[Peace-discuss] Note the date

[C. G. Estabrook]

	What Are We Doing There?
	Patrick J. Buchanan
	February 4, 2004

[...]

Which brings us to this headline in last week's
Washington Post: "U.S. May Set Up Bases in Former
Soviet Republics."

The lead graph reads like something out of the London
Times in the salad days of Kipling and Queen Victoria:
"Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday that the
United States might establish military bases in parts
of the former Soviet empire, but he sought to reassure
Russians that increased U.S. influence in the region
does not pose a threat to them." With bases already in
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, we apparently
intend to build a base in Georgia, birthplace of
Stalin.

Query: What are we doing there? What is the strategic
interest in Georgia? Tiblisi is about as far away as
one can get. Why are we rubbing Russia's nose in her
Cold War defeat by putting U.S. imperial troops into
nations that only yesterday were a part of that
country? Powell anticipated the question: "Are we
pointing a dagger in the soft underbelly of Russia? Of
course not. What we're doing is working together
against terrorism."

But after Iraq, where we invaded an oil-rich country
on what the world believes were false pretenses and
forged evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction, why should Russians not suspect our
motives?

After all, the neoconservatives who beat the drums
loudest for war, and cherry-picked the intelligence
sent to Bush that got us into war, have been braying
for years that we intend to create an American empire
and impose our "benevolent global hegemony" on all
mankind.

[...]

http://www.theamericancause.org/patwhatarewedoingthere.htm