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Did You Know The Marines Are In Djibouti?
by James Glaser December 18, 2007 Maybe a better question would be, do you know what Djibouti is, or where it is? Well, to answer those two questions, Djibouti is a tiny (Less than 9,000 square miles) country in Africa, next to Somalia. To give you an idea of size, Djibouti is about the same size as the State of Vermont. According to the Tallahassee Democrat Newspaper, the Marines have been in Dijbouti since May of 2003, and they are stationed at a base called Camp Lemonier. The base is an abandoned French Foreign Legion Outpost. It makes you think of the movie Beau Geste, starring Gary Cooper and Ray Milland. I'm sure the Marines there think that, too. Djibouti has no natural resources, they have almost nothing except 50% unemployment, and a it is certainly a place to where World Food Relief can always send help. Being that poor opens the country up to American hegemony. Djibouti needs money, and you would think that old French base would be cheap, but no, up until 2006 we were renting the base and 88 acres of land for $30,000,000.00 a year, but now we have talked them into letting us use 500 acres, but the new rent price is a secret. Right now according to Captain Patrick Myers, the base commander, we have 1,600 or so troops there. When asked about the addition of 412 acres to the base, Capt. Myers said, "We're not making the base bigger in terms of population - at least not anytime soon. We're using some of the available land to make the living conditions a little bit better." I imagine 1,600 Marines crammed on to 88 acres would be a bit rough. 88 acres would be a bit bigger than one half mile by one quarter mile. The base is next to the Djibouti Airport, but the airstrip is not in that 88 acres. What are we doing there? Well, right off the bat you could say we are making our presence known in the area. We ran out of Somalia, and we needed some place on that part of the globe, and with a country as poor as Djibouti, you know that renting a spot for some Marines to camp out would be a sure thing. So the Marines are doing counter terrorism training. I think they do that wherever they go. Also, they do something called "coastal security." We donated four refurbished 44-foot patrol boats to the Djibouti Navy, which doubled the size of their fleet What are we doing in Djibouti? We are doing what we do best, we are spending money. We are giving arms and equipment to a tiny pitiful country so that they can fight somebody. We are spending tens of millions of dollars to keep 1,600 troops there and you know we are spending all sports of money on that old abandoned French Foreign Legion Post. Does anyone wonder why the French abandoned it? We have troops in over one hundred countries, and Djibouti is just one of them. Right in that part of the world we are training troops in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Yemen. In Sudan, we have U.S. observers watching the western region of Darfur We used to have troops in Eritrea, but the Tallahassee Democrat reports, "No U.S. military presence. Eritrea is involved in border disputes with Ethiopia, a U.S. ally, and has closed itself off to foreigners." The same is true for Somalia. "No permanent U.S. presence, as the country is considered too dangerous." Notice how they worded that, "no permanent U.S. presence." Lets face it, we have troops everywhere, and we are sticking our nose in everybody's business. That costs billions, no, make that trillions, and the profits go to international corporations. That is the real reason we are in Djibouti. |
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