The Uzbekistan option

Ah- the safe myth of "Bush indifferent to public opinion" - easy does it. Some may not like Hitchens' recent outbursts that the American people craved torture (paraphrase) - but let's not forget the state of the nation when we went into Afghanistan, lets not forget the convictions of the media, when they (thats right, they, not just Bush), drove us into Iraq. Speaking of the Iraq swindle, how many FP articles were published against the venture? How many FP contributors, spoke out against it? Raise your hands - is it just me, or I don't see anyone?

Beyond the Bush scapegoat - Uzbekistan has nothing to do with not caring for public opinion. Uzbekistan was covered in Simon Reeves's BBC "The Stans", so the closest anyone in the Anglophonic world ever came to the country's name, was under a generic "stan". Andijan, came and went faster than three days of the Iraq slaughterhouse. There is no public opinion on Tashkent, as there is none on Harrare or Brazaville.

NATO still uses K2 for its supply route to Afghanistan - let's be clear about this. It was the US that was evicted, not the NATO alliance.

Now let's recall something else - torture. It was the UK, and the US, that willingly rendition terrorist suspects, to Karimov's kingdom - and with the express purpose, of having them tortured. Or is this something so far in the past, that its no longer true?

As for the cookie-cutter take on Uzbekistan. For those whose only knowledge of it comes second-hand (99% of you) I suggest the Reeve's documentary. At least you'll understand, that most of what goes on in the country has to do with stabilising a state under extreme threat from Jihadism, and the drug-trade. While the UK needs the CIA to run MI5's domestic spying on 4000 potential Pakistani British-national jihadi's, Karimov is monitoring all mosques and islamic organisations, for the content of their prayers. If analysts and "experts" continue to apply cookie-cutters to their understanding of the world, rest assured, another surprise will take you off-guard, and soon you'll look as silly as when the financial crisis, the WMD, the 9/11, 7/7 and a slew of related events, exposed you for poor practitioners of prudence.

It's just ridiculous, the way in which we need to cookie-cut everything to the point of digestibles. It's like otherwise, you'd have to do some real research, right? Maybe even take a trip to the country, brush up on Uzbek (its a Turkic language, if you're wondering). Get your boots on - and maybe listen to a sermon at a local mosque?