Friday, July 08, 2005
Our Man in Tashkent. . . for now
Yes, it seems like you can't turn around these days without somebody talking about the Uzbek capital with a wistful faraway look in their eyes. Oh no. . . wait, that doesn't happen at all. In fact, one rarely hears of Uzbekistan very much, which is sad since its such a fun name to both type and pronounce.
Since late 2001 the US has maintained a major airbase in the central Asian nation that resupplies and supports missions in neighboring Afghanistan. It's also been one of the nations to which we ship off (I'm sorry, "render") suspected terrorists for "humane" interrogations. And why not? It has a very efficient Interior Ministry that has honed its torture craft well during the tenure of Stalinist President Islam Karimov.
For a while it looked like a realpolitik win-win for both the repressive Karimov regime, which longed for legitimacy and western monies, and TeamBush, which touted Karimov's cooperation and allowed Don Rumsfeld to use the existence of such a forward base as a new model of US deployment as a cudgel with which to wallop those candy-ass Germans who dared oppose the Iraq War while financially benefitting from major contingents of US troops on their soil.
But then things started to get a bit dodgy. Karimov's troops attacked opposition protesters with live ammunition in the city of Andijan, and before the violence subsided it was estimated that over 700 civilians had been killed, making it the worst state-sponsored violent crackdown since Tiananmen Square.
Worsening civil rights conditions and further curtailment of already minimal free speech, coupled with the violence, proved too much for even TeamBush to be able to readily ignore. So the US, along with most other nations, called for an inquiry into the deaths in Andijan and the supression that followed.
Oops! Turns out that really pissed off the Uzbek government. Now word comes from Tashkent that the US might have to pull out their airbase. According to Karimov spokespeople the Uzbek understanding was that the base was only to support the ouster of the Taliban, it was never intended to be a long term facility. Oh, and the US hasn't paid all of its landing fees either.
So what is TeamBush to do? Well, we could always invade Uzbekistan. Its not like we don't have troops nearby enough. Maybe we could support Karimov's main opposition (But, alas, they're islamic fundamentalists with little love for the US of A right now). So the options aren't great. A little cash (OK, alot of cash) will probably go a long way to keeping Karimov happy in the short term. But still, autocratic dictators tend to be pretty ego driven nutjobs who don't like being dissed on by the world community, especially when their main ally is also signing with the chorus, however reluctantly.
So for now it looks as if Herman the German might just get to keep his Biergarten filled up with drunken US troops for the next little while.
Yes, it seems like you can't turn around these days without somebody talking about the Uzbek capital with a wistful faraway look in their eyes. Oh no. . . wait, that doesn't happen at all. In fact, one rarely hears of Uzbekistan very much, which is sad since its such a fun name to both type and pronounce.
Since late 2001 the US has maintained a major airbase in the central Asian nation that resupplies and supports missions in neighboring Afghanistan. It's also been one of the nations to which we ship off (I'm sorry, "render") suspected terrorists for "humane" interrogations. And why not? It has a very efficient Interior Ministry that has honed its torture craft well during the tenure of Stalinist President Islam Karimov.
For a while it looked like a realpolitik win-win for both the repressive Karimov regime, which longed for legitimacy and western monies, and TeamBush, which touted Karimov's cooperation and allowed Don Rumsfeld to use the existence of such a forward base as a new model of US deployment as a cudgel with which to wallop those candy-ass Germans who dared oppose the Iraq War while financially benefitting from major contingents of US troops on their soil.
But then things started to get a bit dodgy. Karimov's troops attacked opposition protesters with live ammunition in the city of Andijan, and before the violence subsided it was estimated that over 700 civilians had been killed, making it the worst state-sponsored violent crackdown since Tiananmen Square.
Worsening civil rights conditions and further curtailment of already minimal free speech, coupled with the violence, proved too much for even TeamBush to be able to readily ignore. So the US, along with most other nations, called for an inquiry into the deaths in Andijan and the supression that followed.
Oops! Turns out that really pissed off the Uzbek government. Now word comes from Tashkent that the US might have to pull out their airbase. According to Karimov spokespeople the Uzbek understanding was that the base was only to support the ouster of the Taliban, it was never intended to be a long term facility. Oh, and the US hasn't paid all of its landing fees either.
So what is TeamBush to do? Well, we could always invade Uzbekistan. Its not like we don't have troops nearby enough. Maybe we could support Karimov's main opposition (But, alas, they're islamic fundamentalists with little love for the US of A right now). So the options aren't great. A little cash (OK, alot of cash) will probably go a long way to keeping Karimov happy in the short term. But still, autocratic dictators tend to be pretty ego driven nutjobs who don't like being dissed on by the world community, especially when their main ally is also signing with the chorus, however reluctantly.
So for now it looks as if Herman the German might just get to keep his Biergarten filled up with drunken US troops for the next little while.
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