A cargo plane at the US air base in southern Uzbekistan. Photograph: Photo/Kadyr Toktogulov/AP
Bob Crompton writes:
You can imagine the classified ad: "To let: one airbase, within easy striking distance of the Hindu Kush. Would suit global superpower with relaxed stance on human rights."
But just what will Uzbekistan do with the giant K2 airbase if its sees though its threat to evict the US after American officials dared to broach the human rights record of Islam Karimov, one of central Asia's more infamously despotic leaders?
The American air force has been given just six months to take off from the compound's runways for good. The base was opened weeks after the September 11 attacks to provide logistical support for Operation Enduring Freedom in neighbouring Afghanistan.
For the US, Enduring Freedom had meant enduring Mr Karimov, the Uzbek president, who has, among other things, been accused of having dissidents boiled alive.
The Pentagon has paid $15m to lease K2 since 2001 as part of a wider network of support for the Karimov government, which earlier this year was accused of murdering hundreds of protesters in the Uzbek city of Andijan. The Andijan incident finally elicited censure from the US state department, which had previously managed to keep schtum - hence the notice to vacate.
Meanwhile, as the Financial Times reported, if Washington has run into difficulty controlling Mr Karimov, one of its key allies, it can, at least, seek solace in having demonstrated a vice-like grip over foreign policy semantics.
White House hawks, led by Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, look to have recast the "global war on terror" as "a global struggle against violent extremism".
"The shifting language is one of the most public changes in the administration's strategy to battle Al Qaeda and its affiliates, and it tracks closely with Mr Bush's recent speeches emphasizing freedom, democracy and the worldwide clash of ideas," explained the International Herald Tribune.
Bloggers demur. "We all know that a good slogan means a lot more than actual truth these days," Ghost Media says.
"A war is where people die," says cubiclesarekillingus. "A struggle is what Bush has every time he rides his bike or eats a pretzel."
