Central Asia

Kyrgyzstan has recently reported that nine out of the eleven cases of HIV in the Osh district are children who contracted the virus during regular medical treatment.  Yesterday, President Bakiev ordered an investigation of this horrifying situation.

The pain of this to individuals and their families is enormous and so unnecessary.  The suffering from this radiates outward to society as a whole.  Speaking at an Open Society Institute Conference, Els Klinkert said:

The effects of the epidemic become more and more apparent. HIV/AIDS affects entire families and households in the most direct way. The families of AIDS victims are faced with high medical expenses, funeral costs and loss of human resources. But AIDS not only strikes at household level, the epidemic will also negatively effect the workplace, schools and national economic development. The epidemic will form an additional burden on the public health and other services sector, education, agricultural and economic sector.

Not again
In Kazakhstan, a similar discovery of negligence in terms of child medical care leading to HIV infection first began to be uncovered in May, 2006.  Subsequent investigation found that 118 children were HIV-infected during medical treatment in any of three hospitals in the Shymkent area.  Ten of those children have already died.  New cases are also being discovered.

A little over a year later, many facts came forward, and all of them are ugly.  Contaminated blood was used for transfusions on some children, and then the equipment (needles, etc) used for these transfusions were not sterilized properly, and then re-used on other children.  For this reason, many health-care practitioners are at fault.  But the main fault appears to be in the purchasing departments of those hospitals, i.e., the administration.

The contaminated blood in Shymkent was part of an illegal blood trade, where un-certified blood is collected (most likely from street addicts or other poor persons) and sold to hospitals at a lower price than blood collected and certified under HIV-prevention guidelines.  Hospital administrators could purchase this cheaper blood and pocket the difference in price.   What this is: not criminal negligence, but murder, and conspiracy to commit murder.  It is the same as if someone knowingly allows a bomb to sit in the middle of a populous building, knowing that it will go off and kill a large number of people.

In the trials, sentences for health-care clinicians ranged from 9 months to three years.  But the administrators responsible for the purchase of bad blood, or for administering clinic safety, or for providing proper sterilization equipment, received suspended sentences:

Marpiya Butabaeva, chairwoman of Ghibrat (Wisdom), the Shymkent-based Center for the Protection of the Mother and Children’s Rights, told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service: “The bosses at the top got lenient sentences, while those who were under them got tougher sentences…. There is nothing new in this, it has happened before and it is happening now again. Of course it’s unfair.”

The sentences are not the end of the story in Shymkent. As Altynbekova said, new HIV/AIDS cases among the children of Shymkent are discovered every month.

After news of the first cases broke last year, President Nursultan Nazarbaev ordered an overhaul of the health-care system and better checks on the quality of blood in the country’s blood banks.

Such moves as Mr. Nazarbaev made to ensure blood safety are not recorded here, (more…)

A June 26, 2007  video from Jason Motlagh for World Politics Review shows the difficulties for Afghanistan’s domestic security forces.  It’s about 4 minutes long.

The training program takes three years, and has been seriously underfunded.  Police work, as one of the interviewees on this video assert, means that you are out and about on the street–not waiting in a fortress.  The exposure is greater; the weapons, pay, and support have been much less. 

Some hopeful signs in the past month:
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have been training Afghanistan’s police force, and they have committed to building a state-of-the-art police training academy.

The EU is funding continued police support with a Euro 200 million allocation and expand a police-training initiative sponsored by Germany.  This operation has also been opened up to partners in ASEAN states. 

However, the challenge continues.

There’s so much news and so many who report it well, it’s difficult to hit all of the high points without a round-up.

Afghanistan:
–One of the South Korean hostages has been killed.  Negotiations continue for the other 22 hostages, who are, according to the ROK government, safe for the moment.  Reuters builds a Timeline of Hostage Incidents in Afghanistan
–Afghanistanica shares the tactics of a successful counter-insurgency expert from the Soviet Union.  It’s a lesson in how individual strengths need to be magnified in diplomatic efforts of all kinds–and how, the failure to learn from these talented individuals dooms a larger enterprise.  I loved this.
–Carl Robichaud at Afghanistan Watch talks about strengthening the Afghanistan Police capabilities: what needs to happen and what is happening.  A must-read.
–See also: Pakistan.

