Know them by the company they keep

Updated A day of violence in Uzbekistan has left at least nine dead in the Ferghana valley town of Andizhan, Reuters reports on Friday.

Rebels raided a police station and military barracks, freed inmates of a local prison and then seized the state building with 10 police hostages. Their action prompted thousands to protest and some demanded President Islam Karimov stand down. ...

Troops then opened fire on a square in Andizhan where protesters had massed and stormed the building.

By evening, a government source was saying the building had been taken back but

[b]y early Saturday it was not clear if the operation to re-take the building was successful. ... [T]he area was sealed off and sporadic machine gun and assault rifle fire could be heard.

Reuters notes that "scarce government reports" say that nine people were killed in the violence, but "media reports suggested the number of dead could be much higher."

"We have 96 wounded and many, many dead," a doctor in Andizhan said, speaking through the hospital gates. He declined to give his name.

The violence followed on the heels of heels of

[p]eaceful protests [which] broke out in Andizhan earlier this week to demand the release of 23 Muslim businessmen, who one rights group said were facing trumped-up charges of religious extremism.

Such charges are nothing new for Uzbekistan, which Human Rights Watch charges with

a long history of torture. Since the mid-1990's the Uzbek government has arrested thousands of people on charges of Islamic "fundamentalism" or "extremism," handing down prison sentences to most ranging from 5 to 20 years.

The government claims its efforts serve as part of the global campaign against terrorism. Yet in the overwhelming majority of cases, those imprisoned have not been accused or convicted of terrorism or charged with any other violent act. Human Rights Watch has documented the torture of many of those detained in the context of this campaign, including several who that [sic] died as a result of torture. Interviewees describe a variety of methods of torture used against Muslim detainees, including beatings by fist and with truncheons or metal rods, rape and sexual violence, electric shock, use of lit cigarettes or newspapers to burn the detainee, and asphyxiation with plastic bags or gas masks. A doctor who examined the body of detainee [sic] who died in custody in 2002 described burns consistent with immersion in boiling water.

(The full report, titled "Creating Enemies of the State: Religious Persecution in Uzbekistan," can be found here. Amnesty International has also raised numerous questions about human rights in Uzbekistan, go here for more.)

Despite all this, the US has limited itself to having Scott McClellan

"urge both the government and the demonstrators to exercise restraint at this time.... The people of Uzbekistan want to see a more representative and democratic government, but that should come through peaceful means, not through violence."

In other words, play nice. Why is the Shrub team, so dedicated (we are told repeatedly) to the spread of democracy across the world, expressing such tolerance toward this brutal regime? Why is it so eager to spread blame across both sides, even referring to an "outbreak of violence ... by some members of a terrorist organization that were freed from prison?" (An old saying has it that "when all are guilty, none are guilty.")

Uzbekistan, a Central Asian country bordering Afghanistan, was quick to offer the United States an airbase after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities and has become a key ally in Washington's war on terrorism.

Ah. That's why. Just like in the old days, when any tinhorn generals or satraps who wanted to indemnify brutalities committed against their own peoples could do so by calling their opponents "communist." It's just that now they call them "terrorists."

Footnote one: Apparently for whatever reason feeling less obligated to maintain certain fictions,

[t]he European Union blamed the government of Uzbekistan on Friday for violent protests in the east of the ex-Soviet central Asian country....

"The protests are an indication of the tension built up by the government that has not paid sufficient respect to human rights, rule of law and poverty alleviation," a spokesman for the EU's executive Commission said.

"What is happening in Andizhan and Tashkent cannot be a justification for violent repression and the Uzbek government should engage further in social and political reform, in the full respect of human rights and the rule of law."

More and more, the US and Europe simply see the world in fundamentally different ways. More and more to the good, the better to provide some counterweight to US visions of empire.

Footnote two: When Scotty McMouthpiece gave that line about how "a more democratic government" should come about "through peaceful means," did anyone happen to remind him that "liberation" and "democracy" by violent means are exactly what the Bushites have been reduced to saying the invasion of Iraq was about?

No, I didn't think so.

Updated with the news that the head of the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan says he saw soldiers loading at least 200 bodies onto trucks. Another witness claims there were over 300 dead and an AP reporter personally counted 23 bodies. Whatever the actual number, one thing is clear: It is far more than nine.