Is there any remaining doubt that the American people's needs and safety are not a priority?

[seafan]

Pentagon digs in deeper

By Nick Turse
Asia Times

November 20, 2010

The construction projects are sprouting like mushrooms: walled complexes, high-strength weapons vaults, and underground bunkers with command and control capacities - and they're being planned and funded by a military force intent on embedding itself ever more deeply in the Middle East. ....... As the "last" US combat troops withdrew from Iraq under the glare of TV lights in the dead of night and rolled toward Kuwait, there was plenty of commentary about where they had been, but almost none about where they were going.

.....

Kuwait. Qatar. Bahrain. United Arab Emirates. Oman. Jordan.


And now, more presence in Saudi Arabia. This is what Bin Laden hated, and for it vowed revenge.

Just last month, the US announced that it would conclude new arms deals with the Saudis which would equal that sum - not in another half century but in the next 15 to 20 years. Labeled a move to counter Iranian power in the region, the deal for advanced tactical fighter aircraft and state-of-the-art helicopters garnered headlines. What didn’t were the longstanding, ongoing US military construction efforts in that country.

Between 1950 and 2006, Saudi Arabia experienced $17.1 billion in construction activity courtesy of the Pentagon. In the years since, according to government data, the Department of Defense has issued more than $400 million in construction contracts for the kingdom, including $33 million in 2010 for projects ranging from a dining hall ($6 million) to weapons storage warehouses and ammunition supply facilities (nearly $1 million).

Bases and 'the Base'

In his 1996 "Declaration of War Against the Americans Who Occupy the Land of the Two Holy Mosques", Osama bin Laden wrote:

The presence of the USA Crusader military forces on land, sea and air of the states of the Islamic Gulf is the greatest danger threatening the largest oil reserve in the world. The existence of these forces in the area will provoke the people of the country and induces aggression on their religion, feelings, and prides and pushes them to take up armed struggle against the invaders occupying the land.

Since then, the US and bin Laden’s rag-tag guerrilla force, al-Qaeda ("the Base"), have been locked in a struggle that has led to further massive US base expansions in the greater Middle East and South Asia. At the height of its occupation, the US had hundreds of bases throughout Iraq. Today, hundreds more have been built in Afghanistan where, in the 1980s, bin Laden and other jihadists, backed and financed by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Saudis and the Pakistanis, fought to expel the Soviet occupiers of that country.

.....

This was in this weekend's news:


November 19, 2010


U.S. deploying heavily armored battle tanks for first time in Afghan war

.....

The Marines had wanted to take tanks into Afghanistan when they began deploying in large numbers in spring 2009, but the top coalition commander then, Army Gen. David D. McKiernan, rejected the request, in part because of concern it could remind Afghans of the tank-heavy Soviet occupation in the 1980s. ..... This time, the decision rested with Petraeus, who has been in charge of coalition forces in Afghanistan since July. He approved it last month, the officials said.

.....

The Asia Times chillingly concludes:

.....

While American infrastructure crumbles at home, new construction continues in oil-rich kingdoms, sultanates, and emirates there, courtesy of the Pentagon. It’s a building program guaranteed to further inflame anti-American sentiment in the region. History may not repeat itself, but ominously - just as in 1996 when bin Laden issued his declaration - most Americans have not the slightest idea what their military is doing with their tax dollars in the Persian Gulf and beyond, or what twenty-first century blowback might result from such activities.

When peace is not a priority of a Peace Laureate, it is time for a change.




(bold type added)

[redirish28]

1. absolutely true.

[DemReadingDU]

2. ditto

[sarcasmo]

3. Our social security money at work. The World's Police have not slowed down under Obama.

[Individualist]

4. No doubt at all.