daesh gearing up for more havoc?

Daesh, reportedly, is holed up in northern Afghanistan, getting ready for a new assignment.

In recent months, I've had personal reason to become more aware of Central Asia, particularly Uzbekistan. So, I located a map of the "stans" that once were part of the Soviet Union.

It's been over 30 years since the great Soviet Union embraced "glastnost" and was later reduced to a "federation" as the stans struck out on their own. I can still hear Actor Ronald Reagan in his great role as a president, dramatically reading his line: "Mr. Gorbachov, tear down that Wall."

Under the thumb of leader Islam Karimov daily life for the Uzbeks was much the same as during the old Bolshevik regime, but there also developed a kind of economic stability. Now that Karimov has died, it appears that big change is on the horizon, and some of it rather ominous.

Uzbekistan is a tiny country with a population roughly the size of Canada's. More than 40% are under the age of 25, and unemployment is high, so the kids have had to leave not just home, but country as well. Russia has accepted a large number of them, so it appears that Uzbeks are not anti-Russia.

From the website of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:

• Uzbekistan’s position in the middle of Central Asia is a source of strength and vulnerability. Its shared borders with Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan have enabled it to intervene in their domestic affairs and enhanced its international standing. At the same time, these countries’ internal instability has in turn posed a threat to Uzbekistan. In the years to come, the security environment in Uzbekistan’s immediate neighborhood will probably become far less stable. 

That assessment may seem more foreboding now than the CEIP intended ...

From Off-Guardian:

• While the Pentagon accuses Russia of fomenting false fears of a Daesh/ISIS threat in Central Asia [...] new reports of an American push to attack Russia militarily via Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and are now emerging.

What I'm gathering from the news analysis sites is that Daesh retired to northern Afghanistan to regroup, and now is in a position from whence it can move through the stans toward Russia to provoke a reaction, as it did in Syria and Iraq.

Just across the Caspian Sea (see map above) NATO is prominent in Georgia and Azerbaijan, and Armenia, which has heretofore been pro-Russia, has just experienced what amounts to a western-backed coup designed to alienate it from Russia - at its own peril, I might add.

It may be that Azerbaijan is having premonitions, since it backed out of the NATO exercises held last July with no explanation apparently offered. As it stands, it would appear now that Armenia has swung  - or was pushed - away from Russia while Azerbaijan is having second thoughts about NATO.

From ZeroHedge:

• Such a renewed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan produces results that are simply unpredictable, concerning the geopolitical implications regarding the involvement of Russia and NATO, seeing as Armenia hosts Russian military bases, while Azerbaijan is host to a NATO base, but if the Armenians have broken off its relations with the Russians in the favor of the West, Russian involvement is left in a state of bewilderment, while the conflict devastates Russia’s economic and military perspective in the region. This, therefore, holds the possibility of being the next proxy war between Russia and the West.

So it does look as if the US is going to upend all those tiny countries to get at Russia and, no doubt, Iran. What did any of them do to deserve this, except to survive under difficult conditions?

And whatever happened to the accusations of pal-ship between Trump and Putin?

Well, it does appear that all this was planned a long time ago. It may have seemed imminent when Obama signed an anti-protest bill in 2012, but later had second thoughts when the protests were all about police brutality.  But the beast has returned.

Slate says: [It] all depends on what you want to protest and where.

• For one thing, the law makes it easier for the government to criminalize protest. Period. It is a federal offense, punishable by  up to 10 years in prison to protest anywhere the Secret Service might be guarding someone. For another, it’s almost impossible to predict what constitutes “disorderly or disruptive conduct” or what sorts of conduct authorities deem to “impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions.”
• Today, any occasion that is officially defined as a National Special Security Event calls for Secret Service protection. NSSE’s can include basketball championships, concerts, and the Winter Olympics, which have nothing whatsoever to do with government business, official functions, or improving public grounds. Every Super Bowl since 9/11 has been declared an NSSE.

From the National Lawyer's Guild (NLG)

• ... the number of anti-protest bills has reached 58 in 31 states with no end in sight. Nine bills have already been introduced (or-reintroduced) in 2018 alone. Conservative think tanks, private companies, and law enforcement agencies are now openly working with Republican lawmakers to crack down on dissent, chill the right to protest, and increase penalties for demonstrators and the organizations that support them. It is no coincidence that these bills have flourished since the increase of protests after the election of Donald Trump, or that they target environmental and racial justice movements whose messages are garnering media attention and public support.

As for pipeline protests (people have just got to understand that war requires oil):

From The Intercept:

• [Louisiana] creates new crimes that would punish groups for “conspiring” to trespass on critical infrastructure sites and prescribes particularly harsh penalties for those whose ideas, if carried out, would disrupt the operations of such infrastructure. The definition of the term critical infrastructure would be amended to include pipelines and pipeline construction sites. The language of the bill reaches far beyond cases of property destruction, and stands to net individuals who do not participate in or condone such activities.
• The Louisiana bill, unlike the ALEC model, does not require that any disruption to a facility’s functioning take place for penalties to apply — an individual could face huge fines or prison time without ever having set foot on the property.

From US Protest Law Tracker:

• For instance, there is no longer any penalty if a vehicle accidentally hits someone protesting in the streets.

In other words, if you thought Iraq, Syria, Libya etc. were horrific, you may not have seen nuthin' yet. In the Land of the Free, however, you can look but, like Uzbekistan under its former leader, you'll be okay if you just keep quiet.

From NBC:

• President Donald Trump Monday removed restrictions on the kinds of surplus military gear the Defense Department can turn over to local police departments.

From Consortium News: Congress Weighs Indefinite Detention of Americans without charge if they oppose US military action.

Image: The Guardian: President will sign order to revive program that provides departments with surplus military equipment such as high-caliber weapons and armored vehicles