Truthdig
How U.S. Military Bases Back Dictators and Military Regimes
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_us_military_bases_back_dictators_mil
itary_regimes_20170518/
Posted on May 18, 2017
By David Vine / TomDispatch (http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176281/)
Royal Thai Armed Forces and U.S. Marines engage in a training exercise in
Thailand in 2003. (Gunnery Sergeant Blair A. McClellan / U.S. Marine Corps
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Navy_030525-M-9812M-076_Friendly
_nation_evacuees_move_to_the_beach_area_to_avoid_protesters,_under_the_prote
ction_of_Royal_Thai_Armed_Forces_and_U.S._Marines.jpg) )
Much outrage
(https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/us/politics/trump-invites-rodrigo-dutert
e-to-the-white-house.html) has been expressed in recent weeks over
President Donald Trumps invitation for a White House visit to Rodrigo
Duterte, president of the Philippines, whose war on drugs has led to
thousands
(https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/03/01/license-kill/philippine-police-killin
gs-dutertes-war-drugs) of extrajudicial killings
(https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/03/09/killing-and-lies-philippine-president-d
utertes-war-drugs-exposed) . Criticism of Trump was especially intense given
his similarly warm public support for other authoritarian rulers like
Egypts Abdel Fatah al-Sisi (who visited
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-welcomes-egypts-sissi-to-whit
e-house-in-reversal-of-us-policy/2017/04/03/36b5e312-188b-11e7-bcc2-7d1a0973
e7b2_story.html?utm_term=.9cb2e1fa21c3) the Oval Office to much praise only
weeks earlier), Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan (who got a congratulatory
phone call
(http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/18/opinions/trump-congratulates-erdogan-opin
ion-ben-ghiat/index.html) from President Trump on his recent referendum
victory
(https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/17/donald-trump-erdogan-turkey
-referendum-congratulations) , granting him increasingly unchecked powers),
and Thailands Prayuth Chan-ocha (who also received a White House invitation
(https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/01/donald-trump-rebuilds-us-re
lations-with-thailand-and-philippines) ).
But heres the strange thing: the critics generally ignored the far more
substantial and long-standing bipartisan support U.S. presidents have
offered these and dozens of other repressive regimes over the decades. After
all, such autocratic countries share one striking thing in common. They are
among at least 45 less-than-democratic nations
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/1627791698/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20) and
territories that today host scores (http://www.basenation.us/maps.html) of
U.S. military bases, from ones the size of not-so-small American towns to
tiny outposts. Together, these bases are homes to tens of thousands of U.S.
troops.
To ensure basing access from Central America to Africa, Asia to the Middle
East, U.S. officials have repeatedly collaborated with fiercely
anti-democratic regimes and militaries implicated in torture, murder, the
suppression of democratic rights, the systematic oppression of women and
minorities, and numerous other human rights abuses. Forget the recent White
House invitations and Trumps public compliments. For nearly three quarters
of a century, the United States has invested tens of billions of dollars in
maintaining bases and troops in such repressive states. From Harry Truman
and Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Republican and
Democratic administrations alike have, since World War II, regularly shown a
preference
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691134634/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20) for
maintaining bases in undemocratic and often despotic states, including Spain
under Generalissimo Francisco Franco, South Korea under Park Chung-hee,
Bahrain under King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, and Djibouti under four-term
President Ismail Omar Guelleh, to name just four.
Many of the 45 present-day undemocratic U.S. base hosts qualify as fully
authoritarian regimes, according to the Economist Democracy Index
(http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/01/daily-chart-20) . In
such cases, American installations and the troops stationed on them are
effectively helping block the spread of democracy in countries like
Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kuwait, Niger, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
and the United Arab Emirates.
This pattern of daily support for dictatorship and repression around the
world should be a national scandal in a country supposedly committed to
democracy. It should trouble Americans ranging from religious conservatives
and libertarians to leftistsanyone, in fact, who believes in the democratic
principles enshrined in the Constitution
(https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript) and the
Declaration of Independence
(https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript) . After all,
one of the long-articulated justifications for maintaining military bases
abroad has been that the U.S. militarys presence protects and spreads
democracy.
Far from bringing democracy to these lands, however, such bases tend to
provide legitimacy
(http://www.amazon.com/Base-Politics-Democratic-Military-Overseas/dp/0801446
058/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1415553718&sr=8-3&keywords=alexander+cooley) for
and prop up undemocratic regimes of all sorts, while often interfering with
genuine efforts to encourage political and democratic reform. The silencing
of the critics of human rights abuses in base hosts like Bahrain
(https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/bahrain) , which has
violently cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators since 2011, has left
the United States complicit
(http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/27/how-obama-caved-on-bahrain-manama-human
-rights/) in these states crimes.
