WP: U.S. Opposed Calls at NATO for Probe of Uzbek Killings

[Pirate Smile]

U.S. Opposed Calls at NATO for Probe of Uzbek Killings
Officials Feared Losing Air Base Access

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 14, 2005; Page A15

Defense officials from Russia and the United States last week helped block a new demand for an international probe into the Uzbekistan government's shooting of hundreds of protesters last month, according to U.S. and diplomatic officials.

British and other European officials had pushed to include language calling for an independent investigation in a communique issued by defense ministers of NATO countries and Russia after a daylong meeting in Brussels on Thursday. But the joint communique merely stated that "issues of security and stability in Central Asia, including Uzbekistan," had been discussed.

The outcome obscured an internal U.S. dispute over whether NATO ministers should raise the May 13 shootings in Andijan at the risk of provoking Uzbekistan to cut off U.S. access to a military air base on its territory.

The communique's wording was worked out after what several knowledgeable sources called a vigorous debate in Brussels between U.S. defense officials, who emphasized the importance of the base, and others, including State Department representatives at NATO headquarters, who favored language calling for a transparent, independent and international probe into the killings of Uzbekistan civilians by police and soldiers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/13/AR2005061301550.html

[anotherdrew]

1. Bush might as well have pulled the trigger himself

When will that worthless man-boy be made to answer for all this bullshit?

[cire4]

2. This needs to be spread far and wide.....

This essentially proves that all of Bush's talk about freedom and democracy is bullshit. He doesn't care about either value. He only cares about US economic and military interests.

He gets down on his knees for one of the worst dictators in the world. Ubbelievable.

[Miss Chybil]

3. I remember when other countries were corrupt

not us. I remember when we always did the right thing, no matter the consequences. I remember sitting in second grade reading about George Washington and the cherry tree. I remember when I was proud to be an American, even if the pride was based on bullshit. At least, it was well-concealed and duly manipulated bullshit. I remember when our leaders used to care if we knew they were liars, thieves and murderers and this is what has changed the most. They don't care we know who they really are because they don't need us anymore - except for cannon-fodder and to pay the taxes for the rich folks.

God Bless America. May she rest in peace.

[Goldmund]

6. "I remember when we always did the right thing"

You may be the oldest living human on Earth. ;)

[Miss Chybil]

14. I guess I should have said

I remember when we could be led to BELIEVE we always did the right thing... Now, we can't even fake it anymore.

[leesa]

16. Well, this never really was true, you know.

[Toots]

23. You haven't heard about the new history books I guess

Now it is Bush* who chopped down an oil rig and threw a gold brick across the Rio Grande. He always rides a white horse and has pearl handled six shooters. Arabs wash his feet for him.. Neil Bush sells books to the schools.

[anotherdrew]

4. in his own words:

"All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors," Bush told tens of thousands of onlookers from the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in a 21-minute address in which he used the words "free," "freedom" or "liberty" 49 times. "When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you."

I wish to god he had been standing with them!

from WaPost:
In the first wartime inauguration ceremony in more than three decades, Bush vowed to transform U.S. foreign policy to make human rights the defining priority, arguing that only liberty would "break the reign of hatred and resentment" that led to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that seared his first term.

From now on, Bush said, relations with "every ruler and every nation" will be predicated on how they treat their own people, a profound break from traditional U.S. policy and from the Bush administration's practices in his first term, when it worked with repressive governments in the war against terrorism. In his doctrine for the next four years, Bush presented the United States as a beacon for the subjugated around the world and promised to confront the despots who enchain them.

[anotherdrew]

7. how can he expect anyone to believe a word he says?

zero credibility

[LynnTheDem]

8. bush has a hard enough time remembering his own words as he speaks them.

Let alone 3 years later.

Have I mentioned lately how much I detest lying cowardly greedy stupid little ignorant assholes like bush?

[anotherdrew]

5. one more thing to demand rumsfelds resignation over

Tuesday mornign Dean, et al. should once again attack

[Judi Lynn]

9. Bush the Barbarian has indicated a man who boils his political prisoners

isn't someone he condemns. He just doesn't have a problem with it. If you're a Republican, you apparently don't have a problem with it, either, or you'd contact your Congressfolks.

