Massacre in Uzbekistan

But John, we can’t remove the base in Uzbekistan. Where else would the folks we’re flying over there to be tortured land?

Your friend Rummy . . .

Those boiled to death were probably terrorists and bad people all around. Maybe even the worst of the worst. And why don’t you ever mention Nick Berg’s beheading, uh?

I believe the ex-UK Ambassador had something to say about this. Got fired for saying it too didn’t he?

“It sounds like you’re anti-Uzbek. What’s happening in Sudan is much worse, and what about Tibet, damnit?”

You seem to be suggesting that speaking out against Uzbekistan’s Karimov, world class fingernail extractor extrordinaire, should only be allowed if one is willing to invade the Sudan and go to war with China. Remarkable position to say the least.

Thanks for the link, but,

But the troops should be withdrawn immediately, and all ties with this evil regime broken.

is a prescription for throwing to the wolves a lot of people and organizations — civil society groups, students, etc. — who benefit from the US presence. It may satisfy the soul, but it hangs Uzbeks out to dry.

“The US will not move against the devil they made this deal with.”

Which of course makes a mockery of all Bush claims he stands for.

Now we know why Pootie-Poot and Dubya got on so well last week despite the little Yalta blow-up — Karimov may be a SOB, but he’s their SOB. It’s as if when the leaders of big nations get together to cut deals, the people of small nations are the ones who suffer.

CNN is now putting the death toll in the hundreds… Does that change things?

In 2002 a group of Chavez party thugs fired on opposition marchers killing approximately twenty and wounding approximately one hundred. Vainly have I searched crookedtimber.org for even mention of this, let alone condemnation.

Please explain?

Possibly because none of s are Latin American experts and it is extremely difficult to piece together from local news sources an accurate and unbiased account of what happened during the coup in Venezuela.

But mainly because Crooked Timber was founded in June 2003.

Back to Uzbekistan —

As someone whose brother is there right now, flying a C-130 out of that US airbase, I’m of course concerned. I suspect the best thing the US government can do in the short term is what it’s already doing: hunker down, condemn violence on all sides, and probably try to conduct some urgent diplomacy behind the scenes. By the way, how does John Quiggin read the official US press release as “directed mainly at the protestors”? Looks pretty even-handed to me.

Longer-term, should we try to install a more democratic regime in Uzbekistan? Hell no. We should, though, try to promote the development of a civic culture that can organically give rise to democracy. We should be finding serious ways to put pressure on the current gov’t there to give up torture. While to an extent we’re stuck with Karimov, he’s also stuck with us. We need access to airbases in that neighborhood; he needs US money and legitimacy.

In the long run, the area is moving democratic, thanks largely to the current US actions. Eventually we will not need an airbase in Uzbekistan, but they will still need our money and legitimacy. This is not an overnight thing, and pulling out now will in no way help the rebels, unless they are organized, funded and armed. That is, incidentally, the description of the terrorist organization the US is worried about there.

Surely advocates of a slower, non-military approach in Iraq would support that same approach in Uzbekistan? But recognize that it really is years slower.

Obviously, the foreign policy disaster that should be on American planners’ minds is the Shah of Iran, but there have been contrary examples of a U.S. ally making the transition from an authoritarian government to a democracy while retaining close ties to the US. The Philippines, South Korea, and Greece come to mind. A revolution in a U.S. ally can thus be an opportunity for American foreign policy as well as a potential black eye. I agree with Quiggin that the U.S. response thus far seems much too tepid, and I may come around to his view entirely, but as yet I’m not convinced that disengagement is called for.

When I said this Uzbek post is silly I meant the idea that a simple literal interpretation of some rhetorc makes much sense.

comments in that link still don’t work

john,

Sorry, yes, that was sarcasm. Never mind.

Are support and overthrow the only possible choices?

