Pentagon Using Drug Wars as Excuse to Build Bases in Latin America

[Donnachaidh]

http://truthout.org/pentagon-using-drug-wars-excuse-build-bases-latin-america/1307294580

Under the auspices of the drug war, the United States is returning to its historical pattern of using Central America and the Caribbean for its own military and strategic purposes.

Even as a growing chorus of voices throughout Latin America argue that military responses to drug trafficking are ineffective against the narcotics trade and exacerbate existing human rights abuses and official corruption, the U.S. military presence in the region is growing.

U.S. military construction in Central and South America has more than doubled in the last two years, while a U.S. buildup on military bases in Colombia continues, despite a Colombian court ruling last summer that struck down an agreement for U.S. use of the bases.

Construction of military facilities is slated for this summer in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Belize, funded from an account for “counter-narco-terrorism” operated by the U.S. Southern Command (SouthCom), the Pentagon’s operations arm for Latin America, according to the Army Corps on Engineers plans. But the biggest Pentagon investments are in Panama and at the U.S. air base in Soto Cano, Honduras.

More at the link ---

[snot]

1. K&R'd!

[hobbit709]

2. Been doing that for years.

[starroute]

3. Add this:"U.S. Special Ops Troops Deployed in Mexico"

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2011/06/us-special-ops-troops-deployed-mexico-leaked-briefing-confirms

A Pentagon document has come to light that confirms the U.S. has put special operations troops on the ground in Mexico as the drug war there continues to escalate, notching some 40,000 murders since late 2006.

The document is a Department of Defense briefing presented in mid-May 2009 in Washington, D.C., to a group of business and political leaders from northwest Florida. The “Unclassified/For Official Use Only” briefing reveals the 18 Latin American nations where 7th Special Forces Group soldiers were deployed as of fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, 2009.

Among those nations, according to the briefing document, was Mexico. The document also indicates a 7th Special Forces unit was deployed in Mexico in 1996 as well, as part of a “counter-narcotics” mission.

The revelations in the briefing material are important because, to date, neither the Pentagon nor the State Department has confirmed that U.S. special forces have been deployed inside Mexico — a politically volatile subject in that Latin American nation given the rising drug-war death toll there and the “Yankee” history of U.S. Gunboat Diplomacy in the region.

[WillyT]

4. Change You Can... Aw Fuck It...

:puke:

:nuke:

:kick: & Rec!!!

[Marblehead]

5. one reason why

drugs will never be legalized..

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. Clue: It is being done at the direction of the current administration

and its active support.