Why are U.S. foreign military bases good/bad?

Not a mock execution, just instead of a bag, use a blind fold and a cigarette. Do it randomly. It's a form of behavioral conditioning.

Fight smart, not fair.

^^ You're the ones claiming to be the good guys. You'll have a lot more claim to that when you actually behave like you are.

I dont know why they let me out, I guess they needed a spare bed

It seems that some stuff hasn't changed in ten years.

Leavenworth makes civilian prisons look like summer camp. Yeah, you don't hear about it much. You probably would not want to hear about it much, either. Probably don't hear about all the convicted felons getting put behind bars in regular prison, either. I know I don't.

Now, considering arguments against our bases:

/sarcasm mode on

I know, here's a perfect solution that's bound to please everybody: Turn all the foreign bases into cheap housing for local populations and redeploy the service members back to the States - oh, since we don't need them all stateside, we can discharge a bunch of them and have them collect unemployment. That way, we reduce the crime in foreign countries by a whopping fraction of a percent, reduce the income flowing into those countries so that they develop economic problems and the best part is, we would totally hamstring ourselves so that we wouldn't be able to respond to any sort of military or humanitarian crisis pretty much anywhere quickly. then, once the next Big Natural Disaster happens, we can get all sorts of bad publicity for not being able to respond to it at all - never mind that our allies will be left to fend for themselves in case they need military aid. Hey, they got armies of their own, let 'em use them. Ooo, bonus! The effect that our withdraw from the world stage is bound to leave everyone singing peace songs and hugging everyone, too - especially with all the little disagreements going on in the Middle East.

/sarcasm mode off

Yeah, right. Although not always perfect, I have great difficulty in contemplating our absence from those bases being a more ideal course of action.

edited 18th Feb '11 7:35:08 PM by pvtnum11

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

We never said we were the good guys. Also try to be less demonizing it does your argument no favors.

Who watches the watchmen?

Stop overestimating your positive impact on foreign countries please. It sounds like a christian priest singing praise after praise about the miracles that indian boarding schools are doing for the indian children...by indian I don't mean India indians, I mean red skinned indians in North America that are called indians anyways. Or two colonists describing how they're civilizing and improving the life of those dirty uncivilized savages. I guess theres this blatantly Holier Than Thou vibe that gets on my nerves.

They're not perfect analogies, but this is exactly what those who support it sound like. Complete with bs like Extraterritorial Rights protecting them from being tried under their laws.

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PS-when I say indian, I don't mean indians from India, I meant the indians that lived in North America. As in iroquois and mohawks etc. , the ones depicted with feathers on their heads etc.

edited 18th Feb '11 8:52:33 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

I'm not a huge fan of citation battles, but some peer-reviewed statistics would help both sides of this argument.

And Signed, "Native American" or "American Indian" is more sufficient and less of a mouthful.

hmmmm...good point. Though I don't like American Indian since they exist in Canada as well...

And I'm not entirely sure if statistics will help all that much. If party A and B were arguing, party A will come up with statistics that say B rapes 80% more babies than A. And B will come up with statistics that say A vandalizes 90% more churches than B...and theres a good chance that neither side were skewing them on purpose.

edited 18th Feb '11 8:56:16 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

Signed, like I said, remember that these same crimes (rape, murder, torture, etc…) are rarely punished to the degree they should be even for civilians. When one factors in the insignificant fraction of personnel that are this violent compared to civilian criminals, it's revealed for the sensationalist non-issue it is.

As horrible as the crimes are, they are statistically trivial, about like the “little girl down a well” stories the media loves clogging the airwaves with compared to REAL news.

Eric,

It's kinda disturbing how they lose importance once they're statistically trivial, and theres honestly nothing better to cover in the news anyways...but that's off-topic.

And like I said again  ^*

...atleast LET the country there deal with the criminal if you commit a crime on their turf. Don't do that "protecting our own men" bullshit when they commit a crime on their land.

You think their punishments would have been the same, but try to imagine what kind of punishment Green and his guys would have gotten if it were up to Iraq dealing the punishment. Do you think their punishment would have been so pathetically light? You have goddamn death penalty and you can't even use it?!

You go to someone else's house, you play by their rules. Don't like their rules? Don't go to their house.  ^*

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And like I said, these men should be punished even more harshly than normal people. They are often in a position of authority, armed soldiers that are expected to protect the civilians etc. The crime kinda becomes even worse if they start doing the exact thing they are supposed to be preventing(in principle). Same goes for police officers back at home.

For a country that I deem a bit too conservative  ^*

...it's still too liberal in certain places.

edited 19th Feb '11 12:52:21 AM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

I have to agree with Barkey to a certain extent on that one. The criminal justice system differs between us and them, while that doesn't amount to much for 1st world nations like Iceland or South Korea, I don't think it's moral for our government to hand even the most evil people to the legal judgment of 3rd world nations like Saudi Arabia or Bahrain. That goes for our citizens, foreign citizens under our power, and soldiers of any nation.

We're actually present in most nations by mutual agreement, often by request, so we can play by any rules we agreed on.

Also, there's plenty of better things to talk about in the news: Badly thought out doctrine leading to hundreds of deaths from misapplied military strikes, horribly corrupt corporate occupations doing nothing to control thousands of deaths from internecine violence and famine, and trillions of dollars that could be spent saving lives rather than being wasted on worthless garbage such as… Base networks in militarily uncontested areas.

