How American power girds the globe with a ring of steel

New bases take Pentagon's armed presence far and wide

Whenever America goes to war, the spoils of victory invariably include more US military bases overseas.
Having vanquished Saddam Hussein, the Pentagon is planning to establish four US bases in Iraq, according to reports in Washington yesterday.

The Iraqi deployment plans fall into the century-old pattern of US foreign bases being built on the back of military victory. They are also the latest episode in an extraordinary surge in America's projection of military muscle since September 11.

The past two years have seen a rapid expansion of American deployments across thousands of miles stretching from the Balkans to the Chinese border and taking in the Caucasus, central Asia, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent.

From Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, a result of the 1999 Nato campaign, to the Bishkek airbase in Kyrgyzstan, appro priated for the Afghanistan war, the Americans are establishing an armed presence in places they have never been before.

Thirteen new bases in nine countries ringing Afghanistan were rapidly established as Russia's underbelly in central Asia became an American theatre for the first time.

"In every meaningful sense, the reach and spread of the US bases is growing very strongly, alarmingly from the point of view of the rest of the world," said Marcus Corbin, a security analyst at the Centre for Defence Information thinktank in Washington

Further plans are in the pipeline to move US assets out of Germany, where they have been since 1945, into the new Nato countries of eastern Europe, notably Poland as well as Romania and Bulgaria on the Black sea, prized for their proximity to Turkey and the Middle East.

Earlier this month, the top US air force officer in Europe, General Gregory Martin, was in Bulgaria and Romania, sizing up real estate options for the American move into the Balkans.

"All of those places now represent opportunities for us to create relationships that some day will allow us the access we need," Gen Martin told the Stars and Stripes US military newspaper.

At Poznan in western Poland, millions of dollars are being spent on repairing runways, improving infrastructure and building roads at the Krzesiny air base, in the expectation that Uncle Sam is moving in there, too.

"The shift is to small, mobile forces at bases in Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, with the number of bases in Germany being reduced substantially," said Phil Mitchell, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The biggest shock of the Iraq war for the Pentagon, said Mr Corbin, was not being able to use Turkey as a launchpad.

"The big thing to come out of Iraq is that the US will redouble its efforts to diversify its assets and potential."

Barred from exploiting Turkey, the US military used the Romanian air base near Constanta on the Black sea to ferry servicemen and women and equipment into northern Iraq, while 400 US troops commandeered the Burgas airport down the Black sea coast in Bulgaria for refuelling operations.

The new bases in central Asia, the Middle East, and the Balkans mean that the US military now girds the globe as no power has done before, from the frozen wastes of Greenland to the deserts of southern Afghanistan.

But more can also mean less. At the close of the cold war, America was sustaining more than 1 million of its citizens abroad in the service of the military, including some 400,000 dependents.

Under the strategic revolution being fashioned by the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and his hawks at the Pentagon, the number of US military personnel deployed overseas is about 60% of 10 years ago, at about 1,000 military bases.

Strategic airlift, technological advances, and the shift in military doctrine from deterrence to pre-emption and rapid reaction entail a leaner and meaner fighting machine.

Under Mr Rumsfeld, said Mr Corbin, "you have four or five people who have hijacked the US government and whose ambition cannot be understated. Their plan is for the US to control events in many important regions of the world."

The message of the Rumsfeld doctrine on bases is as much political as military. The policy is to cultivate "relationships" with the host countries, obtain secret basing agree ments, reconnoitre assets, and then use them, not necessarily immediately and not so much as permanent US bases, but as and when the Americans see fit, in their determination to be able to go anywhere any time they want.

"Their function may be more political than actually military, they send a message to everyone," the administration hawk and deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, told the New York Times last year.

It is a policy that involves risks, with the bases becoming a target for terrorists. The Pentagon is spending billions of dollars on 45,000 guards and security personnel to police US deployments abroad. And there is perhaps another danger.

"There's a risk of not knowing your limits, of over-extending yourself," cautions Mark Vicenzino, a Washington strategic policy analyst. "That's the lesson of history, the lesson of empire."

obvious enough to make any kind of comments ha?

So where did you copy and paste this from?

it would be much harder for us to institue the NWO, now wouldn't it? Geez...

Originally posted by Gazrok
it would be much harder for us to institue the NWO, now wouldn't it? Geez...

*grabbing fiber wire*

Hey Gazrok, ....... Gazrok!, come over here I want to talk to you.

MM, I was thinking the same thing! Could we curb the 'copy-n-pasting' around here. This is a discussion forum (which implies discussion).

