US Sends Military to 'Help' Four Central American Countries

The U.S. embassy in Honduras announced that marines and sailors will be carrying out military training in Central America after their arrival earlier this month.

RELATED:
Govt Watchdog Says DEA Covered Up Botched Raid, Murder of 4 Hondurans

The Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force of the U.S.Southern Command, a rapid response force of nearly 300 troops will be headquartered at the Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras, with the remainder in Belize, El Salvador and Guatemala.

Under the guise of helping the countries with gang-related violence and hurricane relief, the U.S. troops will be conducting military and security training.

The U.S. is notorious for its training of military personnel in Latin America. For example, its School of the Americas, renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in 2001, is dubbed the "School of the Assassins," by anti-war activists.

The school's graduates include members of military dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia, as well as four out of the six Honduran soldiers who were accused of flying President Manuel Zelaya out of the country during the June 2009 coup.

U.S. Marines, who have invaded several Latin American countries including Panama, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Grenada, will be conducting a joint training session with Honduras this week in the country's capital of Tegucigalpa.

These exercises have been carried out by the U.S. military over the past three years in several South American countries under the pretense of fighting the "drug war."

The troops spent three months training in North Carolina and reportedly will remain in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala until late 2017.