Eric,

edited 19th Feb '11 1:36:29 AM by EricDVH

This is where we face 180 degrees on then. What you see as moral for government to rescue their own civilians from being punished, I see as elitist hypocrites incapable of showing manners to their hosts. Your Mileage May Vary...just like my signature!

But just like how I'm hoping the US consulate arrested in Pakistan will get Pakistani justice, I'd wish anyone in any STUPID enough to go to another country and commit a crime to be served that country's style of justice. Is it so hard to show a bit of respect to countries other than their own?

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And what's newsworthy or not is Your Mileage May Vary. Some may say Michael Jackson's death was more newsworthy than some old lady's death. And others may say Mother Terasa's death is more important than some black guy who thinks he's a white guy's death. Depends on what the public likes to hear more of.

edited 19th Feb '11 2:51:28 AM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

Since signed isn't saying that there's a popular movement to remove a US base, or a time when US Base's strongly conflicted with a nations self determination, or citing statistics for why US bases are bad, but just saying, "Wah, I don't like SOF As because the military justice system isn't designed to satisfy my impersonal rage," I've decided this argument is ridiculous and am dropping this topic until the flow of discourse makes a significant change.

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^I was just about to say that, like totally.

That's not really fair. If I abuse my authority in uniform, or somehow relating to the capacity of my duties, then I deserve harsher punishment.

But when I'm out of my cammies, I'm not a cop. I'm just another American, for all intents and purposes I'm pretty much a civilian tourist in a non-warzone foreign country. Now.. How often do Americans commit harsh crimes in foreign countries while they are on vacation that result in the US trying painfully hard to extradite them back to our own country for trial? ALL THE GOD DAMN TIME, SO QUIT WHINING ABOUT YOUR SOLDIER-HATING DOUBLE STANDARD!

Our authority doesn't extend to every fucking breath we take, when we clock out, we clock out, unless we're in Iraq or Afghanistan. This is still just a god damn job, we're not like Police Officers on the civilian side, who are on the job 24/7, able to be armed and with the powers to arrest. I'm not even allowed to arrest or detain people if I'm off-shift, but still in uniform at my own base. I have to be armed and on-duty to have the right to do so.

It's essentially the difference between a security guard at a post, when he clocks out, or if he visits his work site out of uniform on his day off, he has zero power over the place. I'm sick of this bullshit double standard you have of how we should obviously be treated three times as harshly as a civilian, that makes no goddamn sense. You pussy-foot around civilian punishments, but suddenly you want an execution express lane built if a soldier is involved.

edited 19th Feb '11 9:26:54 AM by Barkey

Yes, but it's a slap on the wrist that they receive after jail time, fines, and whatever other standard punishment is also assigned.

Because we put our lives on the line and are spending months, if not years away from our family, we deserve harsher penalties than are dealt out to civilians? Generally I agree with not having a draft, but occasionally I wished we could dragoon people like you to suffer alongside us.

As someone who was stationed overseas in Japan - WE DO. Remember about a decade ago when a bunch of Army guys kidnapped, gang-raped, and killed a girl? They're still rotting in a Japanese prison. The Navy sailor  ^*

^{who, by the way, wasn't American but NIGERIAN}

who stabbed a taxi driver is sitting in Japanese prison. Sailors are getting left behind in Singapore to face the local equivalent of Drunk and Disorderly. So kindly take your "Waaah, I hate soldiers because they're all violent!" and shove it.

 ^{for mods}

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

(See my comment about the civil sector getting a crack at them after the military fucks em first)

Oh then we can add in things like getting sued on top of that. Your getting hit by a possible 3 different court systems. If anything Members of the Armed forces are punished far more harshly then their civilian counterparts.

I don't know about you guys but how many folks have ever noticed that even remote military bases end up with towns springing up around them and quite a few turning into cities. Especially in the U.S.

edited 19th Feb '11 6:06:28 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

I find it odd that someone who has never been part of the military is expressing displeasure in how the military allows its service members to be punished. As others have stated, the military is quite hard on those who break the rules.

And as I stated above, military bases overseas are very much a good thing - not every nation can afford to field a large army or deploy their forces overseas at the drop of a hat.

The only solution to end the need for overseas bases that could totally work would be to get rid of all armed forces in the world. But I don't see that happening any time soon.

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

^ Like I said before, those of us who arent in the military get everything from second hand news sources, and usually, they make it seems like soldiers who comitt crimes arent punished at all. If its true that they ARE punished, then Im sorry, Ive been misinformed.

I dont know why they let me out, I guess they needed a spare bed

Why would trust a news source to present the truth over creating moral outrage?

Fight smart, not fair.

I find the idea that we have to be in the military to examine it or judge it to more terrifying than practically anything else. That's simply not how the world should work. Who watches the watchmen, and all that.

Now, it's entirely possible for my information to be wrong, and I can perfectly understand you wanting to correct misconceptions that might be floating around outside the military, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with whether nor any individual has actually been part of the military or not.

^^ Because its the only source of information I have thats even remotly objective? Its not like I could ask an actual soldier about it, I'd get his account of events, not how they actually happened.

I dont know why they let me out, I guess they needed a spare bed

I'd trust a soldier over a journalist any day, myself.

I wouldnt.

I dont know why they let me out, I guess they needed a spare bed

I trust a professional killing machine over professional attention whores to tell the truth.

Fight smart, not fair.

I wouldn't trust anyone to tell the truth about themselves. It's simply a conflict of interest. Journalists, however, have a conflict of interest about every single thing ever as long as they rely on selling themselves to survive.