JoB
Ken,
NewResident has a point that we acquired many of our bases… and certainly most of those she mentioned as the result of war.
Although we negotiated agreements for them, those bases were easily negotiated in the aftermath of war when those countries needed massive assistance just to feed their people… and American assistance rebuilding infrastructure… or when they wee vulnerable and needed American protection.
The Marshall plan has been very good to us.. and we were lucky to be one of the few developed countries that didn’t have to rebuild and thus could afford those agreements…
However… the credit from those agreements is beginning to run out and the right of America to hold those bases is being challenged all over the world.
Although it can be argued that there is a fine line between provocation and self interest.. we have seldom instigated war without even the pretext of provocation.. as we did in Iraq.
Or met this kind of resistance to negotiating bases in another countries.
I am quite sure we have coerced other nations into making agreements… but the outright blackmail of the current administration may be unprecedented.
And the unwillingness to give benefit for the rights we wish to assume is certainly unprecedented in my lifetime. This is no negotiation…
i think NewResident that this is the biggest sticking point for many of us.
Regardless of how or why we got there… besides leaving a very bad taste in our mouths… blackmailing a nation into making agreements by withholding their assets doesn’t bode well for long term American interests.
Would you willingly grant military bases to the world’s bully?
Unfortunately, that is what we seem to have become.
This is a long way from our image from the Marshall plan as the world’s rebuilders and protectors.