When Will They Ever Learn
Move over, Watertiger, my head needs to bounce off your desk a few times. At a time when the Supercommittee is looking for ways to "trim" Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and to cut back on education and environmental protection, President Obama has decided we need to open new military bases in the Pacific.
Confronting anxiety about China's growing political and economic clout, President Obama announced a strategic shift by the United States to reassert its role as the dominant military power in the Pacific as it pulls back from post-Sept. 11 wars.
Speaking Thursday in the Australian capital, Canberra, Obama pledged to support the dispatch of more U.S. troops, joint training operations and military exercises in the Asia-Pacific region as the Pentagon draws down in Iraq and Afghanistan. He called the commitment to boost the U.S. military presence a top priority.
"The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay," Obama said in an address to the Australian Parliament. ...
They include stationing 2,500 Marines at an Australian military base in what officials called the first constant U.S. troop presence in that country since the Vietnam War era. The first 200 to 250 Marines will arrive next year, and the unit will grow over several years.
Deploying the contingent in Darwin, on Australia's remote northern coast, gives U.S. planners a way to quickly project power in the crucial sea lanes of the South China Sea and the chokehold straits near Singapore, U.S. officials said. The U.S. Air Force also will gain increased access to military airfields in northern Australia.
But it's ok: we're winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, two wars that bled the country dry and did it mostly off-budget. That should give us plenty of money to expand our imperialistic saber rattling. Besides, that South China Sea has to be kept open so we can import more goods from China, Taiwan, and Singapore.
Moron.
Confronting anxiety about China's growing political and economic clout, President Obama announced a strategic shift by the United States to reassert its role as the dominant military power in the Pacific as it pulls back from post-Sept. 11 wars.
Speaking Thursday in the Australian capital, Canberra, Obama pledged to support the dispatch of more U.S. troops, joint training operations and military exercises in the Asia-Pacific region as the Pentagon draws down in Iraq and Afghanistan. He called the commitment to boost the U.S. military presence a top priority.
"The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay," Obama said in an address to the Australian Parliament. ...
They include stationing 2,500 Marines at an Australian military base in what officials called the first constant U.S. troop presence in that country since the Vietnam War era. The first 200 to 250 Marines will arrive next year, and the unit will grow over several years.
Deploying the contingent in Darwin, on Australia's remote northern coast, gives U.S. planners a way to quickly project power in the crucial sea lanes of the South China Sea and the chokehold straits near Singapore, U.S. officials said. The U.S. Air Force also will gain increased access to military airfields in northern Australia.
But it's ok: we're winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, two wars that bled the country dry and did it mostly off-budget. That should give us plenty of money to expand our imperialistic saber rattling. Besides, that South China Sea has to be kept open so we can import more goods from China, Taiwan, and Singapore.
Moron.
Labels: American Imperialism, Budget, Pentagon
posted by Diane at 5:08 AM
2 Comments:
Dogdamnit-- If China has become an economic powerhouse, whose fault is that... maybe all those American companies that decided to shift manufacturing there, that decided that Chinese jobbers were the way to go with their businesses? American CEO/executive elites who can't be bothered to think about THEIR country and its needs? Did a communist Chinese official sneak in to the US and hold a gun at anyone's head and say "you will transfer your factory to China or else?"
Do the Aussies really want U.S. troops permanently stationed in their country?? I can see this becoming the beginning of the end of a beautiful friendship.
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