Side Effects or Causes of War?

By Zoltan Grossman February 2, 2002

Since the end of the Cold War a decade ago, the U.S. has gone to war in Iraq, Somalia, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan. The interventions have been promoted as "humanitarian" deployments to stop aggression, to topple dictatorships, or to halt terrorism. After each U.S. intervention, the attention of supporters and critics alike has turned to speculate on which countries would be next. But largely ignored has been what the U.S. interventions left behind.

As the Cold War ended, the U.S. was confronted with competition from two emerging economic blocs in Europe and East Asia. Though it was considered the world's last military superpower, the United States was facing a decline of its economic strength relative to the European Union, and the East Asian economic bloc of Japan, China and the Asian "Four Tigers." The U.S. faced the prospect of being economically left out in much of the Eurasian land mass. The major U.S. interventions since 1990 should be viewed not only reactions to "ethnic cleansing" or Islamist militancy, but to this new geopolitical picture.

Since 1990, each large-scale U.S. intervention has left behind a string of new U.S. military bases in a region where the U.S. had never before had a foothold. The U.S. military is inserting itself into strategic areas of the world, and anchoring U.S. geopolitical influence in these areas, at a very critical time in history. With the rise of the "euro bloc" and "yen bloc," U.S. economic power is perhaps on the wane. But in military affairs, the U.S. is still the unquestioned superpower. It has been projecting that military dominance into new strategic regions as a future counterweight to its economic competitors, to create a military-backed "dollar bloc" as a wedge geographically situated between its major competitors.

Wars for Bases.

As each intervention was being planned, planners focused on building new U.S. military installations, or securing basing rights at foreign facilities, in order to support the coming war. But after the war ended, the U.S. forces did not withdraw, but stayed behind, often creating suspicion and resentment among local populations, much as the Soviet forces faced after liberating Eastern Europe in World War II. The new U.S. military bases were not merely built to aid the interventions, but the interventions also conveniently afforded an opportunity to station the bases.

Indeed, the establishment of new bases may in the long run be more critical to U.S. war planners than the wars themselves, as well as to enemies of the U.S. The massacre of September 11 were not directly tied to the Gulf War; Osama bin Laden had backed the Saudi fundamentalist dictatorship against the Iraqi secular dictatorship in the war. The attacks mainly had their roots in the U.S. decision to leave behind bases in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. The permanent stationing of new U.S. forces in and around the Balkans and Afghanistan could easily generate a similar terrorist "blowback" years from now.

This is not to say that all U.S. wars of the past decade have been the result of some coordinated conspiracy to make Americans the overlords of the belt between Bosnia and Pakistan. But it is to recast the interventions as opportunistic responses to events, which have enabled Washington to gain a foothold in the "middle ground" between Europe to the west, Russia to the north, and China to the east, and turn this region increasingly into an American "sphere of influence." The series of interventions have also virtually secured U.S. corporate control over the oil supplies for both Europe and East Asia. It's not a conspiracy; it's just business as usual.

Gulf War.

Contrary to original U.S. promises to its Arab allies, the 1991 Gulf War left behind large military bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and basing rights in the other Gulf states of Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. The war also heightened the profile of existing U.S. air bases in Turkey. The war completed the American inheritance of the oil region from which the British had withdrawn in the early 1970s. Yet the U.S. itself only imports about 5 percent of its oil from the Gulf; the rest is exported mainly to Europe and Japan. French President Jacques Chirac correctly viewed the U.S. role in the Persian Gulf as securing control over oil sources for the European and East Asian economic powers. The U.S. decided to permanently station bases around the Gulf after 1991 not only to counter Saddam Hussein, and to support the continued bombing against Iraq, but to quell potential internal dissent in the oil-rich monarchies.

Somalia War.

The intervention in Somalia in 1992-93 ended in defeat for the U.S., but it is important to understand why the so-called "humanitarian" intervention took place. In the 1970s-80s, the U.S. had backed Somali dictator Siad Barre in his wars against Soviet-backed Ethiopia. In return, Barre had granted the U.S. Navy the rights to use Somali naval ports, which were strategically situated at the southern end of the Red Sea, linking the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean. After Barre was overthrown, the U.S. used the ensuing chaos and famine as its excuse to move back in, but made the mistake of siding with one group of warlords against the Mogadishu warlord Mohamed Aidid. In the battle of Mogadishu, romanticized in the movie "Black Hawk Down," 18 U.S. troops and many hundreds of Somalis were killed. The U.S. withdrew, and eventually gained naval basing rights in the port of Aden, just across the Red Sea in Yemen, where Bin Laden launched his attack on the USS Cole in 2000.

Balkan Wars.

The U.S. interventions in Bosnia in 1995, and Kosovo in 1999, were ostensibly reactions to Serbian "ethnic cleansing," yet the U.S. had not intervened to prevent similar "ethnic cleansing" by its Croatian or Albanian allies in the Balkans. The U.S. military interventions in former Yugoslavia resulted in new U.S. military bases in five countries: Hungary, Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia, and the sprawling Camp Bondsteel complex in southeastern Kosovo. NATO allies have also participated in the interventions, though not always with the same political priorities. As in the Gulf and Afghan conflicts, European Union allies may be joining the U.S. wars not simply out of solidarity, but out of fear of being completely excluded from carving out the postwar order in the region. The Kosovo intervention, in particular, was followed by stepped-up European efforts to form an independent military force outside of the U.S.-commanded NATO. The U.S. stationing of huge bases along the eastern edge of the E.U., which can be used to project forces into the Middle East, was carried out partly in anticipation of European militaries one day going their own way.

Afghan War.

The U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was ostensibly a reaction to the September 11 attacks, and to some extent was aimed at toppling the Taliban. But Afghanistan has historically been in an extremely strategic location straddling South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. The country also conveniently lies along a proposed Unocal oil pipeline route from the Caspian Sea oil fields to the Indian Ocean. The U.S. had already been situating forces in the neighboring ex-Soviet republic of Uzbekistan before September 11. During the war, it has used its new bases and basing rights in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, and to a lesser extent Tajikistan. It is using the continued instability in Afghanistan (like in Somalia, largely a result of setting warlords against warlords) as an excuse to station a permanent military presence throughout the region, and it even plans to institute the dollar as the new Afghan currency. The new string of U.S. military bases are becoming permanent outposts guarding a new Caspian Sea oil infrastructure.

Why War?

