By Paul Ghiţiu
Oct. 2019
Deveselu is a small Romanian village, with about 3000 inhabitants, unknown to most Romanians until the installation here, on the place of a former Romanian military base, of a US military missile base, which US and Romanian officials claim is a missile shield.(In fact, as the equipements technical book discloses, the installations hosted there can be in few hours modified to become offensive and not defensive.) Thanks to Americans, the city has become known in Romania and even in the world.
A second reason for Deveselu is now known, probably by all Romanians and by an increased number of foreigners, are the three months ago events, still not yet elucidated, known as the „Caracal Crimes” (after the town where the alleged victims came from); namely, the disappearance — killing or kidnapping by prostitution rings and transportation to another country — of Alexandra Măceşanu (16 years) and Luiza Melencu (19 years).The introduction of Deveselu in the equation of these tragic events is, of course, due again to the American base, whose staff enjoys the services of local prostitution networks. On this occasion, the media also recalled that in 2012, a network of prostitution that provided minor to the Americans who were working in Deveselu and to some Austrians who were working on a hydropower planthad been destroyed. The victims of that network were more than 30 high school students.
Ther global network of american military bases
To avoid being accused of hypocrisy, I declare at the beginning of this text that I do not assume that prostitution around military units would have been invented by the US. On the contrary, especially for those who do not know such details of military history well enough, I must remember that women have had constant participation in and alongside military formations, whether in peace or war.I mention, first of all, with respect and admiration, the women who have dealt with military laundry, kitchens and hospitals, those who have taken the place of mothers for the too young men who have been at war, who have cared with love and dedicationthe injured, the dying man, those who were mentally affected by the horiffic reality of war.But I must also remember the prostitutes accompanying military units, as well as those from the places where the soldiers arrived and who were interacting with soldiers who did not know whether the next day would still be alive. We must also remember that, in or near all cities where military units were, there was always a higher percentage of women who are forced by trafficking networks to prostitute themselves or choose to live from prostitution.
During and after World War II, the US has been infested the world with their military bases, thus demonstrating its claims of global Imperial power.The aim: to control the modial economy and financial markets and to take over natural resources (primary and non-renewable resources). Various analyzes are talking about America’s control over nearly 200 States; in reality, as we see at this point, American control, by combining the levers of the military and financial systems, imposes on all States some of its policies – see sanctions for various but empty reasons. Including China and Russia, which have not yet completed the financial and monetary mechanisms independant of those imposed by the global financial and banking mafia through its armed arm, the US. Such a combination of the three strands of force of the American imperialist policy can be seen in combining sanctions and military intimidation against Iran; in the so-called trade war with China and military presence in the South China Sea;in combining sanctions/trade war with Russia and China and the around 500 US military bases, encircling the two; in supporting Islamist insurgents in the former Soviet republics and Uighur Islamists in China, or in internal destabilization by financing and instrumentalizing the street uprising and then by threatening with other sanctions.
If there is something to be discussed, a serious reality, on the one hand incompatible with the current times and ambitions, on the other hand showing overwhelming contempt for their fellow human beings, is premeditating, unscrupulous acceptance, involvement in and even coordination, from the highest levels of the us authorities, of prostitution around military concentrations, be they units ready to fight, or so-called R&R resorts (rest and recreation) dedicated to stress relieving of troops.There are not few cases where senior US military officers have entered directly into this business.
A huge wave of rapes and other sexual assaults in the US military itself
To better understand what is going on around American bases let’s see a little what is going on inside them.
“In recent years, allegations of widespread sex crimes have dogged the U.S. military. A Pentagon survey estimated that 26,000 members of the armed forces were sexually assaulted in 2012, though just one in 10 of those victims reported the assaults. In 2013, the number of personnel reporting such incidents jumped by 50% to 5,518 and last year reached nearly 6,000. Given the gross underreporting of sexual assaults, it’s impossible to know how many of these crimes involved AFRICOM personnel, but documents examined by TomDispatch suggests a problem does indeed exist.”(popularmilitary.com/u-s-militarys-long-history-prostitution/)
„Sexual assaults across the US military increased by a rate of nearly 38% in 2018, according to a report released by the Pentagon on Thursday.”
