NATO plays host to one of world's worst dictators

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Global Post

NATO plays host to one of world's worst dictators
Europeans distance themselves from Islam Karimov's visit to EU and NATO in Brussels.
By Teri Schultz - GlobalPost
Published: January 23, 2011 21:33 ET in European Union

BRUSSELS, Belgium — The world still doesn’t have the full report on exactly what happened on May 13, 2005, when Uzbek government troops opened fire on unarmed protesters in the central square of the city of Andijan. Uzbekistan’s authoritarian president, Islam Karimov, has blocked all attempts at an international investigation into the incident, but survivors tell of streets flowing with blood as men, women and children were mowed down by automatic weapons as they tried to flee; their corpses later loaded onto trucks and driven away.

Nongovernmental organizations have done their best to piece together the events of that bloody day, including a particularly detailed collection of eyewitness reports by Human Rights Watch, but the Uzbek government has yet to offer any cooperation — or suffer any real consequences for either the massacre or for obstructing the investigation of it. Human-rights activists continue to demand that Karimov be brought to account.

Instead, Karimov is being brought to Brussels, the capital of Belgium and the European Union.

As a testament to the distastefulness of his record, no one — not the European Commission nor NATO nor the government of Belgium — will admit to having invited him.



Read more: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/european-union/110123/islam-karimov-uzbekistan-brussels-visit-eu-nato

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http://www.mpac-ng.org.nyud.net:8090/old_site/images/archive/bush1.jpg

http://www.sras.org.nyud.net:8090/img/photo/ca-karimov-americans.jpg

[sabrina 1]

1. Another one of our brutal dictator allies. This guy made Saddam

look like a kitty kat. Our media was silent as the Bush administration lied about how we had to remove Saddam because we did not support dictators, all the while Rummy was visiting Karamov and handing over millions of our tax dollars to him as a gift. The hypocrisy was stunning, and the media said nothing.

He should be arrested and at the Hague, but instead he is our best friend because, as the leaked Wikileaks docs helped us understand, 'he lets us build our military bases in Uzbekistan'.

Rumsfeld's photo gallery of himself bringing gifts to the world's most notorious dictators included Karamov.

I wonder why all of our allies around the world are the really bad guys?

I feel so naive for thinking that there was ever a chance we would be helping the victims of these people. Now I know, it doesn't matter which party is in power, our friends will always be the world's worst criminals.

[Angry Dragon]

2. I thought this was going to be about bush

[social_critic]

3. Bush wasn't a dictator - he enjoyed power side by side with a gutless Congress

On the other hand, Karimov is a dictator. But he's useful because supplies for NATO's troops in Afghanistan move through his country. As we all know, US strategy has been a little goofy, we plunked over 100,000 troops in an isolated country, where they are surrounded by hostile populations. Supplies have to flow somehow to these guys, who use up incredible amounts of bullets, bombs, fuel, and other goodies. Which means we have to get in bed with all sorts of evil dudes.

I saw a comment by a neocon a few years ago, gloating about how "we got Iran surrounded with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan". I thought the comment was so utterly stupid, it would bring back a response from the Fox news talking heads around him. But they noddeed sagely and agreed indeed we had Iran in a pickle. Here we are several years later, and our government is still carrying out the SAME stupid moves. Which tells me somewhere in Washington there are some very powerful and stupid people guiding our moves - and they don't belong to any party in particular.

[Angry Dragon]

4. I was kidding

but I was not too disappointed to see pictures of the former scum