The US and UK governments have been caught cavorting with a wicked, vicious dictator whose regime has killed and tortured countless thousands of its opponents. In Uzbekistan, hapless victims are boiled alive, after having their fingernails pulled, having their teeth smashed with hammers, having their limbs broken, and being raped with objects such as broken bottles. Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, has exposed the Blair government's support of human rights abuses. Unsurprisingly, since the official story holds that the UK does not support or condone torture, Blair, Straw and Co are desperate to suppress knowledge of their accessory to the crimes.

Apart from eliminating Karimov's opposition, the purpose of the torture is not to gain useful information - those who are tortured will say anything - but to make it appear as if there actually are "Islamic militants" or "terrorists" when none exist. That is the raison d'etre for Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib jail abuses, missile strikes on Pakistan, framing of alleged terrorists such as "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and the "failed bombers" of July 21, multiple shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, tanks at Heathrow, fake "ricin conspiracy theory" at Wood Green, Masonic police chiefs claiming hundreds or thousands of sleeper terrorist cells in the country, and the employing by British Intelligence of radical Muslim clerics such as Abu Hamza who are paid hundreds of pounds a week and provided with luxury cars merely to portray the required profile, concoction of audiotapes purportedly from "Osama bin Laden" or "Ayman al-Zawahiri", etc. So Karimov can claim to be supporting Bush, Blair and the Zionists, in the "war against terror". As it happens, they are responsible for about 99.9% of global terrorism.

Of course, Blair has already been exposed as a serial liar on matters such as the CIA "rendition" torture flights, WMDs and dodgy dossiers, death of Dr David Kelly, etc. One can always fool some of the people all of the time...