End of an Alliance - The End of Supporting Tyranny?

The face in the picture may not warrant instant recognition. It is President Islam Karimov, shown here in 2002, casting his ballot in the the feeble franchise offered to the people living under his tyrannical rule in Uzbekistan. On that occasion, the former communist leader, voted in seriously flawed elections to extend his corrupt tenure in power until 2007.

Karimov presides over a state of terror. This terror emanates not from the Islamic fundamentalists that the president maintains threatens Uzbekistan but from his brutal regime. Of this threat Karimov has said 'Such people must be shot in the forehead! If necessary, I'll shoot them myself…!' He has been known to have his enemies boiled alive. According the Human Rights Watch, 'many peaceful Muslims have also been rounded up in the sweeps of "fundamentalists."Until last summer Uzbekistan was a major ally of the United States in the 'War on Terror'.

In his crusade to rid the world of terror and tyranny President Bush paradoxically enlisted the help of one of the world’s most reprehensible dictators. US forces, deployed to an air base in Uzbekistan after 9/11, supported the troops bringing democracy and freedom to Afghanistan, from a country that enjoyed neither. The United States, as it has done countless times in the past and will undoubtedly do again in the future, propped up a despicable government in pursuit of American interests.

On May 13th this year government troops opened fire on protesters in the eastern city of Andijan, murdering up to eight hundred people. Karimov's government, while claiming the number of fatalities was far lower, claimed that the protesters were Islamic militants and used the 'War on Terror' as justification for the massacre. This event, unlike the routine torture and murder that occurs under Karimov's rule was widely, if briefly, reported by the international media. The United States was forced to confront the morality for remaining in Uzbekistan while such barbarity was sanctioned by the host government.

As it happens the decision was made for the Americans. After a belated US criticsm of the Uzbek regime - in light of the years of brutality ignored by the Bush Administration - Karimov decided to expell US forces from his country. A bilateral agreement was signed for the withdrawal all US troops within six months. It is not unreasonable to assume that, given the United State's prior support for tyrannies which shared its objectives, had the United States not been compelled to leave Uzbekistan, the country's armed forces would have remained there indefinitly in the 'fight for democracy' and the hunt for Osama Bin Ladin.

Following the announcment of the withdrawal of troops one State Department official declared that the United States was 'unwilling to sacrifice democracy and human rights' to retain access to Uzbek bases. Presumably this means that troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other countries with scant democratic credentials and attrocious human rights records will be vacated in the near future. Somehow I doubt it.