Military

DATE=10/03/01

TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP

TITLE=NEW ALLIANCES

NUMBER=6-12486

BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS

TELEPHONE=619-3335

CONTENT=

INTRO: As the United States continues to build a global alliance against terrorism, newspapers in this country are beginning to express some reservations about a few of the component nations. We get a sampling now from V-O-A's _____________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.

TEXT: The traditional allies of this nation have been the Western democracies that are members of NATO, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. However, since the terrorist attacks last month, presumably hatched by Saudi Arabian dissidents and other Arabic peoples quartered in Afghanistan, this alliance is changing.

America is reaching out to the Islamic nations of Central Asia as never before, to Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, all of which border Afghanistan. These are nations with which many Americans are not familiar, mostly former parts of the Soviet Union, that have not had close ties to the United States.

In the American press these days, there are some cautions for the Bush administration about these new partners in the fight against terrorism. Take The New York Times, for instance.

VOICE: ... the new campaign against terrorism is pulling Washington ever closer to tyrants and satraps in Central Asia. Three of the least appealing leaders- - in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan - - have now become American allies against their southern neighbor Afghanistan. ... some short-term cooperation ...may [be required]...but Washington should not give these dictators license to [abuse] Muslim citizens.

The three nations are among the world's worst violators of human rights. Turkmenistan's president, Saparmurat Niyazov, has turned his nation into a shrine to his rule and permits no dissent of any kind. Uzbekistan under President Islam Karimov is only marginally more free. Tajikistan, emerging from a five-year civil war, is ruled by President Emomali Rahmonov, who has rigged elections and allowed abuses by security forces.

... There is little question that Washington needs to use bases and airspace in the three Central Asian states. But Washington should not be rewarding these nations in ways that encourage further repression.

TEXT: The views of The New York Times.

In Middle America, from Ohio's capital, The Columbus Dispatch has it doubts as well.

VOICE: The worldwide coalition the United States is putting together to fight terrorism is useful but not sweet smelling. The Bush administration is courting some very malodorous partners, including states that themselves sponsor terrorism, such as Syria and Iran. Others, such as Uzbekistan, are brutal tyrannies with terrible human-rights records.

To the extent repugnant regimes can be used to further the goal of stamping out terrorism, they should be used, but with great care. ... This means tolerating lesser evils to fight bigger ones. Right now, the bigger evil is Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants hiding out in Afghanistan with the blessing of the Taleban regime. In World War Two, the United States allied with the Soviet Union at the very time ... Josef Stalin was committing mass murders against his own people that ultimately exceeded those perpetrated by the Nazis. But at the time, Adolf Hitler was the bigger threat to the rest of the world.

TEXT: Thoughts from Middle America, and The Columbus [Ohio] Dispatch.

On the East Coast, another uneasy big city daily is The Sun in Baltimore.

VOICED: Avoiding a war against Islam is essential to the U-S national interest. But maintaining the coalition will be difficult. Several of the regimes are at cross-purposes with each other, with the United States or with their own people. The trickiest is Pakistan, whose intelligence service helped put the Taleban in power ... and may have supported Osama bin Laden.

TEXT: Summing up its position on the same topic, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch quotes a master of the past.

VOICE: As [former British Prime Minister] Benjamin Disraeli put it, there are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests. The battle against terrorism is such an interest. So is the interest of not getting on the wrong side of the world's sole economic superpower.

Secretary of State Colin Powell talks of a "new bench" by which the United States will judge its friends. The administration has already offered debt forgiveness and loan guarantees to insure Pakistan's cooperation. Last week, to lock in Russia's participation, the U-S said it would speed [Moscow's] application to join the World Trade Organization.

TEXT: Excerpts from a Saint Louis Post-Dispatch editorial.

Moving on to the anticipated conflict, the Minnesota Minneapolis Star Tribune sees it as a very different kind of war from the Gulf War.

VOICE: Afghanistan is not Iraq. This conflict is likely to be sporadic, narrowly targeted and mostly invisible to all but the combatants. British Prime Minister Tony Blair sounded the clarion call Tuesday in a final warning to the Taleban. "Surrender the terrorists," he said, "or surrender power."

TEXT: Turning to Colorado, we get this assessment of the risks of U-S military action from The Rocky Mountain News foreign affairs columnist, Holger Jensen.

VOICE: Like Afghanistan's other neighbors Central Asia is peopled by mostly Muslim tribes living in five independent republics-Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. All are Turkic except for the Tajiks, who are ethnically related to Iranians. Dominated by Russia since czarist times, the oil-rich region was conquered by the communists, regained its freedom with the breakup of the Soviet Union but still relies on Moscow for much of its trade and security.

... The United States is a big investor in Kazakhstan's oil and gas industry and supplies military aid to other Central Asian republics. But Russia and China are more actively involved ...[there, supporting] ...military action against Muslim insurgents. ...American entry into that conflict, no matter how limited, is bound to be seen as an attempt to overthrow the Afghan regime, even if Washington says it's only going after terrorists sheltered by the Taleban rather than the Taleban itself.

TEXT: On that cautionary note from Denver's Rocky Mountain News, we conclude this sampling of comment on America's newly forming Central Asian alliance.

NEB/ANG/RH