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How to Deal with America's Empire of Bases
A Modest Proposal for Garrisoned Lands
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/02-13
by Chalmers Johnson
Published on Thursday, July 2, 2009 by TomDispatch.com

The U.S. 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 27th, 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 9th Pakistani militants rammed a
truck filled with explosives into the hotel, killing 18 occupants, wounding
at least 55, 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 get-aways.

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
U.S. 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
23rd, we learned that Kyrgyzstan, the former Central Asian Soviet Republic
which, back in February 2009, announced that it was going to kick the U.S.
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 trans-ship 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 57 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 U.S. territory of Guam. In the process, however, they were forced to
shell 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 38 U.S. 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 U.S. 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."
C 2009 TomDispatch.com

Chalmers Johnson is the author of three linked books on the crises of
American imperialism and militarism. They are Blowback (2000), The Sorrows
of Empire (2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic
(Metropolitan Books, 2006). All are available in paperback from
Metropolitan Books. A retired professor of international relations from the
University of California (Berkeley and San Diego campuses) and the author
of some seventeen books primarily on the politics and economics of East
Asia, Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute. To
listen to a TomDispatch audio interview with Johnson on the Pentagon's
potential economic death spiral, click here.