Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News reported Thursday that the Overseas Basing Commission had removed a report to Congress after the Department of Defense complained that it disclosed classified information without authorization. -- The commission chair, however, told the Washington Post that “The commission is confident that everything in our report was obtained from unclassified sources or settings.” -- Aftergood provides a link to a copy of the report on the Federation of American Scientists web site. -- Bases have a cardinal importance in the American way of hegemony. -- Chalmers Johnson has argued that the base is the essential institution in the practice of empire as developed by the United States: “With the end of the Cold War the huge Eurasian territory between the Balkans and Pakistan, formerly off-limits as the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union, opened up for expansion. America quickly deployed military forces into this critical region and prepared to fight wars with regimes that stood in the way. During this period of little more than a decade, a vast complex of interests, commitments, and projects was woven together until a new political culture paralleling civil society came into existence. This complex, which I am calling an empire, . . . consists of permanent naval bases, military airfields, army garrisons, espionage listening posts, and strategic enclaves on every continent of the globe . . . creating not an empire of colonies but an empire of bases” (The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic [Metropolitan Books, 2004], pp. 22-23)....
REPORT ON OVERSEAS BASES REMOVED FROM WEB
By Steven Aftergood
Secrecy News
May 19, 2005
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html
A report to Congress from the Overseas Basing Commission was removed from the Commission's web site last week after the Department of Defense complained that its publication involved "unauthorized disclosure of classified information."
But "The commission is confident that everything in our report was obtained from unclassified sources or settings," Commission chairman Al Cornella told the Washington Post.
Along with forthright criticism of current Pentagon planning, the suppressed Commission report concluded ironically that "The nation would benefit from a more inclusive discussion on how best to ensure the greater security of the United States." (p. C&R 3).
The main body of the May 9 report of the Overseas Basing Commission, not including several appendices, was preserved on the web site of Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-TX). A copy is posted here (5.4 MB PDF file):
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/obc.pdf
See also "Report Critical of Rumsfeld Is Pulled After DOD Protest" by Mike Allen, Washington Post, May 16, 2005:
http://tinyurl.com/auvr6
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