Troops Never Leave!
People are discussing if it is a good thing to have permanents bases in Iraq. The question on their minds is, should we build one? We already have twenty-three bases there, along the oil pipeline. They are as close to permanent as possible. All they need to do is change the runways from the metal surface to concrete. Not too hard to do. But, now they are talking about a few really big bases, with all the bling.
This is just another one of the many lies which this Administration is telling. Why are we even discussing this? A discussion means that the outcome can be changed. This will not. It is not something we can have any role in deciding It has already been decided, even before the war started. What country have we ever sent troops, where we have won the war, where we have not built bases? Where we have ever withdrawn our troops? The United States has over 200,000 troops stationed in 144 countries and territories.
A month or so after the start of the war, Donald Rumsfeld began denying plans to establish enduring bases in Iraq. “I have never, that I can recall, heard the subject of a permanent base in Iraq discussed in any meeting. The likelihood of it seems to me to be so low that it does not surprise me that it’s never been discussed in my presence, to my knowledge,” he said in April, 2003. On February 17, 2005, Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “I can assure you that we have no intention at the present time of putting permanent bases in Iraq” and, as late as December, 2005, he was still denying the existence of such plans. “At the moment, there are no plans for long-term bases in the country,” he said, adding, “It is a subject that has not even been discussed with the Iraqi government.”
It is easier to count the countries in which we don’t have troops. Our Government’s stated reason for this, that by having our troops deployed all over the world, we are safer. If you believe that, you had better read Project for the New American Century. It is all about power!
In 2000, the Project for a New American Century published “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” which called for the establishment of permanent military bases in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Contributors to PNAC’s report included Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, I. Lewis Libby and other influential members of the Bush administration. Five years later, Sen. Gary Hart began asking if PNAC’s base dreams were coming true. “Are we, or are we not, building permanent military bases in Iraq?,” he asked, adding, “If the goal of the Project for a New American Century, as it thereafter became the Bush administration, was to overthrow Saddam Hussein, install a friendly government in Baghdad, set up a permanent political and military presence in Iraq, and dominate the behavior of the region (including securing oil supplies), then you build permanent bases for some kind of permanent American military presence. If the goal was to spread democracy and freedom, then you don’t.”
Mr. Bush and his Cabal lied to us and the world, when they said we would not be there “one day more than we are needed”. We seem to believe that we are needed. Not by the country where we go militarily, but for our own needs.
In 2002, George Bush’s “National Security Strategy of the United States,” declared that “The United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia, as well as temporary access arrangements for the long-distance deployment of U.S. troops.” Historian Joseph Gerson later explained that “The Bush administration sees Iraq as an unsinkable aircraft carrier for its troops and bases for years to come.”
Reminds those who study history of the Roman Empire.
“The principal method by which Rome established her political supremacy in her world,” wrote historian Arnold Toynbee in his America and the World Revolution (1962), was by taking her weaker neighbors under her wing and protecting them against her and their stronger neighbors. Rome’s relation with these protégées of hers was a treaty relation. Juridically they retained their previous status of sovereign independence. The most that Rome asked of them in terms of territory was the cessation, here and there, of a patch of ground for the plantation of a Roman fortress to provide for the common security of Rome’s allies and Rome herself”.
“At least, this is the way Rome started out. But as time passed, “the vast territories of Rome’s one-time allies,” originally secured by this system of Roman military bases, “became just as much a part of the Roman Empire as the less extensive territories of Rome’s one time enemies which Rome had deliberately and overtly annexed” (pp. 105-106)”.
Have we become the new Roman Empire? Like all empires, the United States has been extremely reluctant to relinquish any base once acquired. Bases obtained in one war are seen as forward deployment positions for some future war, often involving an entirely new enemy.
“The Subcommittee on Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, issued a report in December 21, 1970 which stated: “Once an American overseas base is established it takes on a life of its own. Original missions may become outdated but new missions are developed, not only with the intention of keeping the facility going, but often to actually enlarge it. Within the government departments most directly concerned—State and Defense—we found little initiative to reduce or eliminate any of these overseas facilities” (pp. 19-20). In the 1950s and 1960s the United States articulated a specific doctrine of “strategic denial” that argued that no withdrawal should be made from any base that could potentially be acquired thereafter by the Soviet Union. The majority of U.S. bases were justified as “ringing” and “containing” Communism. Yet, upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States sought to retain its entire basing system on the grounds that this was necessary for the global projection of its power and the protection of U.S. interests abroad”.