Kazakhstan:
–The long (but hopefully not too-long) slog toward Kazatomprom’s ability to purchase Westinghouse stock proceeds apace.  As previously reported, self-styled security experts first started talking down this purchase of stock from Japanese companies.  Now Registan.net reports that a mix of environmentalists have weighed in.  As I posted earlier, this sale has nothing but strategic benefits to the U.S., Westinghouse, Japan, Kazakhstan.  Please note that Kazakhstan already has the uranium, okay?  All they want to do is diversify their economy and produce some value-added process to their natural resource endowments.  If Kazakhstan doesn’t do it with Westinghouse, they’ll do it with someone else–they are a valuable partner in any nuclear energy companies’ strategy.
–Minister Ertsybaev urges the OSCE to continue working with Kazakhstan toward democratic reform, and mentions an opening up of media freedoms.  However, the OSCE report on Internet censorship that recently appeared shows that Kazakhstan, and many other states, has a long way to go. . .

Kyrgyzstan:
–The Perils of Being Bermet: Bermet Akaev, the daughter of Kyrgyzstan’s former President, Askar Akaev, has been charged with contempt of court, obstruction of justice, and destruction of evidence.  If convicted, she could spend up to two years in prison.
–Kyrgyzstan reports that its economy is on the rise, but experts see the numbers as inflated.  The shadow economy accounts for 40 to 60% of all commerce in the Kyrgyz Republic.
–Obviously, a lack of attention to details Here: Kyrgyz union of air traffic controllers appeals to U.S. Ambassador for wages for the work at Ganci AFB.

Mongolia:
–Bilateral ties between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Mongolia are extolled by North Korea’s leader, who also offered to assist in the development of Eastern Mongolia.  As noted in this article, the ties between the DPRK and Mongolia have always been friendly, and this has been of silent benefit in, for example, the Six-Party Talks.
–The Ulaan Bataar Post also looks at a World Bank initiative that will enable Mongolia to go cellular, one year into the project.

Pakistan:
–This week’s Babur Hatf VII missile test successful–700 km range, nuclear-capable.  Good news.
–Pakistan wants Aussie uranium.  Australia is a large source of uranium, and by law it cannot be sold except for peaceful purposes.  But Australia is selling uranium to India, who is not a signatory to NPT treaties. . . ergo. . .
–More trouble at the Red Mosque:  suicide bomber kills twelve.
–In Transit to Afghanistan discusses the road to Islamization in Pakistan–before, as well as during, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Tajikistan:
–Tajikistan’s citizens in two djamoats (districts) suffered from the effects of an earthquake 5.5 on the Richter scale.  1200 homes are affected.
–Some Tajikistan-Turkmenistan energy diplomacy.
–Press news: First, Targeting the Internet: Tajikistan’s legislature has passed changes to the Criminal code that will extend defamation charges to internet correspondence.  Not a good sign for a free press.  Second, Tajikistan also opened a new independent news agency, Sima News, broadcasting in English but also soon in Russian and Tajik.  So far, however, I have not been able to find its Web site. . . stay tuned.

Turkmenistan:
–Turkmenistan’s official news agency is reporting bilateral talks with Belarus.  since Belarus is a member state of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, this may well be a gradual step to Turkmenistan’s increased involvement in CSTO affairs.  One agreement: military cooperation.  Since Turkmenistan’s military has been gutted over the last decade, and Belarus’ defense industry likewise floundering, this is probably a good avenue from which to start.
–The stark regime against internal travel begins to loosen up.

Uzbekistan:
–A look at sex and marriage at NewEurasia.net, from women’s perspective.  And Global Voices looks at marriage and alcoholism.
–Messy corporate divorce fixed: Newmont Mining, which lost all its assets in Uzbekistan after the government expropriated them under tax laws, has reached an amicable settlement with the government.

Xinjiang:
–The power of nature: Xinjiang, beset by record rain, tornadoes, mudslides, and earthquake tremors.  Most recently 32 people have died in floods–with a total of 500 this year alone from flooding.
–This summer’s SCO military training maneuvers are scheduled in Xinjiang and in Chelyabinsk, Russia (North of Kazakhstan). 

Yesterday, Stephen Blank of the US Army War College wrote at Eurasianet that U.S. aid and relations in Central Asia are likely to scale back further.  Though U.S. interest in the region is high, financial constraints are appearing to dictate a lessening of aid and assistance to Central Asian states.

