Lets play make believe.

2050, the US has fallen even further into debt by borrowing money from China and other nations while spending a fortune on welfare programs. China, seeing the ever decreasing value of the dollar has called our debts and demand we repay them in gold or Euros, but alas we spent all our money on Social Security. We cannot pay them back, but China doesn’t just want to ruin us because they get a lot of food from us. But they still want our money. What’s a solution?

What would you say to China, instead of demanding we pay them, opens a military base on US soil; but not only that, lets say that they not only get to open a base in the US, but on holy ground such as Arlington Cemetery. Does that get your blood boiling? What would you do if such a travesty were to occur?

The scenario leading up to this isn’t really what’s important here (although I will be discussing the national debt in some other post), the real issue is the prospect of another nation, any nation, opening a military base on US soil. How wrong would that be? How much anger would be created towards the nations to hold a military presence here? We’d be pissed off, as we should be.

But that’s just the thing of it; we get all hot and bothered thinking about a foreign military presence on our own holy soil, but we like it when we’re the ones occupying the sacred soil of another. I of course am talking about our military presence in Saudi Arabia. The problem with this particular military base that is much more pressing then any others is the fact that Saudi Arabia is the holy land for the world’s second largest religion, a place reserved for Muslims and Muslims alone. Just as many (not all, but many) Americans would react violently if China were to open a base right on top of Arlington, many in the Middle East have reacted to our presence on their own soil. Believe it or not, but Bin Laden didn’t one day decide he wanted to be a terrorists, one of his main motivations for creating Al Qaeda and carrying our attacks on the US is what he sees as our “occupation of the holy land.” The result? 9/11.

Now don’t get me wrong here, blame for the attacks needs to be put in the hands of those who committed the crimes, Bin Laden, but to think that the US can do whatever it wants around the world without creating resentment and inviting scorn and hatred is naive at best. We have to realize that opening military basis in places people the people don’t want them is going to, ultimately, do us more harm then good. Just put yourself in their shoes and think of how you’d react.