Thread by @wfinalle57

2002
Gearing Up for the twenty year money pit...

"The new base, on 37 acres at the airport in Manas, 19 miles from the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, is to be a major military hub."

wsws.org/en/articles/20…

"On Jan 9 US military personnel showed off...a huge air base being built in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, a landlocked country which borders China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan & Kazakhstan, & 🤔 was once virtually inaccessible as far as American imperialism was concerned."

Oh?
November 1997, 😳 Really?
What a startling coinkydink... 😁👍

“Behind a veil of secret 😎 agreements, the United States is creating a ring of new and expanded military bases that encircle Afghanistan and enhance the armed forces’ ability to strike targets throughout much of the Muslim world."

"...while US military arrangements with foreign countries during the Cold War were usually spelled out in public legal documents called “status of force agreements,”...

🤔
"...many of the post-Cold War pacts are classified to protect the host governments from domestic opposition to military subordination to the United States. These include agreements with Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia."

April 2000

"In Qatar the US has built, in virtual secrecy, a huge $1.5 billion airbase at Al Adid ... Construction began after a visit by Clinton’s defense secretary William Cohen in April 2000. Qatar already hosts pre-positioned equipment for a US Army brigade."

"... a top Pentagon official said last year [2001] that the Qatar base was “not focused at one particular country or another, but part of a system we would like to have in place.”

So the Clinton Administration laid the foundation and built the hammers and anvil for the Afghanistan operation.