THE MORAL GROUND
TheGolem
Uzbekistan and the other "stans" are to Afghanistan and the U.S. what Cambodia was to Vietnam and the United States.
The five (tongue twister) former republics of the Soviet Union, which neighbor Afghanistan (two of them directly), i.e. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (all of them "stans") are all impoverished, fragile regimes of the former Soviet republics, now controled by autocrats, and they are expecting BIG _rewards_ for their cooperation with the only "real" remaining world SUPER-power, the United Police States of America.
None of the "stans" are paragons of democracy or human rights. They all impose censorship and limit political opposition. Their populations total 55 million. Their average per capital income is ONLY $766. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have a direct border with Afghanistan and along with Kaazakhstan have offered their territories for basing of U.S. troops and Kyrgystan and Turkmenistan have provided airspace rights. The U.S. began courting these states right after the September 11th attack.
In February of 99, Islam Karimov, a former Communist leader and Uzbekistan's President (of that secular regime) was nearly killed by car bombs, which was thought to be the work of a bin Laden-linked group - the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), guerillas numbering about 3,000, which is based in Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Every attack on existing regimes anywhere is blamed on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, just like every bank robbery in the old west was blamed on Jesse James.
Uzbekistan, the largest of the "stans" has a population of 24 million, which is 88% Muslim and was also the staging ground with it's 85 mile border with Afghanistan for the Soviets during their 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. The Russians are now entrenched in another war and they also want the U.S. to look the other way for their human rights violations in the war in Chechnya.
There are now U.S. C-130 cargo planes flying in and out of Uzbekistan and the U.S. 10th Mountain Division has troops stationed there.
The Russians were only too eager to join the U.S. in the fight against "terrorism". The Israelis were also eager to join the U.S., and felt their experience with terrorism would be welcome, but the U.S. was not anxious to accept the Israelis which would disturb the relationship the U.S. is building with Arab-Muslim nation-states. Oil is important. Israel is not. The Russians are welcome. The Israelis are not.
Forging alliances after September the 11th, the United States turned to NATO, the Russians and to Pakistan, which was once a pariah for its nuclear weapons tests (but now a KEY ally). The leader of Pakistan, a military dictator, is also now "OUR" honored statesman and the Chinese with which the U.S. was recently on the verge of military confrontation with over the shot-down spy plane is also our friend as long as China is also in this coalition against the COMMON ENEMY. Bush says, either you are with us or you are against us and he means that literally. He is repeating that old Arab proverb, "The enemies of my enemies are my friends."
And, Bush would make a pack with the Devil if he needed it - while all the time declaring this is a war against "evil".
Meanwhile the propaganda emanating out of the Kremlin:
"The war on terrorism has been Russia's priority for years. Now that
the U.S. sees what we've been facing, perhaps they'll understand us
better." [Yevgeny Kozhokin, Kremlin FUNDED Institute for Strategic
Research and a voice of the Kremlin]
And the voice of an emancipated Germany:
"German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder explained last week that the
West would "reevaluate" its position on the war. A top official in
Schroeder's party put it more bluntly, telling The New York Times,
"Silence on Chechnya is the price for this new solidarity." As if
on cue, President Bush the next day said, "To the extent that there
are terrorists in Chechnya, Arab terrorists associated with the Al
Qaeda organization, I believe they ought to be brought to justice."
[The New Republic - 10-15-2001 - Wartime Lies, by Peter Beinart]
Peter Beinart writes in the New Republic that while tactically this is a good military choice, it is also a morally wrong choice because the war in Chechna is "the most brutal war on the European continent" and it has no resemblance to the U.S. war in Afghanistan, but Beinart says the need for Russian military bases (in the "stans") and Russian military intelligence are needed for the war against the Taliban to be successful.
Beinart says, "In short, we're selling out Chechnya."
"But intellectually we have a very important choice. Vladimir Putin
badly wants Americans to believe, as he put it, "We have a common
foe." And suddenly many Americans are inclined to agree. They shouldn't
Morally, America's war on terrorism and Russia's war on "terrorism"
are night and day. And if we conflate the two, our struggle against
the perpetrators of September 11 will not only fail, it will deserve
to fail." [Beinart - The New Republic]
Beinart explains in his article in The New Republic that the war in Chechya has been from the get go all about "NATIONALISM".
