The Biggest Military Base Empire on Earth

Greta Zarro

 September 23, 2024
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Image by David Hili.

U.S. foreign military bases provoke war, pollute communities, and steal land from Indigenous peoples

The United States of America, unlike any other nation on Earth, maintains a massive network of foreign military bases around the world, more than 900 bases in more than 90 countries and territories. If the peace movement is serious about ending the United States’ and its allies’ warmaking, then this global constellation of bases must be curtailed.

The permanent stationing of more than 220,000 U.S. troops, weapons arsenals, and thousands of aircraft, tanks, and ships in every corner of the globe makes the logistics for U.S. aggression, and that of its allies, quicker and more efficient. Bases also facilitate the proliferation of nuclear weapons, with the United States keeping nuclear bombs in five NATO member countries, and nuclear-capable planes, ships, and missile launchers in many others. Because the U.S. is continually creating plans for military actions around the world, and because the U.S. military always has some troops “on the ready,” the initiation of combat operations is simpler.

Not to mention the fact that these bases act as a provocation to surrounding countries. Their presence is a permanent reminder of the military capacity of the U.S. Rather than deterring potential adversaries, U.S. bases antagonize other countries into greater military spending and aggression. Russia, for example, justifies its interventions in Georgia and Ukraine by pointing to encroaching U.S. bases in Eastern Europe. China feels encircled by the more than 200 U.S. bases in the Pacific region, leading to a more assertive policy in the South China Sea. With vastly more foreign military bases than any other country on Earth, the U.S. logically must lead the way in a reverse arms race.

Furthermore, the U.S.’s network of foreign military bases perpetuates empire — an ongoing form of colonialism that robs Indigenous people of their lands. From Guam to Puerto Rico to Okinawa to dozens of other locations across the world, the military has taken valuable land from local populations, often pushing out Indigenous people in the process, without their consent and without reparations. For example, between 1967 and 1973, the entire population of the Chagos Islands was forcibly removed from the island of Diego Garcia by the UK so that it could be leased to the U.S. for an airbase. The Chagossian people were taken off their island by force and transported in conditions compared to those of slave ships. Despite an overwhelming vote of the UN General Assembly, and an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice in the Hague that the island should be returned to the Chagossians, the UK has refused and the U.S. continues operations from Diego Garcia today.

Each base has its own story of injustice and destruction, impacting the local economy, community, and environment. The U.S. military has a notorious legacy of sexual violence, including kidnapping, rape, and murders of women and girls. Yet U.S. troops abroad are often afforded impunity for their crimes due to Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) with the so-called “host” country. The lack of respect for the lives and bodies of Indigenous people is another product of unequal power relationships between the U.S. military and the people whose land they occupy. In essence, the presence of U.S. foreign bases creates apartheid zones, in which the occupied population, with second-class status, comes into the base to perform the labor of cooking, cleaning, and landscaping. Furthermore, the rise in property taxes and inflation in areas surrounding U.S. bases has been known to push locals out.

Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) also often exempt U.S. foreign military bases from adhering to local environmental regulations. The construction of bases has caused irreparable ecological damage, such as the destruction of coral reefs and the environment for endangered species in Henoko, Okinawa. Furthermore, it is well documented at hundreds of sites around the world that military bases leach toxic so-called “forever chemicals” into local water supplies, which has had devastating health consequences for nearby communities.

Closing bases is a necessary step to right the wrongs of colonialism, to curb the environmental destruction wrought by militarism, and to shift the global security paradigm towards a demilitarized approach that centers common security — no one is safe until all are safe. This September 20-22, in honor of the International Day of Peace, World BEYOND War is organizing its annual global #NoWar2024 Conference focused on the theme of the U.S. military base empire — its impacts and the solutions. Throughout three days of sessions held in four locations around the world (Sydney, Australia; Wanfried, Germany; Bogotá, Colombia; and Washington, DC), and streamed on Zoom, speakers will address the social, ecological, economic, and geopolitical impacts of U.S. military bases in their regions, plus the powerful stories of nonviolent resistance to prevent, close, and convert bases to peacetime uses.

