U.S. Military Wants Drones in South America, But Why?
Flying, spying robots are addictive. Every military commander who has them wants more. Those who dont have them covet their colleagues supply. And according to Air Force planning, theyre about to go to the militarys redheaded, drone-poor stepchild: the command overseeing South America.
Thats according to Gen. Norton Schwartz, the outgoing Air Force chief of staff. As Predator, Reaper and Global Hawk drones start to leave the Afghanistan war behind, Schwartz told a Washington audience on Monday, theyll go to operational missions by previously underserved regional commands Pacific Command and Southern Command, per National Defense magazine. While U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia have loaded up on drones, theyve largely been left out of the unmanned escalation.
Its understandable for the drones to go to Pacific Command. The military has made it clear that Asia and the Pacific Ocean is where the action is for the foreseeable future. Drones assisted the Navys 7th Fleet in tending to Japans Fukushima nuclear disaster last year. A carrier-based strike drone is on its way. So is a giant drone that can spy on lots of Pacific activity all at once.
But South America? The list of obvious uses for drones by the U.S. military in South America starts with spying on drug-runners
and ends there. (In case youre wondering, U.S. Southern Command doesnt have anything to do with Mexico and its cartel chaos; thats the province of U.S. Northern Command.) And Predators and Reapers arent just flying spies; theyre armed with missiles and ready to kill you. With very specific and rare exceptions, this is not something the military does in South America.
The U.S. Air Force punted comment to Southern Command, which didnt respond by deadline. But drone-watchers see some value to bringing the drones down south value that doesnt remotely extend to starting a whole new robotic war in Latin America.
Read more:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/drones-south-america/
So, now that drones have already been deployed to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Australian territory, The Philippines, and domestically within the US, there's now a necessity to deploy them in Latin America?
How is this in the best interest of the US? Won't this harm the reputation of the US and cause many people in Latin America to view this as another aspect of an ever-expanding imperialistic foreign policy?