“He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.”
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May 14, 2005
Billmon: Democracy in Action
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TASHKENT, Uzbekistan – Uzbek President Islam Karimov said Saturday that 10 government troops and “many more” protesters were killed and at least 100 were wounded when soldiers fired on protesters in the Uzbek city of Andijan.
Posted by: Nugget | May 14 2005 10:23 utc | 2
I’ve got the Hizb ut-Tahrir links, the Central Asia Pipeline (Gwadar in my “Is Pakistan?” series) and so on at wampum.
You might want to pick up Ahmed Rashid’s book Jihad. It is a good basic introduction to the issues facing Central Asia.
Posted by: Diogenes | May 14 2005 15:22 utc | 5
b beat me to it. The lesson to be learnt is that having your picture taken with a genial, bonhomous, outgoing, spruced up Rummy spells – danger!
Posted by: Blackie | May 14 2005 17:55 utc | 6
You all are missing Billmons true point. That putz Bush had the balls to take Roosevelt to talk for Yalta and giving concessions on spheres of influence, when at the same time he’s doing the same god damn thing with this Uzbek dictator.
Bushie can’t beat FDR’s legacy with the world and US citizens on SS so he’s tearing down FDRs complete legacy. It won’t work. Antone with any semblance of historical knowledge would understand that Yalta was culmination of three other negotiations, and the allies had to have the Soviets on board to keep Hitler fighting two fronts. Also, the US was fighting in the east Asian theater that really spread the US thin.
The problem comes down to, many of the people with historical background are dying off and the rethugs are revising history. Buchanan actually ahd the gonads to say we should have backed Hitler in his editorial the other day.
It is time to cxall the Bushies on the carpet for revisionist history and speaking with fork tongue.
Posted by: jdp | May 14 2005 19:02 utc | 7
“No President has ever done more for human rights than I have.” – George W. Bush
Posted by: MarcinGomulka | May 14 2005 21:09 utc | 10
All these reports and photographs about the US gov patting their loyal foreign dictators remind me of Brezhnev kissing his way through the Eastern block, substantiating the respective country’s everlasting and unshakeable friendship with the Soviet Union. You knew it couldn’t last when you saw it.
Posted by: teuton | May 14 2005 22:07 utc | 11
One human rights observer in the eastern city of Andizhan said that up to 500 people may have perished in the shootings and the gun battles that followed. A doctor spoke of “many, many dead”, witnesses said 200 to 300 people were shot dead, and an AP reporter saw at least 30 bodies in Andijan. As night fell, tension was high, with armoured vehicles positioned at crossroads and trucks blocking main thoroughfares. Terrified demonstrators tried to flee the country, seen as a key ally by Britain and the US in the war on terror.
So my guess is, the US and UK are getting ready to invade, eeehmmm…. I mean liberate Uzebekistan. I mean Karimov is killing his own people, there needs to be a change of government… like in Iraq.
Posted by: Fran | May 15 2005 5:48 utc | 12
Rummy can hang that picture on the same wall with the one of him and Saddam
Posted by: merlallen | May 15 2005 7:13 utc | 13
Witness: Hundreds dead in Uzbek uprising
ANDIJAN, Uzbekistan – An estimated 500 bodies have been laid out in a school in the eastern Uzbek city where troops fired on a crowd of protesters to put down an uprising, a doctor said Sunday, corroborating witness accounts of hundreds killed in the fighting.
The doctor, who said she had seen the bodies, said residents were coming to Andijan’s School No. 15 to identify dead relatives, who had been placed in rows. Soldiers were guarding the school, said the doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for her safety.
The doctor also said she believed some 2,000 people were wounded in the clashes on Friday, but it wasn’t clear how she arrived at that estimate. The doctor spoke with The Associated Press by telephone; most outside journalists left Andijan Saturday after several reporters were detained by police….
Posted by: Nugget | May 15 2005 10:20 utc | 14
LOL…the saddam idea was my thought as i read the post. thx for the pics, b.
jdp…..many US rich folk did support hitler before the japs attacked. bush family front and center.
Posted by: lenin’s ghost | May 16 2005 6:35 utc | 15
U.S. ‘disturbed’ by bloodbath in ally Uzbekistan
ANDIZHAN, Uzbekistan (Reuters) – Washington said on Monday it was “deeply disturbed” by reports Uzbek authorities fired on protesters last week, a massacre a rights activist said could herald a new wave of repression in the U.S. ally….
“…We are deeply disturbed by the reports that the Uzbek authorities fired on demonstrators,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters. “We certainly condemn the indiscriminate use of force against unarmed civilians and deeply regret any loss of life.
The comments were the strongest from the United States since the bloodbath, when troops killed 500 protesters according to some witnesses and activists.
Witnesses told Reuters in Andizhan that soldiers outside a school gunned down a large crowd, including women, children and 10 police hostages, that was moving away from a main square where the shooting started….
Posted by: Nugget | May 17 2005 0:02 utc | 16
Former Brit. Ambass., Craig Murray, has the rundown on situation. The terrorists are the govt. The rest is cover to legitimate xUS building base there as part of the Oil Control Mania.
What Drives Support for This Torturer
…
…One of the uses of Uzbek torture is to provide the CIA and MI6 with “intelligence” material linking the Uzbek opposition with Islamist terrorism and al-Qaida. The information is almost entirely bogus, and it was my efforts to stop MI6 using it that led ultimately to my effective dismissal from the Foreign Office.
The information may be untrue, but it is valuable because it feeds into the US agenda. Karimov is very much George Bush’s man in central Asia. There is not a senior member of the US administration who is not on record saying warm words about Karimov. There is not a single word recorded by any of them calling for free elections in Uzbekistan.
And it’s not just words. In 2002, the US gave Uzbekistan over $500m in aid, including $120m in military aid and $80m in security aid. The level has declined – but not nearly as much as official figures seem to show (much is hidden in Pentagon budgets after criticism of the 2002 figure).
The airbase opened by the US at Khanabad is not essential to operations in Afghanistan, its claimed raison d’être. It has a more crucial role as the easternmost of Donald Rumsfeld’s “lily pads” – air bases surrounding the “wider Middle East”, by which the Pentagon means the belt of oil and gas fields stretching from the Middle East through the Caucasus and central Asia.
Anyone still more frightened of legitimate attacks on xAm. soil by “foreign terrorists” than they are of Govt. in Wash??
Posted by: jj | May 17 2005 7:01 utc | 17