Geopolitical priorities may help explain why Washington went to war in all these countries, even as paths to peace remained open. President George Bush launched the February 1991 ground war against Iraq, even though Saddam was already withdrawing from Kuwait under Soviet disengagement plan. He also sent forces into Somalia in 1992, even though the famine he used as a justification had already lessened. President Clinton launched a war on Serbia in 1999 to force a withdraw from Kosovo, even though Yugoslavia had already met many of his withdrawal terms at the Rambouillet conference. President George W. Bush attacked Afghanistan in 2001 without having put much diplomatic pressure on the Taliban to surrender Bin Laden, or letting anti-Taliban forces (such as Pashtun commander Abdul Haq) win over Taliban forces on their own. Washington went to war not as a last resort, but because it saw war as a convenient opportunity to further larger goals.

Geopolitical priorities may also help explain the reluctance of the U.S. to declare victory in these wars. If the U.S. had ousted Saddam from power in 1991, his Gulf allies would have demanded the withdrawal of U.S. bases, but his continued hold onto power justifies intensive U.S. bombing of Iraq and a continued hold over the Gulf oil region. The fact that Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar have not been captured in four months of war also provides convenient justification for the permanent stationing of U.S. bases in Central and South Asia. All three men are more useful to U.S. plans if they are alive and free, at least for the time being.

Wars in the Making.

Iraq is certainly the primary target for a new U.S. war, for President Bush to "finish the job" that his daddy left unfinished. Now that the American sphere of influence is taking hold in the "middle ground" between Europe and East Asia, the attention may be turned on both Iraq and its former enemy Iran as the only remaining regional powers to stand in the way. Bush may be under the illusion that Iraqi opposition forces can be refashioned into a pro-U.S. force like the Northern Alliance or Kosovo Liberation Army. He may also be under the illusion that his threats against Iran will help Iranian "moderate" reformers, even though it is already dangerously strengthening the hand of Islamist hard-liners. A U.S. war against either Iraq or Iran will destroy any bridges recently built to Islamic states, especially as Bush also abandons even the pretense of even-handedness between Israelis and Palestinians.

U.S. war planners are also openly targeting Somalia and Yemen, and are patrolling their shores with Navy ships, though they may decide to intervene indirectly to avoid the disasters of Mogadishu in 1993 and Aden in 2000. Bin Laden had backed Aidid to prevent new U.S. bases in Somalia, and his father is from the historically rebellious Hadhramaut region of southeastern Yemen. Yet Washington's priority would not be to eliminate Bin Laden's influence, leaving that role mainly to local forces. Rather the priority would be to regain naval access to strategic Somali and Yemeni ports.

The most direct U.S. intervention since the Afghan invasion has been in the southern Philippines, against the Moro (Muslim) guerrilla militia Abu Sayyaf. The U.S. sees the tiny Abu Sayyaf group as inspired by Bin Laden, rather than a thuggish outgrowth of decades of Moro insurgency in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. U.S. special forces "trainers" are carrying out joint "exercises" with Philippine troops in the active combat zone. Their goal may be to achieve an easy Grenada-style victory over the 200 rebels, for the global propaganda effect against Bin Laden. But once in place, the counterinsurgency campaign could easily be redirected against other Moro or even Communist rebel groups in Mindanao. It could also help achieve the other major U.S. goal in the Philippines: to fully reestablish U.S. military basing rights, which ended when the Philippine Senate terminated U.S. control of Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base, after the Cold War ended and a volcanic eruption damaged both bases. Such a move back into the country would be strongly resisted, however, by both leftist and rightist Filipino nationalists.

The U.S. return to the Philippines, like Bush's newest threats against North Korea, may also be an effort to assert U.S. influence in East Asia, as China rises as a global power and other Asian economies recover from financial crises. A growing U.S. military role throughout Asia could counteract increasing criticism of U.S. bases in Japan. The moves could also raise fears in China of a U.S. sphere of influence intruding on its borders. The new U.S. air base in the ex-Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan is too close to China for comfort. (Russian fears of U.S. encirclement may also be rekindled, though Russia may instead join the U.S. in using its oil to lessen the power of OPEC. )

Meanwhile, other regions of the world are also being targeted in the U.S. "war on terror," notably South America. Just as Cold War propaganda recast leftist rebels in South Vietnam and El Salvador as puppets of North Vietnam or Cuba, U.S. "war on terror" propaganda is casting Colombian rebels as the allies of neighboring oil-rich Venezuela. The beret-clad Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, is described loosely as sympathetic to Bin Laden and Fidel Castro, and as possibly turning OPEC against the U.S. Chavez could serve as an ideal new enemy if Bin Laden is eliminated. The crisis in South America, though it cannot be tied to Islamic militancy, may be the most dangerous new war in the making.

Common themes.

Whether we look at the U.S. wars of the past decade in the Persian Gulf, Somalia, the Balkans, or Afghanistan, or at the possible new wars in Yemen, the Philippines, or Colombia/Venezuela, or even at Bush's new "axis of evil" of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, the same common themes arise. The U.S. military interventions cannot all be tied to the insatiable U.S. thirst for oil (or rather for oil profits), even though many of the recent wars do have their roots in oil politics. They can nearly all be tied to the U.S. desire to build or rebuild military bases. The new U.S. military bases, and increasing control over oil supplies, can in turn be tied to the historical shift taking place since the 1980s: the rise of European and East Asian blocs that have the potential to replace the United States and Soviet Union as the world's economic superpowers.

Much as the Roman Empire tried to use its military power to buttress its weakening economic and political hold over its colonies, the United States is aggressively inserting itself into new regions of the world to prevent its competitors from doing the same. The goal is not to end "terror" or encourage "democracy," and Bush will not accomplish either of these claimed goals. The short-term goal is to station U.S. military forces in regions where local nationalists had evicted them. The long-term goal is to increase U.S. corporate control over the oil needed by Europe and East Asia, whether the oil is in around the Caspian or the Caribbean seas. The ultimate goal is to establish new American spheres of influence, and eliminate any obstacles-- religious militants, secular nationalists, enemy governments, or even allies--who stand in the way.

U.S. citizens may welcome the interventions to defend the "homeland" from attack, or even to build new bases or oil pipelines to preserve U.S. economic power. But as the dangers of this strategy become more apparent, Americans may begin to realize that they are being led down a risky path that will turn even more of the world against them, and lead inevitably to future September 11s.

Zoltan Grossman is a doctoral candidate in geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a member of the South-West Asia Information Group

Long-term military presence planned

In-Depth Coverage

By Christine Spolar - March 23, 2004 Chicago Tribune via Global security

From the ashes of abandoned Iraqi army bases, U.S. military engineers are overseeing the building of an enhanced system of American bases designed to last for years.

Last year, as troops poured over the Kuwait border to invade Iraq, the U.S. military set up at least 120 forward operating bases. Then came hundreds of expeditionary and temporary bases that were to last between six months and a year for tactical operations while providing soldiers with such comforts as e-mail and Internet access.

