I thought this was kinda uplifting...

[Rick Lee]

Flame away, Pat!

Romanians Eager for Long-Awaited Arrival of the Yanks

By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 6, 2006; A10

MIHAIL KOGALNICEANU, Romania -- Camelia Mohorea stood outside the Vascov Nonstop shop with a big bottle of beer and a huge sack of pig feed, waiting for a ride home and daydreaming about American soldiers. "If the Americans come, they will give us a better life," said the 43-year-old woman, puffing a cigarette as cart-pulling horses clomped by, hauling hay.

U.S. soldiers have been the talk of this poor little town since last month, when U.S. and Romanian officials announced that the Romanian air force base here would soon host the first permanent U.S. military presence in a former Warsaw Pact country. From the presidential palace in Bucharest, 130 miles west of here, to the humble pig and chicken farms of this Black Sea hamlet, the announcement has been greeted with undisguised delight.

"The dramatic wish of Romanians at the end of the Second World War was to be occupied by the Americans and not by the Russians," President Traian Basescu, a cheerful former oil tanker captain, said in an interview.

Echoing a widely held sentiment here, Basescu said that while Romanians were looking west and waiting for U.S. troops as the war ended, the Soviets swept in from the east, bringing a half-century of communism that kept Romania poor and backward while Western Europe thrived.

"It was something that was transferred from generation to generation that we would like very much to have the Americans on Romanian territory," said Basescu, who was elected in 2004 promising closer ties to the United States and Western Europe. Romania joined the NATO alliance in 2004 and is scheduled to join the European Union in 2007 or 2008.

The deal for the U.S. military presence here was signed in December by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Romanian Foreign Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu. Details are still being negotiated, but U.S. Army Col. Pat Mackin, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Europe, said troops could begin arriving by summer 2007. Mackin said the presence in Romania -- about 100 permanent headquarters staff members, and as many as 2,000 soldiers rotating through at any given time -- would be far smaller than at traditional U.S. bases in Europe.

Mackin said the idea was to have smaller and "more agile" forces in strategic locations in Europe, where the United States is reducing its troop level from a Cold War presence of about 315,000 to as few as 65,000 over the next decade. A similar deal is being negotiated with neighboring Bulgaria, Mackin said.

Basescu said Romania saw close military ties with the United States as critical to its own security, especially in the face of what he called the increasing traffic of drugs, arms and illegal immigrants across the Black Sea region into Europe. Military cooperation between the two countries has increased markedly since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, he noted, adding that Romania's more than 800 troops in Iraq and nearly 600 in Afghanistan would remain in place as long as the United States and those countries wanted them.

In November, The Washington Post reported that the CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe as part of a covert prison system that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe.

The Post did not identify the Eastern European countries at the request of senior U.S. officials, who said the disclosure could disrupt counterterrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and could make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation.

Human rights groups have persistently identified the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, widely known as "MK," as a prison site -- a claim that Basescu has repeatedly denied.

He said he allows the CIA and other U.S. agencies to land planes at the base but has never permitted a prison or any mistreatment. Personnel from the CIA and other U.S. agencies work in Romania at a joint anti-terrorism intelligence center that opened within months of the Sept. 11 attacks, he added.

"You can't be a partner of the United States only when you need advantage and the support of the United States," Basescu said. "Sometimes the United States needs your support, and this is what we are doing."

The headquarters for the U.S. military's new Eastern European Task Force will be at the base, where 18 decommissioned MiG jet fighters with flat tires are parked along the tarmac as rusting echoes of the Cold War. Three other Romanian military sites will also be used for training, according to the agreement.

Times have clearly changed here since the Soviet Union collapsed: The base's main drag is called George Washington Boulevard. It was built by U.S. military engineers in 2003, when the base served as a stopover point for U.S. planes headed to and from the Iraqi theater. The engineers also renovated a gymnasium and built a helipad, said Romanian air force Lt. Cmdr. Adrian Vasile, a member of the command staff of the helicopter squadron stationed here.