„The report which surveyed both men and women from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines estimated that 20,500 members of those services experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2018, a significant increase from 14,900 when the military last conducted a similar survey in 2016.”
„According to the report, sexual assault rates for women in the active duty force increased significantly, with women between the ages of 17 to 24 being at the highest risk of sexual assault. The rates for men in the active duty force remained steady from the previous report in 2016.”
„The report also found the Marine Corps had the highest rate of estimated sexual assaults at nearly 11%, up from 7% in 2016, followed by the Navy, Army and Air Force respectively. Those services also had increases in their estimated rates of assaults.”
„62% of the most serious sexual assaults involved alcohol use by the victim and/or the alleged offender, and the vast majority of victims knew their assailant, the report said.”
(https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/02/politics/us-military-sexual-assault-report/index.html).
If, year after year, tens of thousands of US Army members (women, but also men) are sexually assaulted what we can expect from American soldiers, who arrived in the position of almost intangible characters, superior descent from a superior civilization, with huge revenues compared to the local residents in the states where these bases are located?
Conscious, continuous and premeditated degradation of women
The US military and civil authorities have always seen as normal and promoted prostitution alongside military bases.
„The US military authorities have tended toward the idea that prostitution provides a useful way for soldiers stationed thousands of miles from wives or girlfriends to let off steam. The welfare of the women providing these rest and recreational opportunities is rarely of concern: prostitution around bases and ports used by US navy ships in the Philippines and Thailand fuels the trafficking of women throughout south-east Asia, while living conditions and standards of health amongst sex workers are often low.”
„In the post-war period, including after the Battle of Okinawa and during the Korean War, the whole of Okinawa turned into a land without law. US soldiers raped women, threatening them at gunpoint in crop fields and on the streets, and even abducting them in front of their families.”
“Okinawa reverted to Japanese administration in 1972 but the violence continued, and even became more chronic. There were a number of rapes and attempted rapes, as well as sexual abuse in public areas and even a case where a private house was invaded.” (Sex-crimes-and-prostitution)
“Commercial sex zones have developed around U.S. bases worldwide. Many look much the same, filled with liquor stores, fast-food outlets, tattoo parlors, bars and clubs, and prostitution in one form or another. The evidence is just outside the gates in places such as Baumholder and Kaiserslautern in Germany, and Kadena and Kin Town on Okinawa. Even during the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, there have been multiple reports of brothels and sex trafficking involving U.S. troops and contractors.” (Womens-labor-sex-work-and-u-s-military-bases-abroad/)
“Military brothels on Army base camps (Sin Cities, Disneylands, or boomboom parlors) were built by decisions of a division commander, a two-star general, and were under the direct operational control of a brigade commander with the rank of colonel. Clearly, Army brothels in Vietnam existed by the grace of Army Chief of Staff William C. Westmorland, the United States Embassy in Saigon, and the Pentagon.”
“During the war in Indochina, U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright and Sunday Times of London correspondent Murray Sayle maintained, independently of one another, that U.S. forces in South Vietnam had turned Saigon into a brothel -a reference to the estimated 500,000 Vietnamese prostitutes who served an approximately equal number of GI’s. The frequency of references to brothels in soldiers’ memoirs, as well as certain criticisms brought to bear against the war by some of its opponents, suggests the ease with which American troops could procure prostitutes during the war. On 4 April 1968 – exactly one year before he was assassinated – Martin Luther King decried a situation in Vietnam wherein children were compelled to [sell] their sisters to our soldiers. We have corrupted their [Vietnamese] women and children…, said King. What liberators! Furthermore, while the thriving sex industry that existed in (for example) Honolulu during the Second World War went into rapid decline after American troops went home, and while at least one authority in Korean history maintains that South Korea’s brothel-centered camp towns would vanish were American troops to leave the Korean peninsula, the ongoing legacy of the U.S. military’s support of prostitution in Southeast Asia appears to be very great– the Americans’ own large-scale departure from Southeast Asia in the early 1970s notwithstanding.” (The U.S. Military and the Growth of Prostitution in Southeast Asia)
“This Note addresses the disconnect between United States law, public policy, and the military’s encouragement of the prostitution of women for use by soldiers stationed abroad. Both domestic and international laws recognize prostitution as harmful and have enacted policies that attempt to eradicate, control, or limit it. The United States, however, consistently allows and encourages the development of an active sex industry for military Rest & Recreation (R&R) and in areas surrounding U.S. military bases. This behavior violates not only domestic and international law, but also fundamental notions of human dignity and infrastructures of family support.”
