Trump Wants To Shut Down Embassies, But Not Military Bases

Trump’s state department is proudly closely embassies while quietly keeping military bases open.

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War

The Trump clowns are planning to close U.S. embassies in Africa.

Good riddance, right?

Wrong.

They still plan to work on “coordinated counterterrorism operations” and “strategic extraction and trade of critical natural resources.”

They also still plan to maintain U.S. military bases across the continent. They’re shutting down all kinds of offices, but not Africom.

In U.S. culture and media, where it’s one’s duty to pretend that the military budget and everything that goes with it does not exist, one could hardly be blamed for thinking that the closure of embassies actually meant a full departure.

And one could hardly be blamed for thinking this a positive development. Those embassies have steadily been transformed over the decades into weapons dealerships, military sidekicks, and dens of spies. (The CIA may yet point out to Trump how many embassy employees are CIA and make him an offer he can’t refuse.) It’s hard sometimes to imagine other functions. In fact, in U.S. culture, withdrawing the U.S. military from a place is usually called “isolationism” as if militarism were the only way to interact with people. But that’s the one thing that’s not ending in Africa or anywhere else.

The U.S. government is cutting off all sorts of aid, but not what it calls “military aid” or “defense aid” — meaning the U.S. military giving money and training to other countries’ militaries (never mind all the trainees who do coups). Go here, pick a year, and click on “Department of Defense.”

Most of Africa has been loaded up with U.S.-made weapons, and there’s been no indication of a halt to that (despite the planned closure of the dealerships). Go here and scroll back through the years.