Base Syndrome

In Soviet times, any tenth grader could find in a basic military training textbook information about the plan “Anaconda,” in accordance with which the United States established a network of military bases along the perimeter of the USSR. During the 1990s and 2000s, the Pentagon continued the infiltration into different continents: in Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia construction began on new bases and transfer points for U.S. military infrastructure and intelligence, which international analysts have begun anxiously discussing.

Recent events show that the U.S. is stubbornly attempting to gain a foothold in Southeast Asia. This means that new military bases may appear, bearing with them new problems for the Eurasian continent.

But the problem of the placement of American military bases around the world is not only a strategic issue for the potential enemies of Washington and peace-loving governments. However, it should be noted that it is often through indirect action that goals are achieved, aimed at undermining countries, such as, for example, in the case of Afghanistan — whose narcotrafficking to Russia and China markedly rose after the American occupation.

U.S. military bases on the border have long been a source of problems for local inhabitants — from questions of land ownership and amoral conduct by American soldiers to ecological issues. American taxpayers also reasonably ask why such inadequate funds are dedicated to the well-being of citizens and principles of democracy.

While aspects connected to the American wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and former Soviet republics are well known because of their broad coverage in the world and national press, sides of U.S. activities in other regions, such as Southeast Asia, are less well known.

In 1992, after the rape and murder of 27-year-old Yun Keum-I by American soldier Kenneth Markle, South Korean society began a campaign of mobilization directed against the presence of the American military on the peninsula. The question was put quite logically: “From whom are the Americans protecting us?” According to data from the National Campaign to Eradicate Crime by U.S. Troops in Korea, the deployment of American troops since 1945 seems no different from an occupation of South Korea, and today 37,000 U.S. soldiers are located on 96 bases in the country.

According to statistics from this organization, Americans commit two to three crimes a day against Koreans. Out of 100,000 acts of crime committed by Americans since 1945, only 4 percent were tried in Korean courts and in the majority of cases, American soldiers were released without charge, or they paid compensation to the victims.

According to data from South Korean National Assembly member Kim Tae-Won, voiced during a hearing in Parliament, the number of South Korean women raped by American soldiers doubled recently, and in 2011 alone, 377 U.S. soldiers were arrested for various offences, including those connected with narcotics and violence toward police officers.

A new wave of protests have begun in connection with the construction of a U.S. military base on Jeju Island, located in the Korea Strait. According to the plan, it will occupy a 130-acre square (the equivalent of 169 soccer fields) on the fertile lands of local farmers who began actions of protest in defense of their property, which have been held back by the global media. The Jeju base will be able to dock up to 20 American and South Korean military vessels, including submarines, aircraft carriers and destroyers, some of which will be equipped with the Aegis ballistic missile defense system.

The base’s construction began in January of 2011, but was suspended in June. However, this does not mean that the base will not be completed; In 2006, after more than a thousand day campaign in the city of Pyeongtaek, the homes of local farmers were still destroyed to make way for the expansion of the Camp Humphreys base.

A no less interesting story occurred on the same island when its inhabitants revolted in 1948 against the division of the country. South Korean security forces suppressed the mutiny, leading to the death of about 30,000 inhabitants. Only in 2005 did the president of the country apologize for the crime, recognizing Jeju as “an island of world peace.” In addition, the island has been designated as a unique bioculture reserve and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Famous antiglobalist and renowned scholar Noam Chomsky, with his usual understanding of the issue, remarked in a recent publication that “the resistance is a grassroots movement that goes well beyond the issue of the island’s militarization. Human rights, the environment and free speech are also at stake,” and “the irony is that the seeds for future superpower conflict are being sown on an ecological preserve and island of peace.”

And, of course, from a geopolitical standpoint, a new base will be directed not only against North Korea, as stated by the official version; the very idea of strengthening the defenses of South Korea, for which Pentagon officials lobby, is directly connected with the rather murky incident of the sinking of the corvette “Cheonan,” which, notwithstanding a host of contradictions, the U.S. and officials in Seoul laid at the feet of the DPRK.

It’s no wonder that, on October 28, 2011, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, made an announcement about joint combat readiness, connected with possible disputes with North Korea in the Korean Sea. In their words, any fresh attack or further provocation “is not to be tolerated,” trying to further justify military escalation.

A new base will also be directed against China, because the island of Jeju is located only 300 miles from the PRC. And in any case there will be responsive measures from Beijing, which, in accordance with their strategy of national security, reasonably considers such antics to be a threat to their interests.

No less complicated is the relationship between the U.S. and its long-term defense partner, Japan — in particular, with the government of the island of Okinawa, on which 33 American bases and installations are located, occupying 229.2 square kilometers, or about 0.6 percent of the country’s territory. Of these, 22 are run exclusively by the Pentagon, and of the remaining 11, eight are training facilities and firing ranges.

Of particular concern is the air base at Futenma, built at the end of World War II, negotiations for the closure of which have been underway for 15 years. In the opinion of Japanese analyst Yoshio Shimoji, locating these bases on Okinawa violates Article 46 of the Hague Convention, which states that “Family honour and rights, the lives of persons, and private property, as well as religious convictions and practice, must be respected. Private property cannot be confiscated.”

The problem is that the base at Futenma is located on private land (4.8 sq. km.), whose indigenous people at the time of the famous Battle of Okinawa were placed in concentration camps. In his book “Futenma Air Base is in Your Neighborhood — Let’s Remove It Together,” former mayor of the city of Ginowan, Iha Yoichi, notes that “Residents who returned to their lands after the end of the war found a base there.”

Three thousand so-called “proprietors” are officially registered for the Futenma military base, and as of October, 2011, 38,000 Japanese were registered as landowners of military bases. Nonetheless, their rights are considered by neither the American colonists nor by the central government of Japan, although the location of these bases carries a potential threat to the residents of the island. For example, on August 13, 2004, an American CH-53D helicopter crashed right next to the campus of the University of Okinawa.

The planned transfer of the base from Okinawa to the island of Guam also brings with it new problems, because that island does not have adequate infrastructure. Considering its small population (170,000 people), the sharp increase in residents by 30 percent with the arrival of American soldiers will seriously undermine the social balance, not to mention the consequences of inappropriate behavior by the soldiers themselves in the new site.

All these plans for military restructuring abroad cause resistance from various sides in the U.S. as well. For example, in May of this year, Sens. Carl Levin, Jim Webb and John McCain of the Armed Services Committee called for the Pentagon to review it plans for restructuring the U.S. armed forces in East Asia, because they are “unrealistic” and “simply unaffordable in today’s increasingly constrained fiscal environment.”

Criticism has been directed at other U.S. bases as well. For example, the Washington Post, investigating secret American bases in Africa, ironically remarked that the costs for the maintenance of one U.S. service member on the island of Victoria (Seychelles Islands) can be estimated at $150 a day, “Not bad for a tropical dreamland.” There, since September of 2008, a small fleet of U.S. “hunter-killer” drones (as the unmanned Predator and Reaper drones, equipped to carry rockets and bombs, are known) has been deployed.

Initially, it was stated that this was done in the interest of the fighting piracy and protecting maritime communication, but U.S. officials acknowledged that the secret bases of the Pentagon and CIA, equipped with these weapons, were built with the intention of targeted killings of suspected terrorists.

However, these unmanned drones are fully capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons, therefore it won’t be surprising if information about this becomes widely known after some time. Even Japan, despite the fact that it was the victim of nuclear attack and its non-nuclear status, had nuclear weapons on its territory during the Cold War, deployed on U.S. bases.