Would the Democratic administration be claiming that we were supporting a torturing dictator as part of an exciting new program of promoting democracy and a dramatic break from the immoral old realpolitik?

John Q, a couple points. First, you say that the rhetoric of this Administration “would suggest that the US should use its power to overthrow Karimov.” This is mostly speculation on my part, but my guess is that American intelligence and/or other government elements have had some role in some or all of the “color coded” revolutions in recent months: Ukraine, Lebanon, etc. That probably includes helping to trigger the turmoil in Uzbekistan. Though Karimov hasn’t folded as easily as some, I’ll bet the US is, in fact, trying to use its power (in this case non-military) to overthrow Karimov. The US has a lot of tools in its foreign policy quiver, and the military is only one of them.

Second, the US did in fact withdraw all or most of its non-military aid to Karimov’s regime sometime about a year ago, after he failed to progress on any of numerous human rights issues. (Karimov promptly turned to the Russins, who happily picked up the slack.) I know that’s not good enough for you, but it does bear on the discussion here. As you say, it’s a subjective question: where do you draw the line? Bush appears to have decided that Karimov is not bad enough to end all strategic cooperation — but not good enough to merit any other help. I think that’s a defensible position. Others may differ, of course.

John Quiggin: sorry, I can’t figure out why I thought this was an HF post.

I look forward to hearing more about the direction that you favor and in which the Dems have gradually been moving.

[i]Quoth Ancarett:[/i]

>> (look at what Uzbekistan really produces—nearly nothing!)

Oh, that’s too easy… tainted spices of course…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4530643.stm

A blog from a Peace Corps volunteer stationed in Andijon: http://noughsaid.blogs.com/wanderluster/

Uncle Kvetch,

While I agree that the US government is far too cozy with Uzbekistan, I don’t think Karimov and Hussein’s governments are comparable. As far as i know, Karimov doesn’t practice genocide or ethnically-based oppression. He also doesn’t make a habit of invading and attempting to annex portions of neighboring countries. So I think your comparison is wrong. There is no counterpart as far as I know in Uzbekistan to the mass graves of Kurds and Shiites in Iraq.

I’m glad to see this under discussion, and it is nice to see a denunciation of Karimov, but it is interesting that as far as I can tell, Karimov’s actions are far less odious than Putin’s, for example. Would you, John Quiggin, suggest a paring back of engagement with Putin, for example?

I’m for it, along with a reduction in aid to other despts, like those ruling Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia, but I don’t see it happening in the near future.

Another interesting place is Vietnam. They continue to torture and detain dissidents, and there have been killings in the Highlands. Should we not engage with them?

Darren:

Yes, that’s why Britain, France, the US, Norway and Japan are clearly the most tyrranical countries to their own minorities.

Please.

Steve, the direction I refer to is refusing to deal with brutal dictators as opposed to the traditional view that “he may be an SOB but he’s our SOB”. -john q

john your silliness continues since you don’t specify what you mean by dealing with

pointing to problems is easy enough but providin specific alternativs is the issue

like answern the first question only on a test and expectinv to get an ‘A’ because you get the first question right

silly and no wonder ct attracts some of the custormers they do, like darren

Remarkable that Billmon decides to elide out, in an item about continuing US aid, the fact that the aid is for decommissioning Soviet-era WMDs. Could it have been because that fact might put the Bush White House in a slightly less-bad light? Just guessing.

Also remarkable that his exhaustive list omits this, from July of last year: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48018-2004Jul13.html Here’s an excerpt, for those who don’t have time to cut and paste the url:

“In a rare rebuke of an ally, the Bush administration announced yesterday that it will cut $18 million in military and economic aid to the authoritarian government of Uzbekistan because it has failed to take a series of promised steps to improve its human rights record. The decision will not affect funding Uzbekistan receives from the Nunn-Lugar project to secure nuclear weapons material. Programs that support democracy groups and health care will also be exempt.”

