Big Trouble in Little Korasuv

Remember how I was going to cancel my Uzbek holiday? Here's an update.

KORASUV, Uzbekistan — Government troops on Thursday retook an eastern Uzbek town from rebels who said they would build an Islamic state, arresting the group's leaders, amid a growing international outcry over security forces' actions against unarmed demonstrators last week.

The United States — which counts Uzbekistan's authoritarian President Islam Karimov as an ally in its war against terrorism — strengthened its condemnation of last week's violence in the eastern city of Andijan (search).

The government denies its troops fired on unarmed civilians, despite witness accounts to the contrary. Opposition groups say hundreds were killed.

To be honest, I'm skeptical of both sides. It's kind of a case of the fox guarding the chicken coop. At the same time, "opposition groups" and "witnesses" will often overinflate the actions of law enforcement groups. Don't believe me? Just look at the coverage of the Kent State "Massacre" in 1970. Now people call it a "massacre" because National Guard personnel opened fire on "demonstrators". Few people are willing to point out that those "demonstrators" were rioting and wreaking havoc for six days before the National Guard stepped in and restored order to Kent State.

I'm certainly not willing to give the Uzbek government an automatic pass on this one, but if you look back through history, you'll find that casualty figures are often overinflated ("There are a hundred thousand civilians dead in Iraq!"), and governments must often take drastic measures in order to restore order.

We'll see how this all falls. I'll keep an eye on this story as it continues to develop.