It is more then just having a base. They often run the whole country. I simply tried to find a single list for all of it, but if you look into these cases, one by one, you can see what I mean. Take French troops in Africa, they are collonizers that never left and their government can't kick them out. Take NATO troops in Kosovo, they are completley dependent on US support to exist. Or Israel as well. Or many other places in Middle East. These are not volontery military presence in these locations, they are invasions which people can't get rid of, either under threat of antoher force taking over or because they just wont leave.
bumphot
Sweden, like many other non-NATO states, are only officially not in NATO because of lack of popular support. These wars are used to pass these things officially. US influences many countries, being in NATO officailly makes this easier. As volontery as it might seem, people rarely give support for these things and politicains that do usually get funded by the US.
I understand that. I am not saying they are not wrong in this. I am just saying that our governments are using this to extend their power, like they always do and is hurting us even more then the problem itself. As it always does.
You took it out of a context of a bigger picture. Of course on it self it is not the end of the World, but it was a simple show of how US influneced NATO states to do its bidding to get oil. Other horrible things that they are doing around the World and other NATO invasions are what really puts it all toghether.
I did mean Iraq, but Iran is not much better. US staged a coup in Iran to get a puppet government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#Release_of_U.S._government_records_and_official_acknowledgement Afganistan is not justified, you don't invade an entire country because of a terroist attack. It was an excuse, just like the Patriot Act for more imperisalism and antidemocratic actions. Calling things invasions are semantics, more important is the bigger picture. US has huge influnace in the region thorug coups and military invasions.
I am not defending Russia. They do horrible things as well, but it is no excuse for our governments to do these things too. And they do it a lot more. As for Russia funding Hamas attack, that just sounds like insane propaganda, sorry. Israel government funded Hamas and let 10/7 happen on purpose to justify genocide, they even brag about it.