Now U.S. engineers are focusing on constructing 14 "enduring bases," long-term encampments for the thousands of American troops expected to serve in Iraq for at least two years. The bases also would be key outposts for Bush administration policy advisers.

As the U.S. scales back its military presence in Saudi Arabia, Iraq provides an option for an administration eager to maintain a robust military presence in the Middle East and intent on a muscular approach to seeding democracy in the region. The number of U.S. military personnel in Iraq, between 105,000 and 110,000, is expected to remain unchanged through 2006, according to military planners.

"Is this a swap for the Saudi bases?" asked Army Brig. Gen. Robert Pollman, chief engineer for base construction in Iraq. "I don't know. ... When we talk about enduring bases here, we're talking about the present operation, not in terms of America's global strategic base. But this makes sense. It makes a lot of logical sense."

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of operations for the coalition in Iraq, said the military engineers are trying to prepare for any eventuality.

"This is a blueprint for how we could operate in the Middle East," Kimmitt said. "[But] the engineering vision is well ahead of the policy vision. What the engineers are saying now is: Let's not be behind the policy decision. Let's make this place ready so we can address policy options."

To that end, the U.S. plans to operate from former Iraqi bases in Baghdad, Mosul, Taji, Balad, Kirkuk and in areas near Nasiriyah, near Tikrit, near Fallujah and between Irbil and Kirkuk.

There also are plans to renovate and enhance airfields in Baghdad and Mosul, and rebuild 70 miles of road on the main route for U.S. troops headed north.

Dollar figures have not been released. The Defense Department plans to build the bases under its own contracts separate from the State Department and its Embassy in Baghdad.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the head of coalition forces in Iraq, recently outlined a plan that would slice the current Coalition Provisional Authority into pieces after sovereignty is returned to Iraqis at the end of June.

The U.S. Embassy would absorb some coalition workers as Embassy personnel; the Defense Department would take others. Its workers would direct most of the major contracts connected to the $18 billion allocated for Iraq reconstruction, military planners said.

The Program Management Office, the agency that has been doling out the cash, will remain under the Defense Department.

"It was a significant win," one military planner said. "In terms of controlling the money, Defense is in control."

NOTES: THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ. SECURING A FOOTHOLD. GRAPHIC: GRAPHIC: Long-term bases planned The U.S. military has identified 14 locations for long-term bases in Iraq, many of which were formerly used by the Iraqi military. Sources: GlobalSecurity.org, Tribune reporting

from the - September 30, 2004 edition Christian Science monitor By David R. Francis

If a new Iraq government should agree to let American forces stay on, how many bases will the US request?

One, as the United States Army currently maintains in Honduras? Six, the number of installations it lists in the Netherlands. Or maybe 12?

The Pentagon isn't saying.

But a dozen is the number of so-called "enduring bases" located by John Pike, director of GlobalSecurities.org. His military affairs website gives their names. They include, for example, Camp Victory at the Baghdad airfield and Camp Renegade in Kirkuk. The Chicago Tribune last March said US engineers are constructing 14 "enduring bases," but Mr. Pike hasn't located two of them.

Note the terminology "enduring" bases. That's Pentagon-speak for long-term encampments - not necessarily permanent, but not just a tent on a wood platform either. It all suggests a planned indefinite stay on Iraqi soil that will cost US taxpayers for years to come.

The actual amount depends on how many troops are stationed there for the long term. If the US decides to reduce its forces there from the 138,000 now to, say, 50,000, and station them in bases, the costs would run between $5 billion to $7 billion a year, estimates Gordon Adams, director of Security Policy Studies at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. That's two to three times as much as the annual American subsidy to Israel. Providing protection for Israel is one of several reasons some analysts cite for the US invasion of Iraq.

If more troops are based in Iraq for the long haul, the cost would be higher. US Army planners are preparing to maintain the current level of forces in Iraq at least through 2007, The New York Times reported this week. But no decision has been made at the political level.

So far, the Bush administration has not publicly indicated that it will seek permanent bases in Iraq to replace those recently given up in Saudi Arabia, a possibility mentioned by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz before US forces moved into Iraq. The US already has bases in Kuwait and Qatar.

At an April 2003 press conference, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said any suggestion that the US is planning a permanent military presence in Iraq is "inaccurate and unfortunate." With the presidential election weeks away, he is unlikely to alter that pronouncement on such a politically touchy matter. Such a move would almost certainly attract fire from Democratic candidate John Kerry.

Nonetheless, several military experts in Washington assume Iraq's new government will need the support of American troops - and thus "permanent" bases - for years, perhaps decades, to come.

The US already has 890 military installations in foreign countries, ranging from major Air Force bases to smaller installations, say a radar facility. Perhaps bases in Iraq would enable the Pentagon to close a few of those facilities. As part of a post-cold-war shift in its global posture, the Defense Department has been cutting the number of its installations in Germany, which total more than 100. Last week Mr. Rumsfeld testified about a global "rearrangement" of US forces to the Senate Armed Forces Committee.

"Who needs Germany when we have Iraq?" asks Mr. Pike of GlobalSecurities.org.

Building bases in Iraq has risks. Two Americans beheaded last week were working as civil engineers constructing the Taji military base north of Baghdad, one of the bases Pike lists as "enduring."

The bigger risk: Polls find that at least 80 percent of Iraqis - whatever their views on the insurgency, democracy, the removal of Saddam Hussein, and other issues - want US armed forces to leave their nation. Making the bases permanent could stir up more opposition to the US occupation.

Another fear, however, is that without US bases, the various Iraqi factions - the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds - would fall into civil war. In turn, this conflict could drag in Iran, Syria, and Turkey, leading to a widespread conflict in the Middle East. Hope of establishing a democracy in an Arab nation would fade.

To avoid these risks, an Iraq government will accept a US military presence despite popular disapproval, Pike says. "An indefinite American presence in Iraq is the ultimate guarantor of some quasi-pluralistic government."

Also, withdrawal of US forces would be seen by Iraqi insurgents as a victory, prompting them to redouble their efforts to kill Americans, says Thomas Donnelly, a military expert at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

The US can afford maintaining bases in Iraq, he argues. US defense spending now amounts to a bit more than 4 percent of gross domestic product, the nation's output of goods and services. It might rise as a result of Iraq bases to 5 percent of GDP, still less than the 6.5 percent of GDP in the cold war or the 10 percent during the Vietnam War.

Not everyone agrees. Permanent bases in Iraq are a "disastrously bad idea," says Jessica Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. It reinforces Iraqi suspicions that the US launched the war to get a hand on Iraqi oil, control the region, and wants to maintain a puppet government in Baghdad.

