All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
Next guest on the show today is Nick Terse.
He's an investigative journalist, the associate editor of TomDispatch.com and currently a fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute.
His latest book is The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan, which he edited, and he's also the author of The Complex, How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives.
You can follow him on Twitter, on Tumblr, whatever that is, and on Facebook.
His website is nickterse.com.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing?
Good, Scott.
Thanks for having me on.
You're welcome.
I'm very happy to have you here.
Wow.
So what a great article here.
You guys know how this works, the way we do it at anti-war.com.
TomDispatch.com, Tom Englehart, Tom editor.
He does a little introductory piece and then he has the main piece that he's kind of hosting there.
And so at anti-war.com, we run them all under Tom Englehart's name.
There's a great William Hartung piece there on the site today.
But if you just look at Tom Englehart's archives, this is the one before that.
All bases covered by Nick Terse and Tom Englehart.
And your part of the article is called Empire of Bases 2.0.
Does the Pentagon really have 1,180 foreign bases?
So Nick, does the Pentagon really have 1,180 foreign bases?
Well, you know, it's a really good question.
And it was one that I was, I was trying to answer.
What I'm, what I'm relatively sure of is that there are no less than 1,077 bases or sites in foreign countries.
But by other counts, there are as many as 1,180.
And there may well be many, many more.
I suspect there are.
Well, let's talk about some of the different ways that you might go about trying to count these things.
In fact, this is kind of how your article reads.
It's, it's an investigation of how many bases there are, American military bases there are in the world.
But it's also kind of the story about trying to find out too.
Yeah, it's, it's not as easy as you might think.
You know, the, the military does its best to, to obscure the numbers and, you know, how to do a lot of digging around.
And, and this is what I believe, you know, the best count available, but, but really there, there's no way to know for sure.
All right.
Well, tell us about, you know, the research that you did, because it does seem like it's kind of part of the story, not just the different kinds of numbers who came up by the different counts, but you know, where the different counts come from.
Sure.
What, what's really instructive is, you know, when I, when I dug into, you know, how many bases there are in Afghanistan, this is something that I've, I've covered at Tom Dispatch for the last year or two, you know, just trying to follow up on this was, it was a, it was a major chore and it, it, it kind of, you know, it's a microcosm of, of a larger story.
You know, when, when I dug into this in January of 2010 I was told, you know, this, and it took a while to get to this number, but that there were nearly 400 US and coalition bases in Afghanistan in addition to about 300 Afghan army bases there.
So when I, when I tried to follow up this fall I was, I contacted the ISAC joint command public affairs office and they told me there were 350 bases in Afghanistan.
So I was wondering where, where these other 50 missing bases went.
I had expected the bases to grow by, you know, 10 or 15 and now instead 50 were missing.
So then I, I contacted a public affairs officer there and he told me there were 250 bases.
So now we're looking at, you know, a loss of, of 150 bases, which I was, I was relatively sure really wasn't the case.
What I thought was that the military really didn't know how many it had, that they just, they'd lost track.
It really is like life in a Joseph Heller novel, isn't it?
It really is.
Yeah.
I wonder if anybody, or maybe like that movie Brazil that Terry Gilliam played.
Do you think anybody knows?
I, you know, I, I really don't because, uh, you know, I, I, I sent back, uh, you know, I emailed back all the numbers they'd given me, uh, 400, 350, 250.
And, you know, I said, I said, what gives?
I mean, uh, any of you guys really, you have any idea how many cases you have there?
So I got bounced around a couple of different, uh, public affairs folks, and then they just came back to me and said, uh, Oh, you know what, uh, 400 is right actually.
Uh, and, and we built another 11 this year.
So, so it's 411, but I got the impression that, uh, that really they had no idea because when I, when I kept following up, they'd say that, uh, you know, they'd, they'd sent out a request to, uh, lower commands in the field, uh, you know, different, different, uh, command echelons count differently.
And it really sounded like no one there had had any clue.
They were just, they were building bases.
They were, uh, hardening bases, expanding bases.
There's construction going on all the time, but nobody bothers to even keep count because these, these, you know, these numbers are just constantly growing.
And this is a new math.
Yeah.
And I, I think this has gone on all around the world.
Um, you know, uh, the, the late Chalmers Johnson, he always, uh, delved into something called the base structure report, which, uh, you know, is the way the military tracks its, its foreign bases.
But, uh, you know, when I, when I went through there, I looked at the foreign bases right now, uh, they're claiming, uh, that, that the, the base count actually has dropped in, in recent years.
Um, but yeah, and they say there's 662 foreign sites right now.