Vasile said Romanian and U.S. troops had conducted at least six major joint military exercises here in the past decade. "We are a reliable ally," Vasile said.

Outside the base gates, in this town of 10,000 where people live in crumbling apartment blocks or on ramshackle family farms, the talk one recent day was not of geopolitics, but of jobs, roads, gas pipes and water systems.

"We think the establishment of an American base here will be an opportunity for our little town for development," said Vice Mayor Gheorghe Ciocoiu, a former Romanian air force pilot who flew MiG-29s at the base for 13 years before retiring to "this place we love." He said an American presence at the base would mean more commerce and more local people employed as bus drivers and construction workers, and in other service jobs.

"God knows how much we need investors to make the people's lives better," he said.

Along one of the town's dirt back roads, Catalin Gheondea was chopping firewood in a yard he shared with geese, chickens, turkeys and pigs. Like most people here, Gheondea, 28, said he struggled to get by on his animals and crops of corn and sunflowers. He said U.S. military exercises in the past had brought ripples of prosperity.

"We could feel something happening economically in the community," he said. "They created jobs and opened shops. It was different -- people had money."

Nicoleta Coconcia, 34, who runs a little shop selling products that include "American Cola" and "Original American Quality" chewing gum, said U.S. troops on the base would mean more business for her.

"I think we will be safer with the Americans here," she said, putting a sandwich into a microwave. "During communism, we never talked about America; it was something unknown. But now Americans and Romanians are getting more acquainted. Whenever we talk about the Americans, people are happy."

[kach22i]

And the empire expands just a little more.

[Rick Lee]

I guess you're forgetting the bases we're closing down in Germany or overlooking the part about reducing overall troop numbers in Europe by 80% over the next decade.

[kach22i]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
I guess you're forgetting the bases we're closing down in Germany or overlooking the part about reducing overall troop numbers in Europe by 80% over the next decade.

maybe, but perhaps it will balance out with the new military bases in Qatar and Dubai.

Then again the Bush administration is bowing to al-Qaeda's internal influence and pressure on Saudi Arabia, resulting in closing more bases.

http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=17937

The ''diminished security threat'' explanation is an eyewash, according to political analyst Victor Shalhoub. He was referring to Washington's claim that with Saddam Hussein -- who had threatened to invade Gulf countries in the past -- now gone, there is little benefit from the military alliance...................................... The ruling House of Saud, nervous about an internal revolt by al-Qaeda sympathisers, had been against a security arrangement based on the presence of an outside military power to protect its domestic interests.

Links:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/dhafra.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/udeid.htm

[Rick Lee]

I think closing the Prince Sultan Air Base was a long-expected dividend of taking out Saddam. Why stay there now? It's just an irritant.

[kach22i]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
I think closing the Prince Sultan Air Base was a long-expected dividend of taking out Saddam. Why stay there now? It's just an irritant.

An irritant?

I've read the Osma bin Laden's letter to America, forget the years - read two of them. Yea an irritant is not what he called it.

[Rick Lee]

Yeah, it was one of bin Laden's beefs with us and the House of Saud. But it was there to contain Iraq, which is no longer a threat to Saudi Arabia. I don't see how our leaving it appears to be appeasing al Qaeda. Saddam was the reason it was created, he's gone now and we don't need it anymore.

[kach22i]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
Yeah, it was one of bin Laden's beefs with us and the House of Saud. But it was there to contain Iraq, which is no longer a threat to Saudi Arabia. I don't see how our leaving it appears to be appeasing al Qaeda. Saddam was the reason it was created, he's gone now and we don't need it anymore.

So you are contending that we are doing less sorties now than when we maintained the No-Fly Zone of Saddam's time?

[Rick Lee]

I didn't contend that at all. AFAIK, the no-fly zones are no longer in existence and when they were, a lot of our patrols were based in Incirlik, Turkey.