The total cost of the Iraq war has reached $125 billion to $140 billion, estimates Mr. Adams. Reconstruction boosts the total to as high as $175 billion. Permanent bases would keep the tab running for years to come.

· Number of troops 'may be contributing to instability'
· Public profile of ground forces to be lowered

Richard Norton-Taylor Tuesday February 7, 2006 The Guardian

A senior US officer admitted yesterday that the presence of more than 300,000 foreign troops in the Middle East, most of them American, was a "contributory factor" to instability in the region.

The admission was made by Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt - a key strategist in the US central command covering the Middle East - as he spelled out the American military's plan to "reposture" its forces over an area stretching from Egypt in the west to Pakistan in the east, and from Kazakhstan in the north to Uganda in the south.

The US would "not maintain any long-term bases in Iraq" he said in a major speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "Our position is when we leave we will not have any bases there."

He did not speculate when that might be, though he said the US could not stay in the region for as long as its forces have remained in Germany or Japan. American troops are still deployed there 60 years after the end of the second world war. Nor did he say what would happen to four large air bases that the US is building around Baghdad. The implication behind his remarks is that the bases would be handed over to the Iraqis. Although he said the US would not keep permanent military bases inside Iraq, Brig Gen Kimmitt made clear it would retain assets and enough forces nearby to protect its interests there.

He suggested that the US had learned from past mistakes and that in future it would be "more sensitive to [the] culture" of the people who lived in the Middle East. He referred, as British military commanders have traditionally done, to the need to attract "hearts and minds". The US army was setting up a corps of officers, he added, which would "understand the Middle East".

Senior British military and intelligence officers have accused the US of "heavy-handed" tactics in Iraq and are likely to welcome any evidence that America is developing a coherent strategic approach to the region.

"Reposture" was one of a number of crucial principles that Brig Gen Kimmitt said underlined America's new approach. The other was "helping others help themselves" - a reference to "nation building", another task which, the American military concedes, has not been one of its priorities. However, he made plain that the new strategy in America's "long war" against al-Qaida and its affiliates would ensure that US forces, when they left Iraq, would not be far away. The US would have "sufficient forces to deter, and to protect partners and its key national interests" in the region, Brig Gen Kimmitt said.

And he said that America's preoccupations in Iraq should not lead to what he called "misunderstandings" about its ability to conduct other operations in the area. The US would "retain sufficient military capability" to strike Iran, he said. Those who believed otherwise were making a "very serious mistake", he added.

He made it clear that under America's military "reposturing", its forces would be withdrawn from army bases in Iraq and other countries in the region, although the US will keep its Bagram base in Afghanistan under a new "strategic agreement" signed by the two countries.

With that exception, the idea is to base fewer, more mobile, special forces - along with strike aircraft - further afield, where their presence would be less visible and less provocative.

US central command has its headquarters in the Gulf state of Qatar and it will be able to use its air base on the British Indian Ocean territory of Diego Garcia. It could also have at its disposal the large RAF base at Akrotiri in southern Cyprus.

Brig Gen Kimmitt described the American base in Djibouti on the Red Sea as a "model for the future". He said: "Twelve thousand Americans have the ability to maintain a presence with a very small footprint on the ground." The base covered a number of countries in the Horn of Africa and beyond, he said, including Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda and Yemen. He declined to say what role Nato would have in the "long war" against Islamist extremists and terrorists.

The European allies are locked in a debate about this - not least with regard to their role in Afghanistan, where peacekeeping and nation-building tasks could be embroiled in counter-narcotics and counter-terrorist operations.

Brig Gen Kimmitt's speech is the latest indication that the American army is planning significant reductions in its 130,000-strong force in time for the mid-term congressional elections, to be held in November.

The number of British troops in Iraq - now totalling 8,500 - is also likely to be reduced in a synchronised move.

By Dahr Jamail - Tuesday 14 March 2006

Why does the Bush Administration refuse to discuss withdrawing occupation forces from Iraq? Why is Halliburton, who landed the no-bid contracts to construct and maintain US military bases in Iraq, posting higher profits than ever before in its 86-year history?

Why do these bases in Iraq resemble self-contained cities as much as military outposts?

Why are we hearing such ludicrous and outrageous statements from the highest ranking military general in the United States, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace, who when asked how things were going in Iraq on March 5th in an interview on "Meet the Press" said, "I'd say they're going well. I wouldn't put a great big smiley face on it, but I would say they're going very, very well from everything you look at."

I wonder if there is a training school, or at least talking point memos for these Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, because Pace's predecessor, Gen. Richard Myers, told Senator John McCain last September that "In a sense, things are going well [in Iraq]."

General Pace also praised the Iraqi military, saying, "Now there are over 100 [Iraqi] battalions in the field."

Wow! General Pace must have waved his magic wand and materialized all these 99 new Iraqi battalions that are diligently keeping things safe and secure in occupied Iraq. Because according to the top US general in Iraq, General George Casey, not long ago there was only one Iraqi battalion (about 500-600 soldiers) capable of fighting on its own in Iraq.

During a late-September 2005 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Casey acknowledged that the Pentagon estimate of three Iraqi battalions last June had shrunk to one in September. That is less than six months ago.

I thought it would be a good idea to find someone who is qualified to discuss how feasible it would be to train 99 Iraqi battalions in less than six months, as Pace now claims has occurred.

I decided that someone who was in the US Army for 26 years and who worked in eight conflict areas, starting in Vietnam and ending with Haiti, would be qualified. If he had served in two parachute infantry units, three Ranger units, two Special Forces Groups and in Delta Force that would be helpful as well. And just to make sure, if he taught tactics at the Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama and Military Science at the United States Military Academy at West Point, thus knowing a thing or two about training soldiers, that would be a bonus.

That person is Stan Goff.

"This is utter bullshit," was Goff's remark about the Pace claim of having 100 Iraqi battalions when I asked him to comment, "He must be counting the resistance among his forces." Goff adds, "That dip-shit [Pace] is saying he has 60,000 trained and disciplined people under arms ... 65,000 with all the staffs ... and almost 100,000 with the support units they would require. To train and oversee them would require thousands of American advisors. It must suck for a career Marine to be used so blatantly as a PR flak." Goff mentioned that Pace "and everyone else" knows that the Iraqi forces, "however many there are," are heavily cross-infiltrated. "He [Pace] is saying that the Bush administration is going to empower a pro-Iranian government with 100 ready battalions, when this administration was handed this particular government as the booby prize in exchange for Sistani pulling their cookies out of the fire during the joint rebellions in Najaf and Fallujah," added Goff.

