MISSION TO
MOSCOW
But not
everyone gets such an easy gig. Like those 1,666 GIs stationed
in Iceland. And what's up with those 107 centurions who got
assigned to Russia, including 72 Marines? Is Washington expecting
Putin to launch a surprise attack on the American embassy?
Ah, yes, but a missile
defense – a miniature version, perhaps – would neatly
dispose of that threat.
FIRST STRIKE
And what
are we to make of the 1,574 US military personnel now stationed
in Belgium? Enough to occupy Brussels in a first strike against
the EU. Now that would certainly put an end to their
superpower pretensions!
MACEDONIAN
MATHEMATICS
We know,
unfortunately, what those 351 American soldiers are doing
in Macedonia
– escorting Albanian rebels to safety and otherwise making
sure that the insurgents are well-protected. After all, each
Albanian rebel represents a considerable investment of US
tax dollars. Add up all the money that went to arm and train
the Kosovo "Liberation" Army and throw in the cost of the
Kosovo war. Divide the total by the estimated number of NLA
cadre – anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000, roughly speaking –
and you can see why they went in there and rescued those NLA
fighters from almost certain defeat by the Macedonian army
in the village of Aracivino. With each one worth somewhere
in the high end of five figures, the rationale for our Macedonian
contingent is clear enough: protecting valuable government
property.
AFFIRMATIVE
ACTION IMPERIALISM
In spite
of the proposal by a well-known conservative columnist for
an American invasion of Africa, the US has yet to heed this
sage advice: just 111 in Kenya, and the rest in Egypt. No
doubt this is due to discrimination, a sad condition for which
American black leaders such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton
are sure to demand reparations. The cry will no doubt go up
for affirmative action imperialism, a theme that the Bush
administration, with its emphasis on reaching out to minorities,
would be foolish not to latch onto.
KOREAN CONUNDRUM
Looking
at the
chart, and the accompanying map, I am struck by the top-heaviness
of US deployments in Eastasia. Half a century after the Korean
War, 36,171 Americans face off against the half-starved to
death North Koreans, whose regime is tottering on the brink
of complete dissolution. Just as East Germany imploded and
set off a chain-reaction in eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union, so a seismic upheaval in Pyongyang could send shockwaves
through China and southward to Vietnam and Laos, the last
bastions of unreconstructed Leninism
on earth. Yet the continuing US military
presence on the Korean peninsula provides the ideological
rationale for the communist regime, and gives it legitimacy:
Pyongyang can claim the banner of authentic Korean nationalism,
and so the national socialist regime in the north is perpetuated,
ironically, by the US. The great reconciliation between Pyongyang
and Seoul, staged amid much pomp and ceremony last year, has
now been aborted by the US, which has delayed the process
and imposed all kinds of conditions. Furthermore, the US has
stated categorically that under no circumstances would US
troops be leaving, at least not anytime soon. Not even if
we're asked to leave by a reunited and de-communized Korea?
ASK THE OKINAWANS
Speaking
of being asked
to leave, how long before this demand is made by a new
generation of Japanese leaders who want to know why they have
been sentenced to an eternity of self-abasement? After all
these years, 40,025 American soldiers maintain the military
occupation of conquered Japan – and for what? As a social
safety valve, at least in part, a means to export our social
problems and misfits – just ask the women of Okinawa.
IMPERIAL METASTASIS
An empire
is a self-created, self-perpetuating organism, like any State,
but on an international scale: it's first imperative is growth,
and this means expansion through aggression. During
the cold war, the empire-builders had no problem rationalizing
America's omnipresence: we were, they argued, involved in
a life and death struggle with the Soviet Union and its allies
on a global scale, and we needed to go on the offensive. But
after the Soviet Union and its satellites were swept away
with astonishing suddenness, taking professional anti-Communists
as well as communists by surprise, the dynamic circuit of
imperial expansionism was broken. Congressional support for
bigger and more weapons, and interventions both military and
political, began to dry up, and popular support for these
programs and policies – always low – plummeted. Yet these
government programs – such as foreign aid – are not only
preserved but continually expanded. The financial and political
interests that benefit from a frankly imperial foreign policy
are vocal and actively intervene to preserve and increase
their share of American tax dollars. The profiteers of empire
know what directly benefits them – unfortunately, the general
public is less aware of how and why they're being ripped off.
BEYOND THE
CALL OF DUTY
Human Events Online assistant editor
Timothy
P. Carney should get some kind of public service award
for calling up various members of Congress and asking: "Against
what threat are the 70,000 US troops in Germany defending
America?" I won't list all the responses, but here are a few
gems:
"It
absolutely makes us not only safer, but it guarantees that
the world is safe for free trade and economic progress, and
that's a very important security concern, as well – our economic
well-being." ~ Sen. Thad Cochran (R.-Miss.)
So, if
the EU imposes trade barriers, we can always do what
– reoccupy Germany and march on Paris? Oh well, at least
he's honest about the purely economic rationale for the 117,241
American troops in Europe: bread and butter for a whole raft
of interlocking political and economic interests.
TAKE ME TO
YOUR LEADER
Senator
Bill
Frist (R-Tenn.) averred: "I do not know either the numbers,
or what their mission as defined is right now, because I haven't
studied it." In other words: the dog ate my homework. In any
case, he burbled, "it depends on what the national security
interest is, as it's been defined by our government and by
the policy leaders both in Congress as well as the President."
Earth to Senator Frist: you are the government.
SENATOR PORKBARREL
SPEAKS
My favorite
answer is out of the mouth of Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.),
that bloviating old rascal, who quipped: "I'll answer that
question another day." Yeah, but don't hold your breath, West
Virginia voters. Hell will freeze over before Harry "Pork
Barrel" Byrd decides whether or not to answer a simple question:
why ship billions of tax dollars overseas, when people at
home are barely eking out a living? Byrd and the corporate
and foreign lobbyists do more than eke out a living. They
are living in the lap of luxury, thanks to the corporate and
political interests that create and manage the infrastructure
of the American Empire, and directly benefit from its expansion.
TOWARD A NEW
ERA
United States bases
overseas are the tripwires of future conflicts, targets of
terrorism and outposts of crime and violence that are poor
advertisements for American culture. Superfluous in a post-cold
war world, expensive as well as unnecessary, we could give
up virtually all of them overnight without endangering US
national security in the slightest. Indeed, the tremendous
economic savings alone – and the correction of a major stream
of market malinvestment – would be enough to pull the US
out of a steepening recession. The diversion of resources
to more productive uses would energize the economy to such
an extent that, I am convinced, we would enter a new golden
age of technology-driven prosperity.
THE MOTHER
OF INVENTION
What is
needed is leadership with the vision to propose such a radical
restructuring, which would, in effect, abolish the Empire
and restore our old Republic. At present, neither party offers
such leadership, and so the initiative for reform is going
to have to come from below. The Bush administration is now
reviewing all US overseas military commitments, and there
could not be a better time than now to act. It's time for
America to come home, now that the Cold War is over: this
is not "isolationism," but simple common sense – and, increasingly,
an economic and diplomatic necessity.
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