[kach22i]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
I didn't contend that at all. AFAIK, the no-fly zones are no longer in existence and when they were, a lot of our patrols were based in Incirlik, Turkey.

I contend that with al-Quedia's presence in Saudi Aribia and in Iraq, and a continuing war in Iraq (and possible new war in Iran) that the air base in Saudi Arabia would be more needed than ever.

You just won't admit a political and strategic defeat on GWB's part will you?

[Rick Lee]

I wasn't thinking at all in terms of political defeat for Bush. I guess you'd rather keep any and all bases put if it bolsters your knee-jerk hatred of Bush. I'd rather see bases put where they best serve our security interests. I don't know how a huge (PS Air Base is monstrously huge) air base in Saudi helps us anymore, since we have bases actually inside Iraq, which are far closer to the hot spots. Does putting that tiny base in Romania upset you more than keeping the huge ones we have in Germany, which are far less needed nowadays?

[kach22i]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
Does putting that tiny base in Romania upset you more than keeping the huge ones we have in Germany, which are far less needed nowadays?

I don't have a platform or policy on that topic as I'm not running for national office. However, I'm all for what ever protects this country and it's interest best and most cost effectively. This includes not caving in to terrorist demands.

[Rick Lee]

I never met anyone who even thought of forward bases when deciding whom to vote for. Since the folks in those countries can't vote here, I doubt it's got much to do with votes.

[kach22i]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
I never met anyone who even thought of forward bases when deciding whom to vote for. Since the folks in those countries can't vote here, I doubt it's got much to do with votes.

I think that when Clinton closed a bunch of bases on US soil according to Pentagon recomendations it became quite the political issue - at least at local and state levels.

[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
I think closing the Prince Sultan Air Base was a long-expected dividend of taking out Saddam. Why stay there now? It's just an irritant.

Bingo! Once PSAB is turned over, then there is Taif and Khamis and we are done except for a few places that are not discussed in open conversation. (Rick, you probably know the bases I am talking about) We can always re-deploy there if needed and we still have equipment based in the desert right now if needed in case of war.

Then OBL cannot say that the "Infidels are in the land of the Two Holy Cities of Islam" and that takes away some of his reasoning for attacking the Western world and America.

[kach22i]

Originally posted by Joeaksa
Bingo! Once PSAB is turned over, then there is Taif and Khamis and we are done except for a few places that are not discussed in open conversation. (Rick, you probably know the bases I am talking about) We can always re-deploy there if needed and we still have equipment based in the desert right now if needed in case of war.

Then OBL cannot say that the "Infidels are in the land of the Two Holy Cities of Islam" and that takes away some of his reasoning for attacking the Western world and America.

Oh yea, bin Laden had such a good argument and reasoning let's take the wind out of his sails and just give him what he wants.

That will show him.

[Rick Lee]

Originally posted by kach22i
I think that when Clinton closed a bunch of bases on US soil according to Pentagon recomendations it became quite the political issue - at least at local and state levels.

That's not at all what I'm talking about and you know it. Domestic bases are, of course, a HUGE political issue, which is why we have the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which, while still controversial, has been a resouding success in taking as much politics as possible out of the job.

[kach22i]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
That's not at all what I'm talking about and you know it.

I know you are talking about giving in to terrorist is just fine if it suits you and you can spin it. Just like the release of those women prisioners in Iraq - in politics timing is everything.

[Rick Lee]

Dude, go take your meds. When have we given into terrorists? By not keeping open a redundant base in Saudi just to spite them? Maybe I missed it, but when did we release all female detainees in Iraq? I heard a few were released, who were already cleared to be release before that journalist was kidnapped. BTW, has she been released yet?

[kach22i]

Dude I gave you the prime example - al Quedia was targeting Saudi officials so they asked us to leave - and we did. Bin Laden got what he wanted.

How about China taking out that Orion aircraft and breaking our codes. Japan had to tell us about that last part as they found out what happens when Bush gives in - he gives away our security.