During the Cold War, bases in undemocratic countries were often justified as
the unfortunate but necessary consequence of confronting the communist
menace of the Soviet Union. But heres the curious thing: in the quarter
century since the Cold War ended with that empires implosion, few
(http://www.basenation.us/maps.html) of those bases have closed. Today,
while a White House visit from an autocrat may generate indignation, the
presence of such installations in countries run by repressive or military
rulers receives little notice at all.
Befriending Dictators
The 45 nations and territories with little or no democratic rule represent
more than half of the roughly 80 countries
(http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/lily-pads/story/li
ly-pads/) now hosting U.S. bases (who often lack the power to ask their
guests to leave). They are part of a historically unprecedented global
network (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1627791698/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20)
of military installations the United States has built or occupied since
World War II.
Today, while there are no foreign bases in the United States, there are
around 800 U.S. bases
(http://dra.american.edu/islandora/object/auislandora%3A55685) in foreign
countries
(http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/us-military-bases-around-the
-world-119321) . That number was recently even higher, but it still almost
certainly represents a record for any nation or empire in history
(https://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Basing-1200-2000-Strategy-History-ebook/dp
/B001QN8IFO/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8) . More than 70 years after World War II and
64 years after the Korean War, there are, according to
(https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uac
t=8&ved=0ahUKEwjQz-nSkeDTAhVEYyYKHTY3B3wQFggiMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.acq.os
d.mil%2Feie%2FDownloads%2FBSI%2FBase%2520Structure%2520Report%2520FY15.pdf&u
sg=AFQjCNH5z20sLCiqx) the Pentagon, 181 U.S. base sites in Germany, 122
in Japan, and 83 in South Korea. Hundreds more dot the planet
(http://empire.is/) from Aruba to Australia, Belgium to Bulgaria, Colombia
to Qatar. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, civilians, and family
members occupy these installations. By my conservative estimate, to maintain
such a level of bases and troops abroad, U.S. taxpayers spend at least $150
billion
(http://www.amazon.com/Base-Nation-Military-America-American/dp/1627791698)
annuallymore than the budget of any government agency except the Pentagon
itself.
For decades, leaders in Washington have insisted that bases abroad spread
our values and democracyand that may have been true to some extent in
occupied Germany, Japan, and Italy after World War II. However, as base
expert Catherine Lutz
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/0814752446/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20)
suggests, the subsequent historical record shows that gaining and
maintaining access for U.S. bases has often involved close collaboration
with despotic governments.
The bases in the countries whose leaders President Trump has recently lauded
illustrate the broader pattern. The United States has maintained military
facilities in the Philippines almost continuously since seizing that
archipelago from Spain in 1898. It only granted the colony independence in
1946, conditioned on the local governments agreement
(https://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/b-ph-ust000011-0084.pdf)
that the U.S. would retain access to more than a dozen installations there.
After independence, a succession of U.S. administrations supported two
decades of Ferdinand Marcoss autocratic rule, ensuring the continued use of
Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base, two of the largest U.S. bases
abroad. After the Filipino people finally ousted Marcos in 1986 and then
made the U.S. military leave in 1991, the Pentagon quietly returned in 1996.
With the help of a visiting forces agreement and a growing stream of
military exercises and training programs, it began to set up surreptitious,
small-scale bases once more. A desire to solidify
(http://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-usa-idUSBREA2D0GE20140314)
this renewed base presence
(http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-southchinasea-philippines-carter-idUKKCN0X
B0T7) , while also checking Chinese influence, undoubtedly drove Trumps
recent White House invitation to Duterte. It came despite the Filipino
presidents record (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36251094) of joking
about rape, swearing he would be happy to slaughter millions of drug
addicts just as Hitler massacred [six] million Jews, and bragging, I
dont care about human rights.
In Turkey, President Erdogans increasingly autocratic rule is only the
latest episode in a pattern of military coups and undemocratic regimes
interrupting periods of democracy. U.S. bases have, however, been a constant
presence
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/1316643506/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20) in the
country since 1943. They repeatedly caused controversy and sparked
protestfirst throughout the 1960s and 1970s, before the Bush
administrations 2003 invasion of Iraq, and more recently after U.S. forces
began using them to launch attacks in Syria.
