US ally boils its own people: why aren't we invading?

[Hannah Bell]

Individuals who had seen one of the bodies told Human Rights Watch that it showed clear signs of torture. The authorities reportedly restricted viewing of the second body. Both men had been imprisoned at Jaslyk Prison, well-known for its harsh conditions and ill-treatment and torture of religious prisoners.

Human Rights Watch has learned that the body of Muzafar Avazov, a 35-year old father of four, showed signs of burns on the legs, buttocks, lower back and arms. Sixty to seventy percent of the body was burnt, according to official sources. Doctors who saw the body reported that such burns could only have been caused by immersing Avazov in boiling water.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2002/08/09/uzbekistan-two-brutal-deaths-custody


Its ok if our allies boil people -- as long as they're muslims? as long as they're accused of crimes against the state?

humanitarian missions are so selective.

[polly7]

1. Allies indeed ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/international/01renditions.html?_r=2

Besides the boiling of 'body parts, electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers' of its own people, it's been alleged for years Uzbekistan was used as a rendition site.

[NuclearDem]

2. Uzbekistan kicked the US out of Karshi-Khanabad in 2005

The Peace Corps hasn't been there since about the same time, and US aid to Uzbekistan has dropped. That article's eight years old.

Calling Uzbekistan our ally is stretching it. They're much more allies with Russia and other former Soviet republics than us.

[Hannah Bell]

3. US is sending them aid rather than cruise missles.

http://centralasia.usaid.gov/page.php?page=article-5

[NuclearDem]

4. Compared to, what, the $90-100 million we were giving before our relations deteriorated?

After the Andijan massacre in 2005, the West called for investigations into the government shooting its own people. The Uzbek government didn't like this, so they kicked us out of the air base there that we were using for the War on Terror and got closer to Russia and China, who looked the other way when the massacre happened. Because that article you quoted is from 2002, none of the events are mentioned because they hadn't happened yet.

$32 million in USAID isn't the same as selling tanks to Egypt or Saudi Arabia. And please, tell me why invading or bombing a former Soviet republic is a good idea in the slightest.

[Hannah Bell]

5. it seems to me that these delicate decisions about whether to send dictators

aid or bombs are highly selective. as you admit, when you note that the us is not so quick to bomb within the russian sphere of influence.

in 2002, we were using the air base.

and we are using it again now, i believe.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7280538.stm

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?ots591=4888caa0-b3db-1461-98b9-e20e7b9c13d4&lng=en&id=100079

[NuclearDem]

7. Hm, I didn't know we'd gotten permission to use the airbase again

You do make a good point though. We try not to get militarily involved with countries that close to Russia.

[polly7]

6. The west knew of Uzbek's horrible treatment of its own people well

before 2005.

"If you talk to anyone there, Uzbeks know that torture is used - it's common even in run-of-the-mill criminal cases," said Allison Gill, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who is working inside Uzbekistan. "Anyone in the United States or Europe who does not know the extent of the torture problem in Uzbekistan is being willfully ignorant."

Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, said he learned during his posting to Tashkent that the C.I.A. used Uzbekistan as a place to hold foreign terrorism suspects. During 2003 and early 2004, Mr. Murray said in an interview, "C.I.A. flights flew to Tashkent often, usually twice a week." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/international/01renditions.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/12/wikileaks-us-conflict-over-uzbekistan


WikiLeaks cables: US keeps Uzbekistan president onside to protect supply line
Leaked dispatches reveal need to maintain supply route in state riddled with organised crime, forced labour and torture

"The post-Soviet state of Uzbekistan is a nightmarish world of "rampant corruption", organised crime, forced labour in the cotton fields, and torture, according to the leaked cables.

But the secret dispatches released by WikiLeaks reveal that the US tries to keep President Islam Karimov sweet because he allows a crucial US military supply line to run into Afghanistan, known as the northern distribution network (NDN)."

[BzaDem]

8. Is being selective supposed to somehow be an argument against intervention?

[Hannah Bell]

9. more like an argument against arguments citing humanitarian motivations.

as can be seen from any number of examples, humanitarianism is never the primary aim of such things. geopolitics, economics, resources, etc are always primary.

[joshcryer]

10. For me humanitarianism is primary.

For the UN I never ever said it was.

[Hannah Bell]

11. you aren't in charge of foreign policy.

but there are probably 100 other humanitarian crises going on in the world right now that are vastly worse than libya's. why aren;t you writing multiple op's every day about them?


Within days of the first protests in Libya, Obama declared that Libya was now a U.S. “national emergency.” He then produced an Executive Order and letter to Congress where he stated that Libya was “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” (If you click that link, you can get the links to the original documents.) Libyan opposition leaders claim that from “day one” they demanded a no fly zone, and it was repeated by the press a mere three days after the first protests. Now, we see evidence that Western powers are there to deliberately advance the rebels militarily, and engage in regime change, well beyond what was authorized by UNSC 1973. See the notes at the bottom of this video. Anne Marie Slaughter complained that the debate “raged” for “one week,” and that all the debating that needed to be done, had been done. Apparently not. All of this combines to produce a very suspicious set of circumstances and convergences

http://zeroanthropology.net/2011/03/18/the-libyan-revolution-is-dead-notes-for-an-autopsy/

[joshcryer]

14. Because there aren't 100 other OPs bashing those various humanitarian issues.

The UN invoked R2P for the first time in Libya. If you want R2P to be legitimized you would best not bash the Libyan crisis.

[Hannah Bell]

15. there aren't any OPs even *talking* about most of them.

please be precise: i'm bashing the phoney justification for the intervention.

[joshcryer]

16. Right, you actually don't care about these 100s of crises' you only care about making sure...

...everyone knows you don't care about 1 of them, going so far as to call the justifications for it "phoney."

The UN works like this: big powerful rich states only get to have their say and it be taken seriously.

In Burma the UN was invoked by "big powerful rich states" as an unfolding crisis. China and Russia vetoed it because they didn't want western powers in their backyard (nor did they like the idea that states shouldn't be allowed to persecute their own en masse). There ya go, the UN failed miserably. There are dozens if not hundreds of examples where the UN is asked to intervene yet it goes nowhere.

In comes Libya. Massive political persecution and murdering of civilians (the International Criminal Court is well on to making the case, btw). The "big powerful rich states" have a problem, they need oil to flow or their economies will be in the stinker. The internal conflict in Libya could last for many years, so they must do something about the big persecuting assholes. The pressure those in the UN to pass it, and low and behold, they fucking pass it.

If anything Libya got lucky because they do have other interests at play.

That is no fucking reason in the world to deflect and bemoan an international process that doesn't recognize the rest of those whom are being persecuted who don't have resource interests in play.

In our world class always determines treatment, the rights that our societies have are generally enjoyed by the powerful before the poor minorities are allowed their say or are recognized. However, if we fight for it we can give those rights to the poorest, most neglected. Therefore if R2P can become legitimized, we can put pressures on the states to interfere when it is not necessarily immediately profitable from a resource point of view.

Libya got lucky. And I'm damn glad for them that they did.

[Hannah Bell]

19. Unlike yourself, I'm not talking up the intervention as a humanitarian endeavor.

What *I* care for has nothing to do with it.

[katnapped]

12. How much oil is there? n/t

[xchrom]

13. recommend

[a la izquierda]

17. What the hell is this, the Middle Ages??

Good grief!

[Bragi]

18. If it's an oil state, it isn't torture /nt