These are the same people who can't find enough time in the day to tell Democrats how morally superior they are. Whom do they think they're kidding?

Uzbekistan: Torture Death in Prison

(New York, June 3, 2003) Another Uzbek prisoner was tortured to death, contradicting U.S. claims that Uzbekistan is making progress on human rights, Human Rights Watch said today.

Otamaza Gafarov was due to be released in September from Chirchik prison in northern Uzbekistan. Instead, he died there on May 3, apparently from torture.

Human Rights Watch received information about his death shortly after the U.S. State Department issued a memorandum certifying that Uzbekistan has made “substantial and continuing progress” in respecting human rights.

“Another prisoner tortured to death in Uzbekistan is not progress—it is more of the same,” said Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of the Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. “This is the tenth torture-related death in custody we’ve documented in the past year and a half. The State Department’s claims of human rights progress simply do not reflect reality.”
(snip)

http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/06/uzbek060303.htm

[MaineDem]

10. I'm like Dean; I dislike Republicans

And I'm furious at the crap this administration is getting away with.

I shudder to think what a Bolton-led UN delegation can do to really screw things up even more. I hope the Senate Dems stick to their guns on this one.

[moondust]

11. Phony Republican moralizers.

Those big words like "freedom", "liberty", and "justice" sure sound nifty in a speech don't they, George? Now let's see that drive again!

[jayfish]

12. Chalk Up Another Victory For The New Evil Empire. -NT-

Jay

[shadowknows69]

13. both russia and the US

probably have plans to gun down a few of their own citizens pretty soon. my bets are on us before russia.

[Chauga]

15. US blocked NATO call for probe of Uzbek 'massacre'?

A report that US defense officials helped block a NATO demand for an international probe into last month's killing of protesters in Uzbekistan is proving an air base there to be one of the more diplomatically costly "lily pads" in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's new lean, mean restructuring of the US global military presence.

Located in southeastern Uzbekistan near the border with Afghanistan, the Khanabad base is seen as key to the US war on terror, as a Q&A on the website of the Council of Foriegn Relations, a prominent Washington-based think-tank, explains.

Officially, the role of the troops in Uzbekistan is limited to humanitarian relief and search-and-rescue missions inside Afghanistan, but a joint US Special Forces command center at Khanabad reportedly played a key role in directing the activities of US Special Forces personnel during the early phase of the fall 2001 US attacks on the Taliban . Information about current day-to-day activities of US forces remains shrouded in secrecy.

But continued access to the base means the US must tread carefully in its criticism of Uzbekistan's leader Islam Karimov, who has routinely been accused of brutally stifling dissent, including allegedly covering up the government's shooting of hundreds of protesters last month.


http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/dailyUpdate.html

[dissent1977]

17. Rumsfeld Blocked NATO Call for Probe into Uzbek Massacre

Russia and the United States reportedly blocked NATO last week from calling for an international probe into last month's clashes in Uzbekistan, in which hundreds of people were believed killed.

snip

Human rights groups say hundreds of people, many of them unarmed demonstrators, were killed as troops opened fire in Andijan after rebels seized government buildings. Uzbekistan's authorities have put the official death toll, including law enforcement officers, at 173.

According to The Washington Post's sources, the US delegation at the NATO meeting, which included Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and State Department officials disagreed over the proposed call to investigative action.

Defense officials prevailed over the State Department view that a probe was in order by arguing that an investigation could compromise US access to a military base in Uzbekistan they said was crucial in the fight against international terrorism, the daily said.

More: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0614-07.htm

[99Pancakes]

18. Kiss my A--, Rummy

Silence all dissent, it's the new 'Murikan way folks.

http://freedomrider.blogspot.com/Rummy's%20morale%20problems.gif

[opusprime]

19. Unbelievable...

Nothing has changed since 1983 and arming Saddam.

We're actively building and arming the next rouge regime.

We never learn.

[99Pancakes]

20. Welcome, Opusprime

:hi:

[Roland99]

21. Can't have our "democratic" allies being exposed as tyrants, eh?

[cire4]

22. Keeping kicked for freeper lurkers....

Show them how their boy's quest for freedom and democracy is just an illusion....

[consuming]

24. Yea