Karina Lester, a Yankunytjatjara Anangu woman from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands (APY Lands) in the far North West of South Australia, will speak about the impacts of nuclear testing felt by her people. Alejandra Rodríguez Peña, member of the Olga Castillo Collective in Colombia, will discuss the collective’s work for justice and reparations for victims of sexual violence by U.S. military personnel. Laura Benítez, a marine biologist, will detail the campaign opposing the construction of a U.S. base on Colombia’s Gorgona Island, which is home to unique ecosystems and rich wildlife. Ricardo Armando Patiño Aroca, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Defense of Ecuador during the government of Rafael Correa, will share how the U.S. base in Manta, Ecuador was effectively shut down. Dr. Cynthia Enloe, renowned for her work on gender and militarism and the author of Bananas, Beaches and Bases, will explain how the presence of U.S. military bases impacts the local economy, shapes race relations within the community, and re-configures the sexual politics of a society.

On September 20-22, join us virtually — or in-person in Australia, Germany, Colombia, and the U.S. — for the #NoWar2024 Conference to hear from these and many other speakers about the impacts of the USA’s military base empire and how to work towards demilitarization and decolonization.

Greta Zarro is Organizing Director of World BEYOND War, and is syndicated by PeaceVoice.

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Gaza hospital a symbol of the ruin of war

This aerial picture shows the destroyed al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. PHOTO: AFP

GAZA STRIP (AFP) – Once the pride of Gaza’s medical community, the Palestinian territory’s main Al-Shifa hospital has become a stark symbol of the utter devastation wrought by the Israel-Hamas war.

Until the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, patients received for years the best care Gazan doctors and nurses could offer, but earlier this year, they had to cease all operations. Al-Shifa was all but destroyed in two Israeli military operations – one in November 2023, the other in March 2024.

Israeli troops detained the director of Al-Shifa, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, for more than seven months. He claimed he was “tortured” during that time. An emergency department has since reopened, though the rest of the sprawling complex lies in ruins, charred by the flames of war.

To revive the ward, staff had to “pull dialysis machines from under the rubble”, Abu Jaafar, a doctor there, told AFP. When Israeli tanks stormed the complex on the night of November 15, at least 2,300 people were in the hospital complex, according to the United Nations.

People receive treatment at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. PHOTO: AFP

Many of those on the site were Gazans who had sought shelter in what they had hoped would be a safe place. Gunfire and explosions terrified patients, staff and others seeking refuge from the war, said one AFP correspondent who was among the displaced.

On March 19, Israeli forces launched a second assault, again using tanks. For 11 days, soldiers then combed through the premises. When they finally withdrew, Israel’s military said they had killed “200 terrorists”, and that they had found many weapons.

Gaza’s civil defence agency, which carries out rescue work across the Palestinian coastal enclave, said at least 300 bodies were found.

Command centre or health facility?

Israel’s military said it raided Al-Shifa, accusing Hamas and other Palestinian militants of using it as a command centre to conduct operations.

To defend its claim, it held press events and aired videos it said proved that troops had found tunnels beneath the site, though some specialists have questioned the veracity of the footage. Israeli authorities have also said that several of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 have been held in hospitals.

Hostages released during a brief truce in November reported being held in hospitals or places that resembled them. The military has also said that the bodies of at least two hostages, Noa Marciano and Yehudit Weiss, were found close to Al-Shifa.

Hamas has consistently denied using hospitals as command centres, while human rights organisations have criticised Israel over its conduct of the war. The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 41,431 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to data provided by the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The United Nations has described these figures as reliable.

Ninety-seven hostages are still being held captive in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Pursuit of life

Established in 1946, two years before the founding of Israel, Al-Shifa evolved from a “rather almost colonial and basic” health facility into Gaza’s largest health care centre, said Palestinian-American Yara Asi, an academic at the University of Central Florida who specialises in access to healthcare in war zones.

