(The following article is from the November 16-30, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

From a presentation by Chris Shelton at the Vancouver teach-in on "Ninety Years After the War to End All Wars," held Nov. 8-11 by the World Peace Forum Society.

Every empire must defend its empire. At its peak in 117 CE the Roman Empire had 37 foreign military bases. At its peak in 1898 the British Empire had 36 foreign military bases. Today the American Empire has, according to the US Defense Department's 2007 Base Status Report, 761 "sites" which may include bases, hospitals, schools, and depots. These bases occupy 46,566 square miles of land.

     NATO itself has 30 military bases, mostly in Europe but also one in Saudi Arabia and another in Kuwait. There are other countries, like England, France, and Russia, that have foreign military bases, but the USA has close to 75% of the estimated foreign military bases in the world today. Given that the USA has 5% of the world's population and spends 50% of the world's military budget, then it is truly the American Empire.

     These numbers are estimates because most military establishments do not release accurate statistics on their bases. The other problem is that there is no standard definition of what is a foreign military base.

     The 2007 Base Status Report did not include Iraq or Afghanistan. Iraq alone is estimated to contain 106 US bases. Camp Anaconda is north of Baghdad and occupies 25 square kilometers and will ultimately house as many as 20,000 troops. It requires nine internal bus routes for the resident soldiers and civilian contractors. This mega-base is contrasted with the numerous forward operation posts that are temporary bare bone bases.

     The definition of a US foreign military base does not include 13 aircraft carriers and their related carrier groups. A carrier will have between 5,000 to 6,000 military staff on board, while their carrier group, with its phalanx of destroyers, submarines and supply ships will have considerably more.

     And what is the embassy that the US is building in the Green Zone of Baghdad? It will occupy 104 acres of land (about the size of the Vatican), cost $750 million to build, and $1.2 billion a year to operate. Its walls are bomb proof, it has its own electrical and water systems. Such a fortress will have its own garrison of military staff. Is this not a base?

     Also not listed are bases too sensitive to discuss in countries like Israel, Kosovo or Jordan, or bases too sensitive for "national security" like the CIA secret prisons.

     The US classifies its bases into three broad categories. The largest are main operating bases or "Little Americas" which possess family housing, community centres, health care and other amenities. These resemble small fundamentalist towns in the Bible Belt of the Midwest, in some case right down to the architecture. The 100,000 women living on overseas bases, some in service, some as spouses, and/or relatives of military personnel, are prohibited from obtaining an abortion at a local military hospital. Some of these bases have 18-hole golf courses or swimming pools for recreation.

     The second category is forward operation posts, which are temporary positions at the edge of a possible or actual conflict. They lack any family amenities.

     The third category are Cooperative Security locations, or "lily pads", arsenals waiting for troops to hop onto the base and pick up their gear to hop into a battle.

     Any base will create a local economic impact merely from the costs to build, maintain and service the facilities. However the political economy of the bases, the ethical use of a society's resources in the most economically and environmentally sustainable fashion, is the best measure of such impacts. The latter argument allows us to ask what are the alternative uses of these societal resources.

     There are many logistical reasons for the military to want foreign military bases. They could want to encircle their enemy, as the US attempted to do with its Manta base in Ecuador. This would facilitate command, control, communication and intelligence for spying in a pending conventional war or nuclear war with Venezuela. The positioning bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are to encircle Iran, while those in Central Asia are an attempt to encircle Russia. Bases can be used to train US forces, to serve US naval power, or to reinforce the status quo or to influence the host nation's governments. Most often the strategic goals are the main reasons for foreign military bases - to secure access to the resources of the host nation, which in modern times are its oil and gas resources.

     The irony of these reasons can be found in the US Declaration of Independence. Thirteen of 15 English colonies in North America declared their independence because the British Empire imposed "standing armies" on the colonies during peace time which committed unacceptable "abuses and usurpations." (The two colonies that stayed loyal were Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, which included what is today Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.)

     What are the "abuses and usurpations" of the US military bases today? Dr. Joseph Gerson of the American Friends Service Committee lists ten:

1. military bases increase the chance of war and undermine security

2. bases increase the chance of nuclear war

3. bases undermine the sovereignty of host nations

4. bases undermine democracy and human rights

5. bases are often built on seized private and communal property

6. bases create a culture of violence toward women and girls

7. off-duty troops commit great deal of crime in host communities

8. bases cause environmental contamination jeopardizing people's health

9. military accidents can kill, impact communities and people's livelihoods, and permanently poison the environment

10. military bases are expensive and divert funding from addressing urgent human needs.

