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Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's sleek blue-and-white jet touched down late last week on the 13,000-foot, Soviet-built runway at Manas International Airport here, bringing him for the first time to his key base in the war on terror. The base is well on is way to becoming the central staging area for U.S. military operations in this part of the globe. Hammers clatter and saws whine across the post, dubbed Ganci Air Base after New York City Fire Chief Peter Ganci Jr., who died at the World Trade Center. Engineers are busy putting up housing...
...officials say the growing U.S. "footprint" here will be used to battle terrorism in the region - and to ship in humanitarian supplies - but acknowledge they could play a supporting role in any confrontation with Iraq, assuming the blessing of the host nation. But the bases also could trigger the anger of nearby Russia and China, who have long viewed central Asia as being firmly within their spheres of influence. They might also antagonize Islamic fundamentalists in the oil-rich region. U.S. troops know the risk, and patrol the 16 villages within three miles of the base, trying to make friends...
...central Asian states where the U.S. now has bases - in addition to three in Afghanistan, there are about a dozen U.S. military outposts (the Pentagon isn't eager to detail its presence in the region) polka-dotting Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - are pleased by Washington's interest. It shows they are truly independent of Russia, and the money's not bad, either (this base alone pumps an estimated nearly $1 million a week into the anemic local economy...
...these nations, with the exception of Afghanistan, are run by autocrats. "The first encounter a nation has with the U.S. shouldn't be a military base," says Husain Haqqani, an adviser to Pakistan's two democratically elected leaders before Pervez Musharraf seized power in a 1999 coup. "The U.S. has more to offer than that, and its presence at military bases in Kyrgyzstan and elsewhere is intimidating - seen as supporting the elite - and could lead to restive populations who don't like the U.S. presence in their countries...
...finally taking some kind of revenge. Although the rest of her family—including her father—had little trouble in moving on with their lives, the attack remained etched in the back of her mind. The shooting threatened her values and dehumanized her father. At base, she writes, she wanted her father’s attacker “to realize he was wrong...