Tale of Two Insurrections: Why US Dems & Media Treat 6th Jan. Riot and Kazakh Unrest So Differently

Although the scale and casualties of the Capitol breach were significantly lower than those seen in Kazakhstan at the beginning of January 2022, Democrats and the mainstream media have somehow fallen short of calling the Kazakh turmoil an "insurrection", remarks US independent journalist and geopolitical analyst Max Parry.

The anniversary of the 6 January Capitol riot in Washington, DC, coincided with unrest that flared up in Kazakhstan at the beginning of January. The Central Asian nation was hit by protests following a hike in fuel prices. The riots turned deadly on 4 January, leading to arson, looting, vandalism, and violent attacks.

The mainstream media in the US, however, covered the two events in very different manners, according to American independent journalist and geopolitical analyst Max Parry.

"At the very same moment US corporate media was devoting an entire day to its exaggerated and sensationalist news coverage endlessly rehashing the anniversary of the riot at the Capitol last January, the violent demonstrations and unrest in Kazakhstan was portrayed sympathetically as a pro-democratic protest movement up against an authoritarian regime responding with a violent crackdown", Parry says.

In the course of the turmoil 17 law enforcement officers were killed, with two of them purportedly beheaded. Over a thousand people were injured, according to the country's Interior Ministry. The offices of five broadcasters in the city of Almaty were looted and ransacked: Mir, Qazaqstan, Khabar, Channel One Eurasia, and KTK.

Nearly 10,000 people have been arrested in the Central Asian state in the wake of the unrest. A preliminary investigation indicates that well-coordinated armed groups trained from abroad hijacked the protests over soaring fuel prices.

Western Media Has Long Record of 'Sanitising' Coups

More and more Americans are becoming aware of the hypocrisy of US mainstream corporate media and are increasingly turning to alternative and independent sources for information, according to Parry.

The journalist notes that the attempts by major US media outlets to turn a blind eye to the violence, vandalism, and beheadings in Kazakhstan are an "eerily reminiscent of the way Western media has previously sanitised the mostly-jihadist opposition in Syria, the presence of neo-Nazis during Euromaidan, and so on".

The journalist draws attention to "the rapid manner in which the protests quickly devolved into vandalism, arson, and looting" which, according to him, strongly resembles the previous Western-backed regime change ops in post-Soviet states, including Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Ukraine.

"I would not be surprised if evidence emerges showing the contribution of foreign NGOs and Western-based civil society groups in organising this anti-government revolt given how much the Kazakh protests appear to be following the Gene Sharp regime change playbook", Parry notes, adding that hijacking a legitimate social issue – such as unpopular gas price hikes – is also known as a colour revolt tactic.

Despite their catchy social slogans none of the Western-backed "colour revolts" in the post-Soviet region have eradicated rampant inequality or offered a real democratic transformation, Parry points out. Instead, Western-backed coups eventually led to pro-EU entry, pro-NATO membership, and pro-austerity rhetoric, anti-Russian sentiment, and the establishment of favourable economic conditions for the West, per the journalist.

Addressing a Monday CSTO summit, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev stated that the main goal of the militants was undermining the nation's constitutional order, the seizure of power, and an attempted coup. For his part, Russian President Putin underscored that "Maidan"-style technologies had been used by external players in Kazakhstan.

Police officers and opposition supporters are seen on Maidan Nezalezhnosti square in Kiev, where clashes began between protesters and the police.

© Sputnik / Andrey Stenin

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Hunter Biden's Alleged Kazakhstan Links

Meanwhile, a photo depicting Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, now detained Kazakh ex-intelligence chief Karim Massimov, and Kazakh businessman Kenes Rakishev, has popped up in social media prompting a heated debate among conservative netizens in the US.

Joe and Hunter’s buddy Karim Massimov has met the fate of many Biden business associates…ALMATY, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Authorities in Kazakhstan have detained Karim Massimov, the former head of the national security committee.
Read more in #LaptopFromHell https://t.co/XeVUrfH9QR https://t.co/eBnOatOzBq

— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) January 8, 2022

Massimov was arrested and charged with treason on 6 January 2022 after being fired from his role as the head of Kazakhstan's National Security Committee by President Tokayev a day earlier. Massimov also served as the country's prime minister between 2007 and 2012 and again between 2014 and 2016.

The snap was originally published by a Kazakh website on 28 November 2019 and was circulated by the Daily Mail and the New York Post following the publication of materials from the so-called "laptop from hell" that supposedly belonged to Hunter Biden in October 2020. In one of the emails found on the infamous laptop Hunter Biden allegedly called Massimov a "close friend".

According to the Daily Mail, Hunter and Massimov became friendly when the then-vice president's son served on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, shortly after the February 2014 coup in Ukraine.

Moreover, between 2012 and 2014 Hunter worked as "a sort of go-between" helping the Kazakh businessman, Kenes Rakishev, broker US investments, reported the media outlet. The Daily Mail suggested that Rakishev appeared "to have become intimate with the vice president's son, calling Hunter 'my brother!' and 'my brother from another mother!'"

A 2020 congressional GOP investigation into Hunter Biden's financial activities exposed an alleged payment made on 22 April 2014 by a holding owned by Kenes Rakishev to Hunter's business partner Devon Archer through a shell company, Rosemont Seneca Bohai. A currency report obtained by GOP investigators says that the $142,300 payment was "for a car".

"Much like the way Biden and his son were tied up in the foreign meddling which went on Ukraine in 2014 when he was vice president under Obama…the fingerprints of the cronyist American president and his family's profiteering can be tied to those behind the failed regime change attempt in Kazakhstan", presumed Max Parry.

Why Was Blinken Upset With CSTO Peacekeeping Mission?

Several top Biden administration officials have made no secret of their dissatisfaction with Kazakh President Tokayev's decision to request help from the CSTO to halt violence and restore order in the country.

"The US is keen on painting any instance of Russia protecting its vital national security as hostility, whether in its peacekeeping efforts in Kazakhstan or in its troop buildups on its own territory on the border shared with Ukraine", says Parry. "In the past, Washington did the same when the Syrian government requested Russia's assistance in combating terrorist groups, which Moscow obliged given the proximity of the Syrian war to the North Caucasus where Russia [had] already endured many years combating Islamist insurgents".

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on 7 January: "It would seem to me that the Kazakh authorities and government certainly have the capacity to deal appropriately with protests, to do so in a way that respects the rights of protesters while maintaining law and order, so it's not clear why they feel the need for any outside assistance".

He also remarked that "once Russians are in your house, it's sometimes very difficult to get them to leave". Blinken's notion was called a "new low" in US diplomacy by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Politico appears to share Blinken's "grievances": a Lockheed Martin-sponsored article confirmed that "Washington has little-to-no leverage in Kazakhstan" and that "there's no military role [in the Central Asian state] for the US". Furthermore, it appears that American NGOs' ability to "bolster the nation's pro-democracy civil society with funding and push the regime to back democratic and good-governance reforms", has also been curtailed Politico says, citing its experts.

Kazakhstan, however, has to remain vigilant, Parry believes. He suggests that following Washington's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, numerous CIA cutouts, NGOs, and so-called civil society organisations are continuing to operate in the region and lay the groundwork for further unrest in Kazakhstan and elsewhere in Central Asia.