The Tragic Under-coverage of the Kyrgyzstan Crisis

Southern Kyrgyzstan is burning, and there is barely a blip in the U.S. media about the crisis boiling over in the country. New violence has erupted in a fury, and I haven't even seen Obama say anything about it. Uzbeki people are being slaughtered, and more than 75,000 people have fled the town of Osh running for their lives. This violence had been the aftermath of a deadly coup organized by an opposition party - and the cause of tension is mainly ethnic. The Kyrgz majority and the Uzbek minority have always been less than good friends, and the overthrowing of President Bakiyev has not helped things. Perhaps the U.S. media think we don't care about an ethnic crisis on the other side of the planet, much in the same way they failed to cover Darfur and other tragedies. But in this case, we actually do have an important interest - an airbase. Manas air base is one of the main stops on the way to Afghanistan, and is hugely crucial to our operations there. If this conflict disrupts electricity to the base, or clean water, or even damages the local economy - it could have far reaching implications for the base, and could force the U.S. to close up shop and locate elsewhere at great cost to U.S. taxpayers. So, take an interest folks.

"People are desperate to escape the violence but without international assistance there's no way out, and every minute of delay is costing lives," said Andrea Berg, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, who left Osh on June 13, 2010.

The price we pay for ignoring events like this, is a further closeting of American news-watchers from the rest of the world. Already, the number of people who watch the news at all are far too few - lets not skimp on the details is all I am saying. We have four major 24-hour cable networks covering far more trivial items over and over all day long. Part of the reason nobody protests the lack of coverage, is that they fail to grasp the significance of the event they are missing. And the reason they fail grasp it, is the lack of coverage. Its a vicious circle if there ever was one and its tragic. Its tragic for our taxpayers, for our kids - who inevitably will learn less about the world beyond our borders, and tragic for the future of our government. Much of government is the proper handling of foreign affairs situations, and our elected leaders are responsible for those hard decisions. Unfortunately those folks are elected and held accountable by voters who don't even know how to spell Kyrgyzstan, much less have an educated opinion on what should be done. I blame the media. But, hell, you could also blame our education system which has chosen to barely cover Geography - if it even covers it at all.