Uzbekistan

shltter

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said at a news conference, "I think you have seen in our human rights report and elsewhere, we felt that the tag of 'Islamic extremist' has been used too broadly by the [Uzbek] government, and that there needs to be more respect for people who want to peacefully exercise their religion.

"On the other hand," he added, "no one can deny that Uzbekistan has faced a problem of terrorism by real extremists who are violent, who are trying to overthrow the government and kill people, and those people need to be dealt with as well."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-uzbek17may17,1,7063300.story?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=1&cset=true


Doesn't the relative deafening silence from washington prove that far from wanting to spread democracy and freedom around the globe what the US actually want to spread is their sphere of influence.

The US is willing to remain quiet while women and children are massacred in the streets of Uzbekistan because the totalitarian regime in Uzbekistan is friendly and a useful ally to the US.

Nuttzz

very quiet all right

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2005/05/17/1042825-sun.html

This kind of problem is also going to be helped if you can get a more open political system in Uzbekistan. They really need more political reform and we've been saying that to the Uzbeks for some time," Rice said.

"I don't mean that they should tolerate terrorists or terrorist groups . . . but it is a system that is politically too closed"

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-uzbek17may17,1,7063300.story?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=1&cset=true

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for political reform in the Central Asian state, led by President Islam A. Karimov, an important U.S. ally.

"We have been encouraging the Karimov government to make reforms, to make the system more open, to make it possible for people to have a political life," Rice told reporters as she flew home after a trip to Iraq. "And this is a country that needs, in a sense, pressure valves that come from a more open political system

shltter

when compared to the stand that the white house took in relation to recent events like
the Ukraine lebanon etc
the statements from the US administration have been lame

no real critisism of the murder of hundreds of civilian protestors no threat of sanctions
no message to the people of Uzbekistan than america is with them

the simple fact is that america has a close ally in Karimov and he can pretty much do as he pleases as long as he remains a close friend of the US much the same as Saddam he will only be a problem if he does something to piss off the US

The US is pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into Uzbekistan they have the use of the airbase which is important to them in the war in afghanistan and US self interest is far more important than women and children being murdered in the streets of their own country

Rock Climber

Yeah the U.S stance in Uzbekistan its definitely hypocrisy alright.

Someone should start a hypocrisy thread outlining where double standards are being applied across the board.
I mean take the Sinn Féin castro love in despite Cuba's appalling human rights record ...
Political prisoners galore in Cuba, yet Gerry loves their leader...

Hobbes

shltter wrote:

Doesn't the relative deafening silence from washington prove that far from wanting to spread democracy and freedom around the globe what the US actually want to spread is their sphere of influence.

The US is willing to remain quiet while women and children are massacred in the streets of Uzbekistan because the totalitarian regime in Uzbekistan is friendly and a useful ally to the US.

Actually the president is extremly good friends with Bush, and the US have actually outsourced prisoners to the country. Around 100-150 so far (so they can get around those terrible anti-torture laws that all those liberals scream about). And for those who don't know much about the president, he is also famous for boiling prisoners alive.

http://www.thememoryhole.org/pol/us-and-uz.htm

He makes Saddam look like a girl guide.

cdebru

Hobbes wrote:

Actually the president is extremly good friends with Bush, and the US have actually outsourced prisoners to the country. Around 100-150 so far (so they can get around those terrible anti-torture laws that all those liberals scream about). And for those who don't know much about the president, he is also famous for boiling prisoners alive.

http://www.thememoryhole.org/pol/us-and-uz.htm

sounds like a freedom loving guy he should be alright as long as he does not invade kuwait


in fairness sometimes you have to boil people alive and stick needles under their finger nails and toe nails just to show how much you love freedom

Quantum

So what exactly has Ireland done about it ? What has the EU done about it ? Where are the protestors who were so superior about their anti war morality ? I don't hear a peep out of them about the killings.
It's utter hypocricy to attack the US for something we and our neigbours have been deafeningly silent about.
Also anyone with a map can see that this country is right up the ass of Russia and there's a hell of a lot more at stake than you imply.

Also most of the people atacking the dictator adminstration appear to me to be Muslim fundamentalists who want an Islamic State. So they don't even want a democracy. Why should we get involved at all if this is the case ? Do we really need another Islamic state on the edge of Europe .. to link up with Iran and it's nukes ? I think not !

Frank Grimes

Quantum wrote:

Also most of the people atacking the dictator adminstration appear to me to be Muslim fundamentalists who want an Islamic State.

