Obama Cozies Up to Uzbekistan Dictator

The Bush administration buddied up with the dictatorship in Uzbekistan, which borders Afghanistan to the north, in order to place military bases there and provide supply routes to troops in Afghanistan. The fact that the leader of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, is a brutal dictator with a penchant for torture, never stopped the mountains of military aid sent there as a bribe for cooperation in the Afghan war. But now Obama is cozying up to Karimov more than ever, asking Congress for more guns and butter to send him.

See here for an interview with Steve Swerdlow, Uzbekistan researcher at Human Rights Watch, at Salon.com.

Author: John Glaser

John Glaser writes for Antiwar.com.