For Central Asia watchers, there have been many previous intimations of this state of affairs.   Here are a few:

A. Non-participation in common economic goals
1. The U.S. has not appeared to have shown any public interest in Kazakhstan’s work toward developing a common economic space within Central Asia, a project that surely would help these states economically and which the U.S. should be interested. 
2. The main U.S. interest in the development of the Asian Development Bank’s CAREC plan, comes from a highly-respected but non-governmental think tank, The Brookings Institution.

B. Short shrift in handling local controversies
There has also not been sufficient will to resolve the controversies connected to Ganci Air Force Base in Manas, Kyrgyzstan.  In June, the U.S. sent two officials in two weeks to make plain the U.S. position on the air force base, but that intervention had all the symptoms of surgical strike: a quick descent, a painful but short interlude, and little or no further discussion.  This top-down approach in a region so close to a War Zone, in a Developing Democracy with Contentious and Lively Elements, may solve an issue, but it will not sustain a relationship.  I covered these events less than eight weeks ago: On June 7, with  Secretary Gates’ visit to Kyrgyzstan, about Ganci, and then the second strafe, June 11, during Undersecretary Boucher’s visit to Kyrgyzstan.   Now, as Mr. Blank reports in the above-linked article, Secretary Gates has publicly solicited European and Asian assistance in U.S. goals for Central Asia.

C. Oil diplomacy instead of state diplomacy
Oil diplomacy means, not that the U.S. is only interested in hydrocarbons, but that they are leaving diplomacy and Westernization to the oil companies to accomplish.  Sometimes this works out: independent oil is a savvy diplomatic arm.  The U.S. could not, for instance, aid Azerbaijan in the time of its greatest need (the early 1990’s) due to funding embargoes put in place by U.S. Congress during the Nagorno-Karabakh war.  The oil companies essentially maintained U.S. presence at that time.  However, though oil diplomacy is more comprehensive and enlightened than most analyses suggest, it is not as comprehensive as oil diplomacy plus state diplomacy.   The best example of this missed U.S. opportunity continues to be a slow, meager start in Turkmenistan.

In comparison, both Russia and China have developed comprehensive diplomatic strategies that embrace constructive development plans,  Over the next two or three years, we should expect that U.S. influence in Central Asia is greatly diminished.  This is a large and regrettable mistake, and one that was committed long before today.

Mohammed Zahir Shah, Afghanistan’s last king, was interred today.  At al-Jazeera, the obituary notes that the King, who abdicated in 1973, presided over a forty-year period of stability and peace in Afghanistan.  After the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, he returned briefly to his home state as a figure of unity.

Not everyone found the king to be an estimable person.  Robert Fisk writes a somewhat self-personalized account of the King’s failings:

And what did our favourite Afghan king do as his country descended into foreign invasion, occupation, mass murder, civil war and Islamic puritanism of the least educated kind? He enjoyed Rome. Just as he ignored the possibility of war with Pakistan when he was King, so he largely ignored the catastrophe of his country when he was enjoying his long years of exile. His life in Rome, his visitors reported back to Kabul, was very much like the life he had lived in his royal palace at home. He was happy with his art and archaeology books and sport, and with his friends among the Italian upper classes. True, he occasionally – very occasionally – expressed his sorrow at the chaos of Afghanistan. But he was a man of the past, a victim of politics rather than a leader, a long-forgotten figurehead – until the Americans rediscovered him – for whom the dramas of his homeland were . . .  mere ghosts of the titanic tragedy played out 2,000 miles from Rome.

The funeral included a period where tribal leaders, political leaders, and others could attend in concert and participate in the ceremonies.  Afghanistan will be observing a three-day mourning period for the late King, and he will be buried near Kabul.  Our condolences to the Afghanistan people, not just for the king, but for the loss of a symbol of what seems, now, to be a far-off stability: an imperfect stability, surely, because it was based upon nostalgia.  With the death of Zahir Shah, it becomes important to find a living symbol of stability and peace–discarding what cannot be again–and finding a new hope.  That hope should reside in appreciating the capabilities the Afghanistan citizens of the present: any and all of those much-beset people who desire and work daily toward a prosperous, peaceful life.

I was so sad to hear that the Kazakhstan-sponsored cyclists at the Tour de France, Team Astana, dropped out of the race.  The team was led by Kazakhstani cyclist Alexander Vinokourov, was hit with charges of steroid abuse. 

