Permanent Bases

[babylonsister]

http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,141173,00.html

Permanent Bases
Jeff Huber | July 03, 2007

Once again, the Democrats are looking to ban pursuit of permanent military bases in Iraq. Good luck to them. They'll need plenty of it.

John Kerry and other Democratic war critics have been calling for the Bush administration to deny any ambitions for permanent bases for years, and for years, the Bush administration has refused to make any such denials. Why do you suppose that is?

You can choose to believe this or not, but the paper trail of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century clearly indicates that the aims of the Iraq invasion were to establish a military base of operations in the center of the Middle East from which the U.S. could control the flow of oil and protect its friends in the region. And as Thomas Donnelly, a defense specialist with the American Enterprise Institute, stated in late 2004, "The operational advantages of US bases in Iraq should be obvious for other power-projection missions in the region."

From a purely military point of view, establishing a large base of operations in Iraq makes perfect strategic sense, and at this point in the Mesopotamia experiment, giving up on establishing that base makes little sense at all, at least if you're one of the strategists who originally came up with the idea.

The administration and its supporters can't come right out and tell us what they're really up to. That would goon the whole deal. That's why they continually remind us of the theoretical "dire" consequences of a complete withdrawal from Iraq--mass genocide, regional war, terrorists get control of the oil, etc. The truth be told, however, to the movers and shakers behind the Iraq policy, the most dire consequence of not keeping permanent bases in Iraq is not having permanent bases in Iraq.

Thus it is that the Bush strategy in Iraq has morphed into a series of stall tactics designed to keep American militarily engaged in that country until the next administration comes along and sees that it has no choice but to stay the course. The "surge" strategy, designed and sold by neocon luminary Frederick Kagan, appears to have come up bust by most estimates, but it actually served its purpose. It bought eight months or more of commitment and funding for Iraq operations as well as time to come up with the next "plan." That plan, which the Pentagon once labeled "go long," is now described by Defense Secretary Robert Gates as the "Korean model."

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[madrchsod]

1. this strategy was laid on the foundation of the "carter doctrine"

and has expanded by every president since. the reality is we will maintain at least 2 permanent bases for years to come in iraq.

[MasonJar]

2. Let's have innumerable years of democratic control and the bases

can be given back to the Iraqis as a gift for the damage this country has inflicted on an innocent nation. The most outrageous is installing this Shite government which is sending the female half of the Iraq population back to the Dark Ages. Kill 100s of 1000s of Iraqis and demote the citizenship of the women. Good job, w and dick, you little, mean-spirited b______ds.