Same Empire, Different Emperor by Laurence M. Vance
(2010-02-20 at 17:42:39 )

Same Empire, Different Emperor by Laurence M. Vance

Just as Hadrian succeeded Trajan, Domitian succeeded Titus, Nero succeeded
Claudius, and Caligula succeeded Tiberius, so Kennedy replaced Eisenhower,
Nixon replaced Johnson, Reagan replaced Carter, and Obama replaced Bush.

Same Empire, Different Emperor.

The extent of the U.S. global empire is almost incalculable. We know
enough, however, about foreign bases, physical assets, military spending,
and foreign troop levels to know that we have an empire in everything but
the name.

There are, according to the Department of Defense Base Structure Report
for FY 2009, 716 U.S. military bases on foreign soil in thirty-eight
countries. Yet, according to the expert on this subject, Chalmers Johnson,
the author of Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis, that number
is far too low: The official figures omit espionage bases, those located
in war zones, including Iraq and Afghanistan, and miscellaneous facilities
in places considered too sensitive to discuss or which the Pentagon for
its own reasons chooses to exclude -e.g. in Israel, Kosovo, or Jordan.
Johnson places the real number of foreign bases closer to 1,000.

This same Base Structure Report states that the DODs physical assets
consist of more than 539,000 facilities (buildings, structures and linear
structures) located on more than 5,570 sites, on approximately 29 million
acres. The 307,295 buildings occupied by the DOD comprise over 2.1 billion
square feet. The DOD manages almost 30 million acres of land worldwide.

The latest defense budget (Obamas first) is almost as much as the rest of
the worlds defense spending combined. The U.S. military is the single-
largest consumer of oil in the world, officially using 320,000 barrels of
oil a day. The U.S. Navy battle fleet is larger than the next 13 foreign
navies combined. And thanks to the work of economist Robert Higgs, we know
that total spending for all defense-related purposes is actually about a
trillion dollars. And then there are the supplemental appropriation bills
not in the Pentagon budget.

In addition to the over 1.1 million U.S. military personnel stationed in
the United States and its territories, there are about 262,000 U.S. troops
in foreign countries-not counting the 130,000 soldiers in Iraq and the
68,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, and not counting the other troops deployed
in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and in Afghanistan in
support of Operation Enduring Freedom. And then there is Obamas new
30,000-man troop surge for Afghanistan. There would be even more troops
in Afghanistan if it were not for the 120,000 contractors there on the
payroll of the Defense Department, State Department, and USAID.

According to the latest DOD quarterly report titled Active Duty Military
Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country, there are U.S. troops
stationed in 148 countries and 11 territories in every corner of the globe.
This the greatest number of countries that the United States has ever had
troops in. This also means that U.S. troops occupy over 75 percent of the
worlds countries.

The U.S. global empire was well in place soon after World War II with
security alliances, bilateral agreements, status of forces agreements,
thousands of military installations, and troops in about 100 different
counties and territories. When I first wrote about U.S. troop presence
around the globe on March 16, 2004, in The U.S. Global Empire, I
documented that the U.S. had troops in 135 countries, plus 14 territories
controlled by the United States or some other country. I then showed on
October 4, 2004, in Guarding the Empire, that the U.S. empire had
increased to 150 different regions of the world. The third time I reported
on the extent of the empire, December 5, 2005, in Today Iraq, Tomorrow the
World, that number had grown to 155. The fourth time I updated the status
of the U.S. global empire, on February 19, 2007, in Update on the Empire,
I revealed that U.S. soldiers were stationed in 144 countries and 15
territories. The last time I visited this subject, on April 7, 2008, in
Ninety-Five Years to Go, I detailed that the United States had troops
stationed in 157 regions of the world: 147 countries and 10 territories.

Changes from 2008 consist of the addition of U.S. troops to the countries
of Eritrea, Fiji, Iran, Libya, and the territories of the Northern Mariana
Islands and St. Helena and the removal of troops from Antigua, Belarus,
Iceland, and Suriname. Because of the independence of Kosovo on February
17, 2008, which has been recognized by the United States, I am now
counting Kosovo as a country instead of a territory. And as I have said
on other occasions, these numbers are not the result of Marine embassy
guards stationed at U.S. embassies, as I showed in Guarding the Empire.

Since it has been six years since I gave a complete list of countries
occupied by U.S. troops, I will once again list them here:

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia,
Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium,
Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria,
Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia,
Congo, Costa Rica, Cote D lvoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic,
Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, East Timor, Ecuador, Egypt,
El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland,France, Gabon,
Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti,
Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy,
Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan,
Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia,
Madagascar, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands. Mauritania, Mexico,
Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand,
Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru,
Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Rwanda,
Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia,
Slovenia, Somalia, Spain, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sudan,
Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo,
Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine,
United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela,
Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe

The ten territories where U.S. troops are stationed are: American Samoa,
Bermuda, Diego Garcia, Greenland, Guam, Hong Kong, Northern Mariana
Islands, Puerto Rico, St. Helena, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Wake Island.

President Obama has been in office a year now and the United States is the
worlds sole military superpower with an inventory of weapons measured in
the trillions and a defense budget and global empire of troops and bases
that are larger than ever. We are engaged, either openly or covertly, in
five fronts in the war on terror Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, and
Somalia, plus possible future military action against Iran. Additionally,
the President maintains that the struggle against violent extremism will
not be finished quickly, and it extends well beyond Afghanistan and
Pakistan. He also announced plans to increase spending on Americas arsenal
of nuclear weapons - despite saying in his State of the Union speech that
he seeks a world without them. Under commander in chief Obama we have also
seen a dramatic escalation of Predator drone strikes, increased arrests
and secret detentions of suspected terrorists on the slightest suspicion,
and the continuation of the presidential license to order, without any
judicial oversight, the murder of foreigners and American citizens
anywhere in the world based on the dubious claim that they are a terrorism
threat. And now it has come out that the Army Corps of Engineers has spent
more than $4.5 billion on construction projects in Afghanistan, most of
it building the nearly 400 U.S. and coalition bases scattered throughout
the country.

Obama is the man who, on the campaign trail, on October 27, 2007, pledged:
I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the
time I am President, it is the first thing I will do.
I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war.
You can take that to the bank.

Well, Bush did not get the troops out, Obama became the new commander in
chief, and, after over a year, the troops are still there. And not only
are U.S. troops still in Iraq, there are still over 50,000 U.S. troops in
Germany, over 35,000 in Japan, and over 24,000 in South Korea - decades
after the end of World War II and the Korean War.

Not two months after taking office in January of 2009, Obama ordered an
additional 21,000 troops dispatched to Afghanistan. Last summer he signed
a $106 billion war supplemental appropriations bill. In October Obama
quietly ordered another 13,000 soldiers to deploy to Afghanistan. Now
the peace-prize laureate wants an additional $33 billion and 30,000 troops
to further expand the war in that graveyard of empires known as
Afghanistan. And not only will he get what he wants, he will have
bipartisan support. Presidential administrations come and go, but the
Empire remains the same.

Same Empire, Different Emperor.

February 11, 2010

Laurence M. Vance writes from Pensacola, FL. He is the author of
Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State and The
Revolution that Was not. His newest book is Rethinking the Good War.

Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or
in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.