Torturers Hang Together

Some very bright people have pointed out that condoning torture is a slippery moral slope - now here is the proof. The Washington Post reports that "the United States last week helped block a new demand for an international probe into the Uzbekistan government's shooting of hundreds of protesters last month, according to U.S. and diplomatic officials." I am going to quote extensively from the WaPo here, because frankly in explaining what's happened I would end up using their words anyway.

British and other European officials had pushed to include language calling for an independent investigation in a communique issued by defense ministers of NATO countries and Russia after a daylong meeting in Brussels on Thursday. But the joint communique merely stated that "issues of security and stability in Central Asia, including Uzbekistan," had been discussed.

It would seem that, more important than boiling people alive and shooting demonstrators, the U.S. needs access to the military air base it has in Uzbeckistan. Unsurprisingly, Donald Rumsfeld is among the cheerleaders for Uzbeckistan.

At the private general meeting later that day of all NATO alliance ministers, plus Ivanov, Rumsfeld's remarks on the issue emphasized the risks of provoking Uzbekistan, according to four sources familiar with his statements. Rumsfeld said the ministers needed to know that the Uzbekistan situation had direct implications on NATO operations in the region. He mentioned the tons of humanitarian aid that pass through the Karshi-Khanabad air base and warned that alternatives to the base would be more difficult and expensive.

Trying to play the humanitarian card in support of a torturing regime. Isn't that what the Right accuses the Left of doing?

And there seems to be a split between State and Defense on the issue. Sec Rice has said publicly that international involvement in an inquiry into the killings in Andijan is essential and the Uzbeck government has in return curtailed certain U.S. military flights into the air base at Karshi-Khanabad.

Lawrence T. Di Rita, a Pentagon spokesman and Rumsfeld special assistant, said Rumsfeld was not told of the proposed communique language until he began consultations with aides and other ministers Thursday morning. By then, according to accounts from two other officials, Russia had indicated its position on the communique might be flexible enough to include the British language calling for an independent international probe.

Accounts of the ensuing debate among U.S. officials are not perfectly consistent. One official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the matter, said Rumsfeld caused great surprise by saying -- after being told in this discussion that the British language was consistent with stated U.S. policy and should be embraced -- that he was unaware of the policy, had not participated in meetings about it and did not want to press for its inclusion in the communique.

According to Di Rita's account, Rumsfeld was merely questioning how this policy had previously been expressed because he had not attended any meeting of senior policymakers in which it was approved. Later, Di Rita said, Rumsfeld "grew to understand" that the State Department had already publicly articulated this position. But "this is not something that he had been involved in," Di Rita said of Rumsfeld...

...A senior State Department official, who called The Washington Post at the Defense Department's request, denied any "split of views." But other government officials depicted this week's spat over the communique as a continuation of frictions that erupted last summer, when then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell would not certify that Uzbekistan had met its human rights obligations. The decision led to a cutoff of $18 million for U.S. training for Uzbekistan's military forces.

Weeks later, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, and criticized that decision as "very shortsighted"; he also announced that the United States would give $21 million for another purpose -- bioterrorism defense.

More recently, the senior State Department official confirmed, State and Defense officials disagreed about a cable addressing Uzbekistan's continued participation in the military's Partnership for Peace program. After the Andijan massacre, the State Department had proposed a blanket suspension of cooperation. But the Defense Department recommended a case-by-case review of cooperative programs -- the position that prevailed.

This gives the great lie to those who say that this administration invaded Iraq to free the Iraqi people from oppression and torture. Defense obviously have no intention of even curtailing their dealings with this particular brutal dictator. Maybe if Saddam had offered to lease the U.S. a couple of airbases, Rummie and Meyers could have convinced Bush to set aside his personal vendetta and give $21 million to Saddam for "bioterrorism defense"or "grave registration" or somesuch.