Uh, when Chalmers looked, there were roughly a hundred more.
But when you, when you look at a fine print of the report, uh, the Pentagon tells you that if the, if a foreign base is less than 10 acres in size or, uh, they value it at less than $10 million and they, they do the valuation.
So they can say anything costs, you know, whatever they want.
Uh, they don't even bother to count it.
So we have, we have no count.
And you saw in 10 acres, huh?
That's still pretty sizable.
Really?
You know, I, I call them micro bases, but they aren't, uh, they aren't exactly micro only by Pentagon standards, but when anyone considered these things, micro.
Right.
Um, well, you know, that actually answers one of my questions because I think I remembered, well, actually I'll ask it anyway and let you kind of maybe clarify more, I saw criticism of Chalmers Johnson and his number, his most cited number of, of bases, um, which I think he always said like 750 or something like that roundabouts and people always cite that.
But somebody said, nah, come on.
That counts every rented storage shed in Germany or something as its own little standalone base or something.
That's not possibly right.
There's actually only this many bases in Germany and, and you're calling things that don't amount to basis basis, but you're saying, nah, they gotta be more than 10 acres to even be counted.
Or at least that's what the Pentagon says.
That's right.
You know, uh, I mean, yeah, Chalmers, Chalmers took the, uh, you know, the Pentagon's number, the Pentagon doesn't call them bases and Chalmers always made this point.
They call these things sites.
Uh, it's just the, the way they refer to it.
And, you know, they're really the ones conflating this with that perhaps.
Yeah.
I mean, they make it very obscure.
You know, I went through and, and I, uh, you know, I, I knew about these criticisms and I did a count where I, you know, I, I tried to remove, uh, from, from the count, anything that, uh, you know, it was only, uh, you know, could be tenuously construed as a, as a base.
So, uh, what I did was I, I pulled out things like, um, family housing complexes, uh, resort, hotels, ski areas, golf courses.
Uh, the Pentagon has all of these and they're all tossed into the account.
Now, even if you remove those, uh, you're still left with 570, uh, foreign sites, you know, to use the Pentagon's terminology overseas, which is, um, you know, it's exceptionally sizable and, you know, and another thing that, that, uh, you know, a point that Chalmers would always make is that, uh, there's so many other places where the Pentagon doesn't count.
So, you know, for him to, uh, to count all of these bases, I really don't think is, uh, is beyond the pale.
It, uh, it makes a lot of sense when you're trying to tease out numbers that the, that the Pentagon's always keeping obscured and under wraps.
Well, as you know, Muqtada al-Sadr is back and he's saying, no, I'll continue to support the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki as long as he continues to insist the Americans are out, really out by the end of this year.
And yet, uh, I wonder about, uh, whether, you know, how many bases are left there about perhaps bases in Kurdistan and what's to be done with the biggest embassy that one country has ever built in the middle of another.
Uh, they're in the heart of Baghdad.
Um, I don't know.
So I'll ask you that again, when we get back from this break, it's Nick Turse, everybody, TomDispatch.com.
The other day on the show, Tom editor, TomDispatch, Tom Englehart.
That's all the same guy.
He said that Nick Turse was the best researcher he has ever encountered, better even than Chalmers Johnson, who sets the standard.
Well, he's the editor of the case for withdrawal from Afghanistan.
He's a historian, journalist, essayist, and associate editor and research director of the Nation Institute of Afghanistan.
TomDispatch.com and, uh, he's also the author of the complex, how the military invades our everyday lives.
So tell me, Nick, what about the current and, uh, the present and future of the American military occupation of Iraq?
Well, we know that, uh, that the U S had more than 400 bases in Iraq at its height.
And as far as I can tell right now, there are no further bases in Iraq.
As far as I can tell right now, there are no fewer than 88 bases still there.
No fewer than 88 bases still there.
That's right.
And how many combat troops and mercenaries, I guess they say there's a hundred thousand contractors, but I never know how many of those guys are peeling potatoes or driving trucks or how many of them are combat forces with machine guns.
Yeah.
It's, it's almost impossible to tell.
I, I wish I had a number for you, but I, I just don't.
Uh, but, uh, I am relatively sure that, that we're still looking at 88 bases there and now the, uh, you know, fodders put the pressure on, so, you know, it's, that's a lot of bases to, uh, to, to get rid of in a year.
I'll be, uh, I'll be interested to see if they're really able to, to paratend as the Iraq before the end of this year.
Yeah.
