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For all those that think Civil Liberties are eroding in America
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| Trancer-X |
But our American gov't. has no problem with those Stans because they are cooperative with our oil agenda. |
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| Trancer-X |
Russia anxious over grip on oil as US firms join Great Game
By Ahmed Rashid
24-10-01 For all the talk of international alliances and the future of Afghanistan, the real concern for Moscow in Central Asia is cementing its control of the oil supply and the successful conclusion of the modern Great Game. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Russia has kept Central Asia's huge oil and gas reserves bottled up by restricting access to export pipelines, all of which run over Russian territory.
America has been pushing alternative pipeline projects out of the region that do not run over Russian soil. Condoleeza Rice, the US national security adviser, assured the Kremlin that America had no designs on Central Asia even as a new oil pipeline went online, strengthening Russia's influence in the region.
One of the major reasons that Washington supported the Taliban between 1994 and 1997 was the attempt by the US oil giant Unocal to build a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan, through Taliban-controlled southern Afghanistan, to Pakistan and the Gulf. At the time America and Unocal hoped that the Taliban would swiftly conquer the country.
As the first tanker at the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk was loaded with oil pumped from Kazakhstan through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium pipeline, it looked like the rivalry between Moscow and Washington was over. But as American interests intensify in the region, Moscow is nervous about giving Washington a toehold.
Ms Rice's statements were designed to allay fears. She said: "I want to stress this: Our policy is not aimed against the interests of Russia. We do not harbour any plans aimed at squeezing Russia out of there." Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have some of the largest reserves of oil and gas in the world, but Russia cut them off from international markets as all their export pipelines run over Russian territory.
America tried aggressively to break the Kremlin stranglehold over the region, but Ms Rice's comments were the strongest sign yet that Washington is prepared to concede Russia's dominance. US-Russian relations have been revolutionised since the September 11 attacks on America.
In a brave decision, President Putin thumbed his nose at Russia's generals still labouring under Cold War prejudices and gave the go-ahead for Central Asian states to play host to US forces. Both Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are allied to Moscow through the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States, and have allowed use of airfields.
The Kremlin is still nervous, however, about giving America the opportunity to increase its influence in Central Asia. After a decade of grandiose promises by international oil companies for an oil pipeline failed to materialise, Kazakhstan has thrown in its lot with the Russians.
The Caspian Pipeline Consortium line is the first big one to be built since the fall of the Soviet Union. Led by Chevron, CPC brought together the governments of Kazakhstan, Russia and Oman, as well as several other oil companies, to raise GBP 1.7 bn of financing.
The petrodollar taps are opening for the Central Asian republics which, despite their huge reserves, have been wallowing in economic misery for much of the past decade. Russia will also do well out of the pipeline. Most of the 1,150-mile route runs across Russian territory. It is expected to earn Russia GBP 28 bn over 30 years.
The war in Afghanistan may have ended America's ambitions in the area as a quid pro quo for Russia's co-operation in the US-led campaign. But when peace and a stable government eventually comes to Kabul, US oil companies will be looking closely at Afghanistan because it offers the shortest route to the Gulf for Central Asia's vast quantities of untapped oil and gas.
They have invested $ 30 bn (GBP 20 bn) in developing oil and gas fields in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, but exporting to the West involves lengthy and expensive pipelines. American companies are barred from building pipelines through Iran, and are reluctant to build them through Russia.
Washington is now proposing a $ 3 bn pipeline from Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea, through Georgia to Turkey's Mediterranean coast -- a lengthy and expensive project that will put huge transport costs to every barrel of Central Asian oil that reaches Europe. US companies could build a similar pipeline from Central Asia through Afghanistan to Karachi at half the cost, if the next Afghan government can guarantee its security.
Russia fears that is exactly what the Americans want and, now that US troops are based in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, they will establish a permanent presence and not leave. America has pledged to "consult" in the event of a direct threat to the security or territorial integrity of Uzbekistan, wording that has increased suspicions in Moscow that American troops will stay in its Central Asian backyard after the shooting in Afghanistan is over.
Ahmed Rashid is author of "Taliban: Islam, oil and the new great game in Central Asia."
