{"id":393147,"date":"2019-01-17T06:09:51","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T05:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/bases-bases-everywhere-except-in-pentagons-report-consortiumnews\/"},"modified":"2019-01-17T06:09:51","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T05:09:51","slug":"bases-bases-everywhere-except-in-pentagons-report-consortiumnews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/bases-bases-everywhere-except-in-pentagons-report-consortiumnews\/","title":{"rendered":"Bases, Bases, Everywhere \u2026 Except in Pentagon\u2019s Report \u2013 Consortiumnews"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt; color: #000000;\">These installations exist somewhere between light and shadow, writes\u00a0Nick Turse. While acknowledged as foreign military outposts, they are excluded from the official inventory.\u00a0<\/span><span id=\"more-32484\"\/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt; color: #000000;\"><strong>By Nick Turse<em><br \/><\/em><em><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tomdispatch.com\/blog\/176463\/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_victory_in_our_time\">TomDispatch<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt; color: #000000;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Nick-Turse-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Nick-Turse-1-100x100.jpg\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-32486\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-32486\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Nick-Turse-1-100x100.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><strong><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\">W<\/span><\/strong>ithin hours of President Trump\u2019s announcement of a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria, equipment at that base was already being inventoried for removal. And just like that, arguably the most important American garrison in Syria was (<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/jan\/05\/syria-john-bolton-trump-us-chemical-weapons\">maybe<\/a><\/span>) being struck from the Pentagon\u2019s books \u2014 except, as it happens, al-Tanf was never actually on the Pentagon\u2019s books.\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/2018\/10\/22\/the-top-us-general-in-the-mideast-visits-troops-fighting-islamic-state-in-syria\/\">Opened in 2015<\/a><\/span> and, until recently, home to hundreds of U.S. troops, it was one of the many military bases that exist somewhere between light and shadow, an acknowledged foreign outpost that somehow never actually made it onto the Pentagon\u2019s official inventory of bases.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt; color: #000000;\">Officially, the Department of Defense maintains 4,775 \u201csites,\u201d spread across all 50 states, eight U.S. territories, and 45 foreign countries. A total of 514 of these outposts are located overseas, according to the Pentagon\u2019s\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.acq.osd.mil\/eie\/Downloads\/BSI\/Base%20Structure%20Report%20FY17.pdf\">worldwide property portfolio<\/a>.<\/span> Just to start down a long list, these include bases on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, as well as in Peru and Portugal, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. But the most recent version of that portfolio, issued in early 2018 and known as the Base Structure Report (BSR), doesn\u2019t include any mention of al-Tanf. Or, for that matter, any other base in Syria. Or Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or Niger. Or Tunisia. Or Cameroon. Or Somalia. Or any number of locales where such military outposts are known to exist and even, unlike in Syria,<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">\u00a0<a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2018\/12\/01\/u-s-military-says-it-has-a-light-footprint-in-africa-these-documents-show-a-vast-network-of-bases\/\">to be expanding<\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt; color: #000000;\">According to David Vine, author of\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">\u201c<a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1627791698\/ref=nosim\/?tag=tomdispatch-20\">Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0<\/span>there could be hundreds of similar off-the-books bases around the world. \u201cThe missing sites are a reflection of the lack of transparency involved in the system of what I still estimate to be around 800 U.S. bases outside the 50 states and Washington, D.C., that have been encircling the globe since World War II,\u201d says Vine, who is also a founding member&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2019\/01\/16\/bases-bases-everywhere-except-in-pentagons-report\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These installations exist somewhere between light and shadow, writes\u00a0Nick Turse. While acknowledged as foreign military outposts, they are excluded from the official inventory.\u00a0 By Nick TurseTomDispatch Within hours of President Trump\u2019s announcement of a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria, equipment at that base was already being inventoried for removal. And just like that, arguably [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-393147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}