(This picture is not of Mr. Vinokourov, but Mr. Bazaev). 

It looks as if the team’s investors (or perhaps the Tour?) have taken the organization’s Web site down (www.team-astana.eu).  I did find a Team Astana Fan Page, however.  I certainly hope Team A sticks around:  first of all, I believe I want to purchase a couple of jerseys.  Second, (and far more relevant here) the team is just one of the dominos to fall in this popular summer event.  It’s a bad year for the race, certainly: but it will not always be so.

According to the New York Times:

This year’s Tour has lost at least two teams, the winners of four stages and the overall leader. But organizers have so far said the event would not be canceled. Doing so, said Patrice Clerc, the president of the company that organizes the Tour, would mean victory for the riders who violate the rules.

Besides Team Astana, based out of Switzerland, the French-sponsored Codifis team, have both dropped out, under much the same circumstances: their front-runner, Italian Christien Moureni, also tested positive for steroid use.  The event’s overall leader was Rabobank’s Rasmussen, who has been de-wheeled for skipping blood tests. 

And it certainly looks like the A-Team followed all the rules: they had already suspended the very-competitive Matthias Kessler of Germany, on June 27th.

Win a Race, Wreck Your Life:
Now you know I was going to get to the public health aspects of steroid use.  Here is a message from Dr. Volkow at the (U.S.) National Institute on Drug Abuse:

Anabolic steroids, which are synthetic versions of the primary male sex hormone testosterone, can be injected, taken orally, or used transdermally. These drugs are Controlled Substances that can be prescribed to treat conditions such as body wasting in patients with AIDS, and other diseases that occur when the body produces abnormally low amounts of testosterone. However, the doses prescribed to treat these medical conditions are 10 to 100 times lower than the doses that are abused for performance enhancement.

. . . .while anabolic steroids can enhance certain types of performance or appearance, they are dangerous drugs, and when used inappropriately, they can cause a host of severe, long-lasting, and often irreversible negative health consequences. These drugs can stunt the height of growing adolescents, masculinize women, and alter sex characteristics of men. Anabolic steroids can lead to premature heart attacks, strokes, liver tumors, kidney failure and serious psychiatric problems. In addition, because steroids are often injected, users risk contracting or transmitting HIV or hepatitis.

Unfortunately, we seem to be going through an athletic version of the Cold War Arms Race when it comes to performance-enhancement chemistry.  Ah, brinkmanship.  That’s what we do when we want to waste some money and mortgage our futures.

In the meantime: next year: Always Team Astana!!!

Further reading:
Alexander Vinokourov’s Web site
NYT: After positive test, team quits Tour de France
Tour de France Web site–the English language version
Steroid Abuse Poster–That Explains it All and is not from a Preachy Government Agency

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC)  has signed a 30-year natural gas import contract with Turkmenistan.  30 billion cubic meters (cum) of gas will be exported from Turkmenistan via a newly-planned natural gas pipeline.  Let’s hope that CNPC trains and hires local Turkmenistani workers for this multi-million dollar infrastructure project, which should begin in 2009.  Almost 5,000 miles of pipeline will need to be constructed.

The deal was signed in China, where Mr. Berdymuhamedov had been on a visit from July 17th through 19th.  Other agreements on energy, technology, and economic cooperation were signed by the leaders of the two states.  An excerpt of the linked article follows: 

During their talks, Hu put forward a five-point proposal to enhance cooperation, including:

– Promoting political trust by improving contacts at government, parliamentary and party levels, and continuing cooperation on the major issues concerning one another;
– Deepening economic and trade cooperation, by expanding cooperation on oil and gas, telecommunications, transport and textiles; — Increasing personnel exchanges, especially contacts between the youth of the two countries;
– Enhancing security cooperation to promote regional stability by working together to safeguard regional peace and stability;
– Strengthening consultation and safeguarding common interests on major regional and international issues. 

Mr. Berdymukhamedov signified his interest in further cooperation on economy and trade, to agree to China’s one-state policy, and to fight “the three evil forces”.

In case you are wondering, the Three Evil Forces are terrorism, extremism, and separatism, and this concept is a cornerstone of China’s and Shanghai Cooperation Organization diplomacy. 

Photo: ADB

President Berdymukhamedov announced that USD one billion will be invested in a vacation resort on the Caspian, in the city of Turkmenbashi.  It will contain sixty hotels, a stadium, restaurants, sports facilities, and shopping centers.

