U.S. military expands its drug war in Latin America
Source: Associated Press
February 3, 2013 at 1:00 am
U.S. military expands its drug war in Latin America
By Martha Mendoza
AP National Writer
When the Navy guided-missile frigate later dropped anchor in Panamanian waters on that sunny August morning, Ensign Clarissa Carpio, a 23-year-old from San Francisco, climbed into the inflatable dinghy with four unarmed sailors and two Coast Guard officers like herself, carrying light submachine guns. It was her first deployment, but Carpio was ready for combat.
Fighting drug traffickers was precisely what she'd trained for.
In the most expensive initiative in Latin America since the Cold War, the U.S. has militarized the battle against the traffickers, spending more than $20 billion in the past decade. U.S. Army troops, Air Force pilots and Navy ships outfitted with Coast Guard counter-narcotics teams are routinely deployed to chase, track and capture drug smugglers.
The sophistication and violence of the traffickers is so great that the U.S. military is training not only law enforcement agents in Latin American nations, but their militaries as well, building a network of expensive hardware, radar, airplanes, ships, runways and refueling stations to stem the tide of illegal drugs from South America to the U.S.
According to State and Pentagon officials, stopping drug-trafficking organizations has become a matter of national security because they spread corruption, undermine fledgling democracies and can potentially finance terrorists.
More:
When the Navy guided-missile frigate later dropped anchor in Panamanian waters on that sunny August morning, Ensign Clarissa Carpio, a 23-year-old from San Francisco, climbed into the inflatable dinghy with four unarmed sailors and two Coast Guard officers like herself, carrying light submachine guns. It was her first deployment, but Carpio was ready for combat.
Fighting drug traffickers was precisely what she'd trained for.
In the most expensive initiative in Latin America since the Cold War, the U.S. has militarized the battle against the traffickers, spending more than $20 billion in the past decade. U.S. Army troops, Air Force pilots and Navy ships outfitted with Coast Guard counter-narcotics teams are routinely deployed to chase, track and capture drug smugglers.
The sophistication and violence of the traffickers is so great that the U.S. military is training not only law enforcement agents in Latin American nations, but their militaries as well, building a network of expensive hardware, radar, airplanes, ships, runways and refueling stations to stem the tide of illegal drugs from South America to the U.S.
According to State and Pentagon officials, stopping drug-trafficking organizations has become a matter of national security because they spread corruption, undermine fledgling democracies and can potentially finance terrorists.
Read more: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130203/NATION/302030306#ixzz2JozhMH2x
= new reply since forum marked as read
We are reducing our forces, "pivoting" our navy (which is not able to retain the number of carriers that congress has made into law) to the Pacific, expanding into Africa, getting more involved with Mexico, and expanding a failed drug war.
10-3=14? 
Interesting how this is way outside the mission statement of our armed forces, yet it is what they're now doing. Until the cocaine source countries truly stand up to the cocaine cartels operating within their borders, nothing will change. Hell, the CIA depends on cocaine as an income stream to fund much of their "Black Budget Programs," though they always deny this. Remember the Iran-Contra Caper? Contra-bound weaponry was flown in and cocaine was flown out...courtesy of the CIA's "Air America." So, what else ISN'T new?
Related Interesting Read:
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/exopolitica/esp_exopolitics_I_1b.htm#The%20Black%20Budget%20Report
- So we make drugs illegal thereby raising its value to the point where it is now capable of corrupting politicians and bankers with enormous sums of money that wouldn't exist if it were not illegal. Not to mention financing ''terrorists'' that we also created.
K&R
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