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Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Two Words You Can't Say on Television

At least not together: "Permanent bases." As in, permanent U.S. bases in Iraq. I've been bothered by this for a long time. There's plenty of evidence that the U.S. is building permanent bases in Iraq, bases that would replace the need for at least some of the bases in Saudi Arabia and establish a permanent presence in the country.

That's why the president can't say "when" all U.S. troops will be pulled out of Iraq--because, if we're in these permanent bases, then we're never going to pull out all our troops.

Foreign media outlets have covered the permanent bases being constructed, but the U.S. media, not so much. Why not? Why are these the two words that can't be used on television--at least, not together.

Maybe one reason: The Pentagon calls these enduring bases. I guess nothing is permanent, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.

1 Comments:

At 10:57 AM, Blogger Paul said...

For more on the long-term plans of US bases in the Middle East, see:

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/03/us_plans_new_ba.html#more

For more on the imperialist nature of such bases, see:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=70243

The ubiquity of American bases and military personnel around the globe is one of America’s best kept secrets, at least to Americans not directly involved in them. Their magnitude did not hit me until I lived in Greece in 1994-5. Whenever I would travel around Greece, Italy or to Turkey or Egypt...on almost every trip I would run into American soldiers on vacation or I myself was asked if I was an American soldier. One evening I was even invited to the US embassy in Athens for "Mexican night" and there, between Tequila gello-shots, the head of the FBI (that's right, the FBI, not CIA!) in Greece tried to recruit me to be an undercover archaeologist/FBI agent. Then when I first met my Italian wife in Israel, and later went to visit her hometown in Vicenza, guess what? It's home to an American military base! Not surprising, since Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean are full of them, including an island bearing my wife’s name, La Isola Maddalena. I don't know how those of us who see the inevitable fate of such empire-building can get it across to Americans that this is not in our national interest -- we should unilaterally begin a step down before we are pushed off them or it all collapses like a house of cards under its own weight, but that is what we must try to do. Haven’t most Americans seen and understood the Star Wars films?

 

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