Further discrediting the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Goff said, "To train 99 [battalions] since last September is a claim only the average American might swallow. The right question to ask is, where are they? Where are they headquartered, and where are they in operation? Claiming operations security doesn't count, unless they believe they can hide 100 units of 600 people each in Iraq ... from other Iraqis ... who are often related to them." He concludes, "These guys have become accustomed to saying any damn thing, then counting on ignorance and apathy at home - along with hundreds of Democrats who need spine transplants - to get away with it. You can quote me on any of that."

There's a good reason why Pace and others are busy spewing smoke - it's to hide the fact that there are no plans to leave Iraq.

While we're addressing propaganda, we mustn't leave out our brilliant military strategist and warrior for protecting human rights, the illustrious Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. On March 8th, Rice delivered the opening remarks on the release of her Department's "2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices."

The introduction to the report says: "In Iraq, 2005 was a year of major progress for democracy, democratic rights and freedom. There was a steady growth of NGOs and other civil society associations that promote human rights."

Uh, right.

This report is submitted to Congress by the State Department. I've often wondered if our politicians are just this ignorant, or simply horrifically misinformed like so many Americans. This report, perhaps, answers the latter.

My point is, if there is a concerted effort by high-ranking officials of the Bush administration to portray things in Iraq as going well, then why are there permanent bases being constructed in Iraq?

This media smokescreen from the likes of Pace, Rice and even "sharp-shooter" Cheney, who recently said things in Iraq are "improving steadily," conveniently leads the American people toward believing there will eventually be a withdrawal of American soldiers.

But the problem with smokescreens is that pesky thing called "reality." And in Iraq, the reality is that people like Pace, Rice, Cheney and their ever-eloquent front man aren't telling the American public about their true plans for Iraq.

One example that provides some insight into their agenda is the US "Embassy" which is under construction in the infamous "Green Zone." As you read this, a controversial Kuwait-based construction firm is building a $592 million US embassy in Baghdad. When the dust settles, this compound will be the largest and most secure diplomatic compound in the world. The headquarters, I mean "Embassy," will be a self-sustaining cluster of 21 buildings reinforced 2.5 times the usual standards, with some walls to be as thick as 15 feet.

Plans are for over 1,000 US "government officials" to staff and reside there. Lucky for them, they will have access to the gym, swimming pool, barber and beauty shops, food court and commissary. There will also be a large-scale barracks for troops, a school, locker rooms, a warehouse, a vehicle maintenance garage, and six apartment buildings with a total of 619 one-bedroom units. And luckily for the "government officials," their water, electricity and sewage treatment plants will all be independent from Baghdad's city utilities. The total site will be two-thirds the area of the National Mall in Washington, DC."

I wonder if any liberated Iraqis will have access to their swimming pool?

And unlike the Iraqi infrastructure, which is in total shambles and functioning below pre-invasion levels in nearly every area, the US "Embassy" is being constructed right on time. The US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee recently called this an "impressive" feat, considering the construction is taking place in one of the most violent and volatile spots on the planet.

Then there are the permanent military bases.

To give you an idea of what these look like in Iraq, let's start with Camp Anaconda, near Balad. Occupying 15 square miles of Iraq, the base boasts two swimming pools (not the plastic inflatable type), a gym, mini-golf course and first-run movie theater. The 20,000 soldiers who live at the Balad Air Base, less than 1,000 of whom ever leave the base, can inspect new iPod accessories in one of the two base exchanges, which have piles of the latest electronics and racks of CDs to choose from. One of the PX managers recently boasted that every day he was selling 15 televisions to soldiers.

At Camp Anaconda, located in Salahuddin province where resistance is fierce, the occupation forces live in air-conditioned units where plans are being drawn up to run internet, cable television and overseas telephone access to them.

The thousands of civilian contractors live at the base in a section called "KBR-land," and there is a hospital where doctors carry out 400 surgeries every month on wounded troops. Air Force officials on the base claim the runway there is one of the busiest in the world, where unmanned Predator drones take off carrying their Hellfire missiles, along with F-16's, C-130's, helicopters, and countless others, as the bases houses over 250 aircraft.

If troops aren't up for the rather lavish dinners served by "Third Country Nationals" from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh who work for slave wages, they can visit the Burger King, Pizza Hut, Popeye's or Subway, then wash it down with a mocha from the Starbucks.

There are several other gigantic bases in Iraq besides camp Anaconda, such as Camp Victory near Baghdad Airport, which - according to a reporter for Mother Jones magazine - when complete will be twice the size of Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo. The Kosovo base is currently one of the largest overseas bases built since the war in Vietnam.

Camp Liberty is adjacent to Camp Victory - where soldiers even compete in their own triathlons. "The course, longer than 140 total miles, spanned several bases in the greater Camp Victory area in west Baghdad," says a news article on a DOD web site.

Mr. Bush refuses to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq because he doesn't intend to withdraw. He doesn't intend to because he's following a larger plan for the US in the Middle East.

Less than two weeks after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003, US military officials announced the intention to maintain at least four large bases in Iraq that could be used in the future.

These are located near Baghdad International Airport (where the triathlon was), Tallil (near Nasiriyah, in the south), one in the Kurdish north at either Irbil or Qayyarah (they are only 80 kilometers apart) and one in western al-Anbar province at Al-Asad. Of course, let's not forget the aforementioned Camp Anaconda in Balad.

More recently, on May 22 of last year, US military commanders announced that they would consolidate troops into four large air bases. It was announced at this time that while buildings were being made of concrete instead of the usual metal trailers and tin-sheathed buildings, military officers working on the plan "said the consolidation plan was not meant to establish a permanent US military presence in Iraq."

Right.

The US has at least four of these massive bases in Iraq. Billions of dollars have been spent in their construction, and they are in about the same locations where they were mentioned they would be by military planners back before Mr. Bush declared that major combat operations were over in Iraq.

It appears as though "mission accomplished" in Iraq was not necessarily referring to guarding the Ministry of Oil and occupying the country indefinitely (or finding WMDs, disrupting al-Qaeda, or liberating Iraqis, blah-blah-blah), but to having a military beach-head in the heart of the Middle East.

Note that while US officials don't dare say the word "permanent" when referring to military bases in Iraq, they will say "permanent access." An article entitled "Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Four Key Bases in Iraq," which was a front-page story in the New York Times on April 19, 2003, reads: "There will probably never be an announcement of permanent stationing of troops. Not permanent basing, but permanent access is all that is required, officials say."

Why all of this? Why these obviously permanent bases? Why the beach-head?

A quick glance at US government military strategy documents is even more revealing.

"Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States," reads the 2002 National Security Strategy.

To accomplish this, the US will "require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia."

Another interesting document is "Joint Vision 2020" from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose "vision" is "Dedicated individuals and innovative organizations transforming the joint force of the 21st Century to achieve full spectrum dominance [bold type theirs]: persuasive in peace, decisive in war, preeminent in any form of conflict [italics theirs]."

