Obsolete

Uzbekistan kicks US out of military base:

Uzbekistan has given the US six months to close its military base there, in its first move to sever relations with its former sponsor.

The air base near the southern town of Khanabad, known as K2, was opened weeks after the September 11 attacks to provide vital logistical support for Operation Enduring Freedom in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Analysts have said that Uzbekistan agreed to the base, the first Pentagon presence in what is a former Soviet stronghold of central Asia, because of a large US aid package and Washington's silence about the country's appalling human rights record.

The US presence in Uzbekistan has been under intense moral scrutiny after the massacre by Uzbek troops of hundreds of civilians in the southern city of Andijan in May.

The White House was at first muted in its criticism of the massacre, but the state department has grown increasingly vocal in condemning the attack and calling for an independent investigation.

The United States still hasn't realised what it's doing in the former Soviet republics. While Bush paints America as the giver and bringer of democracy to the Middle East and elsewhere, it's ignoring the tyrants that it's propping up for small favours like using air bases. Miniscule amounts of aid are given, then when an outrage like a massacre happens and the US has to say something so that it doesn't look incredibly hypocritical, the country realises it's better off in the hands of the see no evil hear no evil of the East, mainly China (Russia also has a similar if not entirely the same approach). Robert Mugabe has already seen the effectiveness of this. It's better to be eat from the same plate from those similar to yourself than to get crumbs from the plate of those who demand change, however small.