>”Although some argue that ethnic tensions unleashed after the end of the Cold War have made the world less stable, statistical indicators of stability show otherwise. In the post-Cold War period, the number of armed conflicts has declined by more than half — from 55 in 1992 to 24 in 1997. In addition, most conflicts now occur within states, not between them. Of the 101 conflicts occurring from 1989 to 1996, 95 involved combatants within a state and only six took place between states. A threat to U.S. security is more apt to arise from cross-border aggression than from civil strife.
Another sign of increasing international stability is the substantial reduction in worldwide military expenditures after the Cold War. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that such expenditures have dropped by one third: from $1.1 trillion in the late 1980s to $740 billion in 1997. There has also been a drastic reduction in international arms sales: from 1986 to 1995, they plummeted 55 percent. Furthermore, the United States and its allies have increased their control over the worldwide arms market during the same period. The U.S. share of the market increased from 22 percent to 49 percent and NATO’s share increased from 44 percent to 78 percent. The U.S. and NATO shares increased as a result of greatly diminished subsidized sales of Russian weapons to Third World outlaw states such as Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba and North Korea.
In short, the absence of one superpower funneling arms and assistance to stir up opposition groups in client states of its rival superpower has led to a worldwide decline in conflicts, military expenditures and arms sales.{Source}
The official stance of the United States toward these military bases after the World War II was that they should be retained to whatever extent possible, and further bases should be acquired. Even though our Founding Fathers were completely against this. Not only were we not to have a standing army, we were to keep out of foreign lands, foreign adventures, intrigue and entanglement. By doing so, we would be able to take care of the people’s business at home. We would all live better lives. We would not be using over 52% of our budget to maintain this vast military presence around the world.
But the military complex, which President Eisenhower warned us about, has vast influence in Washington D. C.. Not only with their the money they can give to Senator’s and Congressmen, but with the jobs they give our public servants once they have left office. These people go from working for either the Military Complex or Oil Companies, to public service, back to one of these. I think we need a law that they can not have worked for any of these industries, for ten years before and ten years after they are in office. No one should use their service to our Government as a stepping stone to a better job. It should be a sacrifice.
Though the United States wants no profit or selfish advantage out of this war, we are going to maintain the military bases necessary for the complete protection of our interests and of world peace. Bases which our military experts deem to be essential for our protection we will acquire. We will acquire them by arrangements consistent with the United Nations Charter.
President Harry Truman
August 7, 1945.
At the Potsdam Conference
According to a December 21, 1970 report issued by the Subcommittee on Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, “Once an American overseas base is established it takes on a life of its own. Original missions may become outdated but new missions are developed, not only with the intention of keeping the facility going, but often to actually enlarge it. Within the government departments most directly concerned—State and Defense—we found little initiative to reduce or eliminate any of these overseas facilities” (pp. 19-20). In the 1950s and 1960s the United States articulated a specific doctrine of “strategic denial” that argued that no withdrawal should be made from any base that could potentially be acquired thereafter by the Soviet Union. The majority of U.S. bases were justified as “ringing” and “containing” Communism. Yet, upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States sought to retain its entire basing system on the grounds that this was necessary for the global projection of its power and the protection of U.S. interests abroad.
In April, 2003, in an article entitled “Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Four Key Bases in Iraq,” New York Times reporters Thom Shanker and Eric Schmidt reported that “The United States is planning a long-term military relationship with the emerging government of Iraq, one that would grant the Pentagon access to military bases and project American influence into the heart of the unsettled region. . . ” Nearly three years later, William Arkin reported that the Pentagon “has developed a ten-year plan for ‘deep storage’ of munitions and equipment in at least six countries in the Middle East and Central Asia to prepare for regional war contingencies,” and that by 2016, “the tonnage of air munitions stored at sites outside Iraq will double from current levels.”
Does this sound like we have any plans of ever getting out of Iraq? We will need many permanent bases for all of this.
Bring our troops home. Not only from Iraq, but from the world. We need the money spent on this world domination here at home. What could we accomplish if we stopped this insanity? Solve our energy dependence? Save our environment? Health care for all Americans? Research into new developments which would bring us back into the lead in the world. Not by military force, but by having better ideas, products and better employment, with better pay for all Americans.
It is time we concentrate on America! Let the rest of the world solve it’s own problems.
Bring our troops home.