US policymakers have replaced the Cold War with the Long War for Global Empire and Unchallenged Military Hegemony. This is the lens through which we must view Iraq to better understand why there are permanent US bases there.

In the Quadrennial Defense Review Report released on February 6, 2006, there is a stated ambition to fight "multiple, overlapping wars" and to "ensure that all major and emerging powers are integrated as constructive actors and stakeholders into the international system." The report goes on to say that the US will "also seek to ensure that no foreign power can dictate terms of regional or global security. It will attempt to dissuade any military competitor from developing disruptive or other capabilities that could enable regional hegemony or hostile action against the United States or other friendly countries, and it will seek to deter aggression or coercion. Should deterrence fail, the United States would deny a hostile power its strategic and operational objectives."

In sum, what is the purpose of permanent US military garrisons in Iraq and the implicit goals of these government documents?

Empire.

By Nicholas Kralev THE WASHINGTON TIMES - Published April 24, 2006

Bulgaria has agreed to open three military bases to permanent use by 2,500 U.S. troops who would be available for combat in the Middle East and other nearby regions. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will seal the deal when she visits the country this week.

Miss Rice, who leaves on a trip to the Balkans today, is expected to sign a broad defense-cooperation agreement with the new NATO ally that would authorize the stationing of foreign forces on its soil for the first time in its 1,325-year history, U.S. and Bulgarian officials said.

The final draft of the agreement, which was seen by The Washington Times, allows the United States to deploy troops from the bases for missions in third countries without the specific permission of the Bulgarian authorities, a sensitive matter for many Bulgarians.

"One of the key issues anywhere is our ability to use our soldiers where we need them," said a senior U.S. official. "Otherwise, we would be tying ourselves [down]. The old model [during the Cold War] was that we had forces in Europe because we thought we'd fight in Europe."

The possibility that U.S. troops would use a country with a large Muslim minority as a base for an attack on a Muslim nation, such as Iran or Syria, has provoked vocal opposition in Bulgaria. A nationalist party represented in the parliament plans to stage massive protests against the agreement during Miss Rice's visit.

Another difficult issue during the negotiations involved jurisdiction over any crimes committed by U.S. military personnel in Bulgaria. It was resolved in a convoluted 10-line sentence, which the senior U.S. official said is standard for such documents.

"The Bulgarians waive the right to primary jurisdiction, but, in cases of particular importance, they recall the waiver and reassert their jurisdiction," the official explained in much simpler language. He noted that most crimes committed by U.S. forces abroad "are fairly minor."

A senior Bulgarian official said Sofia was satisfied with the arrangement and that the two countries would work together on a case-by-case basis in the event of any serious crimes.

Officials of both countries said the United States will not pay rent for its use of the Bezmer and Graf Ignatievo air bases and the Novo Selo army training range and storage facility. But, according to the agreement, it will cover "operational and maintenance expenses."

"If we decide we need commercial property, we'll pay," the senior U.S. official said.

The senior Bulgarian official said that any new facilities built by the Americans will remain Bulgarian property during and after the Americans' presence in the country. The Bulgarians are hoping the agreement will generate employment in the country, but may be disappointed.

"We don't plan on having that many permanent workers," the senior U.S. official said. "But Bulgarian companies are eligible for contracts for services if they meet our requirements and standards."

There will be 2,500 U.S. troops stationed on the three bases in southern Bulgaria at any given time, although their number could reach 5,000 during rotation periods, the official said.

The agreement, which has to be ratified by the Bulgarian parliament before entering into force, runs for 10 years and will be automatically renewed. Either side can terminate it with one year's notice.

Miss Rice signed a similar agreement with Romania in December. It has been ratified by the parliament's lower chamber and is currently awaiting approval by the Senate, said Sorin Ducaru, the Romanian ambassador to Washington.

Both Bulgaria and Romania are former Warsaw Pact countries whose strategic location at the crossroads of Europe and the Middle East attracted Washington's attention after the September 11 attacks, ensuring their admission to NATO.

Miss Rice will participate in a meeting of the NATO foreign ministers in Sofia and will also visit Greece and Turkey.

By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter - The Korean Times

The top U.S. military officer here urged South Korea to pay more for the presence of U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula in accordance with Seoul's growing economy and military capability, a U.S. military paper published here reported on Monday.

Gen. B. B. Bell, commander of the United States Forces Korea (USFK), also called for an early conclusion of the stalled talks on environmental issues regarding U.S. bases to be returned to South Korea, it said. Bell is also chief of the Combined Forces Command and the United Nations Command.

``I'm hopeful and mindful that our Korean ally, which has a lot of capability and gross domestic product, the 10th largest in the world by many measures, would feel comfortable contributing large sums of support to ensure that the United States stays present on this peninsula,'' Bell said in an interview with the Stars and Stripes published Monday.

The general referred to the ongoing transfer of security missions from the USFK to ROK military as one of the main reasons for Seoul's increasing share in defense expenditures in the future. The Republic of Korea (ROK) is the official name of South Korea.

The U.S. military has handed over seven of its 10 military operations to ROK forces under its troop reduction plan and South Korea's steps toward a more self-reliant defense posture since October 2004.

The missions transferred include the counter-fire mission to thwart long-range artillery attacks by North Korea. Seoul plans to take over three remaining operations by the end of this year.

``Burrow down into that, and say, now what is the percentage of burden sharing? You know as a philosophy when you go in we say, you know, 50-50? And that is where it starts. I hope we can achieve 50-50,'' Bell said.

Currently, South Korea contributes some 40 percent of the total budget for maintaining the 29,500-strong U.S. troops here under an agreement made in 2005. In the talks, the two sides agreed to cut Seoul's burden sharing to $680 billion, 8.9 percentage points down from the previous year, for 2005 and 2006.

South Korea has contributed financial support to the USFK since 1991, when it paid about $150 million, with the average growth of 16 percent per year.

Some U.S. military officers have complained about the budget cut, saying it will lead to a decrease in the combined forces' war-fighting capability. To meet potential funding shortfalls in the wake of South Korea's decreased budget contribution, the USFK announced last year it will reduce the South Korean workforce at U.S. bases by 1,000 until 2007.

The defense talks for the next two years are scheduled for this year, but no date has been fixed, an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade told The Korea Times.

``Nothing has been determined regarding the burden sharing issue yet. But I don't think South Korea will see such a large increase in cost-sharing in the upcoming talks as demanded by the U.S. side,'' the official said, requesting on anonymity.

The U.S. commander expressed regrets over the delayed U.S. base turnover process due to the conflicts in assessment between the two nations over environmental cleanup costs and contamination levels. He stressed the USFK has done what they have to do for base pollution according to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with South Korea.

