BushCo Is Spreading Something, But It Ain't Democracy

The Chicago Tribune had this to say recently about the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan:

In reality,most analysts agree Kazakhstan remains an authoritarian regime where opposition parties are banned without cause, independent media outlets are routinely shut down and corruption is rife throughout the government. In recent months, merely belonging to the opposition movement has become dangerous. Two prominent critics of the Kazakh government have been found shot to death since last fall. The death of one of those men, Zamanbek Nurkadilov, was ruled a suicide even though he had been shot three times, twice in the chest and once in the head.

Given that BushCo's latest justifications for the Iraq Invasion are (1) the liberation of a brutalized population from an evil dictator and (2) the spreading of democracy, one would think that we have our Kazakhstan invasion plans all drawn up and, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, we will begin bombing that country in five minutes.

Well, that isn't exactly the U.S. strategy. From Ted Rall:

Dick Cheney has been spending a lot of time in the huge Central Asian republic, so much so that its windswept steppes have become his new Secret Undisclosed Location. Mostly the Acting President hangs out in Kazakhstan's landlocked hinterlands wooing a reviled dictator, the only ruler the nation has known since being evicted by the USSR in 1991. Thanks in part to more than $50 million a year in U.S. taxpayer money and ever-soaring bundles of military aid, Cheney hopes to secure "total energy dominance" via lucrative oil pipeline deals on behalf of GOP-connected energy companies.

Cheney is also sending a terrible message to the world's most repressive regimes: the United States still cares more about oil than democracy.

The Bush Administration has unleashed a full-court press of shuttle diplomacy in an effort to keep Nursultan Nazarbayev out of the orbit of Russia and China, America's rivals in the region. On May 5 Cheney appeared in the capital city of Astana with Nazarbayev at his side, hailing Kazakhstan's supposed political and economic liberalization. Declaring the police state America's "strategic partner," the veep invited Nazarbeyev to the White House this September for an official state visit with Bush--an honor recently denied to the president of China on human rights grounds. "I think the [Kazakh] record speaks for itself," Cheney said.

My advice to the Bush Regime -- if you guys want to woo a repressive dictator in the name of oil, I guess that is your prerogative. But for God's Sake, stop claiming that you invaded Iraq to liberate a brutalized nation and to spread democracy, because it is obvious that you don't give two shits about those particular goals.

Thanks for the link, Fredrick.