Today I am actually quite happy: Bush's buddy is going down!

[ButterflyBlood]

while things are pretty messy and definately not nice in Uzbekistan now, this kind of reminds me of situations in the past. Much like Iran 1979 or Romania 1989. And tinpot ex-Soviet regimes have been dropping like flies lately. If Karimov the torturer goes down, it's a major blow to Bush, and a major gain for human rights. I wonder if like Romania 1989, he'll get the same treatement as Ceausescu. One can only hope.

[kliljedahl]

1. Don't you love it!!!

Keith’s Barbeque Central

[democrank]

2. I`m trying to learn all I can

about the situation in Uzbekistan. Isn`t this one of our torture plane destinations?

[kevinmc]

4. Yes, they also Torture by Boiling,,,,

[leftchick]

5. here you go...

By: Bill Van Auken
Uploaded/Updated: 05/14/2005 16:23:07
...

The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray testified that he had seen photographic evidence that interrogations include the use of drowning, suffocation, rape and even boiling the victims to death.

In a confidential memo to the British Foreign Office that was leaked to the Financial Times last year, Murray wrote: “Uzbek officials are torturing prisoners to extract information , which is supplied to the US and passed through its Central Intelligence Agency to the UK.”

While the US State Department has issued formal reports criticizing the regime for human rights violations, the Bush administration has authorized the CIA and the military to “render” those it has detained in the “war on terrorism” to Uzbekistan, precisely because the regime practices torture.

Karimov’s dictatorship receives hundred of million of dollars annually in aid from the US in return for providing the Pentagon with a key military base at Qarshi Hanabad, where approximately 1,500 US personnel are stationed. The base serves as a major supply facility for the continuing war in neighboring Afghanistan as well as a platform for projecting US military power in the rest of Central Asia.

The Uzbek dictator has been able to draw on Washington’s support, claiming that his brutal methods against his own people are part of the worldwide struggle against terrorism.

There were reports that Karimov flew from the capital of Tashkent to personally direct the repression in Andijan.
more
http://www.muslimuzbekistan.com/eng/ennews/2005/05/enne...

[KlatooBNikto]

6. According to Rumsfeld, the boiling in oil is actually a spa treatment

for the prisoners that would have cost them at least $250.00 a session.That shows the kindness of his captors,not the cruelty.

[Gloria]

3. Note Putin's "soft diplomacy" in action....heard comments by

a Russian official on the BBC explaining how these things are up to the people in the country to decide....

I hope Putin can begin to offset some of the crap the Bushitas are trying to pull with bases all over the place in that region....