Currently, the U.S. has exactly 900 military bases in foreign countries, in addition to the 749 bases inside the U.S. itself. The U.S. Government minimizes and tries to hide this reality from the public. Furthermore, although the U.S. is officially estimated to spend around 36% of the entire world’s military expenditures, the actual figure is around 50% of the world’s military expenditures, and the added approximately 14% is being paid-out through federal U.S. Departments other than the ‘Defense’ Department, so as to make the total U.S. figure appear to be only 36% of the global total. Moreover: on November 15th, the U.S. Department of ‘Defense’ announced that “The results of the fifth annual DOD [Department Of Defense] wide financial audit will be a disclaimer of opinion for DOD” and used other such obtuse phraseology, so that the reality that — as one of the very few published news-reports that was based on it headlined optimistically — “Defense Department fails another audit, but makes progress”, and it opened:
The Defense Department has failed its fifth-ever audit, unable to account for more than half of its assets, but the effort is being viewed as a “teachable moment,” according to its chief financial officer.
After 1,600 auditors combed through DOD’s $3.5 trillion in assets and $3.7 trillion in liabilities, officials found that the department couldn’t account for about 61 percent of its assets, Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord told reporters on Tuesday.
Neither the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, nor AP, reported it, at all. Nor did anyone report that ONLY the U.S. Aggression (or ‘Defense’) Department fails — and repeatedly fails — its audit-attempts. All other Departments pass their audits. This attempt, which had hired 1,600 independent auditors, failed for the same reason as before: the audit-team refused to sign findings, because where or to whom most of the money is going can’t be traced. But the public don’t know how corrupt or otherwise bad the U.S. military actually is; so, at least ever since the year 2000, the most respected “institution” of all, by the American people, is “The military.” It’s a great PR success.
There is only a single empire remaining in the world: the U.S.-and-allied empire. It relies upon the U.S. military. U.S.-and-allied media have been serving it well.
On 1 December 2019, The Conversation dot com headlined “Why does the US pay so much for the defense of its allies? 5 questions answered”, and said:
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What’s in it for the US?
The U.S. currently has approximately 174,000 active-duty personnel deployed to overseas locations in approximately 140 countries. The Department of Defense Comptroller’s Office estimates the total cost of overseas bases and deployments at US$24.4 billion in fiscal year 2020. These figures generally exclude the costs of ongoing combat operations.
When stronger countries provide security for weaker countries, they receive non-material benefits in return.
For example, the weaker country may sacrifice control over their foreign policy.
To “sacrifice control over their foreign policy” is to be a vassal-nation, or ‘ally’, of the imperial power. It’s to serve the imperial power’s billionaires — to give them control over the vassal nation. That’s to “sacrifice” a lot. The imperial power’s billionaires benefit enormously. So, their media serve it. Here’s why that is being allowed:
U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt formulated his concept of, and named, “the United Nations,” during his conversations with the UK Empire’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Newfoundland Canada during 9-11 August 1941, because FDR discovered there that he and Churchill had very different aims for what the post-WW-II world should be like: Churchill insisting upon continuation of empires, and FDR insisting upon the end of all empires and the ultimate replacement of them by a “United Nations” that would possess the exclusive authority, and means, to make and to enforce international laws — the laws that would govern not in national (domestic) matters — but ONLY in international matters. FDR was convinced that the WW-I-era League of Nations had failed because it was partisan between nations and excluded some, and that the thing that had caused both World Wars was conflicts between empires — it was, regarding both WW I and WW II, wars between imperialistic gangs of nations. Whereas Churchill wanted post-WW-II to be ruled globally by a joint UK-U.S. empire, FDR wanted post-WW-II to be ruled globally by a democratic U.N. that would respect and preserve the individual independence of each and every nation and thus there would no longer be any “imperial” countries (such as the English Empire, and the French Empire), but instead there would be only independent nations and no master-slave relationship any longer existing between an imperial country and its vassal nations or ‘allies’. It was to be an international democracy of nations; and, in this international global democracy, no nation would possess any right to demand of any other nation compliance with its own internal (domestic) values and laws.
Whereas FDR’s vision was for a further implementation of the Westphalian Principle — that the difference between national laws and international laws must always be honored and adhered-to — Churchill, like all imperialists, rejected the Westphalian Principle. FDR’s successor, Harry S. Truman, starting on 25 July 1945, committed America to Churchill’s vision, and within two years of becoming President, he replaced FDR’s entire Cabinet and advisors, so as to build the coming U.S./UK all-inclusive global empire and to eviscerate FDR’s intended U.N. — which therefore became the weak U.N. we have today. The only way to prevent WW III is to implement FDR’s vision, of a global democracy of nations, but it can’t be done without first cancelling those 900 foreign U.S. military bases. The empire — empire itself — must end. FDR was right; Truman was wrong.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book is AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change.