At Least One Liberal Professor Likes the Bush Administration
But then again, Askar Akayev, the now-disgraced former president of Kyrgyzstan, apparently was able to pocket millions of dollars from a Pentagon contract. Akayev had won some international acclaim when he rose to his position in Kyrgyzstan after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and a number of observers thought he might be Central Asia's version of Vaclav Havel. After all, here was this liberal, ostensibly pro-democratic college professor taking the reigns of a republic in a region that had known only authoritarianism and poverty. Compared to regional counterparts like the almost indescribably vicious Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan and the freakish megalomania of Turkmenistan's Saparmurat Niyazov, even John Bolton looks pretty good. Hell, even Michael Bolton looks good.
Apparently in the Pentagon's eagerness to build bases in the region at the time of the Afghanistan mission, it opened the floodgates to corrupt officials like Akayev, who skimmed money from tremendously jacked up jet-fuel prices for American planes. My guess is that Halliburton noticed that it had fallen suspiciously short of its own graft quotas, did some poking around, and then raised the issue with its small circle of close friends in government. Getting caught, and not having friends in the White House to bail you out? It's Mr. Akayev's amateurishness that I find offensive.