“The development of the sex industry surrounding U.S. military bases abroad appears to differ both in scope and institutional acceptance depending upon the permanency of the base. While brothels, massage parlors, and an array of businesses selling women for sex developed and were accepted surrounding bases in the Philippines, it appears soldiers at war did not have this portable perk in measurable scale until Vietnam. General George S. Patton is credited with the desire to experiment with military brothels. He reportedly aborted this idea after realizing the war effort could be hurt by the uproar it would create with women back in the States. But by the end of the Vietnam War, this practice was in full swing. Military brothels grew from the desire to keep the enlisted men happy, analogizing sex to movies, laundry service, and other necessary luxury items.”
“In Vietnam, the brothels erected on Army base camps, were built by decision of a division commander, a two-star general, and were under the direct operational control of a brigade commander with the rank of colonel …. Army brothels in Vietnam existed by the grace of Army Chief of Staff William C. Westmoreland, the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, and the Pentagon. While higher-ranking officials may not have explicitly authorized sexindustry establishments, without their implied consent these establishments would simply not exist.” (Emily Nyen Chang: Engagement Abroad: Enlisted Men, U.S. MilitaryPolicy and the Sex Industry )
“In the last years of the twentieth century the growth of prostitution in Southeast Asia received considerable attention from journalists, human rights activists, feminists (including Hillary Rodham Clinton), political commentators, and Pope John Paul II. While the bulk of this attention focused on contemporary events and concerns–e.g. child prostitution and the spread of AIDS–the U.S. military’s historic role in laying the foundation for the Asian sex industry was frequently noted. The International Labor Organization, for instance, maintained that [by] far the most significant impact on prostitution in the Philippines was the establishment of United States military bases in the country.”
“To put the point another way, American personnel stationed at the air base in (for example) Sattahip, Thailand, did not introduce the idea of prostitution into the region. But the brothel industry that was built near that base, in Pattaya Beach, grew into, and remains, one of the East Asian sex industry’s main centers. Pattaya was a great place for a sailor on leave… wrote an Australian journalist in 1976. “Pattaya in fact, [sic] got its start as a resort when there was an American base at nearby Sattaheep [sic]–nowadays there are still plenty of sailors about, both Thai and American. In the 1990s, the U.S. Navy continued to use Pattaya Beach as a rest and recreation site for sailors and marines on lengthy deployments in the Pacific. (The U.S. Military and the Growth of Prostitution in Southeast Asia)
The cooperartion and involvement of US military within the local organized crime
The civilian and military authorities were and are fully aware of the involvement of mafia networks in the trafficking of women and the organization of prostitution around american military bases.
“Prostitution has been illegal in Japan (hence Okinawa) since 1956, but implementation has always been a problem. In Okinawa, the yakuza (the Japanese Mafia) own and regulate the prostitution industry. The yakuza maintain a separate bar-area outside each military base, separate from the bars supplied for Japanese and Okinawan men. The product sold in military-frequented brothels evidences their relationship to U.S. servicemen. (Emily Nyen Chang: Engagement Abroad: Enlisted Men, U.S. MilitaryPolicy and the Sex Industry )
Boosting corruption
The encouragement and approval of violations of military laws and regulations. Officers of various levels in the US military, but also civilian personnel, have been directly involved in this industry.
“Prior to landing, soldiers received briefings about health precautions at which they were thrown „condoms as if they were Hallmark cards.” Some officers went as far as to tell the enlisted men that prostitution is a way of life for Asians and that Asians liked it.”
” A similar recollection was shared by former Philippines-based servicemen on ABC’s Prime Time. They asserted that military officers had enthusiastically promoted prostitution in the Philippines, owning clubs and women themselves. 64 Instead of being viewed as a culturally distinct, beautiful country, the Philippines are reduced to Uncle Sam’s main squeeze in this part of the world. (Emily Nyen Chang: Engagement Abroad: Enlisted Men, U.S. MilitaryPolicy and the Sex Industry)
Massive pedophilia at global level
The overwhelming majority of these prostitutes were/are placed on the market when they were/are still minor.
