…People in US cities would be outraged if another country garrisoned its troops close by with all the resulting fallout: unacceptable noise, pollution, environmental destruction, appropriation of valued public real estate along with drunken soldiers on the loose violating laws, causing damage and raping local women. Not the kinds of neighbors we choose, especially when they’re mostly unaccountable for their actions…
People in US cities would be outraged if another country garrisoned its troops close by with all the resulting fallout: unacceptable noise, pollution, environmental destruction, appropriation of valued public real estate along with drunken soldiers on the loose violating laws, causing damage and raping local women. Not the kinds of neighbors we choose, especially when they’re mostly unaccountable for their actions.
We don’t generally give other nations basing rights here. But the Pentagon practically demands other countries allow us the right to put our troops on choice parts of their real estate around the world. That’s real heavy-handed imperial arrogance mindful of an earlier time when imperialism could be measured by an empire’s colony count. Military outposts are our version set up to operate by our own rules when we show up. Locals have no say and neither does the host country once a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) is finalized that gives the US “guest” freedom from host country laws and restraints governing civilian life and exemption from any inconvenient environmental cleanup obligations. That subject is covered in the next section.
Only one superpower remained after the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, and the Russians never posed a serious challenge before it did. All along we greatly outclassed and outgunned them, and Moscow only wanted a standoff if it came to that. During the Cold War, we had many military outposts around the world supposedly aimed at them, but how do we justify them now. They’re not for defense. They’re for offense in contrast to home-based ones to defend the nation.
Chalmers Johnson, in his book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, reviews the known number of US bases in other countries by size and branch of service. According to the Department of Defense’s Base Structure Report through 2005, the official total of all sizes is 737, but so many were built in recent years, Johnson believes the actual number exceeds 1000 and is rising. Unlisted ones includes dozens in Iraq, 106 garrisons in Afghanistan, the gigantic Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo built after the Yugoslav war in 1999, and others in Eastern Europe, Israel, Qatar and other Gulf states plus ongoing negotiations all the time to build new bases in new locations in new and currently “occupied” countries.
It takes a lot of resources maintaining an operation this sized. Just the facilities and staff alone make the cost truly staggering. Included are the number of military, civil service and locally hired personnel, facilities, acreage, weaponry and munitions (including thousands of nuclear weapons) and everything else needed to keep a worldwide operation this size functioning. And this only covers what’s open to the public and Congress excluding what the Pentagon and host countries keep secret. There’s plenty of that including information about bases the US uses to eavesdrop on global communications or our nuclear deployments violating treaty obligations. The Pentagon keeps much of this hidden deploring any oversight as part of its culture of secrecy concealing from Congress and our NATO allies the true extent of our strength, breath and intentions.
Once Donald Rumsfeld got to the Pentagon he fit right in and served there once before under Gerald Ford. He didn’t hide how he wanted to restructure the military to make it lighter, more agile and high tech but no less secret. The result was Department of Defense’s Global Posture Review first mentioned by George Bush in November, 2003. It divides military installations into three types:
— (1) Main Operating Bases (MOBs) having permanently stationed combat forces, extensive infrastructure, command and control headquarters and extensive accommodations for families including hospitals, schools and recreational facilities. The Pentagon calls these bases “little Americas.”
— (2) Forward Operation Sites (FOSs) that are major installations smaller than MOBs and over which the Pentagon tries maintaining a low profile. They exclude families, and troop rotations in and out are for six months, not three years as at MOBs.
— (3) Cooperative Security Locations (CSLs) – they’re the smallest, most austere and are called “lily pads” to cover the entire planet’s “arc of instability” that could include countries earmarked for future military action. Preparation here includes prepositioned weapons and munitions.
The new global repositioning plan comes with a huge price tag. The Overseas Basing Commission estimates it at $20 billion and would be much higher but for the Pentagon’s standard practice getting host countries to pay their share of the tab allowing us basing rights on their territory. It’s called “burden sharing” or our notion of a country we occupy helping pay the cost of deterring potential common enemies. At a time when only US militarism poses a threat to world peace, one day countries like Germany, Japan, South Korea, Spain and others no longer will tolerate our garrisoning troops on their soil. Ecuador under its new president, Raphael Correa, already served notice his country won’t renew the US base lease in Manta when it expires in 2009 unless Washington allows his country comparable basing rights in Miami that’s impossible. Other countries may follow suit just like the East Europeans kicked out the Soviets after their nations broke away in 1991.
Today the Middle East commands center stage with the Pentagon building major military installations in Iraq similar to the permanent kind in Germany and Japan. Iraq is key to US imperial plans because of its vast and easily accessible oil reserves but for a covert reason as well. Johnson believes it’s part of our “empire building” – to shift major Saudi bases to the country making it a “permanent Pentagon outpost” to control the area’s “arc of instability” and region’s oil reserves that comprise 60% or more of the world’s proven total.
Add together all Muslim nations everywhere and their combined known oil reserves are between two-thirds to three-quarters of total world supply. If we control it all, it gives Washington enormous veto power over all nations wanting accessing to the vital juice economies run on. And if we keep demonizing Muslims as enemies and people believe it, it’s easy justifying our state-sponsored terror wars on them for all the wrong reasons we say are the right ones.
Headquarters for what’s planned in the Middle East are now on four or more permanent Iraq “super-bases” with possible others to come. Many billions of dollars went into them, and they’re anchor fixtures in the country along with 100 or more others ranging from mega to micro showing the extent of our digging in for the long haul in a country and region we’re not planning to leave in a hurry.
It also shows in the kind of embassy we’re building inside the four square mile Green Zone in central Baghdad. Critics call it “Fortress Baghdad” because it’s to be the largest US embassy in the world by far, encircled by 15-foot thick concrete walls and rings of concertina wire along with protective surface-to-air missiles. Large numbers of private-sector bodyguards and US military guard its vast facilities, there’s modern infrastructure comparable to any large US city with all the comforts and luxuries of home, Saddam’s private swimming pool is for GIs and others to frolic in, hometown comfort food abounds, and staff and officials are planned to number around 1000. It’s larger than Vatican City, six times the size of the UN New York compound, and has become a hated symbol of imperial occupation, death and destruction it caused, and the oppressive dominance Iraqis are committed to end.
Iraqi history shows an intolerance to occupation, and Iraqis are convinced they’ll maintain tradition proving again that notions of permanency are in the eyes of the beholder and their end may come sooner than planned. Our super-facilities may end up just like their mega-predecessors in Danang, Cam Rahn Bay and the Saigon embassy housing the last remnants of US presence helicoptered off its rooftop in defeat and humiliation. We left them and much more behind when the Vietmanese kicked us out, even though we never go anywhere planning to leave in a hurry if ever.
by Stephen Lendman [send him email], who lives in Chicago, and maintains a blog at http://sjlendman.blogspot.com Stephen is a Populist Party featured columnist.