Source: Telegraph Group Limited
http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/ntr14767.htm |
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| Trancer-X |
Oil
Turkmenistan’s oil reserves were estimated at 500 million barrels in 2002. It remains difficult to estimate Turkmenistan’s potential oil reserves as much will depend on negotiations to define ownership and prospecting rights in the Caspian Sea. Oil production increased to 182,00 barrels per day (bpd) in 2002. The government plans to increase oil production to one million bpd by 2010.
Turkmenistan has two oil refineries -- Turkmenbashi and Chardzhou -- with a combined capacity of 237,000bpd. A contract between the government and six international companies to reconstruct the Turkmenbashi refinery was agreed in 1995. The Ministry of Oil and Gas expects the refinery to reach full capacity by 2004 at a cost of US$1.4 billion.
State-owned Turkmenneft accounts for 90.5 per cent of oil extraction and state-owned gas producer Turkmengaz produces another 3 per cent. The rest is produced by foreign companies in production-sharing arrangements.
The territorial division of the hydrocarbon-rich Caspian Sea has been a cause of friction between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan for a number of years, delaying the sea’s exploitation. Turkmenistan backs Iran's position on dividing the Caspian Sea equally between the five littoral states, which puts it in opposition to Kazakhstan, Russia and Azerbaijan which favour an alternative means of deciding sovereignty over the Caspian. An agreement between the five littoral states in February 2003 appeared to mark a breakthrough in the disputes but this appeared to be undermined by an agreement struck between Turkmenistan and Iran in the following month.
The sector has been hit by high regional risk perceptions and low international prices in recent years, with companies operating in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia pulling out altogether and others seeking new partners. The withdrawal from Turkmenistan over the 1997 to early 1999 period was particularly severe, with political instability, lack of transport routes and a small domestic market combining with Russia’s financial difficulties to dent severely investor confidence.
Gas
Turkmenistan's proven natural gas reserves are estimated at 2.01 trillion cubic metres, making it one of the world's largest deposits, although the government claims the actual figure may be closer to 20 trillion cubic metres. Gas production was 49.9 billion cubic metres in 2002. State-owned Turkmengaz accounts for 85 per cent of production.
A number of alternatives for gas pipelines have been put forward. The Trans-Caspian Pipeline (TCP), which would run across the Caspian to Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey, and an alternative pipeline south, through Afghanistan to Pakistan, are the two plans which have received most attention.
Before the fall of the Taliban, US authorities encouraged the Turkmenistan government to avoid the Afghan option, which would have involved the construction of a 1,165km pipeline through one of most war-ravaged countries in the world to a sea port on the Indian Ocean. However, the overthrow of the Taliban and the creation of a US-friendly regime has raised hopes of a revival of the CentGas consortium, which was led by US-based Unocal. In 1997, CentGas received the backing of the Turkmenistan government to build the pipeline, but just over a year later, Unocal (which held the largest stake in the consortium) pulled out. The company blamed the fall in international oil prices. However, it had also proved impossible to raise finance for the pipeline, since the Taliban regime was not recognised as the legal government of Afghanistan by the UN. With a new, fully-recognised government installed in Afghanistan, Unocal, or some other important strategic investor, is likely to engage in new talks with the authorities of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2002, Turkmenistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to co-operate on the construction of the pipeline. A feasibility study is due to be published in September 2003.
Plans for the TCP have stalled, largely due to the Turkmenistan government’s delays in committing to a single transport route and difficulty in raising international finance for the project. The growing arguments between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan have also made the situation worse. Investors have grown tired of the dispute and drifted away and the TCP has been reportedly shelved by the foreign partners in the project.
These developments opened up the possibility of other pipeline routes, the most prominent of which is through Iran. President Niyazov has criticised the US government for its refusal to consider alternative routes for the pipeline, which many regard as politically prudent for the US but economically expensive for Turkmenistan. Observers took the statements as a clear indication that the president was increasingly interested in an Iranian route. President Niyazov has said that he considered Iran to be the shortest and most likely route for the transportation of Turkmenistan's natural gas.
http://www.worldinformation.com/Wor...p=8&country=993 |
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| Trancer-X |
There was, however, one aspect of KIOGE that was fascinating: talking with the major oil companies about their plans for shipping oil and gas from Central Asia to foreign markets. This problem, how to get oil from land-locked Central Asia, was the key to unlocking the vast wealth of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakstan. The export routes, and pertinent agreements, had great importance for the profitability of companies like Chevron, the economies of Russia and the Central Asian states and, arguably, the course of democratic reform in the former Soviet Union.
