sorry Rashmond -- this is a 'yes' or 'no' question. Quit dithering. Once a consensus is reached, we'll ask whether you support social programs.
If you understand that, why do you go on to talk about the bases' role in defending the country. They aren't there for defense. They are there for offense -- so that when a country does something we don't like we have a credible option of doing something about it. I don't know if I like it or not. I think our penchant for interference is more problematic (and expensive) than maintaining the capacity to interfere is.
lol, well I haven't voted yet...I don't want to be the one responsible for the US's ultimate demise as a global power. Nor seen as supporting the tyrannical empire. Damn, the internets really are serious business.
So we needed military bases around the world to know that Japan was a threat and a military power. I seem to recall defeating Japan in less time than this current war against Afghanistan. Maybe the fact that we were not bankrupting the country on unnecessary spending allowed up to ramp up quicker against Japan than we can now. If Russia or China attacked us now would we be able to respond as well as we did in 42? I say we wouldn't because we are already near bankrupt. We would end up like Germany after WWI.
Honestly, I think we need to keep our bases. Maybe not all of them but most of them. To address the bigger picture, defense spending should be just that.....for DEFENSE. Keep the bases in ally countries that are near countries that pose significant theat to our allies. The issue is when we spend a boat load of money on unnecessary wars like the Iraq war. That's where the loss is.
I'm ambivalent on this. I like the idea of it being a police force that furthers our interests, but it's mere presence is an itch for any president to scratch...and abuse. So we have it for the principle of preventing **** going down, but if **** does go down, we're the first to deal with it.
Being isolationist has little to do with having military bases all over the world. How many bases do England, Germany, Japan ... have around the world? Are they isolationists?
Look at the depopulation of Diego Garcia and tell me if you support that... just for a military base in the Indian Ocean...
Man, I thought it's famous that Japan is/was a puppet government of USA. maybe just Americans don't know it. (I don't mean to be offensive, but it just seems so that our govt don't talk about these things) For starters, America drafted Japan's constitution post-WWII. Then the CIA kept using the Liberal Democratic Party as channel of American interests in Japan. This is well-known. What's significant this past year is that for the first time, American-backed LPJ lost majority power to DPJ. You can read article by Steve Rabson is professor emeritus of East Asian Studies, Brown University; Okinawan never wanted US base, and US always used a 'puppet' party, if u will, to advance American interests AGAINST POPULAR WILL: "Funneling secret U.S. money to the LDP on the mainland is widely believed to have helped the conservatives retain power there throughout the occupation and after, but it was less successful in Okinawa. Opposition candidates in Okinawa continued to win elections, ...." http://hnn.us/articles/122970.html Well, only if you're interested, this is the type of involvement the USA had engaged over the pacific since WWII: Tokyo Bay Gold: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le7SCVNA7Z8 I hope some of you find these information of interest
My post, #22 I think you only read post #34 since in #22 I clearly didn't mean that. No, I'm not suggesting we are a democratic Soviet Union. I put empire in quotations marks to denote I was using the Chalmers Johnson definition of the word rather than the historical one relating to Rome or Great Britain. More reading? Almost 50 books in addition to countless journals and periodicals, with authors ranging from Chomsky, Stiglitz, and Galbraith to F.A. Hayek, Russell Kirk, and Karl Popper. Add in extensive contacts on a first-name basis in Brookings, RAND, CFR, AEI, and the Hoover Inst along with corps like Raytheon and BAE Systems so hopefully you'll get a better picture where I'm coming from. I definitely know what you mean about the "political persuasions" of these things. Although I don't think I'm "hung up on think-tanks", I do respect the depth of analyzes and conclusions my peers deliver after much research. After doing my own homework on this issue, I find I agree with many of their arguments (see post 22). I'm against the status quo of our bases and the cozy relationship between our military-industrial complex and Washington+Pentagon, and would like to see the number of bases scaled back, but not entirely gotten rid of for economic and political reasons, and for the above relationship to be curbed by political reforms and more open discussion in mainstream media. I see you think the process of "downsizing" is already taking place but we'll just have to agree to disagree on the nature of that downsizing. IMO, the rise of asymmetric warfare and the arrival of new players has lead the DoD to fight in new ways despite showing a reduction in overall numbers since 1991, and this leaner/meaner (on the surface at least) way of fighting has been coupled with a rise in militarism.
Wait, I pretty much said the same thing (post #22). The status quo needs to change but I'm against eliminating ALL the bases. The isolationism comment was in response to Deckard saying "this thinking was exactly what FDR had to deal with up until Pearl Harbor." From what I've learned, that was isolationism.
I looked at the map, and it was interesting. While we do have people spread all over the world, I was surprised how few soldiers were stationed at many of these locations. In many countries it looks like we have just a hand full of people working there, and in many cases no actual military base.
With all due respect, I found this to be a nonsensical post. You compare the war with the Japanese Empire that began at the end of 1941 with the war in Afghanistan? The "speed" with which we defeated a powerful nation state with a war in an unstable country against an insurgency? I don't get it. I also don't get your comment "the fact that we were not bankrupting the country on unnecessary spending allowed up to ramp up quicker against Japan than we can now." Have you studied the history of that conflict and what led up to it, including the opposition in the US to getting involved in any "foreign wars," and the incredible difficulty FDR had in increasing the size of the US military prior to that conflict, which remained woefully unprepared when war did break out? That most of the votes FDR managed to win in Congress approving what buildup we did undertake were incredibly close? "we were not bankrupting the country on unnecessary spending" What does that mean? We were in the depths of the Great Depression. Factories sat idle across the country. Millions and millions were out of work. FDR and the Democratic led Congress were "busting the budget" in an attempt to pull us out of it, an effort that had mixed success until war broke out and the money spigot was really turned on, leading to those empty factories and idle workers suddenly getting jobs making war materials. But according to you, not "bankrupting the country on unnecessary spending" allowed us to "ramp up quicker" against Japan? Really? Again, with all due respect, I can't make sense out of your post. I'm sorry, but a great deal of that map is absurd. According to Mother Jones, we have troops stationed in Russia, so that country shows up as having an "American presence" of 72 boots on the ground... at the embassy. Give me a break! Using that kind of criteria, I'm surprised the number of "bases" in our "empire" isn't greater.
Not an empire in technical terms, but the influence is far reaching and extensive. American interests have a global impact through military, economic, and political influence. I believe the UN should take over these bases, I don't see why one country should be policing the world, it will only leads to problems as we've already seen. Eventually another country will rise up and will try to counter American influence, it'll lead to proxy wars, its inevitable.
