Word: uzbekistan
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...silver lining to Sept. 11” is that “we can no longer afford to be so introspective as a nation.” She commented that, before these events, Americans tended to “care much less about what was happening in Uzbekistan than about the latest dieting plan. But people are risking their lives on a daily basis to bring us the news, the least we can do is read...
Termez is a frontier town, rough and desolate. It exists for no other reason than it is the end of the road, a former Soviet military outpost on the southern edge of Uzbekistan with a few cotton farms scattered over the surrounding dust-blown desert. When Soviet troops left Afghanistan in 1989 after a demoralizing 10-year war, the last convoy crossed the Friendship Bridge over the Amu Darya river less than a kilometer to the south. In a surreal end to a ghastly invasion and failed occupation that cost 15,000 Soviet lives, the bedraggled column left behind...
...These days, Uzbekistan is an independent country, though still essentially a one-party state. Its strongman President Islam Karimov reluctantly signed a military cooperation agreement with Moscow last year but refuses to allow Russian troops on Uzbek territory. Now, in a precarious balancing act, it has embraced a new ally: late last week the U.S. and Uzbekistan announced they had signed an agreement giving the U.S. "extended" use of Khanabad, the biggest air base in Central Asia and once the main staging post for the Soviet Union's push into Afghanistan...
...permanent military toehold in Central Asia, adding a new player to the centuries old Great Game. Karimov said the agreement covered "mutual responsibilities and guarantees." The Americans wouldn't go that far, saying they cannot give guarantees; they can only consult. But Karimov and his countrymen want assurances that Uzbekistan, the only country in Central Asia to have turned its back on the Russians to embrace the Americans, will not be abandoned when the "war on terrorism" changes fronts. Despite the Bush Administration's aversion to nation-building, the Uzbeks are hoping for eventual U.S. economic assistance and investment...
...debilitating 10% per month and the average annual wage is less than $100; skilled professionals like doctors scrape by on $15 a month. Now Uzbeks have reason to be increasingly worried: three days after the U.S. began its strikes on Afghanistan, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Tahir Yuldash, announced that his fighters and the Taliban would launch a jihad against the "puppet government" of Uzbekistan. Says one Uzbek businessman: "Something had to be done about terrorism in Afghanistan. It is important for our security. But we can't do it alone. Now we have the United States...