Blind to the Reality of Foreign Basing

The price of foreign military basing clearly is high for both those living in the community in which the base is located as well as for the members of the military and their families who have to live on the bases. Given this and also that in many instances foreign military basing is essentially nothing more than legally sanctioned colonialism, the question of whether or not these prices are worth paying for their supposed benefit is critical. Of course, we are told that such basing is necessary for our security, but I can't help but wonder how so. It seems more that it is our material way of life that we are defending rather than our security. The two are equated as being the same thing, but this is really not true. How much are we willing to sacrifice our supposed democratic and humanitarian ideals to be able to project power in order to maintain our lifestyles? How much worse off would the world and the U.S. really be if we pulled out of foreign bases in areas where the locals don't necessarily want us there?

What bothers me the most is that these question have never really been posed to us--to the American people. They have been decided for us so that we can go on believing we are the world's foremost proponents of self-determination and human rights. It is very disconcerting that the public is so disconnected from the actions of our government around the world. We have come to support actions that we claim to believe are wrong without ever really even realizing it.