Again, it’s certainly legitimate to argue that this is not enough, that the US should end all cooperation with Karimov’s regime so as not to sully our American ideals. But neither of you (Billmon or John Q) seems prepared to argue that; rather, you simply ignored this item as weakening your case. And it’s not as if it was a hard piece of information to find. I remembered reading it in the NYT at the time, and a few minutes ago it was the 8th item on a Google search for “uzbekistan aid”.

In short, I have a hard time accepting even legitimate arguments from those with weak intellectual credibility.

John Q, your post does not, but Billmon’s certainly does. Your comment (no. 39 above) cited Billmon’s post as “provid[ing] enough evidence” “[a]s regards the Administration’s attitude to Karimov”. Yet Billmon’s post omits, most likely deliberately, significant evidence. The most generous conclusion is that you ought not assume Billmon’s postings to be authoritative on any subject touching Bush.

george quoted, “In a rare rebuke of an ally, the Bush administration announced yesterday that it will cut $18 million in military and economic aid to the authoritarian government of Uzbekistan because it has failed to take a series of promised steps to improve its human rights record.”

That’s a pretty meaningless statement, because (a) it doesn’t express the quantity as a percentage, (b) it doesn’t describe whether the cut is to come quickly (hence harder felt), or smoothed over many years, (c) it doesn’t take into account that such cuts are often announced and then in essence circumvented.

liberal,
It doesn’t appear that Uzbekistan qualifies for any US aid for the last two years.
http://www.registan.net/?p=3907
That is also an interesting article in that is says Bush is worrying more about how governments treat their people rather than previous foreign policy considerations.

So we have Bush cutting off all aid to Uzbekistan, leaving US soldiers there, and actively trying to calm matters down. The two parties involved are a Old School Communist and unknowns, but probably hard core muslim revolutionaries of the not nice type. And what does John want? Apparently he wants magic fairy dust from Bush to resolve this, cause I don’t see how Bush could act differently. Uzbekistan is important to other theatres, and if the US were to pull out, exactly how would that lower hostilities there?

Between Henry’s post on the unsourced, or incredibley poorly sourced, Newsweek item and this blaiming Bush for not being God article, I’m thinking CrookedTimber had a rough weekend.

The 18 million suspended July of 04 was by the State Department over State Department funds. The Pentagon and State Department have their own foreign assistance budgets. The Pentagon has not filed its disclosure for 04 yet, but a month after the SD suspended aid the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Meyers pledged $21 million in military aid to Uzbekistan. The aid suspension didn’t really phase anybody in charge in Uzbekistan, they’re probably getting more lectures than new toys from State, and it seemed to be mostly a PR exercise that didn’t phase the Uzbek foreign ministry.

On the Congressional side if you look at the congressional budget request for 2006 for Eurasia [pdf] the Foreign Military Financing aid figure (actual) is null for 04 and (estimated) 11 million for 05. The Uzbek item discusses the torture situation and how the US is spending X amount of dollars to try to stop it, while off in reality somewhere we find out the US is sending people there to be tortured. The boilerplate looks nice though.

Hektor,
I’d like you to use your deflecting talents to compare our friend Karimov’s regime in Uzbekistan (6000 political prisoners, wide-spread torture, etc, according to amnesty.org) with the terrible, absolutely intolerable regime in Cuba (75 poitical prisoners who are, arguably, foreign enemy’s agents).

Thanks.

Abb1,

I’d like you to be serious for once, just once, when talking about something besides the Israel/Palestine issue.

The American position toward Cuba is ridiculous. Castro is a tin-pot dictator who does not maintain large numbers of political dissidents in prison. It’s pretty clear that the situation in Turkey is worse at this moment in terms of human rights than the system in Cuba, though the system in Turkey may rapidly improve. You seem to want to put me into a specific category, which I don’t understand. I don’t like the Castro regime, but it’s pretty clearly going to see great changes in the next few years when Castro dies and his only designated successor, his equally decrepit brother, takes power. It’s in a transitional phase right now, and the US embargo has been stupid for many years. Of course the Uzbek government is much worse than the Cuban government. Duh!

