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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://orinocotribune.com/all-us-military-bases-are-your-enemy/">orinocotribune.com</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">All US Military Bases Are Your Enemy</h1>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><p><img width="454" height="254" src="https://i0.wp.com/orinocotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Al-Udeid-air-base.jpg?fit=1500%2C838&ssl=1" alt="A satellite image of United States' Al-Udeid Air Base located in Doha, Qatar. Photo: Noor/Iran Front Page." tabindex="0" role="button" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;"></p>
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A satellite image of United States' Al-Udeid Air Base located in Doha, Qatar. Photo: Noor/Iran Front Page.</p>
<p></p></div><div id="gmail-content"><div><p>By Nidal Khalaf – Aug 20, 2024</p><p>James Bradley, author of <em>The China Mirage</em>,
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.”</p><p>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.</p><p>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?</p><p><strong>An “ignored” enemy<br>
</strong>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p><strong>The tool of obfuscation<br>
</strong>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.)</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>Know your enemy: all US military bases are your enemy.</p><p>(<a href="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-" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Al-Akhbar</a>)</p><p>Translation: Orinoco Tribune</p><p>OT/DZ/SC</p></div></div></div></div>
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