The Foreign Service Journal, September 2007

• Convincing yourself that your allies are good guys because they are your allies; and • Following the “Precautionary Principle”: If things change, they will probably get worse. • Protecting one’s comfortable lifestyle and social sta- tus by not criticizing local conditions. I may well enrage many readers of this magazine by saying this, but in my experience this last principle is sometimes the most powerful of all. Like many of you reading this, I have paid my dues on diplomatic lifestyle questions, having served in West Africa (twice) and Central Asia. But in Tashkent my resi- dence had a large outdoor pool, an eight-person indoor Jacuzzi and a separate pine sauna and marble Turkish bath. We also had four indoor servants. The truth is this: While it can be tough at the lower lev- els, and there can be serious strains and disruptions, Foreign Service officers do enjoy the compensation of a privileged lifestyle. They have very high social status, attend a lot of cocktail parties and banquets, are invited to many social events, have great housing and pools, and are automatically accepted to membership in the best golf or country clubs. The personal comfort level can be very high, and most of your socializing is done with the host country’s often-oligarchical elite, and with fellow diplo- mats who are unlikely to lose much sleep over human rights concerns. In contrast, the Walter Carrington ap- proach causes a degree of conflict, discomfort and social difficulty that many diplomats just do not want disturbing their sybaritic lifestyles. There, I have said it straight out, and you know damn well it is true in very many cases. If any diplomat reading this article can swear to me that they do not know a senior colleague to whom it applies, I will send them 10 dollars! Clearing a Path for Extremism On Sept. 16, 2002, I sent a cable back to London, sub- sequently published by the European Parliament as part of their report on extraordinary rendition, analyzing the problems with U.S. policy in Uzbekistan. That contem- porary analysis dovetails neatly with some of the “False Principles” outlined above. My principal criticism related to the first principle: putting short-term expediency over long-term interests. As I reported: .”.. [President Islam] Karimov is driving this resource- rich country towards economic ruin like an Abacha. And the policy of increasing repression aimed indiscriminately at pious Muslims, combined with a deepening poverty, is the most certain way to ensure continuing support for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. ... I quite understand the interest of the U.S. in strategic air bases, but I believe U.S. policy is misconceived. In the short term it may help fight terrorism, but in the medium term it may promote it.” At that time, Islamic fundamentalism was at an extremely low level in Uzbekistan. I know scores of Uzbeks, most of whom consider themselves good Muslims, and only one who doesn’t drink vodka! But Karimov was keen to portray all his opponents as linked to al-Qaida. He used his torture chambers to extract confes- sions to that effect, and the CIA not only funded much of the operation but was a major customer for the intelli- gence from the torture chambers. I knew and confirmed those facts while still ambassador. Torture was of the most brutal kind: insertion of limbs in boiling liquid, smashing of knees and elbows, rape, sodomy, electrocution, mutilation of genitalia. Hundreds of people endured such techniques every year. One evening, while I dined with an eminent dis- sident in Samarkand, his grandson was abducted by local militia from right outside the house and tortured to death. His body was dumped back on the doorstep in the early morning. I also knew that the CIA was bringing in foreign pris- oners, using a front company called Premier Executive. They were being handed over to the Uzbek security ser- vices, a practice I protested as a blatant violation of Article 3 of the U.N. Convention Against Torture. I should be plain that I did not realize at the time that Uzbekistan was a destination for the wider extraordinary rendition net- work, as recently detailed in the Council of Europe report. But I did know that our support for an increas- ingly unpopular dictatorship, where there was no outlet of any kind for free expression of political views, was driving people away from the Western alternative and clearing the path for Islamic extremism. That support was not only financial but political. In 2002 Karimov had been a guest in the White House. Throughout this period there was a veritable procession of senior U.S. civilian officials and military figures bearing similar messages, not to mention the day-to-day pro- nouncements of the U.S. ambassador. For instance, in February 2004, during his third visit to Tashkent, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at a press conference: “I brought the president the good wishes of President Bush F O C U S 44 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 7