Tiananmen Square, Redux?

It's coming from a hole in the air
From those nights in Tiananmen Square

Leonard Cohen's epic song about democracy rings in our ears as we read reports of the hundreds being mowed down by Uzbek troops in Andijan.

Uzbekistan, lest we forget, is a place where people are boiled to death by the government. It is also an "ally" in the civilized world's war on terror.

Because we admire America too much and strongly support the purpose and the prosecution of its war on terror (including the war in Iraq), our views here will likely surprise some readers.

We abhor regimes like Islam Karimov's in Uzbekistan. His murdering hundreds of his own people is no more acceptable than similar 1989 outrage by Chinese tyrants. As to why he is an ally -- not a pariah -- and why America "renders" terrorism suspects so his cruel regime could interrogate them (via torture) defies comprehension. [On this, our view is that torture is evil, but in extreme cases necessary (e.g., to get information about imminent mass-casualty attacks) -- in such cases, however, a moral nation has the spine to handle the evil itself, rather than pretend to be squeaky-clean, then hypocritically "rendering" men to tyrannies who'll boil them to death. See also, Reuel Marc Gerecht opposing rendition. But, we digress.]

US is urging restraint on the Uzbek government and the protesters, instead of supporting a tyranny's overthrow -- as in Ukraine & Georgia. The tyrant, Islam Karimov, is deemed "valuable" since he represents a "secular" government suppressing "Islamist" currents in his country. That may be, but are we now to sanction murder of civilians just so that presumed "Islamists" don't take power? Isn't this the same ruse that the despicable General Musharraf has used to smother democracy in Pakistan?

Frankly, this situation is so hypocritical that even neo-conservatives like this blogger, who understand the civillizational threat from Islamist terror, are repulsed.