[News] All US Military Bases Are Your Enemy

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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<https://orinocotribune.com/all-us-military-bases-are-your-enemy/>
All US Military Bases Are Your Enemy
------------------------------

[image: A satellite image of United States' Al-Udeid Air Base located in
Doha, Qatar. Photo: Noor/Iran Front Page.]

A satellite image of United States' Al-Udeid Air Base located in Doha,
Qatar. Photo: Noor/Iran Front Page.

By Nidal Khalaf  –  Aug 20, 2024

James Bradley, author of *The China Mirage*, says that “if you stood on the
tallest building in Beijing and looked at the oceans and land surrounding
you, you would find American destroyers, planes, and missiles encircling
you from every direction.”

This image embodies the reality of US hegemony across the world, and the
nature of the relationship between Washington and its adversaries on the
planet. If we move from East Asia to West Asia, the scene is identical
between the ocean and the gulf. US military bases are spread across more
than 19 geographic locations between the Arabian Gulf and Eritrea. About
nine of these bases are considered permanent bases, located in Bahrain,
Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the Zionist entity. Over the past
decades, with each political juncture the region goes through, the United
States doubles the number of its military bases and soldiers in the region.

Despite the enormous number of US soldiers occupying these countries
through military bases (more than 35,000 soldiers) plus a huge stockpile of
ammunition and military equipment, Washington’s military bases remain in
the shadows of the political and intellectual debate that erupted after the
Al-Aqsa Flood operation. Why are US military bases absent from our
discussions? And how do we understand the present and future role of these
bases in the region?


*An “ignored” enemy *Bradley considers that part of the success of US
hegemony in the world is what could be described as a policy of
“obfuscation” or creating a “mirage” in how it spreads its military bases
around the world. Despite the bases being openly announced, which are
presented in the context of “joint defense” agreements with countries and
regimes (most of which possess no sovereignty except a flag and an anthem,)
the United States deliberately obscures, through its media and political
influence, the role of these bases and the strength of their impact on
regional policies and conflicts among neighboring countries.

For example, there is a plethora of news and analysis about
Japanese-Chinese disputes, but rarely any mention of the presence of 85 US
military bases and more than 52,000 US soldiers in Japan with advanced
weapons and intelligence technologies directed against China. The same
policy is followed in our countries. Screens are flooded with talk about
the “Iranian threat” and “Arab states’ concerns.” But the fact that most US
military bases in the region were established before the Islamic Revolution
in Iran is never mentioned, meaning that the role of these bases in
besieging Iran is hidden.

The discussion has shifted away from the reality and role of these foreign
bases on Arab land and instead considers them a given in the Arab political
reality. This is the essence of the intellectual normalization of the
direct US occupation of our countries. Even the word “occupation” is absent
from any discussion surrounding these bases. This deliberate “obfuscation”
aims to force us to submit to Washington’s supposed divinity. As if the
superpower capable of dictating our reality, security, and policies as it
pleases, and securing its “interests” (what are the interests of the
colonizer?) is simply our inevitable fate. Through this policy, Washington
succeeds in extending its hand of killing and extermination to serve its
colonial agenda while avoiding backlash against its occupations and
brutality.

The biggest example of the success of this policy is the difference between
the Arab reaction to the United States’ occupation of Iraq in 2003, and the
Arab reactions to the US operations in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya after
2005. In the first instance, the blatant scene of direct occupation was
sufficient to provoke diverse populations into expressing their rejection
and condemnation through both armed resistance and other means. The latter
instances, no less deadly for the peoples of our region, barely receive any
attention or scrutiny. US occupation has become accepted as part of the
region’s daily life, as if we have all acquiesced to Washington’s
self-proclaimed “right” to bomb whomever it pleases, without the slightest
objection.


*The tool of obfuscation *However, the role of US military bases goes
beyond the military, security, and intelligence dimensions, although this
role is the pillar of US hegemony. All forms of cultural, economic, and
political hegemony are merely symptoms of military and security hegemony. A
closer examination of Washington’s military bases in Arab countries reveals
an additional role for these bases, which is the media role.

Today, the most widespread and influential Arab media institutions in
traditional and digital media operate under the protection of US military
bases. This presence is not a coincidence, but a clear, well-defined role
that entails a lot of role distribution while maintaining the main goal,
which is to obscure the enemy. For example, since the start of the Zionist
extermination war on the Gaza Strip, there are daily shipments of weapons
from Washington’s Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar to the occupation entity’s
bases in occupied Palestine. Shipments carrying tools of extermination are
accompanied by pressure and threats against anyone working to stop the
extermination.

But the Arab viewer will not see even one news item (even in passing) about
the role of the Al-Udeid base in the extermination of the Palestinian
people (and before them the Syrian, Iraqi, Yemeni, Afghan, and Libyan
peoples.) Why? Because the media empire dominating minds and screens
operates under the protection of this base and will not deviate—even by
mistake—from the path of media propaganda for which it was established
under the shadows of this US base. From here, we can understand the ease of
the “hostility” that Al Jazeera shows towards Israel, in exchange for
completely and deliberately obfuscating the role of US military bases in
the war of extermination against the Palestinians (whom Al Jazeera claims
to support.)

This contradiction between focusing on “Israel” while obscuring the role of
other US military bases in the region grows starker as the battle lines
become clearer, especially after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation. Today, as we
approach a full year of ongoing massacre and persistent resistance despite
starvation and siege, and while US and Western armies gather in our seas
and on our land from all directions, it has become necessary to fully
understand our enemy to make it truly meaningful. Hostility towards
“Israel” alone was never sufficient to begin with. Today, limiting our
focus to “Israel” alone amounts to participating in the crime of distorting
awareness and enabling the continuation of extermination.

The magnitude of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation and the agony of the bloodshed
in Gaza demands a correction of both our understanding and our political
compass.

Know your enemy: all US military bases are your enemy.

(Al-Akhbar
<https://al-akhbar.com/Opinion/385863/%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%B1%D9%81-%D8%B9%D8%AF%D9%88-%D9%83-%D9%83%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B3%D9%83%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%B1%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%B9%D8%AF%D9%88->
)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/DZ/SC
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