     War is never kind to the environment. To this day in France and Belgium there exist special bomb disposal units that go to farms to pick up unexploded World War I ordinances. The USA mocks its own environmental laws and principles even in peace time. The 2004 US defense authorization bill for $401.3 billion included the exemption of the military from abiding by the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

     During WWII the USA established several military bases on Greenland, which evolved into surveillance and missile detection bases during the cold war. In 1968 a B52 crashed in a fjord near the Thule Air Base. Three of the four hydrogen bombs on board were recovered; the fourth is still missing, information which was not made public until 2000. As these bases were scaled back and closed, fifty years accumulation of garbage and equipment remains. Two abaondoned DEW line stations are sinking into the Greenland ice cap, along with their PCBs, heavy metals, spilt fuel and other garbage.

     Some of the worst environmental destruction is in Guam, which the UN classifies on its colonial states list, and which the US occupied in 1898. Various US military bases occupy one-third of the island, from Anderson Air Base in the north to the Naval Magazine in the south. The pollutants expelled from these bases has created 19 "Superfund" sites on the island which is only 48 km long and 541 square kilometers.

     Some people assume that both the USA and the host country are equal partners, but this is never the case, as the host is always the suppliant. For example, the liberation forces of Cuba and the Philippines were nearing their objective of ending Spanish rule when the US planted its flag, replacing the colonial empire of Spain with the imperial empire of the USA. Both countries signed treaties allowing the US to maintain military bases in a master/suppliant relationship.

     The process in the past was for the US to negotiate a treaty with the host country. Under the US constitution Congress has the ability to hold hearings and pass laws to implement a treaty. But a "Visiting Forces Agreement"  or a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) can be used to bypass Congressional oversight.

     For instance, the Philippines negotiated a second treaty which ended the military bases at Subic, Clark and various minor support and communication facilities, and the Filipino Senate voted to confirm the end. The US then tried something new starting in 1998 with a Visiting Forces Agreement, signed by Clinton, that allowed the US to re-enter the Philippines with troops, ships and gear for military training, humanitarian and engineering projects and the likes. After 2001 US activities increased dramatically. In 2005 there were 24 exercises and 37 more in 2006. These exercises, involving from a few dozen to as many as 5000 troops, were described by former US Ambassador Francis Riccianrdone as a "semi-continuous" presence.

     A February 2008 Washington Post article by Condoleeza Rice and Robert Gates puts the number of SOFAs at "more than 115." According to the Pentagon's policy on negotiating a SOFA, the objective is to protect "personnel who may be subject to criminal trial by foreign courts and imprisonment in foreign prisons."

     These deployments allow the US military to improve local infrastructure to meet their needs. For example in General Santos City (Phillipines) the US constructed a deep water port, and at Fort Magsaysay the local airport was renovated and its runway strengthened to handle the weight of C130 planes. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) also contributed by building roads and ports that allow huge ships to berth.

     "Cooperative Security Locations" need only a small corner of a host country's civilian airport. Nicknamed "lily pads", these are minimally staffed stealth bases which often contain caches of US weapons and equipment. US troops can "leap frog" onto the cache and move out into nearby conflicts. There are lily pads in Australia, Rumania, Mali, Algeria, Sierra Leone and more to come. This is the process that is currently happening in Georgia.

     On the front page of the New York Times, April 19, 2003, was the article "Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Four Key Bases in Iraq." Three days later Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denied any goal for permanent or long term bases in Iraq. Rumsfeld is history, but the building of bases continued. Under discussion now are about 50 permanent bases which the Iraqi people totally reject. The US is caught between their UN mandate ending on Jan. 1, 2009, and their lack of treaty bases or SOFA bases. The USA has announced that it will shut down military and other vital services throughout the country on Jan. 1 if the Iraqi government does not accept the suppliant role and provide SOFA bases.

     In the middle of the Indian Ocean are the Chagos Islands which are British possessions. In 1966 the British and Americans signed an agreement without any oversight by Congress. Among the terms is that the US will maintain a base on the largest atoll known as Diego Garcia for 50 to 70 years. Between 1968 and 1973 the British complied with another term of the agreement and expelled the last of the 500 Chagossians. They are not even allowed to work on the bases as civilian employees. The Chagossians were refused the right for redress in the US courts, but finally got their case heard by the British Law Lords in October 2008. Even though the Universal Declaration of Human Rights prohibits the exile of an individual or a group (Article 9) the Chagossians are still without a home.

     The current economic crisis is marked by the collapse of the financial markets, the lack of demand, and the over-capacity to produce goods and services. It is estimated by the Center for Economic and Policy Research that the housing bubble is destroying $8 trillion in wealth and the stock market bubble may destroy $5 trillion in the US alone. The new political regime in the USA is faced with next year's defense budget of $611 billion. Pentagon officials estimate that it will increase by $450 billion over the next five years. Is this the opening that the peace movement needs to shift priorities of the USA and the world?

     By developing critical analyses, presentations and publications, we are putting the spotlight on the problem in order to alert, educate, and inspire the general public to become involved. The next step is to mobilize. We could start right here by reframing the statements of the power elite. It is not democracy that the USA is defending, but it is the empire that the US is building and protecting. It is not the War in Iraq but the Occupation of Iraq. By reframing the argument we start the process of change.