“It wasn’t just a hospital itself, but it was a representation of the Palestinian pursuit of life and willingness to live on the land in many ways,” Asi said.

Al-Shifa became one of Gaza’s best-known institutions, said Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a Palestinian-British surgeon who spent the first 43 days of the war treating the wounded.

The interior of a destroyed section of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. PHOTO: AFP1300

“With each war, this hospital became more important,” said Abu-Sittah, referring to the previous four wars in Gaza in 2008-9, 2012, 2014 and 2021.

“After the fall of Al-Shifa, people felt there was nothing left in the north (of the Gaza Strip) that could help them,” he said.

Beyond Al-Shifa, the Palestinian territory’s health system has largely collapsed, with the World Health Organization estimating that just a handful of clinics remain operational.

The wounded, who number in the dozens every day, must seek treatment in field hospitals run by international aid organisations.

Al-Shifa “was the nerve centre of the health care system, and the raids broke it,” Abu-Sittah said.

Lebanese Doctor Races to Save the Eyes of Those Hurt by Exploding Tech Devices

Elias Jaradeh, a legislator and an ophthalmologist, left, who has conducted dozens of operation for victims of this week's attack in Lebanon, makes an eye surgery operation for a man who was injured in the explosion of one of the handheld devices, at the Eye Specialist hospital, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024

. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Asharq Al Awsat
23 September 2024 

AD ـ 20 Rabi’ Al-Awwal 1446 AH


For almost a week, ophthalmologist Elias Jaradeh has worked around the clock, trying to keep up with the flood of patients whose eyes were injured when pagers and walkie-talkies exploded en masse across Lebanon.

He has lost track of how many eye operations he has performed in multiple hospitals, surviving on two hours of sleep before starting on the next operation. He has managed to save some patients’ sight, but many will never see again.

“There is no doubt that what happened was extremely tragic, when you see this overwhelming number of people with eye injures arriving at the same time to the hospital, most of them young men, but also children and young women,” he told The Associated Press at a Beirut hospital this past week, struggling to hold back tears.

Lebanese hospitals and medics were inundated after thousands of hand-held devices belonging to the Hezbollah militant group detonated simultaneously on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, killing at least 39 people. Around 3,000 more were wounded, some with life-altering disabilities. Israel is widely believed to have been behind the attack, although it has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.

Although the explosions appear to have targeted Hezbollah fighters, many of the victims were civilians. And many of those hurt in the attack suffered injuries to their hands, face and eyes because the devices received messages just before they detonated, so they were looking at the devices as they exploded.

Authorities have not said how many people lost their eyes.

Veteran and hardened Lebanese eye doctors who have dealt with the aftermath of multiple wars, civil unrest and explosions, said they have never seen anything like it.
Jaradeh, who is also a lawmaker representing south Lebanon as a reformist, said most of the patients sent to his hospital, which specializes in ophthalmology, were young people who had significant damage to one or both eyes. He said he found plastic and metal shrapnel inside some of their eyes.

Four years ago, a powerful blast tore through Beirut’s port, killing more than 200 people and wounding more than 6,000. That explosion, caused by the detonation of hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrates that had been stored unsafely at a port warehouse, blew out windows and doors for miles around and sent cascades of glass shards pouring onto the streets, leading to horrific injuries.

Jaradeh also treated people hurt in the port explosion, but his experience with those wounded by the exploding pagers and walkie-talkies has been so much more intense because of the sheer volume of people with eye injuries.

“Containing the shock after the Beirut port blast was, I believe, 48 hours while we haven’t reached the period of containing the shock now,” Jaradeh said.

Jaradeh said he found it hard to dissociate his job as a doctor from his emotions in the operating theater.

“No matter what they taught you (in medical school) about distancing yourself, I think in a situation like this, it is very hard when you see the sheer numbers of wounded. This is linked to a war on Lebanon and war on humanity,” Jaradeh said.

