Iraq had been invaded after the global terrorism event that took place on September 11th, 2001, and more importantly the weapons that are at the disposal in the era of the asymmetrical transnational war conducted by the non-state actors. So, President Bush on January 29th, 2002 in his state of the Union made it clear that the United States would not differentiate between the nation and the terrorist’s groups whom would arm them. due to this policy, the invasion of Afghanistan had been made for the need to remove the training ground and safe houses of the al-Qaeda. Whereas, Iraq didn’t provide the al-Qaeda a safe haven, but it had been the training ground and supportive place for different terrorist groups that were fighting the Iran and Turkey’s government.
The main arguments of Bush administration’s for going on the war were the possession of the weapons of mass destruction by the Saddam, Saddam’s threat to modeled the Middle East, the linkage of Iraq with the al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups that were fighting the governments of Turkey and Iran. Moreover, the harsh treatment of the people of Iran by Saddam, and the lack of democracy in the Iraq which was providing ground for different terrorist groups to freely operate in the region. Whereas the unofficial reason behind removing Saddam would be the US military demonstration against the visible enemy, and that demonstration hawkish elements within the military establishment and the Bush administration to prevent others for thinking that the United States is weak as following the 9/11 (Globalsecurity.org).
The international community had shown significant opposition for launching the war in Iraq. UN stated that the invasion is illegal according to the United Nations Charter and it would result in the instability in the Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in the Middle East. Different nations of the world and allies of US responded with different reactions. Argentina had criticized the United States for invading in Iraq and they stated that their participation in the war was dependent on a clear mandate of the United Nation charter, and that invasion is illegal. Whereas, Britain participated in the military venture which took great opposition by the Britain public and even by the political parties. China criticized the Bush’s military action and called it as a breach of the UN charter. Georgia pledged for its use of the military bases of the U.S. troops. During the war Italy allowed the U.S to use their air bases. Japan also took part in the coalition for disarming Iraq by deploying units in the area. Russia had protested the actions of US and demanded the end of Iraq war.
The term orientalism is a way of seeing distorts, emphasizes, imagines, and exaggerates differences of European and US form the people and cultures of the Arab. This term often involves in seeing the Arab culture as the uncivilized, backward, exotic, and dangerous at the time. In the book Orientalism, Edward w. said, “the basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for the elaborate theories, epic novels, social description, and political accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, ‘mind,’ destiny and so on.” He stated the European colonialism rationalization is a self-serving history where the West considered themselves more civilized than the East and therefore in need for the Intervention of the West.
After the attack on the trade center in 2001 following the event of 9/11, American’s way of seeing the Asians totally got changed. They were believing they the Asians and Muslims are dangerous and murderer. In the schools, the South Asian American and Muslim students and youth were being bullied and harassed by the Americans. The local police agencies of the America and the FBI started to put an unknown number of the Muslims under the Surveillance, the monitoring of the phone, the email, and the social media communications and activities, and infiltrated the communities of the Muslims and their worship places.
Due to the concept of the orientalism, many of the women and men who were been notified as doubtful by the agencies or even by the citizens and those who were having minor infractions in the migrations were been jailed, and arrested by the authorities and were been detained under the authorities and even got deported (Dissentmagazine.org). Whereas, many of the South Asian Americans were been murdered by self-styled Patriots in their working gases or in the gas stations including the Waqar Hasan, Balbir Singh Sodhi, Vasudev Patel, and Sukhvir Singh. Moreover, the American media made the Muslims terrors in their news and even in the Hollywood movies by showing that they are promoting in the act of terrorism. For about thirteen years after the incident of 9/11, the Islamophobia, xenophobia, and acts of anti-Muslims, and-Sikhs, and anti-South Asian violence remained high.
The United States has its control over the most of the governments who are the members of the United Nations and therefore, the United States has made a large integrated system of the Military bases for the coverage of the whole world including the Oceans, Continents and Outer Space. Military bases are being used for the purpose of training, and for keeping the stock of the military equipment, which can be used in case of an emergency. The United States has established many military bases for performing certain military functions across the globe, and these bases can be classified under the main four categories; army/land bases, air force bases, navy bases, and the spy and communication bases.
The United States controls/operates about 700 to 800 military bases in the entire world. according to the Hugh d’Andrade and Bob Wing’s 2002 map 1 entitled “ U.s. Military Troops and Bases around the world, The Cost of ‘Permanent War’”, revealed that about 156 countries have the US military personnel in them. there are about 63 countries that are equipped with the US military bases. After September 11, 2001, brand new military bases have been made in about seven countries. about 255,065 US military personnel have been developed in the entire world, having the 30 million acres of the underlying land surface that has been occupied by the bases. There are about a total of 737 bases of the US in the foreign countries. And if we include the area of the bases that are in the US and in the whole world is about 2,202735 hectares, due to which the Pentagon is the world largest landowner.
The enormous military bases and various kind of the installations are being distributed in the entire world as a command structure that divided into four unified combatant commands and five spatial units (Map 1). Each of these units is under the command of a General. the surface of the Earth has been structured as a wide battlefield which can be traversed from the bases. The territories that are under the command includes the Northen Command (NORTHCOM) (Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado), the Pacific Command (Honolulu, Hawaii), the Southern Command (Miami, Florida – Map 5), The Central Command (CENTCOM) (MacDill Air Force Base, Florida), the European Command (Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Germany), the Joint Forces Command (Norfolk, Virginia), the Special Operations Command (MacDill Air Force Base, Florida), the Transportation Command (Scott Air Force Base, Illinois) and the Strategic Command (STRATCOM) (Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska).