Although Egypt has a relatively small U.S. base presence
(http://mfo.org/en/contingents) , its military has enjoyed deep and
lucrative ties with the U.S. military since the signing of the Camp David
Accords with Israel in 1979. After a 2013 military coup ousted a
democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood government, the Obama
administration took months to withhold some forms
(https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/26/world/middleeast/trump-al-sisi-egypt-mil
itary-exercise.html) of military and economic aid, despite more than 1,300
killings by security forces and the arrest of more than 3,500 members of the
Brotherhood. According to Human Rights Watch
(https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/egypt) , Little was
said about ongoing abuses, which have continued to this day.
In Thailand, the U.S. has maintained deep connections with the Thai
military, which has carried out 12 coups
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/05/20/thailands-army
-says-this-definitely-isnt-a-coup-heres-11-times-it-definitely-was/?utm_term
=.f4625e46d847) since 1932. Both countries have been able to deny that they
have a basing relationship of any sort, thanks to a rental agreement between
a private contractor and U.S. forces at Thailands Utapao Naval Air Base.
Because of [contractor] Delta Golf Global, writes journalist Robert Kaplan
(https://www.amazon.com/Hog-Pilots-Blue-Water-Grunts/dp/1400034582) , the
U.S. military was here, but it was not here. After all, the Thais did no
business with the U.S. Air Force. They dealt only with a private
contractor.
Elsewhere, the record is similar. In monarchical Bahrain, which has had a
U.S. military presence since 1949 and now hosts the Navys 5th Fleet, the
Obama administration offered only the most tepid criticism
(http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175479/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_did_the_penta
gon_help_strangle_the_arab_spring/) of the government despite an ongoing,
often violent crackdown
(http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175393/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_obama_and_t
he_mideast_arms_trade/) on pro-democracy protesters. According to Human
Rights Watch
(https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/bahrain) and others
(including an independent commission of inquiry
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahrain_Independent_Commission_of_Inquiry)
appointed by the Bahraini king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa), the government
has been responsible for widespread abuses including the arbitrary arrest of
protesters, ill treatment during detention, torture-related deaths, and
growing restrictions
(https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/01/12/bahrain-accelerated-repression-jeopardi
zes-activists) on freedoms of speech, association, and assembly. The Trump
administration has already signaled its desire to protect the
military-to-military ties of the two countries by approving a sale of F-16
fighters to Bahrain without demanding improvements
(https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-29/top-general-says-hum
an-rights-shouldn-t-hold-up-u-s-arms-sales) in its human rights record.
And thats typical of what base expert Chalmers Johnson once called
(http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1181/chalmers_johnson_on_garrisoning_the_pl
anet) the American baseworld. Research by political scientist Kent Calder
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691134634/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20)
confirms whats come to be known as the dictatorship hypothesis: The
United States tends to support dictators [and other undemocratic regimes] in
nations where it enjoys basing facilities. Another large-scale study
(https://works.bepress.com/michael_aallen/1/) similarly shows that
autocratic states have been consistently attractive as base sites. Due to
the unpredictability of elections, it added bluntly, democratic states
prove less attractive in terms [of] sustainability and duration.
Even within what are technically U.S. borders, democratic rule has regularly
proved less attractive than preserving colonialism into the twenty-first
century. The presence of scores of bases in Puerto Rico and the Pacific
island of Guam has been a major motivation for keeping these and other U.S.
territoriesAmerican Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S.
Virgin Islandsin varying degrees of colonial subordination. Conveniently
for military leaders, they have neither full independence nor the full
democratic rights that would come with incorporation into the U.S. as
states, including voting representation in Congress and the presidential
vote. Installations in at least five of Europes remaining colonies have
proven equally attractive, as has the base that U.S. troops have forcibly
occupied in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, since shortly after the Spanish-American
War of 1898.
Backing Dictators
Authoritarian rulers tend to be well aware of the desire of U.S. officials
to maintain the status quo when it comes to bases. As a result, they often
capitalize (http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022002716632300)
on a base presence to extract benefits or help ensure their own political
survival.
