Political Quotes

“this Defense bill has many good aspects, but I believe that it does contain at least one soft spot that undermines the high level of security that our families demand. The safety of our families is just too important to be dependent on the word of a terrorist. Unfortunately, that is what this administration has done in a little known corner of the world called Uzbekistan. In a desperate search for allies against terrorism, the administration has actually teamed up with the chief terrorist in that far away land, its President Islam Karimov. Before the Bush administration befriended him, Mr. Karimov was known for his rather peculiar habit of boiling alive some of the local opponents to his police state. In what President Bush's own State Department described in February as an atmosphere of repression, where torture was common, other favored methods of dealing with differing opinion in Uzbekistan includes suffocation, electric shock, rape, sexual abuse. However, beating, according to the State Department, is the most commonly reported method of torture. Another tactic that perhaps Mr. Karimov learned through his earlier tenure on the Soviet Politburo is the practice of having local political and human rights activists declared insane to stop their activities. A woman in Tashkent, for example, was committed to a psychiatric hospital, apparently in part for asking that her neighbors' taxes be reduced.…”