"At the end of Gorbachev, the Soviet Empire was peeling
away like an onion. Eastern-bloc satellites like Poland and Hungary
were breaking free. Non-Russian territories within the ussr--such as
Lithuania, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan--were doing the same. And so
several ethnically distinct territories within Russia itself--like
Chechnya--followed suit. Chechnya's leaders were inspired by the
independence movements in the Baltics. And Chechnya's people--hundreds
of thousands of whom were deported to Central Asia by
Stalin--viscerally distrusted Russia. And so in November 1990, a
thousand Chechens convened a national Congress and declared their
homeland independent." [New Republic]
"The declaration wasn't entirely serious. Even after the Chechens
elected a president and a parliament in 1991, they still used Russian
currency and Soviet passports. Chechnya still competed in the Russian
soccer league. Tatarstan, which also declared independence, eventually
agreed to stay within the Russian federation in return for political
and economic autonomy. And there is evidence that the Chechen
leadership might have accepted something similar. But Chechnya's
erratic and authoritarian president, Jokhar Dudayev, repeatedly
insulted Boris Yeltsin. And, as time passed without a deal, hard-line
nationalists replaced reformers within Yeltsin's inner circle. After
chauvinist demagogue Vladimir Zhirinovsky's stunning success in
Russia's 1994 parliamentary elections, Yeltsin decided that a showdown
with Chechnya would help his reelection chances in 1996. And so, in
December 1994, Moscow invaded--initiating a hideous war that ended in
stalemate two years later." [The New Republic]
Anotherwords, none of this really has a lot to do with Osama bin Laden. The Russians are attempting to make it into a "fundamentalist jihad" which it isn't. Beinart recommends: "Calamity in the Caucasus", by Carlotta Gall and Thomas de Waal who write that "Islam was not a big factor in the 1991 nationalist movement." In fact, at the time of independence, they found in the Chechen capital of Grozny a grand total of one shariat court--manned by an Islamic judge who smoked Marlboros.
If religious zealotry has gained a foothold, he says, it is because of the war and not the cause of it.
"By 1996 Russia's assault had left barely a building standing
in Grozny. And conditions deteriorated even further after 1999, when
Putin--facing an election campaign himself--whipped up nationalist
support by invading Chechnya once again. The two wars have made
roughly half of Chechnya's population refugees or homeless. And this
summer, even the commander of Russian forces in the area admitted that
his troops had committed "widespread crimes" against civilians. So
it's not surprising that, as they have all over the world, Islamic
zealots exploited the chaos and hatred. In particular, fundamentalists
beyond the control of Chechnya's elected president launched raids
into neighboring Dagestan. (They may have blown up buildings in Moscow
as well, although many Russian liberals think they were framed.)"
[The New Republic]
This is a world right out of Alice in Wonderland, where many things are not as they appear and the spin is always what the ruling classes want you to know and think. This is a world described by George Orwell and an unjust world where ONLY MONEY AND POWER RULE.
And Russian President Vladimir Putin's very strong support for the U.S. led war against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban has also relieved Putin from U.S. criticism about alleged human rights violations by Russian troops in Chechnya.
The Russians want the popular perception to be that the rebellion in Chechyna is the work of outside terrorists and "Arabs constitute as much as 70 percent of the guerrillas fighting in Chechnya. But that's absurd. American intelligence recently estimated that the war involves no more than several hundred Arab militants." [New Republic]
He says that of the thousands of Chechens captured during the war, Russia could only produce four who were foreigners.
"There may be terrorists in Chechnya, but to say the 10-year-old
Chechen rebellion is an expression of Islamic terrorism is
fundamentally wrong." [Sergei Grigoryants, head of Russian human
rights foundation, Glasnost]
Meanwhile, back at the Ranch -> a Bush official says:
"We know that Al Qaeda has exploited the war in Chechnya, [and] may
have even helped to provoke it."
All of a sudden the U.S. "knew it" but they didn't know it before September 11th. [?] As can be expected, George Bush, who considered the Chechen war indefensible and DEMANDED that all international aid be withheld, now believes otherwise. That is very hard to believe. In fact it is unbelievable. It is exactly a strategic decision to get the Russians on our side in the war against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.
The article in The New Republic makes mention of the biggest U.S. hypocracy of all:
"The idea that Russia--which is helping
Iran build a nuclear reactor--is seriously concerned about
international terrorism is laughable."
A nuclear reactor in the hands of the land of Ayatollahs is a bigger threat to the world than Osama bin Laden getting out of the caves.
The Russians have "resuscitated old cultural and religious hatreds" but as Beinart says, "Russia's war in Chechnya is premised on a lie.....that every Muslim who takes up arms for his homeland is Osama bin Laden. It wasn't true in Bosnia. It wasn't true in Kosovo. And it isn't true in Chechnya, no matter what Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush say." [New Republic]
Bush proclaims a war on "evil" but morally, the U.S. is not taking the high ground. The U.S. has always supported authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, and countries with questionable and atrocious human rights records for its own purposes, for oil and for war against the Soviet Union. There never has been a moral high ground for the U.S.
What tradeoff is there for Beijing's terrible human rights or Russia in Chechyna? Germany, now one country with 80 million people, the largest country in Europe, which has one of the biggest economies sent "combat troops" for the first time since WWII, breaking that taboo, which to them must feel like they have been emancipated and all that was is forever forgotten. Japan is sending support troops, which is also emancipating for them. What is the political and financial costs? The U.S. is "united" with 90% plus behind the president, including the special interest congress. However, morally, the U.S. is in the gutter.
How many civilians is it all right to kill to secure our OIL and pipeline and revenge all at the same time?
TheGolem http://pnews.org/
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"One does not make wars less likely by formulationg rules of warfare...
war cannot be humanized. It can only be eliminated..." Albert Einstein +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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