Obama restores military aid to one of the world's most brutal dictators

cyberhog

The Obama administration has restored military aid to the brutal regime in Uzbekistan.

Human Rights Watch... called the decision to restore military aid to Uzbekistan “very disappointing”.

“This is a fundamentally wrong decision, and sends the wrong signal to Uzbekistan and to the world,” said Hugh Williamson, Director of HRW’s of Europe and Central Asia division, in an interview with Uznews.net.

http://www.uznews.net/news_single.php?lng=en&sub=top&cid=31&nid=18953

The Human Rights Watch report was covered by the BBC at the end of last year.

The 107-page document makes for a chilling read, says the BBC's Central Asia correspondent Rayhan Demytrie.

It is based on interviews with torture victims, their families, lawyers and human rights activists.

One torture case describes police officers handcuffing an espionage suspect and burning his genitals with a lighted newspaper.

Others include allegations of interrogators pouring boiling water on an activist, beating detainees, hanging them by their wrists and ankles and subjecting them to rape and asphyxiation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-16154099


Now, bear in mind this is the same administration that says it is:

"deeply concerned by the persecution of Iranian citizens at the hand of their government."

"The steady deterioration in human-rights conditions in Iran has obliged the international community to speak out time and again. The world will continue to watch and will hold accountable those responsible for these actions."

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/02/23/US-freezes-Iranian-officials-assets/UPI-24401298489726/

"Iranian citizens have been arbitrarily arrested, beaten, tortured, raped, blackmailed and killed. Yet the Iranian government has ignored repeated calls from the international community to end these abuses."

http://www.voanews.com/policy/editorials/More-Iranian-Officials-Sanctioned-117604203.html


This prompted Obama to sign an executive order giving the US "new tools to target human rights abuses engaged in by officials of the government of Iran," The administration said the move to sanction Iranian officials underscores its "enduring commitment to support Iranians seeking to exercise their universal rights" and "expresses our solidarity with victims of torture, persecution, and arbitrary detention,"

But when we turn to Uzbekistan where human rights violations against the people are worsening the Obama administration looks the other way.

Washington’s new thaw on military aid ironically coincides with a worsening in Uzbekistan’s human rights record and as President Karimov continues to refuse any concessions on the issue.

Such utter hypocrisy on the part of the Obama administration is morally indefensible.

So why on earth is the Obama administration cosying up to one of the world's nastiest dictatorships?

Well the answer is simple. Uzbekistan has an asset that Washington needs.

Aid to Uzbekistan, “is in our interests… because this is to support our troops,” said Robert Blake, assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia at a forum in Washington last week.

...

The US needs Uzbekistan as part of its transit network for supplying troops in Afghanistan. The importance of the country to America is summed up in the single abbreviation NDN – the Northern Distribution Network...

The Americans’ reliance on the NDN is increasing, particularly in the light of the USA’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in 2014, and also in the context of the worsening relationship with Pakistan, which has all but closed off the southern supply route for cargo and troops.

So while the Obama administration professes to be a strong supporter of human rights, in reality, they are anything but! The United States has always turned a blind eye to gross violations of human rights when it's in its interest to do so and will only take action against brutal dictators when it suits its agenda.

The truth is, Obama is as morally bankrupt as the dictators he facilitates.

Cork boy 55

There is a war in Afganistan
The mission
To stablise the country and win it for democracy and deny it as a base for international jihadi terrioist networks.
A war supported by nearly the whole world

directly or indirectly
including us we are not neutral we have seven men there.
It has got to be won.

That war is dependent on a central asian base
Currently that base is in Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan is closing that base down see
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/world/asia/kyrgyzstan-says-united-states-manas-air-base-will-close.html
Also the Pakistan supply is cut off

A base in Uzbekistan may be needed for victory.

Realpoltik
You have to deal with the world as it is not as you would like it to be
and as Obama said in his speech about the arab spring

Obama wrote: »

and there will be times when our short-term interests don’t align perfectly with our long-term vision for the region.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/19/remarks-president-middle-east-and-north-africa

RichieC

Is america the only country allowed to cite Realpoltik whenever they back tyrants and terrorists?

timesnap

Cork boy 55 wrote: »

It has got to be won.

