Today I saw someone else's post somewhere, blaming the Kyrgyz government's improper handling of the ethnic violence there on the "nomadic and uneducated" nature of the governing officials' backgrounds. He's got it all wrong.
The historical dysfunction of several FSU governments has nothing to do with the mode of living nor the education of their satraps, and everything to do with them being old enough to remember, and to maybe even have experienced the benefits accruing from their status in the old communist regime. And now, having donned the fashionable mantle of "democracy", they find themselves in a position to accept largess from the West (read Uncle Sam) in the form of money thrown indiscriminately at every problem. Money that, in the main, adds to their personal wealth and so exacerbates the problem. When this generation of dinosaurs dies out and the younger Kyrgyz people are no longer willing to accept the corruption it will disappear, regardless of America's intervention.
BTW, I spent years in Kyrgyzstan, finally obliged to escape across the Kazahk border to avoid being the victim of government sanctioned extortion. I know wherefrom I speak.
