Slam Dunk: What the US Public Doesn't Know About US Empire

Last
year, it was Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq. This year, it's Germany, Italy,
Greece, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Next year, it could
easily be Afghanistan, Pakistan, Diego Garcia, Bahrain, and Turkey. Or
of course they could choose to play in Japan (with a special stop in Okinawa),
South Korea, Colombia, and for a little sun and surf, the Bahamas. And
while they're at it, the same way bands used to love playing the
Palladium, they could make a triumphal return to Guantanamo Bay to bring
a little cheer back into American lives, just as they did in 2005. Or
they could break out their new camouflage-colored b-ball (which on
recent tours sometimes replaces their iconic red, white, and blue one),
and as they've done in the past, slam dunk their way onto U.S. aircraft
carriers on duty in places like the Persian Gulf.

Oh,
come on! You haven't guessed by now? We're talking about the Harlem
Globetrotters on their never-ending basketball tour and dropping in no less eternally at
the "front lines" of the American war on whatever. In recent years, to
entertain the troops, they've visited more than 25 U.S. military bases
in all of the countries above, not to speak of Djibouti, Portugal, and
others. (And yes, Virginia, aircraft carriers, with the populations of
American small towns, aregiant, floating military bases.)

But
here's the strange thing: let them tour those global bases year after
year, let them play a baseball schedule of 162 games (and throw in the
playoffs and the World Series, too), and they'll still barely scratch
the surface of America's baseworld. After all, the more than 25 bases they've visited since 2005 make up only about 15% of the approximately 400 American bases in
Afghanistan alone, as Nick Turse has reported at TomDispatch. Who even
knows the total number of U.S. military bases globally?

Only
one thing is certain: there are enough of them to keep the
Globetrotters touring nonstop until hell freezes over. One great
mystery of American journalism is that those bases, key to our imperial
status on this planet, remain of next to no interest to reporters
(unless the Pentagon threatens to close one in the U.S.). The strangest
aspect of America's global garrisons is that, while millions of
Americans -- soldiers, spies, private contractors, Defense Department
civilians, and civilian officials of every sort -- cycle through them
each year, most Americans know next to nothing about them and could care
less. By the way, surprising numbers of American journalists pass
through them, too, and yet, looking for a little "kinetic action" out in
our war zones, they almost never bother to focus on and report on these colossi of our imperial world.

Yet,
if you don't pay attention to them, you know remarkably little about
what our country actually means in, and to, the world. Because
TomDispatch considers them an essential beat, Nick Turse, the site's
associate editor as well as an award-winning journalist, has been covering them for years. Just this week, in his latest piece, "Twenty-First Century Blowback?,"
he offers some overlooked news. While the media has concentrated on
the "drawdown" in Iraq, the Pentagon has been building up its bases and
depots throughout the Persian Gulf region from Kuwait and Bahrain to
Jordan, Saudi Arabia to Oman, to no attention whatsoever. Sadly enough,
it looks as if he, like the Globetrotters, has years of base-hopping to
go. In journalistic terms, America's military bases are -- or should
be -- the gift that just keeps giving.