by James Glaser
December 6, 2005

George Bush talks about the Iraqis standing up and Americans standing down. So is that why we think American troops will leave Iraq, and come home some day? It doesn't work that way, and it hasn't worked that way for over 60 years. I think the last time the troops really came home was after WW I. We still have troops in Germany and Japan, and they have been there since 1945. The Germans and the Japs have both stood up for many decades now.

The United States does not leave after we attack a country. The truth is that we have troops in 135 countries right now. We could have walked away from Korea over 40 years ago. For sure by 1965, South Korea had a fine standing Army, but we stayed and are still there with tens of thousands of our troops. In 2003, the newest Pentagon report released tells us that there are 252,764 American troops deployed abroad. That report did not include the troops in Iraq.

I can remember when Bill Clinton was sending troops (he called them peacekeepers) to the Balkans, saying they would only be there for two years. They are still there.

We get a toehold in any country, and we are not leaving. We did leave Vietnam though, but that is because North Vietnam beat us, and we don't have troops there today.

We are still in Afghanistan, and we will be there for years to come. Afghanistan has a puppet government that the CIA, and our tax dollars bought and paid for. We will be keeping troops there from now on. Right now we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on permanent bases for Iraq. George might talk about bringing the troops home, but he has also talked about keeping the troops in Iraq until the Iraqis can defend themselves. If Germany and Japan are examples of that, we will be in Iraq until the next century.

Once we have troops in a country, supply lines are set up, and contracts are given out. Some Americans are making money, big money, from contracts to supply our troops at these foreign bases, and some of that money is spread around in Washington lobbying for those foreign bases to stay open. That keeps our troops sitting in places we should have left a half-century ago.

The communities around our bases are dependent on our troops staying there too. So the whore-houses and bars have to spread money around. They lobby their own governments to keep the bases there. Young American troops are paid well, and they blow their money on pleasure. Many foreign nationals have been getting rich off of our troops for decades, and they don't want that cash cow to leave.

Listen to what the president has to say, but remember every president since Roosevelt has had the power to bring the troops home, and not one of them has. Don't get your hopes up.