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

http://enews.ferghana.ru/

Why does the US put up with this regime? We should be able to prevent such blatant slaughter. I would think we have enough influence there ($100 million per year according to a Guardian estimate}. Fiscal 2004 non-military aid of $50.6 million according to the State Department. Military aid is harder to track (I only found $32 million this year in a quick search), but it is surely more.

The American reputation of standing up for freedom is on the line here.

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.)

No, I would prefer none of it. What ethnic cleansing are you talking about? I am not aware of any ethnic cleansing in Uzbekistan. What’s happened so far is police/military shooting at demonstrators, not unlike, say, Kent State 1973 incident in Ohio; where is ethnic cleansing and why do you think military intervention is warranted? And besides, I don’t advocate any military intervention in Israeli/Palestinian case either.

As well as withdrawing the bases and ceasing extraordinary renditions to Uzbekistan, Bush could easily have included Karimov in his condemnation of Belarus during the recent visit to the region. The baby steps he has taken have been offset by the accompanying winks and nods.

Schroeder is the loudest and most insistent that Putin is a democrat, that Russia is a democracy, and everything there is peachy-keen. So I definitely single him out. You never see Schroeder denouncing the occupation of the Baltics during and after World War II.

I think Bush is probably the least pro-Putin major Western leader at this point, though of course at one time he “looked into his soul”. He certainly lets Condoleeza Rice say a lot of remarkably frank things about Russia that you would never see ol Joschka say.

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.

You’re objecting, as far as I can see, because a news report linked in a Billmon post, linked in turn by me (though only in the comment thread), doesn’t give a full picture of US aid policy, though the post accurately documents many friendly links with the Karimov regime.

Your objection does not seem relevant to the point I was making.

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?

Otherwise, where Cuba and Uzbekistan are concerned, I think I pretty much agree with you. Except, I’m not sure what you mean by ‘UN intervention force’. Diplomatic and economic pressure – sure, of course, but not military; after all Uzbekistan is a sovereign country, so they’ll probably have to fight it out among themselves somehow. This isn’t within UN jurisdiction.

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.

The first political leader who actually welcomed Putin into the club was Tony Blair. In 2000, I think, before the summer… I recall demonstrations as he greeted Putin on a visit to London. After that, slowly but surely, there was an increasing acceptance, at least at higher political level, that Putin was an ally. More so after later terrorist attacks in Russia, the theatre siege, the Beslan siege, etc.

So it’s hardly fair to single out Schroeder as the hypocrite in regard to Putin and the Chechen issue. It’s every single European leader plus the morally irreprehensible Blair-Bush duo. Part of it ordinary real-politik and economic interests, part of it co-optation into the war-on-terror agenda, via the usual enemy of my enemy stuff.

They even get Russia get away with some spying and meddling in Iraq on behalf of the baathists during the early stage of the US intervention there, apparently…