Cold Anger: what's the point of your post? Where's the source? Would this be more appropriate for the the Xgate system or do you intend to eventually discuss your 'copy-n-paste'?

Here are some simple talking points you can 'copy-n-paste':
- what's good about having all these bases?
- What's bad?
- Are they worth the cost?
- Why do we have bases where we do? (and where are they all anyway)
- How do the host countries feel about them? Have any they asked us to leave?

Thanks Bob. Now, I'd like to do some discussing.

The thing about having bases around the world is we don't use them for the controlling of the host nations and we are not able to use them for jumping points to hit other nations if the host nation disagrees. Turkey is a prime example of this.

Put things in perspective when you read and jump. Even if we could use bases at our discression, we still can't afford to stomp every nation that may justly deserve it. In case you haven't noticed, we do not plunder the wealth of the nation we beat. We leave it for the people of that nation. Which is a sad thing to me as I'd like to have my beer inheritance from WWII!

"Hey Gazrok, ....... Gazrok!, come over here I want to talk to you."



Seriously though...pretty much see TC's answer, and you've got my thoughts on it as well....

"All of those places now represent opportunities for us to create relationships that some day will allow us the access we need," Gen Martin told the Stars and Stripes US military newspaper.


Under Mr Rumsfeld, said Mr Corbin, "you have four or five people who have hijacked the US government and whose ambition cannot be understated. Their plan is for the US to control events in many important regions of the world."


"There's a risk of not knowing your limits, of over-extending yourself," cautions Mark Vicenzino, a Washington strategic policy analyst. "That's the lesson of history, the lesson of empire."





Here are some simple talking points you can 'copy-n-paste':
- what's good about having all these bases?
- What's bad?
- Are they worth the cost?
- Why do we have bases where we do? (and where are they all anyway)
- How do the host countries feel about them? Have any they asked us to leave?


I can tell u:

1-Is good for who? Let me tell u something, this is NOT GOOD! I don�t care how ppl thinks about live in a nice place, with peaceful people kindly people nice system,
nice job, no crime, rationality, understanding, peace, respect... and then believe that those bases are for good....

That cannnot be done with bombs, military, police guns, biological weapons or WMD, i don�t care, IT CANNOT BE DONE!!!!!!

2-What is bad? Well let me try to explain, when u have forces all over the world, what are the rest of the countries gonna think about your policy? Doesn�t have the other country their own forces police and military?

3-Worth their cost, well of course not!, at least not now...
,later it will be, now is just expenses that we all pay...

4-Because of the NWO

5-Countries is a big word to use, i�ll separate normal people, and elitists in 2 groups, then inside normal people, we have 3 kinds, those who will try to seek the positive way of it, and those who will try seek for the negative way, or those who will analyze the real reason of it...

After that check this out, (btw don�t think that UN or NATO are against americans or that their citizens like them, they are the same crap as in the top of the US goverment)


SPECIALLY FOR MR.TC !

"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY." Hermann Goering, President of the Reichstag, Nazi Party, and Luftwaffe Commander in Chief


**********
From TC:
Put things in perspective when you read and jump. Even if we could use bases at our discression, we still can't afford to stomp every nation that may justly deserve it. In case you haven't noticed, we do not plunder the wealth of the nation we beat. We leave it for the people of that nation. Which is a sad thing to me as I'd like to have my beer inheritance from WWII!


U can see the idea u have of america: "The liberator",
About plunder??? jajajajaj, u are the richest nation in the world,
and u attack countries in the 3rd world,(Asia, africa, south america)
it would be too nasty and coward to plunder them,
they are the lowest and u are the highest... But anyway, u Do Plunder, if not try
to think from which country are always the companies that have to rebuild the destroyed country "liberated by you"? American companies of course, The iraqi oil
is well defended, and now it is being disscussed what to do with it...
Well even u help to plunder, the most imporant museum in the world, with 5 months or warning to the CIA FBI ETC, and it has been stolen with marines all around it...
I am getting sick of hypocrisy serious:

The earth gains 9000 People an hour...
That is 921 672 000 more people by 2012...
Or one more India.
There is no place anymore for people who don�t want to share.
How can we let everyone know that, quickly without a gun?
United States Consumption Resources of Worlds�s Natural Resources = 40%
Military budget 2002 = $318.000.000.000

www.unobserver.com...

That is the result from weapons, use violence in the name of "justice"....
Look at the pictures, and tell me then what...

[Edited on 9-5-2003 by CoLD aNGeR]