Overseas bases cause environmental damage, crime, displacement, and colonial relations

Evidence

Worldwide, bases have caused widespread environmental damage because of leaks, accidents, and, in some cases, the deliberate burial or discharge of toxic materials. In Okinawa, U.S. troops have repeatedly committed rapes and other crimes against the local population. In Italy, twenty died after a Marine jet severed a gondola cable. The military has also repeatedly built installations by displacing local peoples from their lands, in areas ranging from Greenland to the tropical island of Diego Garcia. Today, the disproportionate presence of bases in places that lack full democratic rights within the United States, such as Guam and Puerto Rico, helps perpetuate a twenty-first-century form of colonialism, tarnishing our country’s ability to be a model for democracy. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 32

In Okinawa, U.S. troops have repeatedly committed rapes and other crimes against the local population. In Italy, twenty died after a Marine jet severed a gondola cable. The military has also repeatedly built installations by displacing local peoples from their lands, in areas ranging from Greenland to the tropical island of Diego Garcia. Today, the disproportionate presence of bases in places that lack full democratic rights within the United States, such as Guam and Puerto Rico, helps perpetuate a twenty-first-century form of colonialism, tarnishing our country’s ability to be a model for democracy. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 32

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The Guam and Puerto Rico point about colonial hierarchies parallels themes in the sacrifice article about who bears the cost of empire.
• XREF: DoD acknowledges toxic burn pits and base contamination; connects to broader environmental-justice literature on military pollution.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 32