One of the most fascinating pipeline proposals is advocated by Unocal. In conjunction with the government of Turkmenistan and a Saudi Arabian oil company, Delta Oil, Unocal is proposing to build a pipeline from Charjou, Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan to Karachi, Pakistan. I first became aware of this proposal while working at KIOGE and was incredulous that it could be considered. At that time, in early October, the Taliban, one of the three major factions fighting to rule Afghanistan, were besieging Kabul. It appeared that they would gain control of much of the country. That Unocal deemed it possible to build a pipeline through a war zone, or through a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, seemed unlikely to me. During a free moment, I walked over to Unocal's exhibition to find out more. A Unocal representative was, not unexpectedly, quite excited about the whole project. Echoing a Unocal pamphlet, he said that a pipeline to the Arabian Sea was the most expeditious route for Central Asia's oil. When I asked him about the war raging in Afghanistan, he said, "That's no problem, we've got deals with all the warlords." "Really?" I asked, astounded. "Yes," he replied, "they're very reasonable when it comes to money."
http://depts.washington.edu/reecas/...g97/lumpkin.htm |
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| Trancer-X |
U.S. Operated Secret Alliance With Uzbekistan
By Thomas E. Ricks and Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 14, 2001; Page A01
The United States and Uzbekistan have quietly conducted joint covert operations aimed at countering Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime and its terrorist allies since well over a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, according to officials from both nations.
The most significant advance came more than a year ago with stepped-up intelligence cooperation between the two countries in an effort to track and undermine suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden. At the same time, U.S. Special Forces began to work more overtly with the Uzbek military on training missions.
"Our cooperation began long before the events of Sept. 11," said Rustam Jumaev, chief spokesman for Uzbek President Islam Karimov. In an interview, Jumaev said significant military and intelligence joint efforts extended back "two or three years" but would not discuss specifics of the cooperation.
In 1998, after terrorist attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, President Bill Clinton signed a secret intelligence "finding" authorizing the CIA to use covert means to disrupt and preempt bin Laden's operations.
"The intensified interaction with Uzbekistan," Jumaev said, reflected the conviction of the United States that previous terrorist attacks against American targets originated from bin Laden's Afghan refuge. The U.S.-Uzbek cooperation deepened after the embassy bombings and again after last year's attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, he said.
The disclosure of such broad cooperation on sensitive matters, nurtured quietly over several years, offers new perspective on a U.S.-Uzbek alliance that seemed to come out of nowhere in the aftermath of the attacks in New York and Washington.
In a region still dominated politically and militarily by Russia, Uzbekistan was the first former Soviet republic to signal its willingness to aid a U.S. military operation against Afghanistan in the days immediately after the terrorist attacks.
That partnership went public on Oct. 5, when Karimov met with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, and announced that the United States could station ground troops, airplanes and helicopters at an Uzbek air base. While stipulating that, at least "for now," Uzbekistan could be used only to launch humanitarian and combat search-and-rescue missions, Karimov left open the possibility of allowing the United States to launch offensive strikes on Afghanistan from his territory.
On Friday, the two governments released a statement outlining the details of an agreement hammered out after Rumsfeld's visit. In the statement, such offensive operations were not explicitly ruled out, with the deal stipulating only that the Uzbek military base would be used "in the first instance" for humanitarian purposes.
More than 1,000 U.S. troops from the 10th Mountain Division have already arrived in Uzbekistan, according to Pentagon officials, and at least 1,000 more are expected. An undisclosed number of U.S. Special Forces troops also are operating in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.
Uzbekistan, a California-size nation of 25 million, offers strategic access to northern Afghanistan across an 85-mile border. The ultimate size of the U.S. military presence in Uzbekistan remains unclear, but every indication suggests it will grow, and remain in place for months or even years.
