Some of the best foreign affairs investigative reporting of the moment is to be found in “Washington Babylon,” Ken Silverstein’s online-only column for Harper’s. A veteran of the LA Times and AP, Silverstein pays attention not only to the skullduggery that underlies most official stories, but the construction of those official stories in the press, as well. That process often involves “religion,” as detailed in Silverstein’s recent report on the “Professor of Repression,” a Johns Hopkins scholar who helps the brutal regime of Uzbekistan tell Washington what it wants to hear: That Uzbekistan’s murderous approach to an internal dissent, including last year’s government massacre of civilians protesting economic conditions, is necessary to prevent an Islamist regime.