Self-Righteous Lefties on Uzbekistan

The UK Independent has an article on Human Rights Watch—which is the real-life equivalent of Skeletor teaming up with Darth Vader—on why the US should end all assistance to Uzbekistan right now. The article was written for total morons: in case you couldn’t get their jist, they made sure to save no expense in the superlative adjectives and adverbs to bring their point home.

Bullets ‘fell like rain’ during Uzbek massacre

The New-York based human rights organisation said its investigation into the events of 13 May left it in no doubt that the Uzbek government had systematically slaughtered hundreds of its own citizens in a “massacre” and then tried to cover up the atrocities. The evidence it had uncovered was so compelling and the Uzbek government’s duplicity, guilt and intransigence so obvious, it added, that Washington was morally obliged to shut its air base in the south of the country.

(Emphasis added.)

“Yes, we would be giving up an asset in Uzbekistan,” Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in Moscow. “But if we don’t act when the government slaughters hundreds of its own civilians, when are we going to act?”

When indeed! I’d sure like to know. When are we going to act on the millions killed in the Congo? Or the millions starved in North Korea? Or the hundreds of thousands killed in the Sudan? Or sheesh, if we’re listing countries where the government just kills more than hundreds of its own civilians we’d be here all day: Zimbabwe, Uganda, Venezuala, Burma, China, Nepal, Bolivia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Algeria, Cote d’Ivoire… but whoops! How silly of me! HRW only cares about the US and the EU doing something to stop this when it’s “giving up an asset.” When no national interest is at stake, they frankly don’t give a damn.

HRW is jumping on board the “US out of Uzbekistan” group, a policy equally favored by numerous lunatics too many to mention (but one who deserves special notice is pro-Taliban Mukhammad Salikh). A US withdrawal from Uzbekistan would do nothing except lose us a strategic ally, put Afghanistan’s stability at risk, give China a new buddy (which they would support with no commentary on Karimov’s human rights record), sacrifice our interests, and be a victory for terrorists. The people already killed cannot be brought back to life. The best strategy to pursue is one of constructive engagement.

I know a lot of my posts have been bashing left-wing NGO, but ever since that Gitmo-Gulag report got front page coverage, these groups have smelled blood in the water. And this garbage can’t go unanswered.