This idea first surfaced in May of this year, and developed further after a meeting between Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.  At the time, I wondered who would come on shaky airlines as far as the Caspian, but I failed to take into account the many who might visit from more local venues: oilfield and diplomatic personnel from all over stationed near the Caspian; vacationers from Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tehran, and Georgia.  So I am inclined to think that this might be a great idea. 

Investing in Tourism
According to the UN’s International Labor Organization, the hotel, catering, and tourism industry is a service industry, with several different components.  Hotel business allows for employment in many service capacities, from hotel cleaning service personnel to expert chefs and savvy conciergerie.  Tourism businesses, such as tour operators, package vacation itineraries and can market to many different kinds of people or employment sectors.  Last of all, local communities can develop tourist markets for goods such as souvenirs and crafts on up to high art, incidentals such as band-aids or venues such as tea shops that appeal to the excursionist.  They can also develop services such as: Caspian fishing expeditions, cooking classes, or dance classes, spas, etc, etc.

Developing a sector of the economy from scratch does require significant governmental input.  However, the scope of building here seems to suggest an overabundance of large-scale facilities, which may not pay for themselves early on, with a dearth of planning for the smaller-scale enterprises that create new business: a little bit of overbuilding? A lot of overplanning?

Also, in this most recent incarnation, the customer base is supposed to be Turkmenistan’s citizens, that they have “comfortable conditions for Turkmen people on vacation.”   This may signal that Turkmen citizens will have access to this closed resort community, (which of course they should have).  It could also be a reassurance that Turkmenistan’s investment is for the Turkmen people.  But I think the latter could be accomplished by announcing the following:

1. a permitting regime for safety and health, unconstrained by draconian bribes, fees, and corruption;

2. ample provision for shopping venues and small eateries, including plumbing facilities and safe water; port facilities for Caspian tour guides and roads for land tours.  All this allows small businesses to take hold by providing decent infrastructure.

It doesn’t have to be perfect to bring prosperity, but the more it adheres to this standard, the better for business.  I lived for ten years in a city with a large tourist sector of the economy (New Orleans).  The City spent a lot of time and money developing convention business (which fills the hotels and is paid for by room taxes) and promoting the city’s ethos and convenience.  They also enabled that convenience, by funding large infrastructure for events such as music or sports (good idea for the stadium, by the way).  The rest of the attraction comes from small and medium enterprises: theme parks, museums, and those small and intimate restaurant “discoveries”.  Some of the latter, like the Acme Oyster Bar (how I miss it), was patronized by both city and vacation folk–those were the ones that repeat travellers wanted.  So, just as an armchair consultant, I would recommend a combination of state initiative and home-grown local business, myself.

Be careful what you wish for!
Yeah, and tourists get sunburned, and walk in front of cars, staring at the local marvels, so you need clinics; they’re always out of film and sometimes out of patience.  Abdulgamid has a humorous post over at neweurasia.net about tourism in his state.  The first is about Paul Theroux’s recent article on Turkmenistan and it is hilarious–it will also give a local perspective which I cannot give–so in answer to the great laughs I had, where he commented on cranky (but famous) travellers, I include the following, U.S. grown-joke:

A waiter brings the customer the steak he ordered with his thumb over the meat.
“Are you crazy?” yelled the customer, “with your hand on my steak?”
“What” answers the waiter, “You want it to fall on the floor again?”

 Best of luck with the Turkmenbashi Entertainment Resort and Tourist Complex; and I hope to someday visit and sit down at the Green Tea Emporium for brief respite in the afternoon; after which, I would like to attend the Annual International Plov festival, where Central Asian cooks of note get together to compete on the best Plov in Central Asia, and people like me buy bowls of award-winning food and buy postcards, hats, and–more film and sunscreen.

Further reading:
RFE/RL interview with Paul Theroux
Another, shorter post by Abdulgamid on Joshua Kucera’s trip through Turkmenistan
The International Labour Organization of the United Nations has a web site on the World Tourism Industry; here are some of their Proceedings & Publications
More waiter jokes

Photos: HawaiiAloha.com; Duane Hanson, Tourists II: at Kunsthaus Zurich; Questier.com; GreenTeaBenefit.com

Last Thursday, 23 South Korean aid workers, affiliated with an evangelical Christian mission, were abducted from a bus near Kandahar.  Their mission was to develop hospital facilities.  Fifteen of the 23 are women, and all are alive and said to be in good health.  The Taliban is threatening to kill them today if some Taliban hostages are not released.