That's a sharp contrast to the environment before Sept. 11, when the major limiting factor on the U.S. presence was the desire of Karimov's authoritarian government to keep it quiet. "That put a limit on the size of things," recalled a former Pentagon official who was involved in cultivating the new relationship. "The bigger it got, the more visible it got."
Uzbekistan has long pursued the most independent policy of the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia, courting friendly relations with the United States over Russian objections and withdrawing from a Russian-led regional security treaty. But even for Uzbekistan, playing host to U.S. troops represents a significant escalation of its cooperation with Washington.
"This is a dramatic change in the policy they have pursued since independence of allowing no foreign troops in their country," said a senior Bush administration official. "They were nervous from the beginning about the implications for them of allowing a large American presence."
Reflecting that continued nervousness, information about the new cooperation has been all but shut off by both governments. Lack of access to even basic facts about the U.S. deployment to Uzbekistan, Jumaev said, "is not just because of our Ministry of Defense. It is not because Uzbekistan is a closed country. This is what the Pentagon wants as well."
Indeed, when news of the U.S. deployment first broke last month, one Air Force officer happily noted that "we can put aircraft there where CNN can't film them taking off." Air Force officials were irate during the Kosovo war in 1999 when television networks broadcast live images of aircraft taking off from the U.S. base in Aviano, Italy.
Pentagon officials have indicated that a veil has been kept over the new and growing U.S. military presence in part because a Special Operations unit has been moved along with the 10th Mountain Division.
In several cases, Karimov's government has denied the little information Pentagon officials have released. Despite the president's public granting of permission for the U.S. deployment here, some officials have denied that such a deployment existed.
On Monday, for example, the deputy head of the Uzbek National Security Council denied that the 10th Mountain Division, or any American troops, were in Uzbekistan even as U.S. military officials said they had started arriving days earlier. On Friday, Jumaev said the number of American military personnel in Uzbekistan "does not exceed a three-digit number," although Pentagon officials have said more than 1,000 troops have already arrived.
While Uzbeks have been wary of describing their alliance with the United States too openly, U.S. officials have argued among themselves over just how far to go in courting a dictatorship accused of holding more than 7,000 political prisoners in the name of fighting terrorism.
The split has been most evident between the State and Defense departments, according to a former CIA officer who operated in the region. Pentagon officials have wanted to operate in Uzbekistan and believe that the closed nature of Uzbek society helps preserve operational security and protect troops.
The State Department, by contrast, worries about embracing too tightly a regime that has been criticized for human rights abuses. According to human rights groups, many devout Muslims have been arrested and tortured, without any evidence that they have ties to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a home-grown terrorist group linked to bin Laden. The group launched armed incursions into Uzbekistan in 1999 and 2000 and is blamed by Karimov for setting off explosions in the capital that killed 18 people.
When then-Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright visited Tashkent last year, she publicly warned Karimov to "distinguish very carefully between peaceful devout believers and those who advocate terrorism."
At the time, the extent of Uzbek cooperation with the United States had not been disclosed, but there were hints that ties were growing closer. Uzbekistan sought to distance itself from Russia, and was an eager participant in the NATO-organized Partnership for Peace military exercises. Another hint was the announcement of U.S. assistance to tighten Uzbekistan's borders and fight the influx of drugs from Afghanistan.
Uzbekistan may well have offered a more appealing and stable location for secret American intelligence-gathering about Afghanistan. Pakistan, which borders Afghanistan to the east and south, was in turmoil and Gen. Pervez Musharraf took power in a coup there two years ago.
Western observers in Tashkent said they were aware of what one termed "a long-standing, very close relationship with Uzbek security institutions on Afghanistan issues." While declining to discuss specific operations, the observer said, "It's spectacular how close Uzbek-U.S. foreign policy interests have come together. We've worked for a long time with Uzbekistan on Afghanistan issues, so it makes sense that we have very strong cooperation on the intelligence side as well."
