Annalisa Merelli writes
These are all the countries where the US has a military presence. An excerpt:
On Mar. 24, US president Barack Obama announced that all 9,800 US troops currently stationed in Afghanistan will remain until the end of 2015. This generated a fair amount of criticism: it was, after all, Obama’s promise that the last American troop would leave the country in 2014. [...]
Those expecting the US to leave Afghanistan, however, should take a minute to consider this: the US still hasn’t left Germany. In fact, there are quite a few places the US hasn’t left, and while certainly most of them don’t pose a threat to American soldiers, they reveal a pattern about the US staying, rather than leaving.
According to official information provided by the Department of Defense (DoD) and its Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) there are still about 40,000 US troops, and 179 US bases in Germany, over 50,000 troops in Japan (and 109 bases), and tens of thousands of troops, with hundreds of bases, all over Europe. Over 28,000 US troops are present in 85 bases in South Korea, and have been since 1957.
Altogether, based on information contained in the DoD’s latest Base Structure Report (BSR), the US has bases in at least 74 countries and troops practically all over the world, ranging from thousands to just one in some countries (it could be a military attaché, for instance).
By comparison, France has bases in 10 countries, and the UK has bases in seven. [...]
It has been noted by commentators before that not all the bases are of significant size. However, given the information available it’s hard to truly gauge the size of the different installation. Vine writes:
The Pentagon says that it has just 64 “active major installations” overseas and that most of its base sites are “small installations or locations.” But it defines “small” as having a reported value of up to $915 million. In other words, small can be not so small. |
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2009—Bipartisanship:
In an article from yesterday's Washington Post that describes the increasing support among Senate Democrats to use reconciliation to pass health-care reform, is this from Arlen Specter:
But Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), a moderate Republican, warned that adopting reconciliation would be "a colossal mistake." Democrats remain two votes short of a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority in the Senate, and Specter is a key swing vote.
"There are those of us on this side of the aisle who have cooperated" Specter said. "I think it fair to say that to misuse the reconciliation process would be a very strong blow against bipartisanship and cooperation. Obviously, it would impede future activity by the Obama administration in reaching across the aisle to get necessary Republican votes."
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Well, this is quite the conundrum, isn't it? Democrats can either water down the bill to get Arlen Specter's grudging approval and call it bipartisanship ... or they can enact actual health-care reform.
What to do, what to do ...
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