Uzbekistan: simply laughable

If ever we needed a graphic illustration of the way in which the war on terror can be used to provide a blank cheque for atrocity and oppression, now we have one: the Karimov regime has claimed that "only terrorists were liquidated by government forces" last week. But the accounts of eyewitnesses, not to mention the bodies of civilian demonstrators who have been killed execution-style, show that this claim is simply laughable. What next? They all committed suicide by shooting themselves in the back of the head?