate any possible financing of the pro - presidential majority in the parliament.
Stephen M.Young
The U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyz Republic
There's a scan of the last page correlating to the end of the text, indicating that whoever put up this page has copies of the original document.
I could comment extensively on this, but I'm still somewhat in shock. The excerpts above are significant, but read the whole thing so you can take it all in.
Maybe it's just me, and maybe it's just the "climate of fear" that many folks such as myself are in these days... but this is sounding very, very dangerous.