Planet Pentagon: The Earth, seas and skies

[bemildred]

So much for the old "we seek no territory for ourselves" bullshit. And we pay for all this.

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Garrisoning the globe

In 2003, Forbes magazine revealed that media mogul Ted Turner was America's top land baron - with a total of 1.8 million acres across the US. The nation's 10 largest landowners, Forbes reported, "own 10.6 million acres, or one out of every 217 acres in the country". Impressive as this total was, the Pentagon puts Turner and the entire pack of mega-landlords to shame with over 29 million acres in US landholdings. Abroad, the Pentagon's "footprint" is also that of a giant. For example, the Department of Defense controls 20% of the Japanese island of Okinawa and, according to Stars and Stripes, "owns about 25% of Guam". Mere land ownership, however, is just the tip of the iceberg.

In his 2004 book, The Sorrows of Empire, Chalmers Johnson opened the world's eyes to the size of the Pentagon's global footprint, noting that the Department of Defense (DoD) was deploying nearly 255,000 military personnel at 725 bases in 38 countries. Since then, the total number of overseas bases has increased to at least 766 and, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service, may actually be as high as 850. Still, even these numbers don't begin to capture the global sprawl of the organization that unabashedly refers to itself as "one of the world's largest 'landlords'."

The DoD's "real property portfolio", according to 2006 figures, consists of a total of 3,731 sites. Over 20% of these sites are located on more than 711,000 acres outside of the US and its territories. Yet even these numbers turn out to be a drastic undercount. For example, while a 2005 Pentagon report listed US military sites from Antigua to Kenya and Peru, some countries with significant numbers of US bases go entirely unmentioned - Afghanistan and Iraq, for example.

In Iraq, alone, in mid-2005, US forces were deployed at some 106 bases, from the massive Camp Victory, headquarters of the US high command, to small 500-troop outposts in the country's hinterlands. None of them made the Pentagon's list. Nor was there any mention of bases in Jordan on that list - or in the 2001-2005 reports either.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IG13Ak01.html