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US has a naval base so near to Indian peninsula?? Damn never knew about it. Guess big brother likes to be everywhere.
by shmde 4y ago
US has a naval base so near to Indian peninsula?? Damn never knew about it. Guess big brother likes to be everywhere.
- treis 4y agoIt's not really near anything. It's in the middle of the Indian Ocean ~1,000 miles from any other significant land mass.
- pphysch 4y agoDon't stop there. Diego Garcia and the surrounding Chagos islands were ethnically-cleansed by a joint American-British operation just 50 years ago [1], to make living-space for this military base. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealing_a_Nation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealing_a_Nation
- lostlogin 4y agoDo you mean ethnically cleansed? Ethical ethnic cleansing is hopefully not a thing.
- pphysch 4y agoYes, fixed.
- ethbr0 4y agoDon't forget that people are supporting part of this whenever they buy an .io tld. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.io#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.io#History
- Y_Y 4y agoYou mean github.io isn't for projects relating to the Indian Ocean‽
- Y_Y 4y agoTo be fair the just scooped the Chagossians out, whereas ethnic cleansing usually refers to extermination. Those who ended up in the UK have been fighting a legal battle since and seem to be making slow progress. From the British point of view it was a slam dunk, since they didn't care about the "man Fridays" and they got trident missiles in return.
- pseudolus 4y agoThe issue of the Chagos Islands was the subject of an International Court of Justice advisory opinion which concluded that 'the United Kingdom’s continued administration of the Chagos Archipelago “constitutes a wrongful act entailing the international responsibility of that State”, that the United Kingdom “has an obligation to bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible, and that all Member States must co-operate with the United Nations to complete the decolonization of Mauritius' [0]. [0] https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/169 https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/169
- aosmith 4y agoEver heard of the .io TLD? Dig deeper...
- kornhole 4y ago800 to a 1000 bases around the world
- IncRnd 4y agoThe proximity to India is why there is a US base on a British owned Island.
- yamtaddle 4y agoThis one probably had more to do with protecting shipping lanes from French interdiction, given the location and which other countries had colonies and other operations semi-nearby (spoiler alert: France). As far as why the British cared to hold it in the last century, I mean, not for why it's still a base now. Leave all the islands in that area to France and it'd have been a dagger pointed at shipping crossing the Indian ocean via the canal. Seize a couple of the islands yourself, and at least you can keep an eye on things and mount a plausible threat if a hot war breaks out, to keep France from getting too bold with their use of the nearby islands. Britain had a bunch of other islands much closer to India. Not even counting Sri Lanka. Though, yes, protecting shipping lanes to and from India would have been part of the purpose, but not just to India. British Malaysia, various Pacific territories, and the commonwealth states of Australia and New Zealand, would have shared those same shipping routes, largely. I'd guess that as a US base it's more likely to support US or NATO operations, real or hypothetical, in or around the Horn of Africa than it is to have much to do with the subcontinent.
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- IncRnd 4y agoFor the US timeframe, the island was viewed during the Cold War as strategic to the United States, due to it's proximity to India, a potential ally of the Soviet Union. It served (and may still serve) as a Navy communication station. It has been used to monitor Afghanistan and China's activities in the South China Sea.
- yamtaddle 4y agoSo near? Might want to double-check that. Indian ocean's big, this isn't terribly close to India.