In case anyone over the age of 14 or 15 was actually in doubt about the Bush Administration's real level of interest in humanitarian concerns, do take a moment to learn a bit about Uzbekistan here:
"A former Soviet republic, this Muslim nation of 25.6 million plays a key role in White House plans to dominate key Central Asian oil producing states....
"Uzbekistan, hailed by the White House as 'our partner in the global war against terrorism,' is a favoured U.S. ally and aid recipient. Secretary Rumsfeld says relations between the U.S. and Uzbekistan are 'growing stronger every month.'
"Russians, however, have long called the communist despots who rule Soviet Central Asia the 'Red Mafia' and 'Red Sultans.' Aptly, since these regimes combine Stalinism's extreme brutality with the Mafia's criminality, clannishness and rapacity. The Bush administration's shameful tryst with Uzbekistan shows how the faux 'war on terrorism' has allowed some U.S. allies and vassals to massively abuse human rights under the banner of fighting terrorism.
"Numerous rights groups - most lately Human Rights Watch - accuse the brutal totalitarian regime of Uzbekistan of being one of the world's worst abusers of human rights.
"All political opposition parties have been outlawed as 'Islamic terrorists.' Free speech banned, newspapers censored, mosques and religious institutions put under secret police control....
"Uzbekistan holds over 7,000 political prisoners under unspeakable conditions - more political prisoners than held in the Soviet gulag during the 1980s. Prisoners are subjected to electric torture, burning with blowtorches, boiling alive, gang rapes, acid baths, and other atrocities.
"Ironically, President George Bush keeps trying to justify invading Iraq by citing Saddam's 'torture chambers and rape rooms.'"
No doubt that famous "liberal" media of which my conservative friends like to complain will leap all over this brazen moral hypocrisy.
UPDATE: And let us not forget another staunch U.S. ally, Kazakhstan--read about this friend of democracy and human rights at LewRockwell.com.
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