The Philippines Marcos, former South Korean dictator Syngman Rhee, and more
recently Djiboutis Ismail Omar Guelleh
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-djibouti-reach-agreement-to-keep
-counterterrorism-base-in-horn-of-africa-nation/2014/05/05/0965412c-d488-11e
3-aae8-c2d44bd79778_story.html?utm_term=.942ecd788067) have been typical in
the way they used bases to extract economic assistance
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801446058/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20) from
Washington, which they then lavished on political allies to shore up their
power. Others have relied on such bases to bolster their international
prestige and legitimacy or to justify violence against domestic political
opponents. After the 1980 Kwangju massacre in which the South Korean
government killed hundreds, if not thousands, of pro-democracy
demonstrators, strongman General Chun Doo-hwan explicitly cited
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801446058/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20) the
presence of U.S. bases and troops to suggest that his actions enjoyed
Washingtons support. Whether or not that was true is still a matter of
historical debate. Whats clear, however, is that American leaders have
regularly muted their criticism of repressive regimes lest they imperil
bases in these countries. In addition, such a presence tends to strengthen
military, rather than civilian, institutions in countries because of the
military-to-military ties, arms sales, and training missions that generally
accompany basing agreements.
Meanwhile, opponents of repressive regimes often use the bases as a tool to
rally nationalist sentiment, anger, and protest against both ruling elites
and the United States. That, in turn, tends to fuel fears in Washington that
a transition to democracy might lead to base eviction, often leading to a
doubling down on support for undemocratic rulers. The result can be an
escalating cycle
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801446058/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20) of
opposition and U.S.-backed repression.
Blowback
While some defend the presence of bases in undemocratic countries as
necessary to deter bad actors and support U.S. interests (primarily
corporate ones), backing dictators and autocrats frequently leads to harm
not just for the citizens of host nations but for U.S. citizens as well. The
base build-up
(http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176090/tomgram%3A_david_vine,_enduring_base
s,_enduring_war_in_the_middle_east) in the Middle East has proven the most
prominent example of this. Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the
Iranian Revolution, which both unfolded in 1979, the Pentagon has built up
scores of bases
(http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176090/tomgram%3A_david_vine,_enduring_base
s,_enduring_war_in_the_middle_east) across the Middle East at a cost of
tens of billions of taxpayer dollars. According to former West Point
professor Bradley Bowman, such bases and the troops that go with them have
been a major catalyst
(http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact
=8&ved=0CCYQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcsis.org%2Ffiles%2Fpublication%2Ftwq08spri
ngbowman.pdf&ei=_DNdVNuFPLTLsATknYK4Cg&usg=AFQjCNGr1RKhn7_eim2InSMCN76uFqreZ
A&sig2=OvoQCtsdNUkjXLss-5dpvw&bvm=bv.79189006,d.cWc) for anti-Americanism
and radicalization. Research has similarly revealed a correlation
(http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact
=8&ved=0CCYQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcsis.org%2Ffiles%2Fpublication%2Ftwq08spri
ngbowman.pdf&ei=_DNdVNuFPLTLsATknYK4Cg&usg=AFQjCNGr1RKhn7_eim2InSMCN76uFqreZ
A&sig2=OvoQCtsdNUkjXLss-5dpvw&bvm=bv.79189006,d.cWc) between the bases and
al-Qaeda recruitment.
Most catastrophically, outposts in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan have
helped generate and fuel the radical militancy that has spread throughout
the Greater Middle East and led to terrorist attacks in Europe and the
United States. The presence of such bases and troops in Muslim holy lands
was, after all, a major recruiting tool for al-Qaeda and part of Osama bin
Ladens professed motivation
(https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/stephen-glain/2011/05/03/what-actually
-motivated-osama-bin-laden) for the 9/11 attacks.
With the Trump administration seeking to entrench its renewed base presence
in the Philippines and the president commending Duterte and similarly
authoritarian leaders in Bahrain and Egypt, Turkey and Thailand, human
rights violations are likely to escalate, fueling unknown brutality and
baseworld blowback
(http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175578/best_of_tomdispatch%3A_chalmers_john
son,_the_cia_and_a_blowback_world/) for years to come.
David Vine, a TomDispatch regular
(http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176043/tomgram%3A_david_vine,_our_base_nati
on/) , is associate professor of anthropology at American University in
Washington, D.C. His latest book is Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases
Abroad Harm America and the World
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/1627791698/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20) (the
American Empire Project (http://americanempireproject.com/) , Metropolitan
Books). He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the
Guardian, and Mother Jones, among other publications. For more information,
visit www.basenation.us (http://www.basenation.us/) and www.davidvine.net
(http://www.davidvine.net/) .
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TomDispatch) and join us
on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch) . Check out the newest
Dispatch Book, John Dowers The Violent American Century: War and Terror
Since World War II
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/1608467236/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20) , as
well as John Feffers dystopian novel Splinterlands
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/1608467244/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20) , Nick
Turses Next Time Theyll Come to Count the Dead
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608466485/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20) , and
Tom Engelhardts Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global
Security State in a Single-Superpower World
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20) .
Copyright David Vine 2017
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