That's the line the Uzbek government are giving out, according to all other evidence (numerous reports, google them) the protestors are not "fundamentalists", they are just poor people with nothing left to lose who have had enough of a brutal regime. Just because they happen to be Muslims doesn't make them all terrorists or whatever it is you're trying to imply.

So they don't even want a democracy.

So that makes it alright then? It's alright to sit back and let a despot kill people at will because they don't want a Western style of government? Get real.

Quantum

Frank Grimes wrote:

That's the line the Uzbek government are giving out, according to all other evidence (numerous reports, google them) the protestors are not "fundamentalists", they are just poor people with nothing left to lose who have had enough of a brutal regime. Just because they happen to be Muslims doesn't make them all terrorists or whatever it is you're trying to imply.

I watched a long report on BBC24 late the other night and this is clearly the evidence from their reporters who reported from within the country that day. They interviewwed three prominent people and several other people on the street.
The Dictator says the violence is from extreme Islamic terrorists, which it is clearly not. But that doesn't take away from the 'apparent' wish of the people to have an Islamic State.

So that makes it alright then? It's alright to sit back and let a despot kill people at will because they don't want a Western style of government? Get real.

There's nothing Western about democracy.

And yes I dont support the creation of another Islamic State that will inevitably join in the terrorist war on the West, join up with Iran and try to destroy our way of life.

Hobbes

Quantum wrote:

And yes I dont support the creation of another Islamic State that will inevitably join in the terrorist war on the West, join up with Iran and try to destroy our way of life.

So you prefer dictatorships?

Just curious what you suggest as a workaround? To keep the president in power?

Frank Grimes

Quantum wrote:

And yes I dont support the creation of another Islamic State that will inevitably join in the terrorist war on the West, join up with Iran and try to destroy our way of life.

Could you put in any more generalisations to that statement?
Like Hobbes asked, what do you suggest as an alternative?
If the people there want an Islamic state that's their own business, it's not up to us to force a style of government on them either directly or by supporting some paranoid lunatic of a president.
If you hadn't noticed already - the West's backing of despots like Karimov now and in the past throughout the Muslim world have caused most of the problems "our way of life" is facing nowadays.

cdebru

Quantum wrote:

The Dictator says the violence is from extreme Islamic terrorists, which it is clearly not. But that doesn't take away from the 'apparent' wish of the people to have an Islamic State.

.

just a quick point if it is the will of the people to have an islamic state that would be democracy

or is it only democracy if you and the US administration agree with it

mike65

...and there was me thinking this a thread about the plight of Uzbekistan

Mike.

Quantum

Frank Grimes wrote:

Could you put in any more generalisations to that statement?

Huh ?

Like Hobbes asked, what do you suggest as an alternative?
If the people there want an Islamic state that's their own business, it's not up to us to force a style of government on them either directly or by supporting some paranoid lunatic of a president.

Who suggested we force any style of government on them ? I didn't, only you. And we don't support their president and the US doesn't either.

I don't knwo what the 'solution' is. I just now that Islamic States are not democracies. They are Clepto-Theocracies and are generally out to fund internional terrorism and destroy Western Society. So I don't think we should launch a war to enable them to do that.

If you hadn't noticed already - the West's backing of despots like Karimov now and in the past throughout the Muslim world have caused most of the problems "our way of life" is facing nowadays.

I don;t accept this. The biggest cause behind the current terrorism wave is the failure of the western world to deal with the Israeli issue.

Quantum

cdebru wrote:

just a quick point if it is the will of the people to have an islamic state that would be democracy

or is it only democracy if you and the US administration agree with it

You appear to have some kind of obsession with the US. I won't buy into that problem.

The people can chose whatever they want to. But an Islamic State is not a democracy, and I don't see why we should launch a war to enable them to replace one dictatorship with another religious dictatorship that will end up attacking us. Maybe you do, I don't.

Frank Grimes

Quantum wrote:

And we don't support their president and the US doesn't either.

Are you serious or are you trolling?

I don't knwo what the 'solution' is. I just now that Islamic States are not democracies. They are Clepto-Theocracies and are generally out to fund internional terrorism and destroy Western Society. So I don't think we should launch a war to enable them to do that.

Again, are you serious or are you trolling?

cdebru

Quantum wrote:

You appear to have some kind of obsession with the US. I won't buy into that problem.

The people can chose whatever they want to. But an Islamic State is not a democracy, and I don't see why we should launch a war to enable them to replace one dictatorship with another religious dictatorship that will end up attacking us. Maybe you do, I don't.

the people can choose whatever they want if they choose some kind of islamic state of their own free will that is their democratic right

it might not be a western style democracy that we would find acceptable in Ireland but the west can not go around the world imposing what we find acceptable on other nations

cdebru

Quantum wrote:

You appear to have some kind of obsession with the US. I won't buy into that problem.