``We agreed to do certain things to that land to ensure that the immediate threat to life and limb is removed,'' he said, adding the USFK is paying some $400,000 a month to guard already vacated installations, some of which have been vacated for up to 17 months.

Under a 2004 pact, the United States is required to gradually hand back 34 of its 41 military bases across the country by 2011. In return, South Korea promises to offer 12 million square meters of land in Pyongtaek, Kyonggi Province, for an expanded U.S. base to be built by 2008. But the environmental squabble has put the handover of the bases on hold.

According to a 2005 government report, however, most U.S. installations were seriously contaminated by leaking oil and heavy metals by South Korean environmental standards. The report said 14 U.S. installations showed levels of metal pollutants that were an average of four times the permissible level.

The government asked the USFK to clean up environmental pollution at the bases concerned, while the USFK maintained the position that it is only required to clean areas containing ``known, imminent and substantial endangerment'' to human health and safety.

Earlier this month, the USFK presented an environmental cleanup plan going beyond previous agreements to South Korea. Washington has authorized USFK to spend what is needed for the updated plan, a USFK spokesman said, declining to release any estimate of cost.

South Korea will give comment on the U.S. plan as early as next month, a government source said.

By Jung Sung-ki - Staff Reporter 04-25-2006 - Korea Times

The government will take stronger measures to seize control of lands for a new U.S. military base in Pyongtaek, Kyonggi Province, and evict protesters from the area as early as later this week, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

The ministry said soldiers will be deployed in the area with riot police and contract workers to wrest it from resisters illegally blocking the government plan for the U.S. base relocation by planting a new spring crop in the contested lands.

The soldiers deployed in the move will include some from an engineering unit and others from regular security forces.

The ministry has been reluctant to dispatch troops there as such a move could trigger public backlash from South Korean people.

``The relocation project is a national enterprise agreed on between Seoul and Washington and approved by the National Assembly,'' Brig. Gen. Kyong Chang-ho said in a briefing. ``We will push ahead with the plan as scheduled given any delay in the agreed deal could lead to a waste of huge amount of taxpayers' money and spark diplomatic friction between the allies,'' he said.

The general, however, said the ministry would continue to hold dialogue with protesters on the issue. The ministry's delegation is scheduled to meet with Pyongtaek residents tomorrow, he added. The meeting would be the third of its kind.

The South Korean government bought 9.4 million square meters of farmland in the region last year to expand the existing U.S. base there, Camp Humphreys, to make it the U.S. military's primary installations on the peninsula under a 2004 agreement. The new base is to open by 2008.

But protesters, led by an anti-American civic group, have blocked the relocation project by planting a new spring crop in the lands, including Taechuri near Camp Humphreys. The planting of a rice crop is significant because of a court ruling in an unrelated case could block the government from disturbing the crops once the stalks grow past four to five centimeters.

The ministry argues the previous ruling might be invalid since it informed farmers in advance the site is legally owned by the nation.

Previously, two abortive efforts failed. After government-contracted workers filled several irrigation canals with concrete, registers promptly moved in and broke up the cement.

On April 7, the ministry submitted an application for provisional measures to the court regarding trespassing and farming prohibitions on the site of government ownership, as part of efforts to designate the area as a military installation protection district.

The ministry is also considering stretching a barbed wire fence around the outer area of the construction site, ministry officials said.

Justin McCurry in Tokyo - Tuesday April 25, 2006 - The Guardian

After weeks of stalled negotiations, Japan has agreed to pay almost 60% of the cost of transferring thousands of US marines from Okinawa to Guam in a move designed to reduce the US's military burden on one of its closest allies.

Japan's defence minister, Fukushiro Nukaga, announced the deal after more than three hours of talks in Washington on Sunday with the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

"I had not expected that such an agreement was possible," Mr Nukaga told reporters. "Japan and the United States were still wide apart on the issue and I thought 'It won't go anywhere unless I directly meet Mr Rumsfeld for talks aimed at a breakthrough.'"

Under the agreement, which is part of Washington's plans to realign its forces around the world, Japan will pay $6.1bn (£3.4bn) towards the $10bn it is expected to cost to move 8,000 marines and their families to Guam, a US territory located roughly midway between Japan and Australia.

Japan will pay $2.8bn in grants, with the remainder coming in various loans. Japan had refused US demands to pay 75% of the total while it struggles to rein in its huge public debt. Many Japanese also blame the bases for causing pollution, accidents and crime.

Mr Rumsfeld said he and Mr Nukaga "have come to an understanding that we both feel is in the best interests of our two countries".

Okinawa comprises a fraction of Japan's total area, but is home to around half of the 50,000 US troops stationed in the country. "One big goal of this realignment was to reduce the burden on the people of Okinawa, and our thought is to carry this out as quickly as possible," Shinzo Abe, a Japanese government spokesman, told reporters. "Our burden was unavoidable in order to speed up the process."

Authorities hope to replace troops.

By Associated Press via information clearing house 05/14/06 -- - DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -

The U.S. military is preparing for the day when air power from bases along the Persian Gulf will help ensure that friendly governments in Iraq and Afghanistan survive without American ground troops, a senior U.S. general said.

"We’ll be in the region for the foreseeable future," said U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Allen Peck, deputy air commander of U.S. Central Command, which oversees the region. "Our intention would be to stay as long as the host nations will have us."

Agreements have been struck recently with Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates for long-term use of their bases. Already home to U.S. and allied fighter, transport and observation planes, the bases will become more critical if plans proceed to gradually withdraw ground forces from Iraq.

A capable Iraqi air force is years away, and Iraqi infantry need the backup and surveillance provided by U.S. warplanes, Peck said. The bases also could help rush soldiers into Iraq in a crisis. The Pentagon has been keeping thousands of troops in reserve in Kuwait, on Iraq’s southern border.

Not everyone is convinced.

The Bush administration declines to say it won’t seek to keep bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the U.S. military is spending almost $1 billion this year for base construction in Iraq alone. The base at Balad, for example, has been expanded to host F-16 fighter and C-130 transport squadrons.

A former Iraq intelligence chief for the Department of State, Wayne White, said he believes one of the administration’s unstated pre-invasion goals was to secure permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq after overseeing the installation of a pro-American government.

Peck, however, said he knew of no current U.S. plans to maintain permanent air bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Because of the Iraqi insurgency, experts say bases in the Persian Gulf nations are a better option, given the long relationships Washington has had with them. But there are risks even in those countries, where many people harbor suspicions of U.S. policy. Osama bin Laden and other Islamic radicals agitate against the U.S. military presence in the Muslim world. A huge U.S. air base and headquarters in Saudi Arabia was closed before the invasion of Iraq because of fundamentalists’ pressure on the Saudi government.

