http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090720/johnson
How to Deal with America's Empire of Bases
A Modest Proposal for Garrisoned Lands
By Chalmers Johnson
The Nation
July 2, 2009
The US Empire of Bases--at $102 billion a year already the world's costliest military enterprise--just got a good deal more expensive. As a start, on May 27, we learned that the State Department will build a new "embassy" in Islamabad, Pakistan, which at $736 million will be the second priciest ever constructed, only $4 million less, if cost overruns don't occur, than the Vatican City-sized one the Bush administration put up in Baghdad. The State Department was also reportedly planning to buy the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel (complete with pool) in Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, to use as a consulate and living quarters for its staff there.
Unfortunately for such plans, on June 9 Pakistani militants rammed a truck filled with explosives into the hotel, killing eighteen occupants, wounding at least fifty-five, and collapsing one entire wing of the structure. There has been no news since about whether the State Department is still going ahead with the purchase.
Whatever the costs turn out to be, they will not be included in our already bloated military budget, even though none of these structures is designed to be a true embassy--a place, that is, where local people come for visas and American officials represent the commercial and diplomatic interests of their country. Instead these so-called embassies will actually be walled compounds, akin to medieval fortresses, where American spies, soldiers, intelligence officials and diplomats try to keep an eye on hostile populations in a region at war. One can predict with certainty that they will house a large contingent of Marines and include roof-top helicopter pads for quick getaways.
While it may be comforting for State Department employees working in dangerous places to know that they have some physical protection, it must also be obvious to them, as well as the people in the countries where they serve, that they will now be visibly part of an in-your-face American imperial presence. We shouldn't be surprised when militants attacking the US find one of our base-like embassies, however heavily guarded, an easier target than a large military base.
And what is being done about those military bases anyway--now close to 800 of them dotted across the globe in other people's countries? Even as Congress and the Obama administration wrangle over the cost of bank bailouts, a new health plan, pollution controls and other much needed domestic expenditures, no one suggests that closing some of these unpopular, expensive imperial enclaves might be a good way to save some money.
Instead, they are evidently about to become even more expensive. On June 23, we learned that Kyrgyzstan, the former Central Asian Soviet Republic that, back in February 2009, announced that it was going to kick the US military out of Manas Air Base (used since 2001 as a staging area for the Afghan War), has been persuaded to let us stay. But here's the catch: in return for doing us that favor, the annual rent Washington pays for use of the base will more than triple from $17.4 million to $60 million, with millions more to go into promised improvements in airport facilities and other financial sweeteners. All this because the Obama administration, having committed itself to a widening war in the region, is convinced it needs this base to store and transship supplies to Afghanistan.
I suspect this development will not go unnoticed in other countries where Americans are also unpopular occupiers. For example, the Ecuadorians have told us to leave Manta Air Base by this November. Of course, they have their pride to consider, not to speak of the fact that they don't like American soldiers mucking about in Colombia and Peru. Nonetheless, they could probably use a spot more money.
And what about the Japanese who, for more than fifty-seven years, have been paying big bucks to host American bases on their soil? Recently, they reached a deal with Washington to move some American Marines from bases on Okinawa to the US territory of Guam. In the process, however, they were forced to s out not only for the cost of the Marines' removal, but also to build new facilities on Guam for their arrival. Is it possible that they will now take a cue from the government of Kyrgyzstan and just tell the Americans to get out and pay for it themselves? Or might they at least stop funding the same American military personnel who regularly rape Japanese women (at the rate of about two per month) and make life miserable for whoever lives near the thirty-eight US bases on Okinawa. This is certainly what the Okinawans have been hoping and praying for ever since we arrived in 1945.
In fact, I have a suggestion for other countries that are getting a bit weary of the American military presence on their soil: cash in now, before it's too late. Either up the ante or tell the Americans to go home. I encourage this behavior because I'm convinced that the US Empire of Bases will soon enough bankrupt our country, and so--on the analogy of a financial bubble or a pyramid scheme--if you're an investor, it's better to get your money out while you still can.
This is, of course, something that has occurred to the Chinese and other financiers of the American national debt. Only they're cashing in quietly and slowly in order not to tank the dollar while they're still holding onto such a bundle of them. Make no mistake, though: whether we're being bled rapidly or slowly, we are bleeding; and hanging onto our military empire and all the bases that go with it will ultimately spell the end of the United States as we know it.
