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Article: Collateral victory: America's new imperial presence in Central Asia may be a preview of what's to come in Iraq. The picture is not wholly encouraging.(Sheraly Akbotoev)
- Article from:
- The Washington Monthly
- Article date:
- November 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Washington Monthly Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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TO BE HONEST, SHERALY AKBOTOEV does not look like a homicidal fanatic. I was not sure what to expect as I waited, on a sweltering summer's day, in a visitors' room of the special prison in the secret-police headquarters in Bishkek, the capital of the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan. Then the barred door swung open and they led him in, a man in his early 40s, clean-shaven, affable, and dressed in a white football jersey with light blue numbers. In appearance, he was about as far as you could get from the Taliban prisoners--bearded, emaciated, obsessively fumbling their prayer beads--whom I had interviewed in a Northern Alliance jail in Afghanistan last fall. And yet, ...