Number of US military bases overseas is staggering

[NobleCynic]

You can look through this yourself if you want, but according to Department of Defense (which means it does not account for secret installations) we operate 860 military bases in foreign countries as of 2004, and 3842 within our own borders, 4702 total. (The summaries are on pg 12 of the 2004 report.)

I'd use the 2005 numbers (2639 domestic and 737 foreign, 3376 total), but I personally doubt that the military has closed 1326 bases since then especially given their budget has been increasing not decreasing. I think the military made an accounting change reclassifying what counts as secret or that they made a change regarding what is classified as a military installation.

In any case these numbers are the absolute minimum. And you wondered how the military can spend all that money?

For the 2004 DoD report:
<http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/20040910_2004BaseStructureReport.pdf>
For the 2005 DoD report:
<http://stinet.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA435933&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf>

Just food for thought.

[merh]

1. But we keep closing bases in our own country.

Yet, we are making America safer, secure from *terrorists*

[XemaSab]

2. It's a fact

At any given moment we have TENS OF THOUSANDS of troops in Italy, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Diego Garcia.

We have troops in every country except Libya, North Korea, and a VERY SMALL handful of other countries. Like 3.

[NobleCynic]

3. Because we're loved right?

[XemaSab]

4. Winning hearts and minds the world over

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Yep, read Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire". He spells it all out.

Johnson was a CIA analyst for years.

[cantstandbush]

6. How else can we keep unemployment low? What if all those men and women

returned to the US? Anyway, everyone knows the US is the biggest exporter of weapons, wars, and economic misery across the globe.

[sweetheart]

7. and they say they're not socialists

Yet they run a secret socialist system for those who keep them in power,
spread out across the planet, with subsidized housing, free medical for life,
taxpayer funded training and pretty much every luxury a welfare state can
provide... staunch republicans, those military votes. hmmm..

[Toots]

8. and you wondered how the military can spend all that money?

I think they wonder themselves a bit as they can not account for over a trillion dollars. If my accounting gets messed up I would likely go to jail. They just get richer and richer and laugh at all us dummies.