Hi Cork boy 55,the thing is a war in Afghanistan is not something that can be won in a conventional sense,it was a an open house by the taliban,all terrorists welcome for training,something had to be done about that.
a country in the wrong place all through history.

A base in Uzbekistan may be needed for victory.

There will be no victory,logistics,tribalism and global powers will ensure that

You have to deal with the world as it is not as you would like it to be
and as Obama said in his speech about the arab spring

Obama's biggest problem is he is a long term thinker in a short term electoral cycle,just like the members of congress are on an election footing from the first day they are elected.
this will destroy America without any outside enemies help in the end.

cyberhog

@Cork boy 55 The speech you linked to is just another example of Obama's duplicitly.

We look forward to working with all who embrace genuine and inclusive democracy. What we will oppose is an attempt by any group to restrict the rights of others, and to hold power through coercion and not consent. Because democracy depends not only on elections, but also strong and accountable institutions, and the respect for the rights of minorities.

If Obama was serious about opposing those who restrict rights and hold power through coercion he would not be giving military aid to a brutal dictator.

we cannot hesitate to stand squarely on the side of those who are reaching for their rights, knowing that their success will bring about a world that is more peaceful, more stable, and more just.

Unless of course the United States needs a favour from an oppressive regime then those reaching for their rights are ignored.


How can you possibly condone such a diseased mentality?

Carcharodon

cyberhog wrote: »

The truth is, Obama is as morally bankrupt as the dictators he facilitates.

Well that is a bit of an exaggeration to say the least but I get the point.
You could switch out Obamas name with any president past, present or future.

cyberhog

The leader of the opposition Sunshine Coalition says "Countries in the West should stop supporting President Islam Karimov primarily for their own ends."

http://www.uznews.net/news_single.php?lng=en&sub=&cid=31&nid=19254

cyberhog

It's good to see that at least one mainstream news source has caught up to reality.

The Independent
Brian Brady, Jonathan Owen
Sunday 08 April 2012


Britain is bargaining with one of the world's most brutal dictators because we need to use his country as a transit route to bring thousands of tons of military equipment home from Afghanistan.

...

Britain, along with the United States, has stepped up diplomatic contacts with the Karimov regime in recent months, and the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, visited the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, for talks on supply lines in February.

...

Campaign groups condemned the developments – which threaten to compromise David Cameron's commitment to human rights – and urged the Government not to "cosy up" to a man accused of presiding over torture, religious repression and forced child labour. The regime is also held responsible for murdering its own people, including the notorious Andijan massacre, in which government forces killed hundreds of protesters, most of them unarmed, in 2005.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/a-dirty-deal-uzbek-dictator-has-uk-over-a-barrel-7626972.html

RichieC

He's not a dictator, cyberhog! He's just on a constitutionally illegal third term

Chuck Stone

Cork boy 55 wrote: »

The mission
To stablise the country and win it for democracy and deny it as a base for international jihadi terrioist networks.

A war supported by nearly the whole world

That was 2001. Did you miss the 11 years of fucking it up starting very early on?

The total value of American reconstruction aid to Afghanistan in the fiscal 2002 budget that the Congress approved amounted to $942.1 million. That was probably $500 million short of what was needed that year, but analysts might have argued that the country could not absorb more money at that time. The initial fiscal 2003 request, however, totaled just $151 million, with foreign military financing reduced to a laughable $1 million.

Bill Taylor, who was coordinating assistance to Afghanistan for the State Department, was outraged. He made his views clear in an unclassified e-mail distributed widely throughout the government: "Our request for FY 03 is $151 million. This is not serious. ... FMF goes from $57 million to $1 million? On this we train the ANA [Afghan National Army] next year?. . . [the] FY 03 OHDACA [overseas humanitarian, disaster, and civic aid-a DOD program] request of $12 million had been reduced to $6 million ... can this be right? ... Zal [Khalilzad] is here and I just showed him the chart [listing the FY 03 request]. His response was the right one: `You're not serious.'"

foreignpolicy.com

If democracy is the ideal then the main players in Afghanistan should learn to respect it and pull the troops out.

