Are They Necessary?

Atrios brings up something I’ve been wondering about. It’s assumed by most of us that one of the reasons we are in Iraq is because we want to establish permanent military bases there — presumably because we had to remove the “temporary” ones we had in Saudi Arabia (at bin Laden’s rather dramatic request on 9/11.)

Maybe it’s just because I don’t fully understand the military dimension but why do we need permanent bases in either Saudi Arabia or Iraq?

We have bases in Turkey. We will have bases in Afghanistan forever. We can get halfway across the world in hours. Our ally Israel is right there. We have ships and subs of all kinds. We have troops in Europe. We have ICBM’s armed with nuclear weapons. Hell, we’re trying to weaponize space.

I realize that the all knowing PNAC recommends that we create new bases all over the place, partly as a way to reduce the carrier fleet and to redeploy after the cold war, but I’ve never really understood why we absolutely have to have big, expensive bases smack dab in the middle of hostile territory in the modern world. And as far as I can tell, the neocon braintrust has never fully explained it.

I suspect that there really isn’t a military rationale that makes any sense. I suspect that it is another of those show-of-force military pageants of which the neocons are so fond. If we just swagger around in their faces they will be afraid, very afraid.

There is the Israel factor, which I realize. Perhaps that’s the only reason, but if so it is not sellable to the American public and it shouldn’t be. We support Israel, but invading countries, installing governments, creating chaos and spending 200 billion plus to create bases to protect it when it does a very good job of protecting itself is crazy.

I may very well be wrong on this and there is a perfectly good geo-strategic reason to have 30,000+ troops permanently stationed in the middle of a hostile desert. Please fill me in if you know the answer.

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