“Indeed, minors employed as prostitutes in Southeast Asia were so common that an American aircraft carrier’s cruise book, published in 1989, unabashedly included a picture of an obviously very young, perhaps fifteen-year-old, Thai prostitute striking a sexually provocative pose.40 As late as 1999 a Thai resident of Pattaya Beach expressed amazement that U.S. naval officers did nothing to stop sailors from paying under-aged girls for sex.41 It seems likely that many if not most of the Southeast Asian prostitutes employed by U.S. military personnel during the conflict in Vietnam and, later, in ports-of-call in Thailand and around U.S. military installations in the Philippines were minors.”( The U.S. Military and the Growth of Prostitution in Southeast Asia)
The main distortions and disasters caused by US military bases in host states and worldwide
Moral pollution in society and in politics as a result of the colonial status of the host states: widespread corruption, bloody coups d’etat against the popular will expressed in the elected who are trying the liberation from the american opression, oligarchic regimes, dictatorship, terror, repression, crime, endemic development of trafficking networks, physical suppression of opponents, wars within or around these states. The best example of this is that of Central and South American States, the Middle East, Africa.
Moral pollution due to the huge prostitution, alcohol and drugsmarketsupported by trafficking networks linked to and protected by these bases and the local officials, which we will continue to speak of, with a focus on prostitution and trafficking in human beings.
Serious environmental pollution:the land of such bases and their surroundings is heavily contaminated by the materials stored there (fuels, explosives, active ammunition, waste of ammunition used, various chemical substances, radioactive materials, etc.) necessary for the specific activities in the base and in operations outside it. An assessment made at the 2005 level (new bases have since appeared in the near East and not only) estimated at 2.202,735 hectares the surface of all American bases in the USA and beyond, making the Pentagon one of the world’s largest land-holders. This is in large the surface sometimes damaged irretrievably by the US military too. A recent Article in the Guardian, May 2019 – speaks about the serious health problems caused by such bases right inside the US – A trail of toxicity: the US military bases making people sick. Another Article from May 2019, which appeared in THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, is coming up with the serious problems of the American bases in Japan. According to THE ECOLOGIST, the US military is polluting more than 140 countries taken together.
The pollution of the economy, transformed into a spoliatory technology for a wild exploitation, serving the interests of American and other western states companies, and resulting in poverty, malnutrition, serious diseases, high unemployment, mass migration, backwardness.
“Regardless of legality, the sex industry is a major pillar of domestic and global economies. This pillar is literally erected on the bodies of women. In a militarized prostitution setting, all of these people, and hence the local economy, are dependent upon a continued military presence. When the military pulls out, it creates an economic vacuum. In some countries, the „hole” remains; in others, for example Thailand, a sex tourism industry takes its place.” (Emily Nyen Chang: Engagement Abroad: Enlisted Men, U.S. MilitaryPolicy and the Sex Industry)
American military bases on the territory of a state means colonization. In the world there are, after various assessments, between 750 and 1000 US bases and military facilities of various sizes, official, or secret, in between 70 and 180 states, amounting to between 200,000 and 250,000 troops. At the same time, 11 other states have together 70 military bases outside their territory. Russia, with between 26 and 40 bases in 9 states, mainly in former Soviet republics in Syria and Vietnam, is followed by the UK, France and Turkey with from 4 to 10 bases each: India, China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
Through the desert of lies, ash and death of the „Empire”
Most of the issues mentioned above are among the serious criminal offenses, which are condemned under both international and American law.And yet, probably no American, military or civilian, has ever been punished for what he did in a foreign land.What is to be seen, to be memorized and to be used by each of us, in order to encompass the reality of the world we live in, is the lie, the falsehood, the double measure (We punish, on the charge of sexual harassment, the more familiar address of a man to a woman, but we accept and even engage in organized crime with the mafia networks!), the hypocrisy, the scoundrel, the deadly contempt for the fellow humans of these elites — because in the end, this is not just about the leadership of the military, it is also about all the establishment of the american state and the structures attached to it, under the command of the globalist financial-banking mafia.