You know, uh, immovable object, unstoppable force coming together there, you know, uh, I remember when Obama gave a speech saying that he was going to abide by George Bush and Maliki's, uh, status of forces agreement and get out at the end of 2011 that, uh, Jim Michalczewski reported from the Pentagon that, yeah, well, everybody over here says, yeah, right to that, they stole Iraq fair and square and they're keeping it 15 or 20 years is their timeline.
Of course, McClatchy says that the state department, Hillary Clinton finally gets to be the commander in chief of something.
She's building her own army of mercenaries there, I guess, to protect that embassy, huh?
That's right.
Uh, you know, there's, there's certainly going to be, uh, you know, a, a major U S presence at that, that embassy, which, uh, I mean, it, it, it stretches the term embassy when you, when you look at the setup that they have there.
Uh, it's, it's really one, you know, it's another mega base of its, of its own.
So we know that's going to be there no matter what.
And, uh, I suspect that, that somehow, some way there's going to be a, a U S presence at a basis there because it's, you know, the Pentagon isn't very good at getting out of places, just, uh, it's not what it does.
Yeah.
You know, I kind of want to apologize to my listeners cause I know everybody wants to be over rack and let it go, but as long as our government hasn't let them go yet, then I can't let that go.
This thing is still on.
That's not a bygone George W.
Bush, Jr.
Era thing here.
88 bases remain in 2011.
Yeah.
I mean, Iraq's far from the past at this point.
All right.
So talk to me about, uh, the stands.
I'm always concerned.
Uh, you know, Raimondo, I think is insightful when he says, oh, well, look, if you accept the premise that we have to fight anywhere that Al Qaeda could have a base, then nevermind that that means Germany or Florida or whatever, to, uh, Maryland down the street from NSA headquarters where they stayed.
Um, the hijackers, I mean.
Uh, but, uh, if you accept that premise, you know, you could make the rhetorical argument, well, that means we have to follow them all the way to, in every part of Arabia and Yemen and Somalia.
That would be the typical thing.
But Raimondo says that means we might have to follow them into Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and all these stand countries that Americans will never find, even if we are at war with them.
And I wonder whether you think that that's a danger that, um, the, the bases in those stands will end up being actual war bases, not just a resupply depots for the Afghan disaster.
Yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's always a worry, you know, and the Pentagon just, um, you know, it's, it's always looking for places where it can, it can put down roots, uh, it's, it's always tough to tease out what's, what's going on in the stand.
It's, uh, how many bases are we talking about in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and so forth?
Yeah, we don't, we don't have a, uh, a good count.
It's not something I was able to, uh, to ferret out, you know, it's, um, you know, I, I, I spent some time too, trying to, uh, trying to dig into, you know, even what's in Pakistan.
If you look at, uh, the, the numbers of personnel that are deployed to Pakistan, uh, in the, in the military's records, you can see that there, there are hundreds of, uh, of troops there in Pakistan.
But if you look at the base count, uh, there's, there's none listed, but we know that, uh, that there are bases where drones, at least one base, maybe more that drones are taking off from, uh, because of the, uh, the reporting work of, uh, Jeremy Scahill at The Nation.
We know that, uh, there's a joint special operations base in, uh, in Karachi, but these, uh, you know, these bases, uh, bases in the stands, they're just, uh, they're off the map and they're really tough to, uh, to parse out exactly what's, what's going on there.
Well, now they say that, uh, AFRICOM has had trouble, uh, making a deal to find a country that will host their headquarters.
So they're still headquartered in the United States, but it seems like once you, I, I guess the, if I understand right, Africa basically being considered less important was divided between the Atlantic, Southern Atlantic command or something like that, and the Middle Eastern command, but now it has its own Pentagon command, it seems like, uh, you know, I guess like any government program that can only expand from here.
Do you, can you tell us much about the American military presence on the continent of Africa?
Well, you know, with, uh, you know, no one wants to, none of the African nations want to be the home base for AFRICOM, uh, because just because of the, the, the idea that it smacks of, uh, of colonialism and no one wants to be tainted in that way, but, uh, USS troops deployed all over there, uh, all over Africa.
And, you know, they have a major base say at, uh, Djibouti, uh, Camp Lemonnier.
And this is, um, you know, this is where they've, they've had a joint task force based out of, out of there since, uh, you know, right after 9 11.
And this is, it's actually an old French foreign Legion base, but the, uh, but the US took over.
Yeah, yeah, it really is.
And, uh, so, so there's a, uh, uh, what, what is now a permanent presence there.
And then there's, um, you know, they're, they're always having roving missions in, in different places in Africa.
And, uh, you know, they, they go in and out of advisory capacity to work with African forces.
They're, they're always in as, as trainers and advisors.
