[Peace-discuss] Why are we in Iraq?

[C. G. Estabrook]

[To promote freedom and justice?  Or to add to a chain of US military
bases? Bases throughout what the Pentagon calls the Greater Middle East
are an essential part of the permanent US government strategy to control
world energy resources as the way to control our economic rivals,
principally Europe and northeast Asia. (Massive support for a militarized
Israel as our "stationary aircraft carrier" is another.)  The ring of
American bases includes those in Uzbekistan, vividly described by Ali
Abunimah in the Tribune this weekend. --CGE]

electronicIraq.net

Opinion/Editorial
Uzbekistan: the next Iraq?

Ali Abunimah, The Chicago Tribune

3 April 2004

When asked recently if the deaths of more than 500 U.S. service personnel
in Iraq were "worth it," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld exclaimed,
"Oh, my goodness, yes." His reason? "Twenty-five million people being
liberated is gigantic."--Fox News Channel, March 19, 2004.

Because there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Bush
administration hopes Americans will believe that the noble goals of
liberation, democracy and religious freedom justify the enormous
sacrifices in human life that have resulted from the Iraq war.

But the administration's tight new embrace of one of the world's most
repressive regimes--in Uzbekistan--shows that this is cynical at best.
Uzbekistan is a Central Asian nation bordering Afghanistan. It's about the
same size as Iraq and also has 25 million people. It lies in the center of
a region with rich, untapped oil and gas reserves that U.S. energy
companies are eager to exploit. Its president, Islam Karimov, is a
holdover from when Uzbekistan was part of the Soviet Union, but he got on
America's good side by allowing his country's bases to be used for the war
in Afghanistan.

On Monday, in unprecedented violence that shook the country, bombs killed
19 people, mostly police, in Uzbek cities, including the capital Tashkent.
A few days later, Uzbek authorities carried out bloody armed raids. The
interior ministry released a statement saying, "Eleven male terrorists
were eliminated. Five female terrorists were killed as well in one
incident in the capital." The Karimov regime blames what it calls Muslim
"fundamentalists" and "Wahhabis" for the violence, claiming that it is
conducting a "war on terror" similar to that of the United States. The
perpetrators of the bomb attacks remain unknown and some Uzbek opposition
groups blame the government.

Whatever the case, the background to this violence is a concerted campaign
of repression by the Karimov regime, which the United States is helping to
fund. In a just-released 300-page report, Human Rights Watch states that
"For the past decade, with increasing intensity, the government of
Uzbekistan has persecuted independent Muslims. This campaign of religious
persecution has resulted in the arrest, torture, public degradation and
incarceration in grossly inhumane conditions of an estimated 7,000
people."

The report, which details appalling instances of murder, torture,
brutality and the imprisonment of thousands of innocent people by the
government, makes it clear that the campaign "targets non-violent
believers who preach or study Islam outside the official institutions and
guidelines." In other words, the victims are not, as the Uzbek government
would like the world to believe, dangerous terrorists aligned with Al
Qaeda.

In recent months, Amnesty International too has stepped up its campaign
against routine secret executions and systematic torture of political
dissidents by Uzbek authorities. While Muslims have been the main targets
of the Karimov government, devout Christians have not been spared.
"Imagine the police forcing a gas mask onto your head and shutting off the
air supply because you're `guilty' of hosting bible studies in your home,"
wrote Lawrence Uzzell, president of International Religious Freedom Watch,
about several documented instances of repression of Christians. His
comments appeared in the Christian Science Monitor in November.

While few Americans are aware of the situation in Uzbekistan, they are
helping to pay for it. In 2002, the U.S. gave more than $500 million to
the Uzbek government, of which $79 million went directly to the police and
intelligence services that are accused by human rights organizations of
carrying out most of the abuses. This year, the Bush administration has
increased direct military and economic aid to Uzbekistan.

Growing U.S. support for Uzbekistan and other human rights abusers
throughout Central Asia is part of a strategic shift by the U.S. to move
forces away from some longtime allies like Saudi Arabia, Germany and Japan
toward new "friends" like Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.

Defenders of this policy acknowledge that allies like Karimov are far from
angels, but argue that in the real world you have to make compromises to
look out for your interests. But this kind of thinking is short-sighted.
Saddam Hussein was long a U.S. ally, personally courted by Donald Rumsfeld
in the 1980s to help the U.S. combat what it saw as Iran's attempts to
spread Islamic revolution. And many of Osama bin Laden's followers were
U.S.-trained "freedom fighters" against the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan.

For decades, the U.S. has put into practice the dictum "My enemy's enemy
is my friend," and the results have often been disastrous. The blood in
the streets of Tashkent is evidence that the U.S. may be repeating the
dismal cycle. Could Karimov's victims one day turn on the United States
itself?

President Bush seemed to recognize this danger in a speech last November
spelling out his "forward strategy" for freedom and democracy in the
Middle East. "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating
the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe," Bush
said, "because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the
expense of liberty." So if the president believes that, why is his
administration excusing, accommodating and funding yet another brutal
dictator who is robbing millions of people of their basic freedoms?

Ali Abunimah is a co-founder of Electronic Iraq. This article appeared in
The Chicago Tribune on 2 April 2004 with the headline, "Why we shouldn't
overlook Uzbekistan."

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