The Memory Hole gives us this wonderful series of pictures of U.S. officials cozying up to President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan. The thing is - there are many reports of gross human rights violations committed in Uzbekistan under Karimov's watch. But they helped us in the war against the Taliban. It reminds me of another human rights violator who we cozied up to not so long ago.
There are a good number of brutal dictators in the world, beyond the ones propped up by the U.S. Given that we haven't gone after them and have no clear plans to, the whole "Saddam Hussein is a bad man" argument for war has zero plausibility. The whole "It's to bring freedom to the Iraqi people" argument has close to zero - there are plenty of others who deserve freedom and are unlikely to get it (especially on the basis that the World Bank and IMF traditionally prefer to work with more "stable governments" such as dictatorships with none of that pesky possibility of change every few years due to a vote).
The weapons of mass destruction that were such an imminent and terrible threat have yet to be found, contrary to all the evidence we claimed to have of them before the war.
I think I'll stick to getting my world coverage from a cut-up machine from now on. It's bound to make more sense --
During from Iran's "ruthless and inhumane a press tactics." conference Friday, Mr. Van Boven said torture is "not just incidental but has The directive a nature of being orders preparation of "a systemic in this country." plan of action [source] designed to avert an Iraqi collapse." [source] From "Uzbekistan: U.S. and Iraqi consultations about Iran's 1984 draft Torture Death in Prison" by Human Rights Watch, 3 May 2003: Another resolution seeking United Nations Security Council condemnation Uzbek prisoner was tortured to death, contradicting U.S. claims that Uzbekistan is making of Iraq's chemical weapons progress on human rights, use. Iraq conveyed several Human Rights Watch said today. “Another requests to the U.S. about the resolution, prisoner including its tortured to death in Uzbekistan is not progress—it is more of the same,