The United States empire of bases - at US$102 billion a year already the
world's costliest military enterprise - just got a good deal more expensive. As
a start, on May 27, the State Department announced it will build a new
"embassy" in Islamabad, Pakistan, which at $736 million will be the second
priciest ever constructed. It will cost only $4 million less, if cost overruns
don't occur, than the Vatican-City-sized one the George W Bush administration
put up in Baghdad.
The State Department was also reportedly planning to buy the five-star Pearl
Continental Hotel (complete with pool) in Peshawar, near the border with
Afghanistan, to use as a consulate and living quarters for its staff there.
Unfortunately for such plans, on June 9, Pakistani militants
rammed a truck filled with explosives into the hotel, killing 18 occupants,
wounding at least 55, and collapsing one entire wing of the structure. There
has been no news since about whether the State Department is still going ahead
with the purchase.
Whatever the costs turn out to be, they will not be included in the US's
already bloated military budget, even though none of these structures is
designed to be a true embassy - a place, that is, where local people come for
visas and American officials represent the commercial and diplomatic interests
of their country. Instead these so-called embassies will actually be walled
compounds, akin to medieval fortresses, where American spies, soldiers,
intelligence officials, and diplomats try to keep an eye on hostile populations
in a region at war. One can predict with certainty that they will house a large
contingent of marines and include roof-top helicopter pads for quick get-aways.
While it may be comforting for State Department employees working in dangerous
places to know that they have some physical protection, it must also be obvious
to them, as well as the people in the countries where they serve, that they
will now be visibly part of an in-your-face American imperial presence. We
shouldn't be surprised when militants attacking the US find one of our
base-like embassies, however heavily guarded, an easier target than a large
military base.
And what is being done about those military bases, which now number close to
800 across the globe in other people's countries? Even as Congress and the
Obama administration wrangle over the cost of bank bailouts, a new health plan,
pollution controls, and other much needed domestic expenditures, no one
suggests that closing some of these unpopular, expensive imperial enclaves
might be a good way to save some money.
Instead, they are evidently about to become even more expensive. On June 23,
Kyrgyzstan, the former Central Asian Soviet Republic which, back in February
2009, announced that it was going to kick the US military out of Manas Air Base
(used since 2001 as a staging area for the Afghan War), said it has been
persuaded to let the US stay.
But here's the catch: In return for doing that favor, the annual rent
Washington pays for use of the base will more than triple from $17.4 million to
$60 million, with millions more to go into promised improvements in airport
facilities and other financial sweeteners. All this because the Obama
administration, having committed itself to a widening war in the region, is
convinced it needs this base to store and trans-ship supplies to Afghanistan.
I suspect this development will not go unnoticed in other countries where
Americans are also unpopular occupiers. For example, the Ecuadorians have told
the US to leave Manta Air Base by this November. Of course, they have their
pride to consider, not to speak of the fact that they don't like American
soldiers mucking about in Colombia and Peru. Nonetheless, they could probably
use a spot more money.
And what about the Japanese who, for more than 57 years, have been paying big
bucks to host American bases on their soil? Recently, they reached a deal with
Washington to move some American Marines from bases on Okinawa to the US
territory of Guam. In the process, however, they were forced to shell out not
only for the cost of the Marines' removal, but also to build new facilities on
Guam for their arrival. Is it possible that they will now take a cue from the
government of Kyrgyzstan and just tell the Americans to get out and pay for it
themselves?
Or might they at least stop funding the same American military personnel who
have raped Japanese women and make life miserable for whoever lives near the 38
US bases on Okinawa. This is certainly what the Okinawans have been hoping and
praying for ever since the US arrived in 1945.
In fact, I have a suggestion for other countries that are getting a bit weary
of the American military presence on their soil: cash in now, before it's too
late. Either up the ante or tell the Americans to go home. I encourage this
behavior because I'm convinced that the US empire of bases will soon enough
bankrupt our country, and so - on the analogy of a financial bubble or a
pyramid scheme - if you're an investor, it's better to get your money out while
you still can.
This is, of course, something that has occurred to the Chinese and other
financiers of the American national debt. Only they're cashing in quietly and
slowly in order not to tank the dollar while they're still holding onto such a
bundle of them. Make no mistake, though: whether the US is being bled rapidly
or slowly, it is bleeding; and hanging onto its military empire and all the
bases that go with it will ultimately spell the end of the United States as we
know it.
Count on this, future generations of Americans traveling abroad decades from
now won't find the landscape dotted with near-billion-dollar "embassies".
Chalmers Johnson is the author of The Blowback Trilogy -
Blowback(2000),
The Sorrows of Empire (2004), and
Nemesis(2006), all published by Metropolitan Books. Check out a
TomDispatch audio interview with Johnson about the US empire of bases by
clicking
here.
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