Anniversary of ’05 Uzbek Uprising

The Bush/Cheney Neocons would have loved patterning the USA after the repressive government of Uzbekistan but thanks to our constitution (although, a bit tattered from the last 8 years) for not allowing them this fantasy. With all their criminal efforts they have rendered America as the Pot and Uzbekistan the Kettle. The charred blackness which is on the Pot; doesn't see the black on himself and calls the kettle black!
thinkingblue.blogspot.com

I have been urging more Mandarin and study abroad programs in Oregon's public schools and universities since the summer of 2006. This is part of that effort. It was originally posted on BlueOregonhere.

The movie "Lions for Lamb" (seehere) directed by Robert Redford and starring Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise, is just out on DVD. It’s a political thriller about the war in Afghanistan, but the dialogues raise many issues. Rent it, see it.

In the middle of the movie there is a scene which slips in a profound proposal for US education. Because I am now developing similar legislation, several component proposals for a high school study abroad program, I found the scene riveting.  Let us in Oregon take the movie proposal seriously. Let us not mandate it, nor limit it to the Junior year, as in the movie, but let us see what parts we could make as options for our students.

A continuation on the topic of shopping, consumerism and the environment covered in She's dead! Wrapped in Plastic! and Planned obsolescence.

A lot of us are beginning to question the unholy gods of capitalism and globalization.  Many of us can see where it is getting us environmentally and safetywise.

Lately, the recalls from china have been numerous; the things being recalled are dangerous or deadly to our children and our pets.

But in addition to the environmental toll and the risk to our safety, there is often a  toll on humanity.  

Bush-Cheney Policies Help Revive Russo-Chinese Military Alliance

The implementation of Bush-Cheney Foreign Policy, 2001-2007, has succeeded in reviving strategic and tactical Russian-Chinese military ties for the first time since the Russo-Chinese Military Alliance split apart over three decades ago. US Foreign Policy from Nixon-Kissinger on tried to help make this split permanent, and to cultivate separate relationships between the US and China, and the US and Russia, on two separate tracks.

Now, thanks largely to Bush’s "Bring ‘em all on" approach to world diplomacy, and to the inept, misguided, and badly informed Bush-Cheney operators in the State Dept. (John Bolton & Co.), this military alliance has been revived. Through a series of strategic and tactical blunders, Bush-Cheney policies have helped revive a long-past Russo-Chinese alliance, now known as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which certainly is potentially not good news for the United States, in the short or the long term.

In fact, many analysts regard the new SCO Organization as a potential global challenge to NATO, which is now at least nominally in charge of our own military operations in Afghanistan.

Staring at the liars
For hours and hours
While they spin their myths
Or plead their Fifths ...
Suddenly we're free
We're free

Succumb to us now
Suppress your lies for just five minutes
Everything is good ...

No more gloom and doom
The truth is now illuminated
By the sunshine hearings
Fiery Dems come through,
GOP adieuuuuuuuuu ...

Drought threatening the lives of millions will spread across half the land surface of the Earth in the coming century because of global warming, according to new predictions from Britain's leading climate scientists.

"This is genuinely terrifying," said Andrew Pendleton of Christian Aid. "It is a death sentence for many millions of people. It will mean migration off the land at levels we have not seen before, and at levels poor countries cannot cope with."

Extended excerpts below the fold.

In case anybody has forgotten who our allies in the war on terror are, here's a friendly reminder.

Moral of the story: freedom can't march when it's shot by U.S.-backed dictators.

To the -stan countries!

I've followed this unauthorized wiretapping story closely, and I think that we meet the criteria:  calls between the USA and a foreign country known to be friendly to terrorists.  (Okay, I know that's just what they claim to be the criteria, but we do fall into that category.)

I also know that she's in touch with several people in the USA (Peace Corps workers and Doctors Without Borders alum) who have connections to Uzbekistan.  Is it possible that our internet communications have been monitored?

Does anyone at DKos know how to find out if you've been the subject of surveillance?

These poems were scribbled in the pages of a handsome, leather-bound, oiled Moleskine Journal.

I am reproducing some of the poems here to offer insight into the mind of the man who many call "The Dark Lord."  Please leave your reactions and comments, below.

Thank you.

Read on for Dick Cheney's poems...

Dozens of women recently took to the freezing streets in eastern Uzbekistan in the first public demonstration in Andijon since security forces fired on protesters eight months ago. In May, Andijon's residents and the international community were shocked when authorities used automatic weapons to disperse the crowd. Like in May, desperate residents are facing crushing social and economic hardship. But this time, protesters were seeking nothing more than regular gas and electricity supplies. And fear of official reprisal kept their demonstrations limited -- and exclusively female.

See below the fold for more revelations from Murray (warning: some are horrific).

Chris Floyd

By now, the world -- or at least the blogosphere -- has seen the documents released by former UK diplomat Craig Murray, proving that the Bush and Blair governments both knew that the "intelligence" they were receiving from Uzbekistan was the result of gruesome and agonizing tortures on thousands of innocent people. Bush and Blair knew this -- yet Bush continued to "render" his Terror War captives to Uzbekistan, and shower the nation's Stalinist dictator, Karimov, with gold, guns and public honor. And despite Blair's repeated and strenuous denials of any complicity in America's heinous practice of "rendition" (indeed, in one recent Parliamentary appearance, Blair pretended that he didn't even understand what the term meant), Murray's documents prove that Britain's leadership knew full well what was happening in Karimov's torture chambers. Yet, like their American counterparts, British officials not only condoned the Uzbek tortures, they also spent considerable energy in devising contorted -- and specious -- "justifications" for using the tainted fruits of these evil practices.

I am shocked, shocked that the Busheviks are exporting proper Amerikan jobs.

Now our spooks have the reich idea.

CIA detainee procedure: Burn the evidence, including the bodies

Buy Amerikan, I say.

For more on best torture practises, we have on the newswire today...

At the Khuderbegainov trial I met an old man from Andizhan. Two of his children had been tortured in front of him until he signed a confession on the family's links with Bin Laden. Tears were streaming down his face. I have no doubt they had as much connection with Bin Laden as I do. This is the standard of the Uzbek intelligence services.

Greg Saunders comments:

To the fools out there who routinely praise the President for having the "moral clarity" to call terrorists evil, how can you reconcile that with the chummy relationship he's made with tyrants? The lesser of two evils argument doesn't really work when you chide anyone whose view of fighting terrorism is more nuanced than "smoke them out of their holes" and you verbally fellate the President for being "right on the only issue that matters". You're either in favor of moral relativism or you're not.

What's particularly hilarious is that the administration's apologists are turning a blind eye to one of the world's last stalinist regimes. They are cavorting with a brutal communist tyrant.

So who are the commie sympathizers? Who is supporting a tyrannical regime that runs rape and torture rooms, which routinely boils people alive and tortures children? Who is backing a country that regularly kills large numbers of its people?

It ain't liberals, that's for sure.