Both U.S. and Uzbek officials said their partnership grew slowly. In the years immediately following the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 and Uzbekistan's independence, relations with the United States were "quite weak", one close observer said. But by the late 1990s, the two countries found common cause in their alarm over Afghanistan. The ruling Taliban regime there captured the territory adjoining Uzbekistan in 1998, while the Tashkent bombings in early 1999 made Karimov even more insistent on the need to stamp out the IMU fighters being harbored in Afghanistan.
Glasser reported from Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/w...55834-2001Oct13
http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes...rt_id=611919343
A senior U-N official visiting the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan has accused the Uzbek government of widespread torture. V-O-A's Rebecca Santana has more from Moscow.
The top United Nations official on torture, Theo van Boven, said Friday during a trip to Uzbekistan that the government regularly uses torture against political opponents.
Mr. Van Boven is wrapping up a two-week visit to Uzbekistan during which he talked with dozens of people who said they had been tortured by the police or the secret services.
During a press conference Friday, Mr. Van Boven said torture is "not just incidental but has a nature of being systemic in this country."
He said the police often use torture to extract confessions that are later used to convict people and sentence them to death.
Human rights officials have long accused the Uzbek President Islam Karimov of using force to crack down on political dissent and religious freedom in the country. They say devout Muslims are singled out for harassment, arrest and torture by the police.
The Uzbek government fears the country may become a center of religious extremism like their neighbor to the south in Afghanistan.
Uzbekistan became a strong U-S ally in the war against terrorism after the September 11th attacks in New York and Washington. U-S troops have been stationed in southern Uzbekistan since last year as part of the U-S military effort in Afghanistan. (signed)
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milit...06-3d5ec802.htm |
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| Trancer-X |
"Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power."
Eurasia is all of the territory east of Germany and Poland, stretching all the way through Russia and China to the Pacific Ocean. It includes the Middle East and most of the Indian subcontinent.
"The key to controlling Eurasia," says Brzezinski, "is controlling the Central Asian Republics. And the key to controlling the Central Asian republics is Uzbekistan."
"The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor." (p. 24-25)
"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia (...). Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia - and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained." (p.30)
- THE GRAND CHESSBOARD - American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Basic Books, 1997. |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| Heh, I mostly agree with what Trancer-X said. It's a conflict for oil down there, and it's too risky for either side to openly attack the installed regimes. That's why both sides support the regimes and hope they'll be the side that wins the regime's favor. I really can't see how that is relevant to the status of civil liberties in the US, aside from being able to say "Hey, we're not that bad, look, someone else is even worse than we are!". |
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| Trancer-X |
US looks Away as New Ally Tortures Islamists
Uzbekistan's president steps up repression of opponents
Nick Paton Walsh in Namangan
Monday May 26, 2003
The Guardian
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 $500m (£300m) in aid. The police and intelligence services - which the state department's website says use "torture as a routine investigation technique" received $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 $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."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/internati...,963497,00.html |
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| Yoepus |
oh sock it up trance-xer ;)
The US is simply trying to gain control in the Cacauses from the befallen USSR.
They aren't happy with the human rights violations, and they voice their concerns about it. I've seen the US Ambassador to Turkmanistan speak veyr ferverently about how she does not approve of Mr. Turkmenbasti's consolidation of power and repression of liberity. I think I saw it on 60 mins long time ago, might want to go search the transcripts, it was a good article. Apparently you can get some good Sushi in their capital city there... I was really surpised how modern their capital was.
Now that being said, I've seen Turkmenbasti speak on Charlie Rose, he doesn't seem that bad of a guy (sort of like any other one of us, if we were to get control of a country.. he just wants to mold it after himself), and he has been college educated in the West, which is defintely a plus (I bet his roomates are like Ambassadors and Advisors in his court and ).
Anyway, he's my hero. Me and Drug_Tito are trying to get a real boat and invade a caribbean island and be just like him:cool: |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yoepus
Anyway, he's my hero. Me and Drug_Tito are trying to get a real boat and invade a caribbean island and be just like him:cool: |
Ya, can't help but feel respect for that guy. We should learn from these guys instead of hippieishly attacking them. That's why I felt so bad to se Saddam go. So sad to see one's childhood hero reduced to what he has become now :( |
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