Inactive Rebunk
Uzbekistan
According to the Washington Post , “Uzbekistan formally evicted the United States yesterday from a military base that has served as a hub for combat and humanitarian missions to Afghanistan since shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Pentagon and State Department officials said yesterday.” The eviction came as an unwelcome surprise, since it will cost the US “several logistical problems for its operations in Afghanistan,” and a great deal more money. It is also important to remember that the nation is home to oil and gas reserves as well.
According to the article, part of the reason for the eviction notice has been the increasing amount of tension caused by America's emphasis on democracy and human rights. According to a “senior official,” “We all knew basically that if we really wanted to keep access to the base, the way to do it was to shut up about democracy and turn a blind eye to the refugees” (click here and here for descriptions of Uzbekistan’s terrible human rights record). A June editorial in the Washington Post seemed to credit a delay in bringing the issue to a head on “the Pentagon, which jealously guards its relationship with Mr. Karimov [the countries dictator] and has deliberately undercut past attempts by Congress and the State Department to pressure him.”
If this is all true, and American pressure on human rights and democracy have caused the country to demand our exist, then I would be remiss if I did not commend the Bush administration for following through on its pledge to push for greater democracy and freedom in those areas of the world.
In November of 2003, Bush made a speech in which he said the following radical words:
“Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo.”
The speech was perhaps one of the greatest and most profound in his presidency, and I said so at the time (the media, predictably, gave it little attention). By acknowledging our mistakes of the past, Bush was able to re-create American foreign policy with a new emphasis on democracy and freedom. The war on Iraq was, in my opinion, a magnificent blunder in that it tried to force democracy in a country relatively unilaterally and incompetently. Other actions however, have been far more productive and illustrate our commitment to expanding democracy, even at the expense of short-term strategic assets. Of course, we will never truly be able to assert our moral authority so long as the West is unable to free itself from its addiction to Middle Eastern oil, and obviously countries whose populations have been radicalized through decades of indoctrination must be dealt with slowly and carefully.
Nevertheless, I welcome Uzbekistan’s eviction as a badge of honor. Contrary to the international image as a global empire, the US will leave the country without a fight. The greatest military power on earth will voluntarily depart a strategic location because it has asked us to and we will not backtrack on its human rights record. This is the United States at its absolute best.
- missing something? by chris l pettit (July 30, 2005 at 8:36 AM)
- Re: missing something? by Marc "Adam Moshe" Bacharach (July 30, 2005 at 10:27 AM)
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