The empire with bases loaded
By Manuel E. Yepe

A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Regarding the Agreement “for Cooperation and Technical Assistance and Security” recently signed by the governments of Colombia and the United States and denounced by the Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro as equivalent to the annexation of the former to the latter, I suggest we read again the essay that Chalmers Johnson, a researcher, writer and emeritus professor from the University of California in San Diego, published in 1999 with the title America’s Empire of Bases, which begins as follows:

As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize –or do not want to recognize– that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet. This vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire –an empire of bases with its own geography not likely to be taught in any high school geography class. Without grasping the dimensions of this globe-girdling Baseworld, one can't begin to understand the size and nature of our imperial aspirations or the degree to which a new kind of militarism is undermining our constitutional order.”

In other words, as early as ten years ago, Professor Johnson, a sharp critic of U.S. imperialism and particularly of its role in Asia, presented us with plenty of data about a project initially entrusted to Andy Hoehn, deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy, to implement President Bush’s preventive war strategy against “rogue states,” “bad guys,” and “evil-doers."

Those plans identify “something they call the"arc of instability", which is said to run from the Andean region of South America (read: Colombia) through North Africa and then sweeps across the Middle East to the Philippines and Indonesia. This is, of course, more or less identical with what used to be called the Third World –and perhaps no less crucially it covers the world’s key oil reserves. (…) The real reason for constructing this new ring of American bases along the equator is to expand our empire and reinforce our military domination of the world.”

Johnson continues: “Once upon a time, you could trace the spread of imperialism by counting up colonies. America’s version of the colony is the military base.  (…) Militarism and imperialism are Siamese twins joined at the hip. Each thrives off the other…”

Reading the text of the military agreement that Bogotá and the superpower signed a few days ago is sufficient to reveal how humiliating are the privileges, liberties and impunity that the U.S. troops, civilians and military contractors will enjoy in relation to to Colombia and its citizens when they set foot on that country in keeping with the agreement to become, in fact, an army of occupation in the Andean country.

Besides being shameful to the Colombians, these prerogatives are outrageous to all Latin Americans given the serious threat that the takeover of an entire nation located in the very heart of the region represents to their national sovereignty.

In her article “The true intentions behind the Military Agreement with Colombia”, American-Venezuelan journalist Eva Golinger quotes an official document issued by the Air Force division of the State Department which says that the U.S. army base of Palanquero, one of seven they will run in Colombia, will "provide a chance to conduct full-spectrum operations in a critical sub-region… where security and stability are constantly threatened by terrorists rebels funded with drug money, anti-American governments, endemic poverty and frequent natural disasters... ".

This contradicts what the governments of Colombia and the U.S. have publicly claimed about the military agreement being only about anti-drug and counter-terrorist operations and activities within the Colombian territory. It also entails a pre-declaration of war against ALBA member states in Latin America, precisely the ones Washington has identified as “anti-American governments”. Obviously, it also sends a serious warning to the rest of the hemisphere.

The only new thing about the hegemonic escalation this agreement brings with it is that this time the real American power has blamed all this indignity on the learned and still popular president Barack Obama, This comes as a surprise to many people in Latin America and the world who had taken for granted that the era of imperial arm-twisting, embodied in its heyday by an uncultured, corrupt and disgraced George Bush, Jr., had been left behind for good.

Perhaps the danger that the Empire absorbs Latin America pursuant to its plans for the “arc of instability” is not any greater now with the insulting agreement to build bases in Colombia, because our peoples have already been warned and, in the end, “forewarned is…”.

November 2009



Chalmers Johnson: America's Empire of Bases (1999)
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0115-08.htm