<html><body><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000"><div><br></div><div style="color:#000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;"><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000"><div style="color:#000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;"><div><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000"><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: #ffffff;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><strong><span>WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST: PERMANENT INFRASTRUCTURE FOR PERPETUAL WAR</span></strong></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></div></div><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: #ffffff;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></div></div><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: #ffffff;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;">John Sakowicz and Sid Cooperrider interview David Vine on KMEC Radio, Monday, December 12, at 1 pm, Pacific Time. </span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><strong><span>KMEC RADIO</span></strong></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We broadcast at 105.1 FM in Ukiah, CA. Our studio is located at the Mendocino Environmental Center. </span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Our shows are archived and available as podcasts. Shows may be posted to our Youtube channel. Join over 42,000 viewers who watch our shows on Youtube by becoming a subscriber. </span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Shows may also be syndicated through NPR's Public Radio Exchange or Pacific's Radio4All.</span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><strong><span style="font-size: medium;">BACKGROUND</span></strong></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;">USBBC reports: “America’s top general has told U.S. troops in Iraq that momentum is turning against Islamic State militants. Gen Martin Dempsey, on an unannounced visit, called the militants ‘midgets’ but said the battle against them was likely to take years.”</span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></div></div><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: #ffffff;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><strong><span>DAVID VINE</span></strong></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></div></div><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: #ffffff;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Author of the forthcoming book Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World, Vine just wrote the piece “The Bases of War in the Middle East,” which states: “With the launch of a new U.S.-led war in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State (IS), the United States has engaged in aggressive military action in at least 13 countries in the Greater Middle East since 1980. In that time, every American president has invaded, occupied, bombed, or gone to war in at least one country in the region. The total number of invasions, occupations, bombing operations, drone assassination campaigns, and cruise missile attacks easily runs into the dozens. …</span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></div></div><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: #ffffff;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“The rapid disappearance of debate about our newest, possibly illegal war should remind us of just how easy this huge infrastructure of bases has made it for anyone in the Oval Office to launch a war that seems guaranteed, like its predecessors, to set off new cycles of blow back and yet more war. …</span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></div></div><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: #ffffff;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“While the Middle Eastern base buildup began in earnest in 1980, Washington had long attempted to use military force to control this swath of resource-rich Eurasia and, with it, the global economy. Since World War II, as the late Chalmers Johnson, an expert on U.S. basing strategy, explained back in 2004, ‘the United States has been inexorably acquiring permanent military enclaves whose sole purpose appears to be the domination of one of the most strategically important areas of the world.'”</span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></div></div><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: #ffffff;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Vine, a regular contributor to TomDispatch, is associate professor of anthropology at American University in Washington, D.C. He is the author of "Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia".</span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></div></div><div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: #ffffff;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" style="position: relative; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size: medium;">See, from FAIR: “No Debate and the New War.”: <a href="http://fair.org/press-release/no-debate-and-the-new-war/" target="_blank">http://fair.org/press-release/no-debate-and-the-new-war/</a> </span></div></div><div><br><div><br></div></div></div></div><div><br></div></div></div><div><br></div></div></body></html>