Yes, we support freedom loving democratic countries.
Our friends in Tashkent
n Karimov's land there is no free speech, no independent thinking, no free press, and dissidence from the regime may be punished by death. Human Rights Watch has even compared Karimov's methods with Joseph Stalin's. Karimov may be a Saddam Hussein minus the gassing of the Kurds. A simplistic formula would state that Karimov is trying to modernize Uzbekistan's economy while trying to demodernize Uzbekistan's society. But even that would not be true, because economic modernization is also limited.
Immediately after September 11, 2001 Uzbekistan turned into an American client-state. Washington's professional Panglossians may think that American influence on Karimov will lead to social and economic liberalization. Nonsense. Realists who trade their armchair for a field trip find out that any sort of liberalization would spell the end of the regime. What in fact has been happening is that Washington's support makes the regime even stronger. Washington-Tashkent relations are rock solid. A Saudi Arabian parallel applies: Washington-Riyadh relations have been solid for decades - with no Saudi Arabian internal liberalization whatsoever. And to top it all, there are very few, if any, Uzbek members of al-Qaeda.
You guys dont get it at all. Nobody in Washington cares about spreading democracy and rescuing people. The Zionist lobby (per Brad's post) is pushing Zionist agenda, The oil lobby (see Cheney etc) is pushing the oil button. The American soldier is being sacrificed, the American public is being put at risk.