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

[Judi Lynn]

Pentagon Using Drug Wars as Excuse to Build Bases in Latin America
Sunday 5 June 2011
by: John Lindsay-Poland, New America Media

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

Editorials:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x606248