Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, gestures during a Republican presidential debate on Sept. 12, 2011, in Tampa.
During the Sept. 12, 2011, Republican presidential debate in Tampa, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas -- a staunch advocate of limited government and a more modest military footprint -- offered a surprising statistic about the reach of the U.S. armed forces.
"We're under great threat, because we occupy so many countries," Paul said. "We're in 130 countries. We have 900 bases around the world. We're going broke. The purpose of al-Qaida was to attack us, invite us over there, where they can target us. And they have been doing it. They have more attacks against us and the American interests per month than occurred in all the years before 9/11, but we're there occupying their land. And if we think that we can do that and not have retaliation, we're kidding ourselves. We have to be honest with ourselves. What would we do if another country, say, China, did to us what we do to all those countries over there?"
That statement includes a lot of different claims, but we’re going to focus on just one of them here that a reader asked us to check -- that the U.S. military "is in 130 countries. We have 900 bases around the world."
We’ll split this into two parts -- checking whether the U.S. military has personnel in 130 countries, and whether the U.S. has 900 overseas military bases.
"We're under great threat, because we occupy so many countries," Paul said. "We're in 130 countries. We have 900 bases around the world. We're going broke. The purpose of al-Qaida was to attack us, invite us over there, where they can target us. And they have been doing it. They have more attacks against us and the American interests per month than occurred in all the years before 9/11, but we're there occupying their land. And if we think that we can do that and not have retaliation, we're kidding ourselves. We have to be honest with ourselves. What would we do if another country, say, China, did to us what we do to all those countries over there?"
That statement includes a lot of different claims, but we’re going to focus on just one of them here that a reader asked us to check -- that the U.S. military "is in 130 countries. We have 900 bases around the world."
We’ll split this into two parts -- checking whether the U.S. military has personnel in 130 countries, and whether the U.S. has 900 overseas military bases.
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