The Afghanistan war has never been a popular area of conflict as far as American’s are concerned and now a new New York Times/CBS poll has revealed that 69% of American’s polled believe the US shouldn’t be in the region.

www.inquisitr.com

A base in Uzbekistan may be needed for victory.

Forget victory. No one in the world even talks about victory in Afghanistan any more. The chance of victory is long gone. It was a half-arsed job from the start (see above).

Realpoltik
You have to deal with the world as it is not as you would like it to be
and as Obama said in his speech about the arab spring

Yep - it's just that people who continue to talk about victory in Afghanistan are not embracing reality so really can't cite realpolitik and expect to be taken seriously.

benway

Chuck Stone wrote:

Forget victory. No one in the world even talks about victory in Afghanistan any more. The chance of victory is long gone. It was a half-arsed job from the start (see above).

+1 - thread here, might be better suited to this forum. Afghanistan has bled the British, the Soviets and now the US to the point of collapse, it's where imperial hubris goes to die.

And the Neocon dream is well and truly dead, also, the US has more pressing concerns than trying to remake the world in the American Way™ .... "honey, I'm home, did you miss me?":

cyberhog

Craig Murray writes on his blog:

Jun 6th 2012

While the UK media focused on bunting, NATO announced the substantial deepening of its most shameful alliance with the vicious Uzbek dictatorship. As long prefigured in this blog, NATO is forced to retreat from Afghanistan through Uzbekistan, after cutting yet more deals to support the World’s most vicious torture and slave labour regime. The irony of this when the Afghan “Mission” still pretends to be about bringing democracy and human rights to Afghanistan, is apparently lost on the entire western media.

Read more:http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/06/the-shameful-alliance-deepens/

Here's another link worth checking out: Child Labor and the Responsibility of Western Actors

cyberhog

BBC: Pakistan to reopen supply lines to Nato Afghan forces

Pakistan will reopen crucial supply routes to Nato-led forces in Afghanistan after the US apologised for killing 24 of its soldiers in November, Washington and Islamabad have said.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: "We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18691691

There's no reason now why the US can't end its shameful alliance with the Uzbek dictatorship.

troposphere

Yea because Pakistan is such a solid partner. There is no chance that they will close the supply route again.

Jonny7

Chuck Stone wrote: »

T
If democracy is the ideal then the main players in Afghanistan should learn to respect it and pull the troops out.

They went in, terrible decision, mainly by the Bush admin and awful executiion + rush/botch job, then later abandoned.

Of course no one wants to be in Afghanistan now, its a drain on lives, resources, capital, equipment - basically there is currently zero strategic/tactical reason to be there

So why are they still there?

They do not want to leave the country in a dreadful state. It would be simple to cut and run from such a highly unpopular war, only losing face, which at this stage is really not going to cause any politicians to get edgy.

However they have been trying to get the local Afghan military and police up to scratch because the Taliban are going to hit the place like the fist of an angry god as soon as NATO/US have upped sticks and left.

This is simply responsibility.

Forget victory. No one in the world even talks about victory in Afghanistan any more. The chance of victory is long gone. It was a half-arsed job from the start (see above).

No one thinks 'victory' is possible. Only possibly giving the country hope and the means of not turning into the nightmare it was before (only slightly worse than the nightmare it is now)

Yep - it's just that people who continue to talk about victory in Afghanistan are not embracing reality so really can't cite realpolitik and expect to be taken seriously.

Who are you referring to? NATO, the Brits and the US have become surprisingly frank about Afghanistan - its common knowledge that the initial goals of operation 'kick ass after 911' will not be met and as I said earlier its simply a case of responsibility. That's the stage it is at now and its pretty transparent.