And if you can't manage to get one source from the ground to even suggest that sentiment, you don't have much to say on the topic.

I am here in Bishkek, and I don't know what to call it if it wasn't a revolution. People in this region don't respond to sit ins and candle holding. The last 5 years have taught them that if they sit-in and wait to get shot, they will be shot. People in this region respond to power; Mr. Baisalov should remember that from back when he lived here.

The grievances were clear: rising prices, rising corruption. The locals who recognized us as Americans just wanted us to take photos of what was happening and report it, to show those who'd been shot to protect this government that is so hated. For the last few months, its been all but impossible to find anyone outside of the government that supports Bakiev. The fact that Russian media was taring Bakiev had an impact as well.

Today, the streets are fairly quiet. Looting has taken place, but most believe less than in 2005. And as the hard part begins, and everyone is hoping that history has only repeated itself so far.

Old Webster's defines it as

2 a : a sudden, radical, or complete change

or

b : a fundamental change in political organization; especially : the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed

The actions of yesterday were sudden, radical and completely changed the established order. And it seems as though the opposition is trying to establish "a fundamental change in political organization."

Roza Otunbayeva, an opposition leader, was quoted as folliows by AP:

"We have a caretaker government now in place, and I am the head of it," Otunbayeva said. "It will remain in place for half a year, during which we will draft the constitution and create conditions for free and fair (presidential) elections."

Revolutions are messy. The American Revolution was very messy. Not all revolutions are color coded, neatly packaged for consumption by Westerners, with cutesy non violent tactics or are inspired by lofty ideals.

Some American news outlets are already looking suspiciously at regional boogieman Russia, see - http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1978590,00.html . But articles like the one by Time are mere conjecture, ignorant of the facts on the ground.

Informative article nonetheless, if anything you showed me that think tanks and exiles can be out of touch.

Why shouldn't this movement be labelled as a revolution? Or is the term revolution now copyrighted to the Americans and their backed cocktail parties to reshuffle regimes into their benefit?

Simply because it's violent doesn't mean that it isn't a viable means of domestic regime change. The looting and deaths are regrettable, but we shouldn't assume that every semi-democratic movement should be non-violent.

I cant help but see Bakiyev as a deeply flawed variation on Abdul Nasser. For those who dont know, Nasser was the Eqgpytian president shortly after it got out from under Britains thumb in the mid-20th century. He artfully played the US and USSR off eachother and basically ended up with a ton of assistance with almost no strings attached. He presented himself to the Soviets as a Socialist Anti-Imperialist. He presented himself to the Americans as a Democratic Moderate Nationalist. Though I am usually strongly pro-US, I have a lot of admiration for Nasser, as he was one of the only leaders who were able to rapidly industrialize a previously backwards society without resorting to totalitarianism. With his stupid Russia-US games, Bakiyev was clearly trying to do what Nasser did, except he wanted to empower his regime instead of generaly improving his country. I'd say Bakiyev's failure boiled down to one simple miscalculation: Nasser was not a stupid narcissistic dick.

More and more, I see these Foreign Policy blogs not just on this topic as a place for certain voices to seize the narrative and lock it down tight in their post -- and then for a few voices to struggle to be heard in the comments with some alternative narrative.

Hey, Paul Quinn-Judge, I'm going to call the events in Bishkek a "revolution" so "knock me down" *rolls eyes*.

Look, are you so jaded from the Western-helped colour revos, that still had authentic internal social components, that you can't look at a single social movement anymore without seeing the long hand of Moscow or Washington or the short hand of opportunistic thugs and say it's all fake?!

There are plenty of authentic dissidents and opposition people in Kyrgyzstan. They've been protesting for months -- years -- before this. Clearly the people willing to get killed, regroup, and storm the government headquarters as fiercely as they did were organized and may have had some help. Even so, there was enough spontaneity and genuine sympathy for toppling Bakiev that you cannot describe this as "engineered".

Paul, you may remember the August 2001 defeat of the coup. Yeltsin and the tank and all that. But did you recall how Rutskoi and some of the spetznaz and KGB and such holed up in one wing of the White House and refused to follow orders even supporting the revo, and insisted on doing their thing? Is is small wonder that later those were the people that Yeltsin sent tanks at? Revolutions are seldom neat and clean and clear-cut, and have all sorts of factors and usually the people making them face severe challenges both from the people they toppled to the people they chose to ally with to do some toppling. Or have you not visited the Obama Administration lately?

There's a strange idea now that all revolutions have to be peaceful or they aren't revolution. If anything, usually revolutions are *not* peaceful and it's an aberration that the colour ones were as peaceful as they were.

A revolution is when a government is overthrown and significant social movements are involved. This is the case here. It's not a military coup or a junta.

I think it's fair to keep asking questions about Russian meddling and instigation and U.S. inaction and lack of leadership. Even so, it seems mostly about Kyrgyz corruption and clan wars and the war for who will get to claim the social democratic intelligentsia as their mascot, military, prosecutor, or whatever.

Baisalov is absolutely spot on: the U.S. didn't even publicly complain about RFE/RL, the congressionally funded station, and made no other human rights statement other than the annual country reports released last March, which were critical but prepared last year, and not a reaction to current events.

What's good about this piece is that you enabled Baisalov's voice to be heard (you could also follow him on Twitter @baisalov)