Count on this, future generations of Americans traveling abroad decades from now won't find the landscape dotted with near-billion-dollar "embassies."
About Chalmers Johnson
Chalmers Johnson is the author of more than a dozen books, including Revolutionary Change (Stanford), Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (Holt/Owl) and, most recently, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (Metropolitan). more...
Last edited by Marcus Bryant; 07-09-2009 at 08:33 PM.
Count on this, future generations of Americans will inhabit our near-billion-dollar embassies in Baghdad and Islamabad.Count on this, future generations of Americans traveling abroad decades from now won't find the landscape dotted with near-billion-dollar "embassies."
Kabul?
Huh?
This would be the right pic, wouldn't it?
I found this claim hard to swallow on the information disclosed. Johnson kinda peters out toward the end IMO.
*Our empire is too costly, a lot of what we do isn't any of our business and it's mostly unrelated to the actual defense of the US homeland -- indeed, it consists largely of blasting exotic Asian locales. *
Oh, and people hate us for it.
Surely it is. I got mine from the Embassy's facebook page and uh, I think that's an artist's rendering, not a photo.
But what is the point? Is it simply Smedley Butler's claim for a new generation?
Actually, I think both buildings are part of the Embassy, inside the fence.
If you look in the distance to the left of the pic you posted, you see the building I posted.
I just couldn't let people think that's all there was to that embassy.
Marcus, you shouldn't complain about a US presence in as many countries as possible. All of us who have served overseas, have been ambassadors in our own way. People of different cultures get to see who we are, and it helps them to accept the USA.
While I do think we have too many bases overseas, WC makes a good point here.
In many cases, US soldiers do make good ambassadors at overseas locations.
However, stupid Marines f*** that up sometimes.
What the military needs to do is actually demote Generals and Colonels whose command is jacked up. They give them a slap on the wrist, and then let them go to another command. If soldiers continuously rape Japanese women, that's a sign that the command is doing something wrong.
I'm certain a better way can be found to spread goodwill throughout the world.
TF?
Probably.
Yeah, $100 bil a year will not do that. I think the larger point is that the bureaucracy never goes away, even if it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. A commission is needed to decide which bases to close?
But they'll come to like us when they talk to us, on the wrong side of a gun.*Our empire is too costly, a lot of what we do isn't any of our business and it's mostly unrelated to the actual defense of the US homeland -- indeed, it consists largely of blasting exotic Asian locales. *
Oh, and people hate us for it.
As ratified, expanded and normalized by the intervening 70 years including WWII, The Cold War and more recent "overseas contingency operations" (H/T, NPR), yes.
Smedley Butler's famous claim, war is a racket, has been long since ins utionalized as a pattern of buying on the part of the USG. It is the substrate that sustains the war effort.
*War is the health of the state.*
*I'm all for that if we get something good enough in exchange.*
WTF are we, the USA, supposed to get from these crummy wars that's so good, it justifies the sacrifice of blood and treasure?
WTF do we get?
I mean besides a generational war.
Has that not been the basis for most losses of liberty in this country?
We exist to serve the greater glory of the state and its leaders, while what became the state was created to serve the greater glory of the individual.
The other wars were more episodic. These have a whiff of eternity about them.
And some make a load of money off this arrangement.
I'm not worried. This (historically low) level of defense spending is sustainable.
We get democracy spread around the world. Whether or not "they" like it, they'll get their freedom.
What does it matter if it is "sustainable"? A lot of state actions can be "sustainable" fiscally. That is not sufficient.
At what level were defense expenditures prior to 1940?
*Asked and answered, Sir.*I'm not worried. This (historically low) level of defense spending is sustainable.
It leaped out at me, too.
Additionally, hasn't our government grown greatly since 1962? Should the point be that our defense spending is a certain percentage of the federal budget at all times?
Hypothetical situation: Our government has a budget of 100 million. Defense spending takes up 5% of that, making the defense budget 5 million dollars.
If, due to new requirements, our government's budget swells to 1 billion dollars, does this mean that defense spending would be acceptable at 50 million dollars?
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