Pentagon had preplanned African bases before the Ebola deployment
Evidence
When the military mobilized to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in the fall of 2014, it began building a network of health and military logistics facilities. They included seventeen one-hundred-bed “Ebola treatment units” and a field hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, and an “intermediate staging base” in Dakar, Senegal. While many portrayed the military’s reaction to Ebola as pure altruism, months before the Ebola deployment, the Pentagon already had plans to build three to five new bases on the continent as well as an intermediate staging base in West Africa—that is, like the one now under construction in Dakar, Senegal. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 999
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
Related
- Military Ebola response doubled as pre-planned African base building (similarity 0.94)
- The Ebola military deployment served pre-existing base-building plans (similarity 0.91)
- Military Ebola mobilization piggybacked on a pre-existing African basing agenda (similarity 0.90)
- Pentagon forces have quietly expanded to a dozen new African air bases (similarity 0.82)
- US military presence in Africa grew from hundreds to up to eleven thousand troops (similarity 0.82)
- US military has spent $30 billion on African bases and programs since 2001 (similarity 0.81)
- The Pentagon has quietly built roughly a dozen African air bases since 2007 (similarity 0.81)
- The Pentagon quietly built dozens of African bases despite Africom’s official claims. (similarity 0.81)
- U.S. military presence in Africa now exceeds that in Latin America and the Caribbean (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Pentagon forces have quietly expanded to a dozen new African air bases
#corroborates(0.80) — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 994 - US military has spent $30 billion on African bases and programs since 2001
#expands(0.60) — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 1000 - Overseas bases perpetuate themselves by inventing new missions as old ones expire
#exemplifies(0.55)