and in many cases it isn't a question of being asked to leave, as you well know. Though yes, it would be interesting to get the number of "permanent" bases, I agree. Either way, the double standard is disturbing enough to easily justify a foreign view of America as an imperialist power. And really, how they view us is more important than how we view us, in this context.
Another quote from the book I think you'd like (and probably agree with as a problem, actually...) I remember from your PNAC analysis that you discuss the need to culturally integrate our forces into foreign countries where we feel they're "needed." The discussion of what constitutes "needed" set aside for a moment, the current setup of the military makes this proposal very difficult...
The active-duty military is, of course, much younger than the overall civilian population. Almost half of those in the active-duty enlisted force were [fiscal year 1999 report] seventeen to twenty-four years old, in contrast to about 15 percent of the civilian labor force. Officers were older than those in the enlisted ranks (with a mean age of thirty-four), but they too were younger than their civilian counterparts - college graduates whose mean age was thirty-six.
This means that the Americans with whom foreigners come into contact most frequently tend to be late adolescents or twenty-year-old youths, almost totally ignorant of foreign cultures and languages, yet indoctrinated to think they represent a nation that President George W Bush has called "the greatest force for good in history."
Back to reading - hoping to get through it before its due date. It's a good read. |
