Random rants...

From the SF Chronicle:

• Uzbekistan acknowledged Tuesday that its crackdown last week on an anti-government demonstration and a prison break had been far more violent than it previously described, saying 169 people had been killed, including 32 government troops.
  
  ...
  
  International pressure and a measure of internal dissent were mounting against Karimov and his authoritarian government, even as Russia and China announced their support. Both nations have been trying to lure the Uzbek leader more closely to their respective spheres of influence.
  
  The revised casualty figures followed statements of concern and criticism from the United States, which maintains a major military base in Uzbekistan, shares intelligence with it on counterterrorism and has helped train and equip the Uzbek military and security forces.

Why am I being taxed so that my government can send money to Uzbekistan?

The Australian claims:

• The US State Department said it was "deeply disturbed" by the killings in Uzbekistan, a police state that is an important ally in Washington's war on terrorism.

Will we ever learn that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" foreign policy does not work?

The BBC says:

• Mr Straw has said this "plainly cannot be justified" and has demanded that aid agencies, diplomats and journalists be allowed access to the area.

How can the government of a country receive foreign aid without a provision that states the aid shall terminate immediately upon expulsion of those aid agencies?

From the CIA's very own website:

• [Uzbekisatan is a] transit country for Afghan narcotics bound for Russian and, to a lesser extent, Western European markets; limited illicit cultivation of cannabis and small amounts of opium poppy for domestic consumption; poppy cultivation almost wiped out by government crop eradication program; transit point for heroin precursor chemicals bound for Afghanistan

Further, when will the US Government admit publicly that America cannot simultaneously fight the war on terror and the war on drugs?

As we've seen in Afghan, freedom leads to huge increases in the production of poppy, much of which likely finds its way to this country. Unless and until the Afghan farmers have a similarly profitable alternative to cultivating poppy, they will continue to do so.

The situation in Uzbekistan highlights a number of foreign policy failures on the part of the US government. The inability to combat the American drug culture by eliminating supply, the support for dictators abroad, and the spending of tax dollars abroad unconstitutionally.