Saddam Hussein, Jr.
His name is Islam Karimov, supreme Lord of Everything in a small country called Uzbekistan. This guy boils political dissenters alive, yet the United States (bastion of Democracy and Freedom) are helping to prop him up.
The reason? Most of you seem reasonably well informed and have already heard this, but it's TERRORISM. Uzbekistan shares a border with Afghanistan, and it seems many Taliban and Al Quaeda are there. Oh, and prime real estate for oil and gas pipelines servicing the booming Caspian region.
It's fine to want to get the terrorists out of Uzbekistan, but why do we have to support a terrorist to get it done? Why the hell did we invade Iraq when we could've invaded Uzbekistan instead? Yeah, the Russians probably would've been a little uneasy with us fooling around in their back yard, but I've read that they're not entirely happy with Karimov, either.
So, if things go as planned, we'll support Karimov against his people and our enemy just as we supported Iraq against their people and our enemy. And we'll be invading them in 2010 or so. By then, Iraq will have gone through a civil war or two and will probably be under the fist of another totalitarian regime.
Mission accomplished.
By the way, I don't see how some of you people have thousands of posts to your credit. Just about every time I try to write something the interweb gets stuck.
His name is Islam Karimov, supreme Lord of Everything in a small country called Uzbekistan. This guy boils political dissenters alive, yet the United States (bastion of Democracy and Freedom) are helping to prop him up.
The reason? Most of you seem reasonably well informed and have already heard this, but it's TERRORISM. Uzbekistan shares a border with Afghanistan, and it seems many Taliban and Al Quaeda are there. Oh, and prime real estate for oil and gas pipelines servicing the booming Caspian region.
It's fine to want to get the terrorists out of Uzbekistan, but why do we have to support a terrorist to get it done? Why the hell did we invade Iraq when we could've invaded Uzbekistan instead? Yeah, the Russians probably would've been a little uneasy with us fooling around in their back yard, but I've read that they're not entirely happy with Karimov, either.
So, if things go as planned, we'll support Karimov against his people and our enemy just as we supported Iraq against their people and our enemy. And we'll be invading them in 2010 or so. By then, Iraq will have gone through a civil war or two and will probably be under the fist of another totalitarian regime.
Mission accomplished.
By the way, I don't see how some of you people have thousands of posts to your credit. Just about every time I try to write something the interweb gets stuck.
The server is demented. Or it needs vitamins. Something.
Uzbekistan didn't have Saddam, so fell outside the tunnelvision. Terrorists aren't the thing, Saddam is. But Bush has 9 1/2 months left to start the next war, so who knows? Maybe he'll pick Uzbekistan. Any of Saddam's relatives there?
His name is Islam Karimov, supreme Lord of Everything in a small country called Uzbekistan. This guy boils political dissenters alive, yet the United States (bastion of Democracy and Freedom) are helping to prop him up.
The reason? Most of you seem reasonably well informed and have already heard this, but it's TERRORISM. Uzbekistan shares a border with Afghanistan, and it seems many Taliban and Al Quaeda are there. Oh, and prime real estate for oil and gas pipelines servicing the booming Caspian region.
It's fine to want to get the terrorists out of Uzbekistan, but why do we have to support a terrorist to get it done? Why the hell did we invade Iraq when we could've invaded Uzbekistan instead? Yeah, the Russians probably would've been a little uneasy with us fooling around in their back yard, but I've read that they're not entirely happy with Karimov, either.
So, if things go as planned, we'll support Karimov against his people and our enemy just as we supported Iraq against their people and our enemy. And we'll be invading them in 2010 or so. By then, Iraq will have gone through a civil war or two and will probably be under the fist of another totalitarian regime.
Mission accomplished.
By the way, I don't see how some of you people have thousands of posts to your credit. Just about every time I try to write something the interweb gets stuck.
The server is demented. Or it needs vitamins. Something.
Uzbekistan didn't have Saddam, so fell outside the tunnelvision. Terrorists aren't the thing, Saddam is. But Bush has 9 1/2 months left to start the next war, so who knows? Maybe he'll pick Uzbekistan. Any of Saddam's relatives there?
Nah. This administration is buddy-buddy with the Uzbek regime. Anyway, he'll wait until after the election to start any more wars (which is one of many reasons not to elect him).
Kwangistar
03-04-2004, 02:32
We have to have priorities here. Uzbekistan is indeed bad. However, the usual response to the "Why didn't/don't we invade [insert leader's name here]" arguement.
1.) Are troops are stetched to the bare minimum as it is, we can't really afford to have a new war to oust some bad dictators, especially ones that would take quite a bit of troops.
2.) An unfriendly dictator in Uzbekistan could easily incite some Afghan Warlords against us. Afghanistan's central government's absolute power is pretty small, although it does hold influence among warlords. The North is where many of our "allied" warlords are. It is also where most of the Uzbeks live. (Could've sworn there was an h in Uzbekh, guess not).
3.) We had to ally Uzbekistan in order to get into Northern Afghanistan, where the Northern Alliance was HQ'd. From there we could roll up the Taliban.
Its bad that we're allied to these people yes. But somethings we have to take the lesser of the two evils - or lesser of the two dangers to us, as it may be.
My point was that if you listen to this administration's rhetoric, we should've invaded Uzbekistan instead of Iraq. We had total air superiority so it wasn't a military necessity to be allied with Karimov. Plus, with some diplomacy (what's that?) we could possibly have gotten the Russians to quietly support us.
With no weapons of mass destruction found, the Iraqi invasion is suddenly about freeing the people from an awful dictator. Yet, here we are propping up another horrible dictator. It doesn't make sense, especially for our national security when you consider that Karimov actively oppresses Muslims. By supporting him, so are we. It's this kind of behavior that made us a terrorist target in the first place.
We shouldn't tolerate totalitarianism for any reason at all, much less short term security concerns. We'll be sorry for keeping this guy in power.