David Corn writes The Loyal Opposition twice a month for TomPaine.com. Corn is also the Washington editor of The Nation and is the author of The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers).
After it seemed that Newsweek's 10-sentence Quran-in-a-john item triggered lethal rioting in Afghanistan, Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon's chief spokesman blasted the magazine's errant source: "People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said." White House spinner Scott McClellan exclaimed, "People have lost their lives." Bush critics—including me—have made the obvious point: that the Bushies, in bringing the country to war on the basis of flimsy WMD allegations, showed little regard for accuracy and standards of veracity and that many people are dead because of this. But allow me to suggest another illuminating contrast. Place the self-righteous indignation the Bush gang displayed pertaining to the Newsweek piece alongside the administration's reaction to the recent massacre in Uzbekistan.
On May 13, something dreadful happened in the Uzbek town of Andijan. The details remain sketchy. Apparently after armed men stormed a prison to free 23 businessmen (who had been arrested and charged with forming a terrorism group) and a siege ensued, thousands of residents congregated in the town square. As the London Sunday Times reported, "the initial gathering of curious onlookers sympathetic to the gunmen's actions had turned into a mass demonstration of people venting their anger at [Uzbek strongman Islam] Karimov's economic failures and religious repression." Later in the day, according to accounts of witnesses, government troops fired on the crowd. It was a slaughter. The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan put the death toll of unarmed civilians at about 1,000. After interviewing various witnesses, the Sunday Times estimated up to 700 Uzbeks were killed. And it reports, "there were not one but three separate massacres of anti-government protesters in Andijan. Some of the wounded were finished off at point blank range and several children caught up in the slaughter also died. Some victims were killed in further sporadic attacks in Andijan; others when troops opened fire on refugees at the Kyrgyz border."
The details are horrific. Yet the Bush administration has not issued a prominent condemnation of Karimov, a reputedly corrupt and an unquestionably repressive leader. Why not? Could it be because Karimov has been a crucial ally in the war on terror, permitting the United States to maintain a military base in the town of Khanabad? That base has been crucial to U.S. operations in Afghanistan.
When George W. Bush was in Latvia several weeks ago, he pronounced, "We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability. We have learned our lesson; no one's liberty is expendable." Well, since the massacre happened, he and his aides have not rushed to put that principle into practice regarding Uzbekistan. When the story first broke, the White House called for all sides in Uzbekistan to cool it. Yet England immediately put on the pressure. Two days after the attack on the civilians, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw urged democratic change in Uzbekistan. “The situation is very serious," he told the BBC. "There has been a clear abuse of human rights, a lack of democracy and a lack of openness.” England called for an independent investigation of the Andijan massacre. (Last fall, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan denounced the Karimov government for using torture and criticized the United States and England for accepting from Uzbekistan intelligence obtained through torture.) As of Saturday, the United Nations, France and the European Union were also demanding an inquiry. But not the Bush administration. Last week, General John Abizaid, head of Central Command, did say activities at the Khanabad airbase would be scaled back due to the violence. But, he added, this was not a "political statement" of disapproval.
The Bush administration's ho-hum response to this incident is no surprise. Bush's pro-democracy doctrine is only half a doctrine; he doesn't apply it whole-heartedly to nations that his administration needs. For years before the massacre, Karimov ran a nasty regime. Amnesty International's 2004 report noted that Uzbekistan held at least 6,000 political prisoners in cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions: "Human rights defenders and hundreds of people suspected of political or religious dissent were harassed, beaten and detained without trial, or sentenced to prison terms after unfair trails and frequently tortured or ill-treated." In previous years, human rights watchers reported that so-called "independent" Muslims who attended mosques not under the control of the government were harassed and their religious leaders were imprisoned and disappeared. Some reports noted that dissidents had been boiled alive. None of this prevented Bush from making friends with Karimov in order to prosecute the war on terror.
Last year, the Bush administration did cut back the financial assistance it was providing Uzbekistan, citing a lack of progress on human rights and democratic reforms. But Uzbekistan-watchers suspected that with the United States still maintaining the airbase there this funding was reaching Karimov's regime in another fashion. And Bush did not make freedom and human rights in Uzbekistan much of a public issue. The recent massacre has prompted the most subdued reaction from the Bush White House. Perhaps the Bush crowd expended all the outrage it can muster on that 10-sentence item in Newsweek?
Crusaders cannot afford hypocrisy—presuming they want to persuade the rest of the world their crusade is justified. But Bush cannot avoid the charge. He is free to look the other way concerning Uzbekistan because he believes the more pressing issue for the United States is keeping the airbase there. But he cannot expect to be taken seriously as a champion of democracy and freedom if he makes excuses for thugs like Karimov or chooses not to confront them and their murderous excesses. Perhaps Bush will come around on Uzbekistan —particularly if the U.S. military decides that airbase is no longer crucial. But the absence of White House outrage over the massacre of Andijan says more about the values of this administration than all its huffing and puffing over the Newsweek screwup.
