Hawkeye Republican

PROVING THAT TULIPS AREN'T JUST DUTCH: Welcome to the beautiful country of Kyrgystan, with spiraling mountainous peaks and a name that is harder to spell than "Tajikistan," this former democratic stronghold is just the place to get a lesson in corruption and nepotism.

Unlike the slew of other prettily named revolutions (e.g. Georgian Rose Revolution of '03 and Ukrainian Orange Revolution of '04), the so-named Tulip Revolution in Kyrgystan included rampantly violent undertones. During the overthrow of the increasingly corrupt, "popularly-elected" government of President Askar Akayev, massive looting occurred in the capitol.

Just the thing for a natural resource-deficient country of 5.3 million with a GNI per capita less than my monthly rent!

Since the Revolution, Kyrgystan has followed the French model of anarchy. We'll see where that takes 'em. Of course, as long as we get to keep our airbase to fight the "War on Terror", we're cool with that.

Here's to you, irrelevant Central Asian "friend"--may 1 Kyrgyzstani Som be worth more than $.02 in the future!