{"id":105161,"date":"2018-01-22T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=105161"},"modified":"2018-01-20T11:30:36","modified_gmt":"2018-01-20T11:30:36","slug":"full-spectrum-arrogance-us-bases-spanning-the-globe-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/01\/full-spectrum-arrogance-us-bases-spanning-the-globe-map\/","title":{"rendered":"Full Spectrum Arrogance: US Bases Spanning the Globe – Map"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere are 50,000 troops still in Germany, still winning World War II three quarters of a century later.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

17 Jan 2018 – <\/em>Late last year, a divided Congress approved a military spending bill of 700 billion dollars <\/a>, more than either the President or the Pentagon had requested. Hundreds of billions will go to U.S. military bases and troops on foreign soil. The US is the largest, most lethal military power in human history with seven geographic commands spanning the globe, but that didn’t stop the new Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases <\/a>from holding its first conference at the University of Baltimore from Friday to Sunday, January 12 to 14.<\/p>\n

Here are just a few voices from the conference:<\/p>\n

Leah Bolger, <\/strong>retired US military commander, full-time peace activist, and past\u00a0President of Veterans For Peace:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis conference is the first action, the first event, of a relatively new coalition, which is a coalition against US foreign military bases that has come together with 13 charter organizations. We are joined to address the issue of US foreign bases which are everywhere\u2014somewhere between 800 and 1000. It\u2019s ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Swanson<\/strong>, co-founder of World Beyond War and author of the books \u201cWar is a Lie <\/a>\u201d and \u201cWar is Never Just <\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cY\u2019know, I watch a lot of basketball games because the University of Virginia is so darn good and I\u2019m just disgusted because at every single game, they thank the troops for watching from 175\u2014sometimes they even say more than 177\u2014 countries. They thank the \u201calmost a million\u201d men and women serving our country. They don\u2019t explain what the service is, they don\u2019t explain why they have to be in 177 countries. They don\u2019t explain that there are only about 200 countries on earth, and that there are at least a dozen more countries they\u2019re not telling us about. These are the ones they admit to.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime you have this nation attacking another nation that is a crime that all of us can be united in opposing.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWhat are they doing there? What are they needed for? In some cases, it\u2019s thousands; in some it\u2019s ten thousands. There are 50,000 troops still in Germany, still winning World War II three quarters of a century later.<\/strong> It\u2019s insanity and of course it costs hundreds of billions of dollars. People who think that we\u2019re running low on money and we can\u2019t afford things should understand that we could afford anything we wanted if we didn\u2019t do things this stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ajamu Baraka,<\/strong> Black Agenda Report Editor, Founder of the National Black Alliance for Peace, and 2016 Green Party vice presidential candidate:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a task before us this weekend. We have to struggle among ourselves to build a base line for unity because we know that all of us may not be there in terms of being prepared to take a clear class line, we may not be in full agreement about what national oppression and national liberation mean, we may not agree about the character of this state. But we can agree that anytime you have this state involved in direct intervention, anytime you have this nation attacking another nation, that is a crime that all of us can be united in opposing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Real News Network, based there in Baltimore, livestreamed the event from gavel to gavel, and I produced a brief KPFA Radio-Berkeley News report while watching and downloading audio. However, I seemed to be the only other press beyond the websites of the conference participants themselves to take any interest. So on Monday I nominated the conference and its full spectrum arrogance video archive for a Project Censored Award <\/a>. I recommend all eight sessions now on the YouTube <\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Public Meeting\/International Night,<\/li>\n
  2. The Environmental and Health Impact of U.S. Foreign Military Bases,<\/li>\n
  3. History and Economic Costs of U.S. Foreign Military Bases,<\/li>\n
  4. US Foreign Policy and the Strategic Role of Foreign Military Bases,<\/li>\n
  5. South America and Guantanamo,<\/li>\n
  6. The Middle East: US\/NATO Plan,<\/li>\n
  7. AFRICOM and the Invasion of Africa,<\/li>\n
  8. Coalition’s Future Plan of Action<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In the final session, reps from the 13 founding organizations met to hammer out their unity statement <\/a>and plan the next conference. The location isn\u2019t yet set, but it will take place on US-occupied foreign soil, so there\u2019s a world of possibilities.<\/p>\n

    _______________________________________<\/p>\n

    Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the <\/em>Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at <\/em>@AnnGarrison or <\/em>ann@kpfa.org\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

    Go to Original \u2013 blackagendareport.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There are 50,000 troops still in Germany, still winning World War II three quarters of a century later. Anytime you have this nation attacking another nation that is a crime that all of us can be united in opposing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":105162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-militarism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}