Indeed, U.S. diplomats and some military officers interviewed for this article agreed to discuss the matter only on condition of anonymity because Arab governments have asked the U.S. military not to publicize their presence.

The Air Force operates refueling, cargo and surveillance flights from large bases in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, while maintaining runway access and warehoused supplies in Oman and Saudi Arabia.

The plan Peck described would have the Air Force eventually consolidate most of its Iraq operations in the Persian Gulf bases.

Afghanistan’s military also could be backed up from Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic where U.S. officials are negotiating a long-term agreement. The Kyrgyz government has requested a doubling of the base rental, Peck said.

The U.S. base at Incirlik, Turkey, could also enter into the equation. For now, the Turkish government, a NATO ally, allows the U.S. military to operate only cargo, refueling and passenger flights to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the United States has based fighter jets there in the past.

Peck and others caution that the shift would take years. The top U.S. officer in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, recently said plans to begin reducing the U.S. presence this year are still on track. But President George W. Bush also has said the counterinsurgency mission in Iraq will continue at least through the end of his term in January 2009.

America set up military bases in the north of Brazil without waiting for authorisation

By Robert Fisk 05/13/06 "The Independent" -- -- via information clearing house

Strange things happen when a reporter strays off his beat. Vast regions of the earth turn out to have different priorities. The latest conspiracy theory for the murder of ex-Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri--that criminals involved in a bankrupt Beirut bank may have been involved--doesn't make it into the New Zealand Dominion Post.

And last week, arriving in the vast, messy, unplanned city of Sao Paulo, it was a Brazilian MP corruption scandal, the bankruptcy of the country's awful airline Varig--worse, let me warn you, than any East European airline under the Soviet Union--and Brazil's newly nationalised oil concessions in Bolivia that made up the front pages.

Sure, there was Iranian President Ahmadinejad's long letter to President Bush--"rambling", the local International Herald Tribune edition called it, a description the paper's headline writers would never apply to Mr Bush himself--and a whole page of Middle East reports in the Folha de Sao Paulo daily about the EU's outrageous sanctions against the democratically elected government of "Palestine"--all, alas, written from wire agencies.

But then in steps Brazil with its geographical immensity, its extraordinary story of colonialism and democracy, the mixture of races in Sao Paulo's streets--which outdoes the ethnic origins of the occupants of any Toronto tram--and its weird version of Portuguese; and then suddenly the Middle East seems, a very long way away.

Brazil? Sure, the Amazon, tropical forests, coffee and the beaches of Rio. And then there's Brasilia, the make-believe capital designed--like the equally fake Canberra in Australia and fraudulent Islamabad in Pakistan--so that the country's politicians can hide themselves away from their people.

One thing the country shares with the Arab world, it turned out, is the ever constant presence and influence and pressure of the US--never more so than when Brazil's right-wing rulers were searching for commies in the 1940s and 50s. They weren't hard to find.

In 1941, a newly belligerent America--plunged into a world war by an attack every bit as ruthless as that of 11 September 2001--had become so worried about the big bit of Brazil that juts far out into the Atlantic, that it set up military bases in the north of the country without waiting for the authorisation of the Brazilian government. Now what, I wonder, does that remind me of?

Well, Washington needn't have worried. The sinking of five Brazilian merchant ships by German U-boats provoked huge public demonstrations that forced the right-wing and undemocratic Getulio Vargas government to declare war on the Nazis. Hands up those readers who know that more than 20,000 Brazilian troops fought on our side in the Italian campaign right up to the end of the Second World War. Even fewer hands will be raised, I suspect, if I ask how many Brazilian troops were killed. According to Boris Fausto's excellent history of Brazil, 454 died in combat against the Wehrmacht.

The return of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force helped to bring democracy to Brazil. Vargas shot himself nine years later, leaving a dramatic suicide note which suggested that "foreign forces" had caused his country's latest economic crisis. Crowds attacked the US embassy in Rio.

Well, it all looks very different today when a left-wing Brazilian leader, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva--who also found himself threatened by "foreign forces" after his popular election--is trying to make sense of the Bolivian nationalisation of Brazil's oil conglomerates, an act carried out by Lula's equally left-wing chum up in La Paz, Evo Morales.

I have to say that the explosion inside Latin America's fashionable leftist governments does have something in common with meetings of the Arab League--where Arab promises of unity are always undermined by hateful arguments. No wonder one of Folha's writers this week headlined his story "The Arabias".

But can I let that place leave me? Or does the Middle East have a grasp over its victims, a way of jerking their heads around just when you think it might be safe to immerse yourself in a city a world away from Arabia? After two days in Brazil, my office mail arrives from the foreign desk in London and I curl up on my bed to go through the letters. First out of the bag comes Peter Metcalfe of Stevenage with a photocopied page from Lawrence of Arabia's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom". Lawrence is writing about Iraq in the 1920s, and about oil and colonialism.

"We pay for these things too much in honour and innocent lives," he says. "I went up the Tigris with one hundred Devon Territorials ... delightful fellows, full of the power of happiness and of making women and children glad. By them one saw vividly how great it was to be their kin, and English. And we were casting them by thousands into the fire to the worst of deaths, not to win the war but that the corn and rice and oil of Mesopotamia might be ours."

My next day's Brazilian newspaper shows an American soldier lying on his back in a Baghdad street, blasted to death by a roadside bomb. Thrown into the fire to the worst of deaths, indeed. Ouch.

Then in my mail bag comes an enclosure from Antony Loewenstein, an old journalistic mate of mine in Sydney. It's an editorial from The Australian, not my favourite paper since it's still beating the drum for George W on Iraq. But listen to this:

"Three years ago ... elite Australian troops were fighting in Iraq's western desert to neutralise Scud missile sites. Now, three years later, we know that at the same moment members of our SAS were risking their lives and engaging with Saddam Hussein's troops, boatloads of Australian wheat were steaming towards ports in the Persian Gulf, where their cargo was to be offloaded and driven to Iraq by a Jordanian shipping company paying kickbacks to--Saddam Hussein."

And I remember that one of the reasons Australia's Prime Minister John Howard gave for going to war against Iraq--he's never once told Australians that we didn't find any weapons of mass destruction--was that Saddam Hussein's regime was "corrupt". So who was doing the corrupting? Ho hum.

So I prepare to check out of the Sao Paulo Maksoud Plaza hotel. Maksoud? In Arabic, this means "the place you come back to". And of course, the owner turns out to be a Brazilian-Lebanese. I check my flying times. "Sao Paulo / Frankfurt/ Beirut," it says on my ticket.

Back on the inescapable beat.