The Birdshit Islands

In a recent article in this blog, I talked about empires and, in particular, the US Empire. What US Empire, you ask? The one that existed in a purely physical sense, beginning by grabbing a huge swathe of land that belonged to Mexico. Once the industrial powerhouse was established, the tentacles began to spread outwards and Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, the Northern Mariana and the Virgin Islands quickly became part of the US repertoire (there are 9 other islands and atolls but they are uninhabited).

But where did it all actually start? With the Birdshit Islands! Yep, the US Empire was built on guano, or bird crap. Somehow symbolic? This fertiliser helped to enrich the nutrient-depleted soil of US farms and those good ol’ boys just got bigger and stronger as a result.

Ah, but that was in the past. Hawaii was made a state (after being annexed), the Philippines gained its independence in 1946 and the others are territories, although the Puerto Ricans would appear to want their island to be the 51st state of the Union.

So, why an empire? Military bases – if you know anyone from the USA, ask him or her how many military bases there are around the world. Personally, I knew that there are many but I was imagining around 100 and not the 750 that there actually are. Yesiree Bob, SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY in 80 different countries. There are 30 bases on the Japanese island of Okinawa alone (it’s a big island). I assumed that there was just 1 big one. Ok, some of those bases around the world are merely airstrips with very few personnel but one base in Germany has 9,000 troops (not far off the number of troops in the British army).

Taking this into account, it does seem a bit churlish of the Americans to gripe about Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea and the Pacific and Putin’s designs on emulating Peter the Great in re-establishing the Russian Empire.