Re: FW: Racist book "The Arab Mind" used to train military , but best use is as a doorstop.

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Chris Doss wrote:
> Russia's concern is jihadi activity along its southern rim, mostly financed from abroad. Islamic fundamentalism is completely alien to post-Soviet Muslims, which is the main reason why the wahabbi dream of a pan-Caucasian caliphate is fantasy, and why, instead of meeting Khattab and Basayev with flowers, the Dagestanis met them with rifle fire. (Though actually people like Khozh-Akhmet Nukhaev, who after all used to be a big Mafia guy, combine Islamic fundamentalism, Caucasian tribal culture, extreme nationalism  and gangster mythology in a weird mixture.)

You mean like in Uzbekistan?

===
Putin Says Russia Will Protect Uzbekistan

TASHKENT, May 19, 2000 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and
Uzbek leader Islam Karimov pledged on Friday to fight together against
religious extremism and terrorism in former Soviet Central Asia.

Putin was making his first foreign visit since his inauguration on May
7, choosing strategically important Central Asia to try to reassert
Russian influence over an area with which relations were cooler under
his predecessor Boris Yeltsin.

Putin was greeted with pomp by Karimov, who has visibly warmed to
Russia, alarmed by the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism in his
impoverished country.

"Any threat to Uzbekistan is also a threat to the Russian Federation,"
Putin said. "If we do not understand this and cannot stop the agression
in the south, then we shall have to deal with it at home."

===

The Guardian (London)
May 26, 2003

US looks away as new ally tortures Islamists: Uzbekistans president
steps up repression of opponents

BYLINE: Nick Paton Walsh in Namangan

Abdulkhalil was arrested in the fields of Uzbekistan's Ferghana valley
in August last year. The 28-year-old farmer was sentenced to 16 years in
prison for "trying to overthrow the constitutional structures".

Last week his father saw him for the first time since that day on a
stretcher in a prison hospital. His head was battered and his tongue was
so swollen that he could only say that he had "been kept in water for a
long time".

Abdulkhalil was a victim of Uzbekistan's security service, the SNB. His
detention and torture were part of a crackdown on Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Party
of Liberation), an Islamist group.

Independent human rights groups estimate that there are more than 600
politically motivated arrests a year in Uzbekistan, and 6,500 political
prisoners, some tortured to death. According to a forensic report
commissioned by the British embassy, in August two prisoners were even
boiled to death. .

The US condemned this repression for many years. But since September 11
rewrote America's strategic interests in central Asia, the government of
President Islam Karimov has become Washington's new best friend in the
region.

The US is funding those it once condemned. Last year Washington gave
Uzbekistan Dollars 500m (pounds 300m) in aid. The police and
intelligence services - which the state department's website says use
"torture as a routine investigation technique"+ received Dollars 79m of
this sum.

Mr Karimov was President Bush's guest in Washington in March last year.
They signed a "declaration" which gave Uzbekistan security guarantees
and promised to strengthen "the material and technical base of (their)
law enforcement agencies".

The cooperation grows. On May 2 Nato said Uzbekistan may be used as a
base for the alliance's peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan.

Since the fall of the Taliban, US support for the Karimov government has
changed from one guided by short-term necessity into a long-term
commitment based on America's strategic requirements.

Critics argue that the US has overlooked human rights abuses to foster a
police state whose borders give the Pentagon vantage points into
Afghanistan and the other neighbouring republics which are as rich in
natural resources as they are in Islamist movements.

The geographical hub of the US-Uzbek alliance is 250 miles south of the
capital, Tashkent. Outside the town of Karshi lies the Khanabad military
base, the platform for America's operations in Afghanistan.

The town of Khanabad has been closed for months by the Uzbek government.
Locals say the restrictions are compensated for by the highly paid work
the base brings.

Journalists are not allowed in to see its runway, logistical supply
tents and troop lodgings, all set on roads named after New York avenues.
One western source said: "(The Americans) expect to be here for over a
decade."

This will suit the Uzbek government, which welcomes America's change in
attitude as its own security forces continue to repress the population.
Uzbeks need a permit to move between towns and an exit visa to leave the
country. Attendance at a mosque seems to result in arrest.

In the city of Namangan, in the Ferghana valley, there are many accounts
of the regime's brutality. A fortnight ago, Ahatkhon was beaten by
police and held down while members of the Uzbek security service stuffed
"incriminating evidence" into his coat pocket. They called in two
"witnesses" to watch them discover two leaflets supporting
Hizb-ut-Tahrir. He was forced to inform on four friends, one of whom -
an ex-boxer - is still in pain from his beating. Abdulkhalil and
Ahatkhon prayed regularly. This seemed to have been enough to brand them
as the Islamists the Karimov government fears.

The Ferghana valley has been a base for the Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan (IMU), which the US and the UK say has links with al-Qaida.
But the group is thought to have been crippled by the operations in
Afghanistan. Analysts dismiss US claims that the IMU is targeting
American military assets in the neighbouring republic of Kyrgyzstan.

The fight against the IMU has been used to justify the repression of
Islamists. But the Islamic order advocated by Hizb-ut-Tahrir fills a
void left by devastating poverty and state brutality.

Craig Murray, the British ambassador to Uzbekistan, said: "The intense
repression here combined with the inequality of wealth and absence of
reform will create the Islamic fundamentalism that the regime is trying
to quash."

Another senior western official said: "People have less freedom here
than under Brezhnev. The irony is that the US Republican party is
supporting the remnants of Brezhnevism as part of their fight against
Islamic extremism."

The US is also funding some human rights groups in Uzbekistan. Last year
it gave Dollars 26m towards democracy programmes. A state department
spokesman said America's policy was "reform through engagement" and that
Uzbekistan had "taken some positive steps", including " registering a
human rights group and a new newspaper".

Matilda Bogner of Human Rights Watch's office in Tashkent said: "I would
deny there has been any real progress.

"The steps taken are basically window dressing used to get the military
funding through the US Congress's ethical laws. Nothing has changed on
the ground."

Hakimjon Noredinov, 68, agreed. He became a human rights activist after
a morgue attendant brought him his eldest son, Nozemjon. He had been
left for dead by the security service but was still alive despite having
his skull fractured. Nozemjon is now 33, but screamed all night since
they split his skull open. He is now in an asylum, Mr Noredinov said.
"People's lives here are no better for US involvement," he said.

"Because of the US help, Karimov is getting richer and stronger."


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