It is about the cosmic distance between what America claims to be: a superior nation, the most advanced democratic state dedicated to the good of man at home and in the world, and the claim that, on the basis of these qualities, the US is entitled to decide what is good and what is bad in the whole world, and to distribute to the countriesthat are subjected, not the well-being of the people, but moral destruction and death. Obviously I am referring here to the endless and growing American wars in which a state is being attacked because, for example, it would have weapons of mass destruction, which has been proved a lie, Or because a regime would have killed several dozen or hundreds of opponents, interventions such as those in Iraq and Syria bringing the benefits of more than 2.5 million deaths, several times more injuries, and several times more refugees, to those countries.And it is not only the mentality of some members of the American elites (and more generally Western ones), but also a culture of mass with these characteristics.
In a recent article, Service Women’s Action Network Executive Director, Anu Bhagwati, noted:
“It’s (the military) also a culture that has been conducive to sexism and the degradation of women. At bases overseas, there’s commercial exploitation of women thriving around them, women being trafficked. You can’t expect to treat women as one of your own when, in same breath, you as a young soldier are being encouraged to exploit women on the outside of that base.”
The sad story of the death of Maria Laol and her friends
Unforeseen events have led to the US troops being deployed in other states without their presence being known even by the US Congress.After a successful coup d’état by an officer prepared by the Americans, military relations between the US and Mali are being suspended.Normally, no US military has any more to look for in this state.And yet:
„It was 5:09 a.m. when their Toyota Land Cruiser plunged off a bridge in the West African country of Mali. For about two seconds, the SUV sailed through the air, pirouetting 180 degrees as it plunged 70 feet, crashing into the Niger River.
Three of the dead were American commandos. The driver, a captain nicknamed “Whiskey Dan,” was the leader of a shadowy team of operatives never profiled in the media and rarely mentioned even in government publications. One of the passengers was from an even more secretive unit whose work is often integral to Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which conducts clandestine kill-and-capture missions overseas. Three of the others weren’t military personnel at all or even Americans. They were Moroccan women alternately described as barmaids or „prostitutes.”
The six deaths followed an April 2012 all-night bar crawl through Mali’s capital, Bamako, according to a formerly classified report by U.S. Army criminal investigators. From dinner and drinks at a restaurant called Blah-Blah’s to more drinks at La Terrasse to yet more at Club XS and nightcaps at Club Plaza, it was a rollicking swim through free-flowing vodka. And vodka and Red Bull. And vodka and orange juice. And vanilla pomegranate vodka. And Chivas Regal. And Jack Daniels. And Corona beer. And Castel beer. And don’t forget B-52s, a drink generally made with Kahlúa, Grand Marnier, and Bailey’s Irish Cream. The bar tab at Club Plaza alone was the equivalent of $350 in U.S. dollars.
At about 5 a.m. on April 20th, the six piled into that Land Cruiser, with Captain Dan Utley behind the wheel, to head for another hotspot: Bamako By Night. About eight minutes later, Utley called a woman on his cell phone to ask if she was angry. He said he’d circle back and pick her up, but she told him not to bother. Utley then handed the phone to Maria Laol, one of the Moroccan women. “Don’t be upset. We’ll come back and get you,” she said. The woman on the other end of the call then heard screaming before the line went dead.”(https://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/04/21/sex-drugs-and-dead-soldiers-what-us-africa-command-doesnt-want-you-know)
The above account, brought to light after many battles with the authorities carried out by the author of the Article, Nick Turse, is exemplary for the proposed theme from several points of view: the impossibility of accurately assessing the american presence in the world, but also its scale; with the US soldiers carrying out missions even where, officially, they do not exist;the link between the American presence and the consumption of drinks, drugs, prostitution and sexual violence; the hiding of this reality.
“In fact, as American military operations have ramped up across Africa, reaching a record 674 missions in 2014, reports of excessive drinking, sex with prostitutes, drug use, sexual assaults, and other forms of violence by AFRICOM personnel have escalated, even though many of them have been kept under wraps for weeks or months, sometimes even for years.” (https://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/04/21/sex-drugs-and-dead-soldiers-what-us-africa-command-doesnt-want-you-know
Published at https://flux.md/stiri/paul-ghitiu-deveselu-drug-trafficking