Source : http://www.defense.gov/home/features/2009/0109_unifiedcommand
The Global Network of the United States military bases across the entire world is more like a territorial imperialism. As American is extending its bases in the whole world, its only purpose behind doing this is the capturing the power and taking the whole world under its control. If United States interest is not in the expanding of their power, then why are the creating so many bases of the military in the entire. Over 181 countries have the military personnel of the United States in their countries (Globalresearch.ca). The United States wants to take the control of the whole damn world by sending its troops everywhere. The United States wants the exploitation of all the states which is being linked to colonialism.America is working on the concept of spreading freedom and democracy in all the nations by making their military bases there. But its intentions behind this concept is the capturing of the power of all the states.
The United States is using these military bases for the purpose of ending any uplift of power against them. Wherever in the world, United States feels the threat, they used these military bases for opposing these powers. The United States invested trillions of dollars in the military expenditures and military bases in the war in the Middle East. United States corporate elite had been driven out of Syria, Iraq, and Libya, where the military imperialism was engaged. United States strategies of the imperial state chose to expand the underdeveloped areas like Pakistan, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Yemen.
One of the most important issue in assigning of the national resources is war versus the peace. The United States is busy in the concept of territorial imperialism by expanding its territory with the building of military bases in the entire world. but this choice of the United States is greatly wrong, wasteful of a lot of sums and is the discouragement of the national security. American is now suffering from the “imperial overreach” in the term of the economics and the geopolitical, as the United States is trapped now in the Middle East war that is costing it a lot, and the budgetary costs of the imperialism alone could disrupt the hopes in the solution of the vast domestic problems.
Racism has been widespread in the United States in the Era of Colonialism. Due to the racism, the socially and the legal rights were given to the White American, while these rights were denied for the other races. European American were given special privileges in the matter of the citizenship, voting, education, immigration, and in the acquisition of the land. Whereas, due to the imperialism concept in the American homeland, the non-protestant immigrants like Irish, Poles, and the Italians faced strong discrimination from the Americans. Moreover, the Middle Eastern Americans like the Arabs and the Jews have faced very strong kind of the discrimination, and the East and the South Asians also faced the same racism from the Americans in their homeland (Schepers, 2017). Most of the racial institutions included the war between the American Indian, slavery, segregation, Native American boarding schools, naturalization law and the immigration.
African American was facing very strong discrimination due to the American imperialism. In the American Homeland, due to this imperialism, there were separate schools for the African and the American children. Moreover, there were also separate facilities, and separate trains and the buses for the whites and the Black. Because the Whites considered themselves superior to the African Americans on the basis of the color and the personality. For example in February 1960 in the North Carolina, African American students went to the store and sat down but no service was given to them. Moreover, the whites poke them and threw ketchup on their head, and also try to give them pain by the burning cigarette. This all racism was due to the Imperialism of the Americans. Americans considered themselves as the superior of all the races on the basis of civilization also. They believed that they are more civilized than the African Americans, and believed that the African American should be their slaves. Moreover, the American government banned the marriage of the interracial and Mildred, a black woman and Richard, a white man, were sent to the jail for about year due to marriage with each other in 1967.
Americans due to the concept and imperialism not only hate the African Americans, but they also have the hatred for the Asian American as well. And this hatred can be seen in the act of Naturalization in 1970 by which the Asian are ineligible for citizenship of America, and the citizenship is limited to the whites only. East Asian, South Asian and the Southeast Asian had faced the discrimination and the racism from the Americans in their homeland. Chinese immigrant labors was used for the purpose of mining and rail industries functions, but these Chinese were hated for picking the jobs of Whites for a very small salary, and it predicted the decrease of the Civilization of the west due to these Chinese immigrants, which results in the banning of the Chinese immigration in the American by the Act of Chinese Exclusion. That act shows the pure discrimination from the Whites towards the Asian Americans based on the ethnicity and class.
After the attack of 9/11 in the United States, the racialized Islamophobia had risen to the enormous heights due to the tension between the Islamic world and the American government. Due to the imperialism concept and followed by the 9/11 attack, the racialized violence had increased in the against the Muslim religion and its groups. Americans attacked the Muslims not only on the basis of the religion but also on the basis of ethnicity including on the basis of their colors. Americans on the basis of their imperialism concept have a thought that they are more superior than any other nation of the world. Muslims were most demonized and hatred for living in the United States as the Muslims were considered as the murderers, and the terrorist due to the attack of 9/11. Numerous Asians and Arabs have been killed on the basis of their appearance as well. Moreover, many Middle Eastern peoples were also been killed due to their resemblance to the Muslims appearances. Even the Muslims soldiers in the American army were discriminated, and forced to play the role of the terrorist during their training in the camps and were being bullied by many Americans soldiers.
References
Pike, J. (2018). Attacking Iraq – International Reaction. Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved 19 April 2018, from https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq-view.htm
Bald, V. (2018). American Orientalism | Dissent Magazine. Dissent Magazine. Retrieved 19 April 2018, from https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/american-orientalism
US Global Power in the 21st Century: Military or Economic Imperialism? | Global Research – Centre for Research on Globalization. (2018). Globalresearch.ca. Retrieved 19 April 2018, from https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-global-power-in-the-21st-century-military-or-economic-imperialism/5404911
Schepers, E. (2017). Imperialism in the 21st Century affects Americans, too. Communist Party USA. Retrieved 19 April 2018, from http://www.cpusa.org/article/imperialism-in-the-21st-century-affects-americans-too/
