Subject:
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The "Evil Dictator" Excuse Put to Rest
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 29 Oct 2003 18:31:24 GMT
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Viewed:
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103 times
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Tony Blair’s new friend
Britain and the US claim a moral mandate - and back a dictator who boils victims
to death
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4783845-103677,00.html
There are over 6,000 political and religious prisoners in Uzbekistan. Every
year, some of them are tortured to death. Sometimes the policemen or
intelligence agents simply break their fingers, their ribs and then their skulls
with hammers, or stab them with screwdrivers, or rip off bits of skin and flesh
with pliers, or drive needles under their fingernails, or leave them standing
for a fortnight, up to their knees in freezing water. Sometimes they are a
little more inventive. The body of one prisoner was delivered to his relatives
last year, with a curious red tidemark around the middle of his torso. He had
been boiled to death.
His crime, like that of many of the country’s prisoners, was practising his
religion. Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan, learned his politics in
the Soviet Union. He was appointed under the old system, and its collapse in
1991 did not interrupt his rule. An Islamist terrorist network has been
operating there, but Karimov makes no distinction between peaceful Muslims and
terrorists: anyone who worships privately, who does not praise the president
during his prayers or who joins an organisation which has not been approved by
the state can be imprisoned. Political dissidents, human rights activists and
homosexuals receive the same treatment. Some of them, like in the old Soviet
Union, are sent to psychiatric hospitals.
But Uzbekistan is seen by the US government as a key western asset, as Saddam
Hussein’s Iraq once was. Since 1999, US special forces have been training
Karimov’s soldiers. In October 2001, he gave the United States permission to use
Uzbekistan as an airbase for its war against the Taliban. The Taliban have now
been overthrown, but the US has no intention of moving out. Uzbekistan is in the
middle of central Asia’s massive gas and oil fields. It is a nation for whose
favours both Russia and China have been vying. Like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, it is
a secular state fending off the forces of Islam.
edit: this one’s for John -- that great defender of religious freedom!
Up to 15,000 people killed in invasion, claims thinktank
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4784714-103550,00.html
Counting the human cost
Total war dead (Iraq)
Between 10,800 and 15,100, with a midpoint of 12,950
Combatants killed (Iraq)
Between 7,600 and 10,800, with a midpoint of 9,200
Noncombatants killed (Iraq)
Between 3,200 and 4,300, with a midpoint of 3,750
War dead (Baghdad)
Between 4,376 and 5,726, with a midpoint of 5,051
Combatants killed (Baghdad)
Between 2,224 and 3,531, with a midpoint of 2,878
Noncombatants killed (Baghdad)
Between 1,990 and 2,357, with a midpoint of 2,174
-- Source: Project on Defence Alternatives research
MYOB. Mind your own business.
Minding our own business would keep the U.S. out of the international scene
where we either commit atrocities ourselves or support and maintain the power of
others that are committing atrocities.
That’s not “leading by example.” That’s not being a “good neighbor.”
This is not my beautiful house...
-- Hop-Frog
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: The "Evil Dictator" Excuse Put to Rest
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Marchetti wrote: snip lots of thought provoking stuff (...) It may not be your beautiful house, but you're stuck living in it. That is the unfortunate part. But how do you correct that? Dave K (21 years ago, 29-Oct-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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