Why It’s Essential for America to Own Supply Chains

David McCall

USW

 September 23, 2024
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A diagram of a supply chain. Image Source: Maly LOLek – CC BY-SA 3.0

A knot formed in Sam Phillips’s stomach a few months ago when he learned that corroded titanium—sold with faked documents—somehow made it into doors and other components on civilian airliners.

It was exactly the kind of nightmare scenario that Phillips and other members of the United Steelworkers (USW) warned of while trying to save the nation’s last titanium sponge plant, located in Henderson, Nevada.

TIMET, the owner of the plant, closed it anyway in 2020, not only leaving America dependent on foreign supplies of a crucial industrial material but also putting the nation’s security at risk.

Only domestic ownership of manufacturing supply chains—from the sourcing of raw materials like titanium sponge to the production of goods like airplane components—will keep the nation strong.

Fortunately, the Biden-Harris administration grasped what’s at stake and delivered historic legislation like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to revitalize the nation’s manufacturing economy and preserve America’s freedom.

It’s essential for Americans to own supply chains across all industries, Phillips said, noting foreign companies can cut off shipments of goods at any time and for any reason.

Even manufacturers in ostensibly friendly countries like Japan can encounter production delays or shift operations, affecting U.S. access to needed goods. Just as worrisome, as the airliner titanium scare shows, the long decline of domestic manufacturing capacity even left Americans at the mercy of rogue, corner-cutting producers operating in the shadows thousands of miles away.

“How did it get manufactured and actually put in a plane?” asked Phillips, former president of USW Local 4856.

“It doesn’t make me want to get on airplanes anytime soon,” added Phillips, who learned about the debacle while reading a New York Times article in June. “They should have U.S. titanium in them.”

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) began an investigation after a parts supplier discovered holes, caused by corrosion, in airplane components made with titanium believed to have come from a Chinese company.

Adding to the uncertainty, authorities discovered that the Chinese firm falsified documents relating to the material it provided. The Times reported that the FAA was “investigating the scope of the problem and trying to determine the short- and long-term safety implications to planes” containing the suspect material.

It’s the kind of turmoil that’s easily avoided when union workers at U.S.-owned firms produce goods right here at home, said Phillips, emphasizing the trust he and his hundreds of co-workers built with TIMET customers over the years.

“They relied on us to give them a good, decent product,” Phillips said, observing that the plant supplied numerous civilian industries and the armed forces while providing middle-class livelihoods for generations of Henderson residents.

“I made a good living for 24 years,” explained Phillips, who now works in the logistics field. “I didn’t have to worry about paying my bills or putting food on the table. It was a good union job. The union took care of its members.”

Before closing the plant, TIMET cited dumping and other unfair competition from some of the same countries that, ironically, gamed greater market opportunities and tightened their grip on the U.S. when the Henderson facility shut down.

Phillips, who tells his story to help others understand the danger of letting foreign companies seize control of U.S. supply chains, described shortages of face masks at the start of the pandemic and of semiconductors a couple of years after that as further proof of the need to bolster U.S.-owned manufacturing.

That’s what’s happening right now as President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris work with the USW and other unions to advance a new era of manufacturing power.

Those efforts include fighting foreign takeovers of essential American firms and standing up to trade cheaters that undercut U.S. producers and put jobs at risk.

They include leveraging the job creation, “Buy American” requirements, and manufacturing investments spurred by the IIJA, IRA, and the CHIPS and Science Act.

Among many other important projects, for example, the IIJA and IRA allocate up to $500 million to help Century Aluminum construct a new energy- and cost-efficient aluminum smelter in Kentucky or in another location in the Ohio River or Mississippi River basins.

It will be the nation’s first new aluminum smelter in 45 years and will create 1,000 permanent union jobs, along with hundreds of construction jobs.

