Twenty years ago, in July 1991, I was poised to start a job researching human rights violations in the Soviet Union. A month later, the failed coup to unseat Communist Party leader Mikhail Gorbachev precipitated rapid political changes that would lead to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 25. Watching these events, my family told me I would no longer have a job. Like many others, they assumed that the end of communism would usher in a new era of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights in the Soviet Union’s successor states. I started my new job as planned and it only took five minutes to see that those assumptions were wrong.

So is it right to kiss up to tyrants when their fortunes are up? The question may be moot when it comes to Qaddafi, but it's a decision that U.S. officials still confront every day -- not only in the Arab world, but also with regard to other brutal and undemocratic "allies," for example in Central Asia.

The US government should not move toward “business as usual” with Uzbekistan, a group of 20 human rights organizations, labor and consumer groups, trade unions, investors, and other organizations said today in a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

It's generating few headlines, but Operation Enduring Freedom -- otherwise known as the war in Afghanistan -- could soon result in less freedom for the people of Uzbekistan, if the Obama administration gets its way.