We’ll see how conditions in Uzbekistan play out, but it seems Karimov may be moving into the Chinese model of dealing with political demonstrations: “kill them all”. If that happens, then we may see a lot of bloodshed very quickly, and there may be a need for some sort of UN intervention force to prevent widespread killings.

I’m no friend of Karimov, but I don’t like this selective denunciation. Putin has been killing Chechens for years, and Chancellor Shroeder is constantly kissing up to him and describing him as a “true democrat”. It’s ridiculous.

MFB, I don’t know if you pegged me as one of those minimizing or dismissing US support for Karimov, but if I’ve been unclear let me clarify: that is certainly not my aim. But any attempt to paint the US-Uzbek relationship as one of unadulterated support is omitting some significant facts, out of either ignorance or (at least as often) willful deceptiveness.

Incidentally, diplomacy and hypocrisy are practically synonyms. The one nation that I’d say is completely unhypocritical in their foreign affairs is North Korea. Kim Jong Il hates everybody, and says so.

Abb1,

So what was the point about this then, anyway? Stop trolling for once.

You’re just wrong about this, unfortunately. The Israel/Palestine issue is not unique. But why this is the worst possible outcome in your view is to me strange. Would it be better in your view if Israel absorbed Palestine directly and then ethnically cleansed all of the inhabitants, like what the Soviet Union did to East Prussia and parts of the Baltic states and Poland? Or if they absorbed the West Bank and Gaza into the country and expelled and/or massacred Arabs whenever they attempted to speak up politically or follow their religious traditions, like China does in Tibet?

Why is military occupation worse than murder or expulsion worse for you? Would you prefer ethnic cleansing, since you seem to consider that an internal state matter? Invasion, annexation, followed by ethnic cleansing is ok, but military occupation is bad?

Why is international law more important to you than human rights?

John Q, you are correct as regards your original post. (And I retract my insinuation about your intellectual credibility. That was over the top; sorry.) But my first comment came after your comment linking to Billmon. Though my main charge of bias lies with Billmon, I do think you are incorrect in stating that the Billmon post “provides enough evidence” “[a]s regards the Administration’s attitude to Karimov.” It does not; it omits, for partisan reasons, evidence that weakens Billmon’s claim.

I am no apologist for Karimov, but it irks me that Uzbekistan has become a favorite whipping boy for those who wish to be critical of Bush. See here, the narrative goes, Bush talks loftily but then supports this awful thug. Few critics mention that the US has in fact used many levers, diplomatic and financial, to express disapproval of Karimov’s regime and try to get him to progress (in vain, apparently).

Assuming that you have considered all this, your position puts you in the odd company of certain conservative Republicans in the US, who regularly denounce any ties or engagement with unsavory regimes (China in particular). If you restrict your argument to military ties only, that still leaves you in some awkward spots. What to do with our troops in the Phillipines, for instance? They’re not exactly the Netherlands either.

What would be the practical effects of immediately removing all US troops and cutting all ties? The US air base supports activity in Afghanistan — is it readily replaceable, or do we write off part of that country as well? Do some of our ties to Uzbekistan help would-be democrats or promote civil society there?

It’s easy to see the harm in the current (Karimov) regime, but what side effects can we expect if the US follows John Q’s prescription? I don’t know, and am reluctant to take such dramatic steps until I do. (That doesn’t preclude stronger condemnations of Karimov and an immeidate end to most aid, though.)

Here’s a decent overview, which concludes near the end that “disengagement would be a poor choice. This may be morally satisfying to those outraged by Uzbek government repression, but it would sever the fragile bonds to civil society groups, students, and Uzbek citizens who benefit from western assistance and contacts.”

http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-6-28-2511.jsp