In my own cynical opinion Dick Cheney had three goals when he came into office. He wanted to pump oil in Iraq, Iran, and Libya and he didn’t want no fussy human rights activists telling him why he couldn’t. He got Kaddafi to give up a non-existent WMD program and grant the West huge oil concessions. Sanctions gone. He invaded Iraq. Sanctions gone. He keeps agitating for the third piece of the puzzle. Iran? Gone.
Okay…so we made up with Kaddafi. That’s great. But did we seriously think he would let us base our military there?
The Pentagon’s plan to create a US military command based in Africa have hit a wall of hostility from governments in the region reluctant to associate themselves with the Bush administration’s “war on terror” and fearful of American intervention…
The Libyan and Algerian governments reportedly told [principal deputy under-secretary of defence for policy] Mr Henry that they would play no part in hosting Africom. Despite recently improved relations with the US, both said they would urge their neighbours not to do so, either. Even Morocco, considered Washington’s closest north African ally, indicated it did not welcome a permanent military presence on its soil.
“We’ve got a big image problem down there,” a state department official admitted. “Public opinion is really against getting into bed with the US. They just don’t trust the US.”
I find this hilarious. I can think of no conceivable justification for American troops to have a permanent superbase on the continent of Africa (or South America, for that matter). Give us universal health care and access to higher education and then maybe we can talk again about controlling the diamond smuggling trade with the 82nd Airborne Division.
Bush actually wanted to cut a deal with Libya. Incredible.
You’re either “for us or agin us.” I gues we can put Khaddafi in the “agin us” column once again.
At this point “agin us” is pretty much limited to everyone except the 27% “last ditchers” in the GOP.
It’s a target-rich environment out there.
Whatever happened to “We do not deal with terrorists”?
I guess the statute of limitations on the 200-odd victims of Pan Am 103 has run out…
It’s significant that more and more other countries taking definitive steps to not get too cozy with the Bush/Cheney US government.
Even more telling though is that even our purported allies are now making grand claims about “restoring their own national greatness”, because they are (finally) seeing a need to establish a bulwark against the increasing aggressive, domination-oriented policies of the Bush regime. Even Gordon Brown, in his speech today, alluded to “making Britain great again” )(not his exact words but rather a paraphrase).
And so it seems that no one has done more to incite increased militarization and divisive nationalism than the Bush/Cheney gang, even among our ‘friends’.
According to Chambers Johnson’s “Sorrows of Empire” the US has 723 perment bases in foreign countries.
This week I read in the Marine Times that we just completed a new base in Israel financed by the pentagon where American troops will begin training.
Add in the bases in Iraq and now Africa and if this isn’t Empire Spreading by gunship I don’t know what is.
Evidently no one in Washington believes in the lessons of history.
Oh well, we will eventually collapse under our own weight and debt and Russia will have the last laugh.
A base in Libya makes sense to me. Cheney could use it to bomb Blue states while he cowers in Tripoly.