64 Drone Bases Located On American Soil

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64 Drone Bases Located On American Soil

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 14, 2012 @12:06AM from the protect-and-serve dept.

MikeatWired writes "We like to think of the drone war as something far away, fought in the deserts of Yemen or the mountains of Afghanistan. But we now know it's closer than we thought, writes Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai at Danger Room. There are 64 drone bases on American soil. That includes 12 locations housing Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles, which can be armed. Public Intelligence, a non-profit that advocates for free access to information, released a map of military UAV activities in the United States on Tuesday. Assembled from military sources — especially this little-known June 2011 Air Force presentation (.pdf) — it is arguably the most comprehensive map so far of the spread of the Pentagon's unmanned fleet. What exact missions are performed at those locations, however, is not clear. Some bases might be used as remote cockpits to control the robotic aircraft overseas, some for drone pilot training. Others may also serve as imagery analysis depots."

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Woah! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-14 00:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

Wait, you mean the American military has bases on American soil?! Well stop the fucking presses!
1. Re:Woah! by Robert+Zenz · 2012-06-14 00:53 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Yeah! Totally right! We need to end that freaking military occupation of land which rightfully belongs to the Native Americans!
2. Re:Woah! by flyingsquid · 2012-06-14 03:01 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Still it must be pointed out that even though we always had at least some standing Federal force, it is historical that there was great distrust of standing armies at the time of the founding of the US
  Arguing about the intent of the Founding Fathers is a bullshit argument. Maybe it was the intent of the Founding Fathers not to have a large standing army. So what? It was also the intent of the Founding Fathers that women not be allowed to vote, that black people could be bought and sold as property and counted as 3/5 of a human being, and Indians should be evicted from their lands.
  There are certain core principles that are timeless- life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, government with the consent of the governed, freedom of speech and religion. But precisely how we promote those things has to change with the times and the technology. We can't all run around in tricorns with muskets, trading negroes and telling our wives to stay home, just because that's how the Founding Fathers would have done it.
You're kidding!?! by DrgnDancer · 2012-06-14 00:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

... Really?
There are also more US Army, Air Force, and Navy bases in the US than in the rest of the world combined. Many of them have tanks, warplanes, aircraft carriers, howitzers, and many other weapons that can be loaded and armed with live ammunition and dangerous explosives. I mean, who knew right? Oh wait... Everybody knew. Of course we have drone bases in the US. They have to train people, provide headquarters and on going operational training for units not deployed, stored undeployed hardware... this is the stupidest thing I've ever read.
What did these guys think? They send untested multimillion dollar drones over to Yemen where they hand them to an untrained unit and expect them to just figure out how they work in the field? It's just like any other military operation: for every deployed unit there are probably five waiting in reserve, getting readiness training, refitting, etc. Most of that happens in the US.

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I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
1. Re:You're kidding!?! by DrgnDancer · 2012-06-14 01:06 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I don't disagree. Your questions are valid, and had the article been written in a reasonable fashion, asking those questions and wondering how we might find out the answers it would have been a much more useful piece. As it is the piece is a written in tones intended to make the reader panicked over the hardly surprising fact that the US military is storing and using US military hardware inside the US. As if anyone should be even slightly surprised over this fact. Of course we're doing this, the bulk of all US military personnel and equipment are in the US; and except for a few periods of heavy action (the World Wars, mainly), the bulk of US military personnel and hardware are *always* located in the US. Home territory is simply the most convenient place to do most of what nondeployed need to do.
  
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  I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
A bit sensationalist? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-14 00:17 · Score: 3, Insightful

"But we now know it's closer than we thought" It has been common knowledge that drones are stationed on and piloted from US soil. Just wait until the author finds out how many soldiers, tanks, and even nuclear bombs are also located on US soil.
Airplanes and Ships have bases too by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-14 00:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

We keep fighter jets, ships and even nuclear missiles on American soil (and waters) should we be worried about those too? It's barely newsworthy! I'd actually be surprised if there weren't drone bases here.
Re:American Weapons Found in United States by FriendlyLurker · 2012-06-14 00:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

Drones, Keeping America Safe.... NOT!
Come on, Slashdot ... seriously. by tgd · 2012-06-14 00:33 · Score: 3, Insightful

You don't have to try this hard to jump the shark. The shark was jumped a decade ago.
These stories are just making a mockery of the mockery that Slashdot has become.
Just to keep the ball rollin', there's probably GPL violations, Microsoft software and patented things at those bases, too!
An airbase is an airbase. by John+Hasler · 2012-06-14 00:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

And the USAF has many of them in the USA. Why do they suddenly become especially evil because some of the aircraft are unmanned?

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Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
1. Re:An airbase is an airbase. by virg_mattes · 2012-06-14 01:41 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It's the nature of the device in question. There are many reasons to have an airbase in the continental U.S., like training and defense in the case of attack. Drones, on the other hand, currently serve one and only one purpose, and that's aerial surveillance. Having drones based in the continental U.S. is only useful if the drones are being used over U.S. territory (failing border patrol) and having the U.S. military running surveillance essentially on civilian populations raises the hackles of many people. We've heard the whole "we'll only use it against the bad guys!" line too many times to believe it any more.
  
  Virg
Incorrect info by YrWrstNtmr · 2012-06-14 01:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

At least one marker is totally incorrect. Syracuse NY, Hancock Field, 174th Fighter Wing (ANG) shows its status as "Future". As of March 2010, they sent the last of their F-16's out and fully transitioned to MQ-9 Reapers.

Wonder what else here is incorrect.