"Our Relatives Started To Disappear"

There's trouble in Uzbekistan, one of our steadfast allies. From Reuters:

At least nine people were killed on Friday when rebels in the eastern Uzbek town of Andizhan broke comrades out of jail and seized a key government building, taking 10 police officers hostage. Around 2,000 protesters gathered in the center of town and there was no sign of police on the streets. The violence, the worst in the authoritarian ex-Soviet state since bombings in the capital, Tashkent, last year, hit the densely populated Ferghana Valley, one of the poorest and most volatile Muslim regions in Central Asia. The Andizhan rebels, some of whom broke out of jail where they were being held during a trial on religious extremism, demanded Russian mediation to avert further bloodshed. "This is the limit. Our relatives started to disappear," one rebel leader, who declined to give his name, told Reuters inside Andizhan's administration building.

Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan's dictator, has been waging an increasingly brutal war against "religious extremists" as well as others in his crosshairs. And what's a religious extremist in Uzbekistan? Someone who does not practice the state's version of religion. Several years ago, hailing a new law that imposed sweeping restrictions on religion, Karimov said, ""Such people must be shot in the forehead. If necessary, I'll shoot them myself."

This is a Soviet-era tyrant to whom we send millions in cash and material. He's received the red carpet treatment at the White House, and almost every senior Administration has paid him a visit to kowtow in person. Some shameful photos that betray our ultimate priorities--along with some tidbits about this madman's human rights record--appear here. Does the photo of Rumsfeld remind you of another one of him shaking hands with a different torturing tyrant?

As I've said in the past--including in this recent post--this sort of hypocrisy is what we're really fighting, because it defines us in the eyes of those to whom we're trying to "export democracy." Read the above Reuters dispatch again. Key quote: "The Andizhan rebels, some of whom broke out of jail where they were being held during a trial on religious extremism, demanded Russian mediation to avert further bloodshed." Since we've made our priorities clear, these people are turning to Russia to intervene against an ally of ours even though we have a major military and diplomatic presence there. That says it all, doesn't it?

Last weekend in Latvia, President Bush said:

"We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability."

Could he possibly think that the rest of the world does not see this hypocrisy? Or, at this point, does he simply not care?