So, uh, you know, there's a major presence, uh, on the, on the African continent, even if, um, you know, AFRICOM itself can't find a, find a home.
Uh, I suspect it will at some point though.
All right.
Now, um, a few minutes left.
I kind of want to ask you the big, why all this, uh, you know, your, uh, your book, The Complex and, uh, and this work on the bases around the world.
And, you know, obviously it's, you know, America's facing a $14 trillion national debt right now.
It seems like there must be, if not a real good reason, a real powerful movement behind this imperialism.
But I was wondering if, uh, maybe before you, you address that, if you could sort of sketch, uh, the military presence in Latin America these days, because I know it's changed.
And I also know, I don't know really very much about it.
Uh, presence in, in Latin America.
Well, um, you know, a lot of the, uh, Latin American nations have, have, uh, pushed back in some way, other than in places like Columbia, the U S is, uh, it's, it's really let it's, uh, you know, it's focus has been elsewhere.
So I haven't seen much in the way, in the way that, uh, digging in there, you know, they, they put their, uh, they, they put most of their base efforts in, you know, what, what they had referred to for a long time as the, the arc of instability.
So, uh, you know, these construction expansion has, has gone into say that the Persian Gulf region with the idea that, uh, it might have to get out of Iraq.
That's where they've been, you know, digging in right now and expanding bases.
So, uh, you know, Latin America has actually, uh, you know, they've been off the hook for a while.
They haven't, uh, you know, they, they haven't had to, uh, had to endure, uh, you know, U S U S bases, U S expansion there.
I guess, uh, just Columbia and Costa Rica and are there more or that's, that's about it.
Um, you know, I remember the, the Ecuadorians, I guess you say, kick them out.
That's right.
That's right.
That base was, uh, was, was turned over to the, uh, you know, the, the president of Ecuador actually said that, uh, the U S could keep their base, uh, as long as he could put a military base in Miami.
Right.
And, uh, yeah, the, the Pentagon didn't go for that.
So what a great line.
Yeah.
They'll mill it.
The American military will run Miami.
Uh, we were just talking about the article about how they're going to start flying drones over Miami.
It'll be in the guise of the local police, but the feds are paying for it.
Um, so anyway, there may not be time left, but, uh, this sure seems crazy, uh, and extremely expensive.
And, uh, there's really not that many, uh, Soviet unions left in the world to, to justify, you know, uh, monopoly power in every ocean on every continent.
Is, is it just, uh, the greed of the military industrial complex or is there any rhyme, real rhyme or reason behind this other than people trying to reach in the till and get their share of the Pentagon pie?
Well, there's a lot of money in it.
Uh, you know, the, the service branches, they all, they're always looking to expand at the other's expense and none of them wants to give up their base.
They want, uh, you know, someone else to, uh, to downgrade their position elsewhere.
You know, there's, there's a lot wrapped up in this, but, uh, but a lot of it comes down, you know, as it always does to the power of money.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it sort of seems like it's kind of a free for all up there now and nobody really has any idea.
I mean, I don't know if the wise men were ever wise, but now we got either Doug Fyfe or Michelle Flournoy and it just seems like, you know, who's running things up there?
Nobody does make you wonder.
It seems like if anybody was running things, even really terrible people, they would put a break on some of this stuff because they're, they're, uh, cutting the throat of the golden goose, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And in a country that's in, uh, you know, has crumbling infrastructure and it's in such dire financial straits, you'd think that, uh, you know, at least cutting bases in places like, uh, uh, Germany or Japan or, or Italy, but at least, uh, you know, make sense to someone.
Yeah.
Well, maybe the, the thieves on wall street have to make sure that the generals are able to thieve enough for themselves that they'll continue to allow them be the thieves on wall street.
Well, and for that matter, the thieves in the white house, and I'm sorry, cause I screwed up my, uh, cliche.
It's the goose that lays the golden egg.
And the moral of the story is let him keep laying his golden eggs.
You don't have to cut his throat, cut him open and look for more golden eggs in there and be patient.
He'll lay another one or she'll lay another one a little while, you know?
That's what the American people are.
You know, we're supposed to be, but we're just, uh, I guess they rather, uh, take us for our down and, and make a pillow lay down and die on.
Huh?
You like that?
Pretty good.
I'm sorry.
I'm letting you off the hook.
Uh, everybody that is the heroic Nick Terse.
He's a historian, journalist and essayist and, uh, associate editor and research director for tomdispatch.com.
You can find his article under, uh, on the basis under Tom Englehart's name at antiwar.com.
Thanks very much.
Appreciate it.
Thanks a lot, Scott.
Have a good day.
