There's a big difference here, Ray. As you well know, we have no designs on these countries comparable to that held by the Chinese, the Japanese and Germans pre-WWII, and whatever middle eastern despot you might choose. As for Ramstein and Okinawa, well sorry, but they lost what they started. Sorry about Diego Garcia too.
Let's reverse roles here as a hypothetical. Say China, for instance, had navies on every sea, and military installations in upwards of 50 foreign sovereign nations. As an American citizen, looking across I-5 and seeing a Chinese airbase, army base or naval facility, would I not conclude that this presence was for the purpose of perhaps not "taking over the world" per se, but at least controlling it to a very large extent? |