The people can chose whatever they want to. But an Islamic State is not a democracy, and I don't see why we should launch a war to enable them to replace one dictatorship with another religious dictatorship that will end up attacking us. Maybe you do, I don't.

nobody is suggesting we launch a war

what people are highlighting is the hypocrisy of the USA who claim to love freedom so much that they overthrew saddam for the Iraqi people but here we have a despot every bit as bad if not worse than saddam and the americans are happy to stay quiet as he slaughters women and children and boils his political opponents alive

because it is in the US interest to keep him there which brings us back to the point that the invasion of Iraq was not for the Iraqi people but for the american people

toiletduck

cdebru wrote:

the point that the invasion of Iraq was not for the Iraqi people but for the american people

News Flash: Country acts in interest of citizens, shock!

A Dub in Glasgo

toiletduck wrote:

News Flash: Country acts in interest of citizens, shock!......

.....and slaughters tens of thousands of innocent men, women & children!

Hobbes

Quantum wrote:

I don;t accept this. The biggest cause behind the current terrorism wave is the failure of the western world to deal with the Israeli issue.

You might not accept it but doesn't change the facts.

Funny you quote joining up with Iran. You do know it is the UK+US that actually started the backlash against the west. They did this by removing the current officially elected prime minister of the country and installing a dictator (who incidently enough was islamic). His screwing around with the country (much like the president of uzbek) is what allowed the Shahs to come to power. (Ref: Operation Ajax).

Funny how history all repeats itself.

Isreal is certainly a sore point in the middle east, but the west have been dicking around with a lot of countries in the middle east. So its not all directed from Israel.

toiletduck

ah, lets not start debating the rights and wrongs of the whole iraq situation.
But did anyone else see the front page of the Sun today?

Just heard that the president of Uzbekistan is opposed to an international investigation into an outbreak of violence in his country, big shock :rolleyes:

daveirl

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Frank Grimes

daveirl wrote:

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So a majority of Muslims cannot decide to be ruled under Islamic law in their own country just because "we" have some sort of moral superiority?
Wasn't all this tried under Colonialism? That was hardly a success either was it?

A Dub in Glasgo

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

:eek:

True democracy working

Try this one and see how you would react

'I actually disagree with you completely, I don't think it's ok for a country to decide to be a western capitalist democracy with all its flaws. It is our job to impose what we believe are proper standards on others. [as in Islam]'

Oh dear, you would have kittens if somebody said this to you. You are the other side of the Islamic fundalmentalist coin.

daveirl

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Frank Grimes

daveirl wrote:

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The Declaration also says "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government", so if the people chose an Islamic style government - what then? Do we still have some "right" to impose another system of government on them?

Calina

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Imposing a form of government on a nation against the democratic will of those people as expressed in a free election is, in my opinion, an abuse of those people's human rights.

Calina

Calina wrote:

Imposing a form of government on a nation against the democratic will of those people as expressed in a free election is, in my opinion, an abuse of those people's human rights.

I actually agree with you.
If people want to be run under say sharia law, well so be that, its their choice,it shouldnt matter if they know no better or are conditioned into believing that the oppression(when compared to what we have in the west) is good or better for them.

daveirl

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Quantum

Frank Grimes wrote:

The Declaration also says "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government", so if the people chose an Islamic style government - what then? Do we still have some "right" to impose another system of government on them?

Firstly I really don't understand how this thread has become so skewed. No one really suggested anyone impose any system on the people of Uzbekistan. I understood the discussion to be about an attack on the US for not making enough noise about the recent deaths.

However - The issue of a people chosing Islamic law is clearly a complex moral question for people who support freedom. Should we support people who vote to become slaves ? Should we support people who vote to establish a brutal dictatorship on themselves ? It's not as simple as it looks.

In a perfect world, I suggest that if a people knowingly and fairly chose to form an Islamic State then we have to accept that as their decision. However we shouldn't do anyting that would help them do so in any way, and we then must then oppose vigorously everything that that state does that is against our view of morality and democracy.

But it isn't a perfect world and the truth is that Islam is fostering and harbouring the most dangerous and vicious group of inernational terrorists in history and their aim is the destruction of the West, by any means possible especially by mass murder. In these circumstances we have to treat the situation as self defence and to actually assist the formation of such an Islamic State would be suicidal.
This is why the EU and US are quite rightly so reluctant to bring about the downfall of Saudi Arabia and it's neighbours.