Uzbek'n Out

Today, the Uzbek government officially evicted the U.S. from its airbase in Uzbekistan, K2 for unspecified reasons. However, this is certainly a blessing in disguise and something the U.S. should have done, although Bush would have never left voluntarily. The promise of airbases in the former Soviet Union was too much for someone whose advisors are eternally stuck in a Cold War mentality. However, it is the best thing that has happened to the U.S. in terms of salvaging its record and credibility on human rights since the Bush Administration has been in power. The Uzbek government has an abysmal record on human rights including the massacre of a large number of protesters and the surviving protester-refugees fleeing the country. It also has a government with a long record of torture--including boiling people to death--that is the product of a regime desperate to stay in power (it has been in power since the fall of the Soviet union) as it sees similar former Soviet states' governments thrust from power in popular rebellions (the latest being Kyrgyzstan). The U.S. will no longer have an albatross hanging from its neck about its cozy relations with a brutal regime that would make Saddam and Kim Jong Il proud. Without having to play nice with a regime like this, there might be a possibility that the government could be overthrown (by popular insurrection) or convinced to hold free and fair elections in order to avoid that fate.