Take a Drive Across America...There’s a Lot to See
Wednesday, June 04, 2025 – 10:46 AM CDT
Winding New England Rivers perfect for an afternoon of casting flies. Great Lakes so similar to oceans you won’t believe you’re away from the coast. Rocky Mountains that will take your breath away.
You know what you won’t stumble across? Foreign military bases. Not a single one. No Botswanan fighter jet storage units, no Vietnamese troop encampments, and no Norwegian command centers.
No foreign country sets up shop in our homeland because doing so would be an attack on our sovereignty. No matter how much of an “ally” another nation is, its leaders placing troops within U.S. borders would delegitimize our country’s very existence. You have no independence if you lack reign over your land, and no nation with foreign troops on its shores can really claim to have control.
Given how poorly we would react to, say, the Mexican army building a camp in the Houston suburbs, it’s puzzling that the United States has its military scattered all around the world. But it does.
Japan. South Korea. Germany. Poland. Norway. Kuwait. If you put a blindfold on and toss a dart at a world map, the chances are it will hit a country where America has a military presence. That includes Syria.
Long obsessed with overthrowing Bashar al-Assad and imposing its will upon other people’s business, Washington has stationed thousands of U.S. service members in the Middle Eastern country for years. Roughly 2,000 soldiers are reportedly there today. But that’s about to change.
The Trump administration on Monday announced plans to eliminate nearly all U.S. presence in the country, planning to close seven of eight bases on Syrian soil. Special Envoy Thomas Barrack said the shift is necessary because none of Americas previous policies in the region have worked, which is as true a statement as you’ll hear from a government official. Sure, Assad is gone now, but he’s replaced by a former Al-Qaeda leader. Way to go, neocons.
If you’re uncertain on whether the U.S. should send its sons and daughters to fight in distant lands like Syria, consider this thought experiment: Imagine your son was in the Marines. You’re proud of him for serving his country, but scared he may find himself in harm’s way.
One day, two generals knock on your door to deliver the worst news you’ve ever received: your boy is dead, killed by enemy forces during an unexpected attack.
“Who was the enemy?” you ask amid your grief.
“Syrian insurgents,” they reply. “He died ‘defending democracy’ in Syria.”
What? American leaders sent your child to die in the name of a foreign interest?
It would be one thing if he’d perished defending Manhattan from a North Korean ground invasion, but meeting his maker fighting for an international agenda isn’t exactly what he imagined when he sought to serve his country in the military.
Monday’s announcement makes stories like that far less likely to unfold. You better pray this is just the beginning.