The U.S. is shifting significant resources away from Germany and into Eastern Europe. In other words, away from the scrutiny of Western Europe and into the less frequented backwaters of Romania and now, Bulgaria. Human rights issues will be less pressing, cost of living cheaper and the bases will be a little closer to both Russia and the Middle East for all of your bombing needs.

This fits in with the U.S. needing to downsize its troop commitments overseas as the empire hits overstretch and, as fuel prices increase, like a British hospital, the U.S. military is starting to seek “efficiency savings” wherever it can. Some might say that this intensified exploitation of the imperial periphery is a sign of impending decline or collapse.

It also fits in with the dirty “war on/for terror,” which necessitates “warehouses” out of the way for beatings and assorted torture, as well as handy airbases. It seems, however, that the U.S. are now trying to fight this sordid war on the cheap.

[Posted By Szamko]

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By Unattributed
Republished from Jang.com via aljazeera.info

Thousands of troops set for redeployment in Eastern Europe

SOFIA: Bulgaria and the United States have reached agreement on setting up U.S. military bases in the former communist country, the Bulgarian negotiator and U.S. ambassador said on Friday. Washington and Sofia “have reached a cooperation agreement on the possibility of using certain military sites,” negotiator Lubomir Ivanov told a press conference.

The sites are to be the Novo Selo training base near Sliven in the east, the air bases of Bezmer near Yambol in the southeast and Graf Ignatievo near Plovdiv in the south and a warehouse near Aitos in the east, U.S. ambassador John Beyrle said.

The agreement will be signed when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits Sofia at the end of April for a Nato conference, Ivanov said. The Bulgarian parliament will have to give its approval each time the bases are used for an attack on a third country, Defence Minister Veselin Bliznakov said, according to press reports.

The facilities are part of Washington’s wider strategy to shift troops from locations in western Europe further east to improve their reactivity to ongoing conflicts and potential trouble in the Middle East. Last December the United States signed a similar deal with Bulgaria’s northern neighbour Romania.

The Pentagon has announced plans to re-deploy between 60,000 and 70,000 men from Germany and South Korea in the next 10 years to new bases in eastern Europe, particularly in Romania and Bulgaria.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said the United States has no intention of establishing big bases in Eastern Europe like those it has maintained in Germany since the end of World War II.