The Republic of Korea has about 200 troops in Afghanistan, although they were due to leave before the end of 2007, according to BBC reports.

Chance versus motives:
The above string of information lends itself to all kinds of Western speculation: why these hostages?  Motives are implied: Christian, as opposed to Islamic fundamentalist; women, who are away, unprotected, from their households; developing hospitals, which the Taliban in its previous rulership ignored, neglected, or destroyed; and troops on the ground.  Cooler heads should prevail: details can be misleading.  This large-scale kidnapping may be in essence a crime of opportunity.  The Taliban itself is calling it a trade of prisoners–essentially economic exchange, a kind of human traffick–and it seems more accurate to leave cultural differences, and the language of grievance, completely out of this account, and concentrate on results.  It would also be instructive to know more about those jailed Taliban hostages that are requested in hostage trade negotiations.

Looking at hostage negotiations:
The Republic of Korea has taken specific steps in order to retrieve their citizens from the Taliban.  From the BBC account linked above:

An eight-strong South Korean delegation, including a presidential envoy, is in Kabul to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and negotiate for the hostages’ release.  Afghan elders have also been mediating between the militants and government negotiators in central Ghazni province, where the group was taken.

South Korea has also put its nationals, about 200, in residence in Afghanistan on notice that they should leave the country, and is forbidding its citizens to travel to the state.

Previously I reported that two German hostages were killed; this is perhaps incorrect.  One of the hostages’ remains have been found.  He apparently died of a heart attack and the other is believed to still be in captivity.

All economic thinking aside, I wish the best to hostage negotiators today, and to the hostages, of whatever nationality and creed.

Photo: (U.S.) National Geographic Society

Update: As of July 24, 2007 11:30pm, hostage deadlines have been extended for the second time, and negotiations continue.

Last week, U.S. President Bush promulgated another Executive Order to contain terrorist funding for the Iraq insurgency, the “aid and support” of those who want to bring failure to the new government and reconstruction process.  I have a more comprehensive, Iraq-focused post on this issue over at my other blog.  Yet this Executive Order is equally relevant for FPA Central Asia–because of its major omission, rather than its commissions.

In no place is Afghanistan mentioned in this order.  No attempt is made to interrupt financial aid and dollar comfort to the Taliban, or al-Qaeda, or any other terrorist or insurgent groups that attack Afghanistan’s government officials or Afghanistan’s infrastructure.

Blood flowers
The Afghanistan war is fought in an area which has little in the way of an economy to sustain war: no oil, no timber, no gold, no diamonds or other precious substances.  The sole economic self-help in this war occurs through an agricultural crop–the opium poppy.  Right now, that crop has reached record-busting levels.  Surrounding nations: Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan are all feeling the security breach occasioned by the crime associated with this economy, and the war; they are also daily assaulted by the public health and safety problems occasioned by the use of poppy byproducts.  It has become the means for changes of balance of power in the five-state Central Asian area, and its tentacles are felt in Russia, the Caucasus, Europe, the Americas–everywhere.

Money transfer
We need, in some ways, to look at the poppy as if it was a hydrocarbon or a blood diamond–because it is ubiquitous on the ground and it is not going away.  Instead of trying to bulldoze every field in Afghanistan, the nexus points of money transfer for arms and aid need to be found and stopped in order to cut off war funding for the insurgency.  This more surgical method has the power to take poppy eradication from the small, starving farmer to the international crime and terror advocates who amass money in the name of violence; it cuts off those officials and officers from a corrupt, destabilizing source of income; and it also tamps down on terrorist or criminal efforts in areas beyond Central Asia or the Middle East.

That said, why is Afghanistan being ignored in the new measures for money laundering and bank account interdiction?  I plain, flat, have no idea.  But it certainly seems like an unfortunate, nay, glaring oversight, and one that is not good for Afghanistan, or for any other part of Central Asia.

Further Reading:
At The Conjecturer, Joshua Foust discusses other major issues of U.S. media inattention to Afghanistan, including women’s rights, opium, and infrastructure.  Right now he and I look to be separately covering parts of the same gaps . . .
Peter Marton has been focussing on opium eradication in a series of posts.