And it represents a critical step forward for the aluminum industry, which fills a vital role in economic and national security but has experienced a spate of smelter closures over the years because of high energy costs and other challenges. Today, only a handful remain in operation in the U.S.

“They keep it open for a reason,” said Todd Manning, president of USW Local 420A, citing the strategic importance of Alcoa’s aluminum smelting operations in Massena, New York.

The world’s oldest continuously operating smelter, it’s a bedrock of American industry serving both civilian and defense needs. And like the new Century Aluminum smelter, to be operated with renewable energy, the Massena smelter benefits from an affordable, accessible energy source—hydropower.

That’s helped to keep the facility open, said Manning, who looks forward to the stability the Century smelter will bring to American industry and the decreasing reliance on foreign producers.

“It’s very important not to have to deal with any of them,” Manning said, instead supporting the higher-quality, more reliable work performed by America’s union workers. “We need to be able to write our own checks.”

David McCall is the international president of the United Steelworkers Union (USW).

Governments Need to Guarantee Health Care Without Racism

UN Body Stresses Importance of Tackling Racial Health Disparities

Matt McConnell
Researcher, Economic Justice and Rights Divisionmcconnell_m
mcconnell_m

Almaz Teffera
Researcher, Racism in EuropeAlmazTeffera

AlmazTeffera


Click to expand Image
A doctor kneels while holding a sign during a "White Coats for Black Lives" tribute for George Floyd and other African-Americans who died in police custody, outside of a hospital in West Covina, near Los Angeles, California, US, June 11, 2020. © 2020 Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has outlined concrete steps governments should take to address racial discrimination in health care.

Racism and prejudice have a global impact on health rights. Racism can shape the social determinants of health, such as income, employment, education, food, and housing; the benefits and burdens of financing and distributing healthcare resources; whether a person has access to vital health information; and interactions with healthcare personnel, who may be quick to dismiss the health concerns of patients of color, and especially women.

The Covid-19 pandemic only made this clearer, as many governments’ public health responses further entrenched institutional racism.

For many of these reasons, the UN’s anti-racism body, CERD, decided to provide governments with clearer guidance on what measures to take to comply with their obligation to guarantee the equal enjoyment of the right to health for all.

Much of this new guidance aligns with suggestions that Human Rights Watch provided to CERD, drawing from our research.

Human Rights Watch has joined other civil society organizations in repeated calls to European governments to collect so-called equality data that is disaggregated by multiple grounds of discrimination, including race and ethnic origin, to address systemic racism, including in health care. CERD’s new guidance stresses the importance of collecting this type of data to address racial inequalities and discrimination.

We have also documented the failure of the US federal and state governments to address structural racism and discrimination and eliminate barriers contributing to high rates of preventable cervical cancer deaths for Black women. CERD’s new guidance urges governments to take steps to remove these barriers, including unequal access to health-related information.

The general recommendation is a roadmap for an anti-racist approach to health care that acknowledges the impacts of ongoing legacies of colonialism and enslavement, which governments should implement in their respective national systems.

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Tunisians protest proposal to strip of court of election oversight

Protests break out after 34 lawmakers propose shifting election supervision from administrative court to appeals court ahead of Oct. 6 vote

Ala Hammoudi |23.09.2024 - TRT/AA



TUNIS, Tunisia

A proposal by Tunisian lawmakers to transfer the authority for overseeing elections from the administrative court to the appeals court sparked protests Sunday,

Ahead of the Oct. 6 presidential election, 34 deputies submitted the proposal, prompting human rights groups and right-wing and liberal parties to organize demonstrations in the capital, Tunis.

Protesters on Habib Bourguiba Avenue chanted slogans like "No to dictatorship, no to oppression," demanding transparent elections and criticizing judicial interference.

Tunisia's High Electoral Commission previously confirmed three candidates, including President Kais Saied, while rejected candidates appealed to the administrative court, which ruled in their favor.

Despite this, the commission maintained the initial candidate list.