America is its own worst enemy. As we build our interventionist global empire we are unintentionally sowing the seeds of future conflicts. Expanding our military will destabilize the entire globe and has ominous consequences for individual civil liberties as we are already seeing.
U.S. Expands Military Ties Worldwide:
- Already, American special forces train armies across Africa. The Pentagon fights war games in the Middle East. U.S. soldiers engage in scores of joint training exercises from South America to Southeast Asia. …
Even before Sept. 11, the military had a presence in 140 countries worldwide. …
“Overall, the American military global presence is more pervasive today than at any point in American history,” said John Pike, a military analyst in Washington.
In some cases, as it courts a country’s military forces, the United States is willing to set aside human rights or other problems.
U.S. officials want to help Indonesia fight possible member clusters of bin Laden’s al-Qaida network, for example, but are under restrictions because of human rights abuses there, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz recently told The New York Times. Those restrictions “really need to be reviewed in the light of Sept. 11,” he said.