US: No permanent bases anywhere in the world (Dana Perino: Gitmo doesn't count)

[sabra]

Source: AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Amid a bitter dispute over US bases in Iraq, the White House signaled Wednesday it does not view any US military installations overseas -- except perhaps Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- as permanent.

"The United States, where we are, where we have bases, we are there at the invitation of those countries. I'm not aware of any place in the world -- where we have a base -- that they are asking us to leave. And if they did, we would probably leave," said spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Asked about Guantanamo Bay, Perino replied: "I'm going to say that one doesn't count." The United States and Cuba disagree about the validity and the terms of the 1903 treaty that originally carved out the area for the base.

The spokeswoman's comments came amid a difficult election-year debate about the duration of the US military presence in Iraq, with some war critics accusing Washington of seeking a permanent military foothold there.

Read more: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hllWA4j60xVGxj2eebz0ixvSCHZg

[Supersedeas]

1. image of Peppy Perino dropping her pom-poms with that Gitmo follow-up question.

[BridgeTheGap]

2. That's not the position of the neo-cons still in this (mis)adminstration

Dana Perino (sounds like some kind of gucci dog food) has the depth of understanding of a kindergartner (fits right in with this group).
Sure, they could ask our military to leave but what would go with it?

[MidwestTransplant]

6. She is a Faux News type blond bimbo. That's what she is there for.

They are going after the Faux News model.

[JohnyCanuck]

17. Isn't she the bimbette that didn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis

was about and asked her hubby if it was something to do with the Bay of Pigs thing?

[BridgeTheGap]

22. That's her! What a dim wit! Is this country wonderful or what!?!

You can be dumb as owl shit and be a presidential spokesperson! Hell, for that matter you can be president!

[MidwestTransplant]

24. Yes, she thought they were one in the same. Then bragged about it.

[grytpype]

3. We have another 11 months of this bullshit?

[Solly Mack]

4. I said this before...several times actually

It's not just the Bush admin. either

The government doesn't consider any base "permanent" ...even if they are there 100 years...because permanent implies forever and ever...while 100 years is just 100 years...a finite measure of time.

Now, the reality is, 100 years is fairly fucking permanent to a single lifetime.

Yes, it's a word game they play...

As for the "at the invitation of other countries"...that's a fairly bullshit statement as well.

Once you establish your base, without invite and under whatever conditions, and years and years and years go by, and then that nation says , "sure, stay" ...well, that's very different from the implications of "at their invitation"...it's a distortion of history...a distortion of the facts.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. France asked us to leave in 1959.

They've been on our shit list ever since.

Libya asked us to leave in 1965.

They've been on our shit list ever since.

Panama asked us to leave every year for 80 years. Ten years after we left, we invaded and bombed the shit out of them to catch one drug lord.

You think there are REASONS these other countries have NOT asked us to leave?

[Solly Mack]

10. Of course there are reasons

[damntexdem]

18. Well, Panama disinvited us from an entire Canal Zone, ...

with attendant bases (including on Ancon Hill, which looms over the Panamanian government buildings). But that was by negotiating a new treaty. But they had disinvited us from Rio Hato Air Base ten years before that -- and it wasn't by any new treaty, rather under the terms of an existing treaty.

Still, it's unclear: one or two decades between our being disinvited and our invading? ;-)

[damntexdem]

16. And Cuba certainly hasn't said "sure, stay."

How safe is it for any country to not say "sure, stay"?

Hmm, well Panama did re some U.S. bases in 1970 -- and, after all, we didn't invade Panama until almost 20 years later. ;-)

The Philippines were lucky -- they got Mt. Pinatuba to disinvite us from a couple of bases. ;-)

[Solly Mack]

21. lol! ( on Mt. Pinatubo) The comment about Cuba from Perino

is BS as well.

The disagreement over GTMO is...Cuba wants us out and the US government doesn't want to go.

I was explaining how the government uses word play when they say "permanent"

They say no permanent bases.. but how they define it and how people hear it aren't the same...

[RaleighNCDUer]

27. I knew a couple people who were station there -- was it Subic?

They were teachers on the base and the military was, effectively, their permanent home - they'd been dependent school teachers for 20 years. Lost everything, running from the volcano.

EDIT:

It is funny, however, that it was such a necessary base, critical to our national defense BEFORE the mountain blew up, and AFTER it was "Oh, well, shit happens".

[sakabatou]

5. The fail! It burns!

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. So the one base they consider permanent is the one which the

host country has been asking us to leave for forty years.

The others, we are only there because they haven't asked us to leave.

:eyes:

[bemildred]

23. LOL. I think you've got it. It's Catch-22.

If they ask us to leave, that's evidence that we still need to stay. But if they don't then we are staying with their permission.

[sinkingfeeling]

8. Gee, and if some country, such as Japan, wanted our bases gone, do you think they'd ask, knowing

how the USA responds to everything with bombs?

[clarence swinney]

11. 50 years on foreign soil

Just dropped by to say hello

[bdamomma]

12. you may find this information interesting

http://www.libsci.sc.edu/bob/class/clis734/webguides/milbase.htm

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. A nice little list but it seems to be a few bases short.

Like about 700 short.

[izquierdista]

14. In the battle of wits

Between Dana and a sack of turnips, I'd bet money on the vegetables......um,.....the purple topped ones, not the one with the blond top.

[damntexdem]

15. Yeah, because we're at Gitmo uninvited.

So if Iraq disinvites us (as many Iraqis have), do U.S. bases in Iraq no longer "count"?

[dysfunctional press]

19. they love us on okinawa...

and there are plenty of stories about soldiers occasionally "loving" back some of the teen girls on the island.

:sarcasm:

[harun]

20. "I'm going to say that one doesn't count."?

Are we in first grade or something?

[Bacchus39]

25. good God what an idiot!!, she also was unfamiliar with the Bay of Pigs

I recall from several months ago, she didn't know what it was.

[tchunter]

26. was this in response to the recent Okinawa travesty?

[Winterblues]

28. The word is "enduring" not permanent

Built to house American troops for decades. Nothing is "permanent"...