If the Iraq war is over and the Afghan war is winding down,
[ … leaving millions of lives ruined and destroyed – and leaving mercenaries and local proxies in place ]
– then what is prompting the remorseless expansion of the Pentagon’s vast network of overseas military bases?
Veteran foreign affairs journalist Eric Walberg says the bases
are the modern version of colonies.
.
The U.S. has a whopping 1,100 of them in 63 countries
so they’re the preferred method by which the Pentagon seeks to dominate the planet.
That’s why President George W. Bush could tell an Abu Dahbi audience on Jan. 13, 2008,
“The United States has no desire for territory.”
It doesn’t need any more.
The Pentagon’s real estate holdings include 52,000 buildings on gazillions of acres on bases around the world.
It already is in a position to intimidate or attack virtually every country with overwhelming firepower,
including nuclear weapons.
Since 9/11 alone,
the Pentagon has put up new military bases
in Poland,
Lithuania,
Hungary,
Bulgaria,
Romania,
Kosovo,
Afghanistan,
Iraq,
Israel,
Kyrgyzstan,
Qatar
and Bahrain.
Many others, however,
remain secret even though area residents are only too familiar with them and the hazards they bring,
Walberg reports in his book “Postmodern Imperialism”(Clarity Press).
After 67 years since the end of World war II,
the U.S. still operates 268 bases in Germany,
124 in Japan,
and – 60 years after the end of the Korean War – 87 bases in South Korea.
“The U.S. military is keen on establishing military bases in every nation,
and new NATO members in Eastern Europe top the list,” writes Lt. Col. Carlton Myer,
a former U.S. Marine Corps officer who has made a study of the issue for his G2mil.com web site.
He notes that the Czech Republic,
recalling the unwanted Soviet presence,
rejected a strong push during the Bush administration to build a base on their soil.
“Attempts to establish a base in Poland are ongoing,
using the bogus ‘missile defense’ sales strategy.
That ruse was recently tried on the new NATO nation of Romania.
It agreed to an American ‘missile defense’ base
and the U.S. military has begun construction of a new permanent military base at Deveselu airbase,
near Caracal, Romania.”
.
