National Defense > Blog > Posts > Not-So-Secret Weapon in the War on Drugs: Sensors That Can Infiltrate Jungles

4/27/2010

Not-So-Secret Weapon in the War on Drugs: Sensors That Can Infiltrate Jungles
What will it take to win the war on drugs? Apparently, foliage penetrating radar.

The U.S. military and law-enforcement agencies for years have been chasing drug and arms traffickers in Latin America, with limited success. With more surveillance aircraft now deployed over the Caribbean, it is becoming easier to catch sight of smugglers at sea, even when they travel in stealthy submarine-like semisubmersibles.

But the jungle has so far been rather impenetrable to most U.S. sensors. Drug cartel operatives and builders of semisubmersibles can safely hide in double- and triple-canopy jungle, and there are not many spying devices that can spot them, says Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser, head of U.S. Southern Command.

SouthCom covers a region of 16 million square miles, stretching south of Miami to Antarctica. It encompasses 45 countries and territories in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

In some parts of Colombia, for instance, cartels take advantage of the thick jungle cover and construct their semisubmersibles practically under the noses of the authorities.

“You can be 10 feet away from where someone is building a submersible and never see it,” Fraser tells reporters at a breakfast meeting this morning in Washington, D.C.

U.S officials have found trails, cocaine labs and hideouts, all underneath the canopies, says Fraser. So far, one of the most successful weapons in the U.S. counterdrug arsenal has been the Army’s A-160 Hummingbird unmanned helicopter. The aircraft is equipped with a foliage penetrating radar that was designed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Over the past 20 years, the U.S. military has focused on finding the cocaine-laden semisubmersibles as they cross the Caribbean. SouthCom, working with local law-enforcement and military agencies, typically manages to intercept only about 25 percent of the cocaine that is smuggled through the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean each year. Most of the drugs, about 80 percent, are transported on fast boats and semisubmersibles.

The U.S. counterdrug campaign would be more effective if the hard-to-detect semisubmersibles could be found before they go in the water, says Fraser. Illicit trafficking has to be looked at as an “enterprise,” he says. SouthCom officials are now focusing on how cartels obtain supplies, how they move cargo and how they finance their operations, he says. One of the harder tasks is to find where the semisubmersibles are being assembled, he says.

The vehicles have a low profile so they are barely seen above the water line. They are 60 to 70 feet long and carry four to 10 tons of cocaine, are powered by diesel motors with a range of up to 5,000 miles. The traffickers generally travel at night and lie low during the day. In 2008, SouthCom caught 76 semisubmersibles; but only 52 were intercepted in 2009. It is not clear whether the drop is indicative of fewer semisubmersibles in operation or if the traffickers are just managing to not get caught, says Fraser. “I don’t know whether that means the trend has fallen off in the use of these vessels, or they’ve changed their tactics and we just didn’t see as many as we did the year before,” he says. “They change tactics. … They’re well-financed.”
Posted at 4:07 PM by Sandra Erwin | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (2)

Comments

Re: Not-So-Secret Weapon in the War on Drugs: Sensors Than Can Infiltrate Jungles

It's interesting to see that some of us are still living in some strange parallel universe, one where prohibition actually works.

There is an irrefutable connection between drug prohibition and the crime, corruption, disease and death it causes. If you are not capable of understanding this connection then maybe you're using something far stronger than the rest of us. Anybody 'halfway bright', and who's not psychologically challenged, should be capable of understanding that it is not simply the demand for drugs that creates the mayhem, it is our refusal to allow legal businesses to meet that demand.

No amount of money, police powers, weaponry, diminution of rights and liberties, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safer, only an end to prohibition can do that. How much longer are you willing to foolishly risk your own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?

If you still support the kool aid mass suicide cult of prohibition, and erroneously believe that you can win a war without logic and practical solutions, then prepare yourself for even more death, corruption, terrorism, sickness, imprisonment, unemployment, foreclosed homes, and the complete loss of the rule of law and the Bill of Rights.
malcolm kyle at 4/28/2010 3:19 AM

Re: Not-So-Secret Weapon in the War on Drugs: Sensors Than Can Infiltrate Jungles

Did anyone check with China on this before we start spending their money on our futile war on drugs? We will borrow 40 cents on every dollar to fund this continued insanity. I agree with the comment from Malcom Kyle. Prohibition isn't stopping anyone from taking any drug. I can still go to my corner convenience store and get anything, I mean anything, in short order. And, some of the new guys are delivering just like the pizza guy. I also see the you tube videos of troops in Afghanistan smoking up a storm. I see very few people wanting to continue this war except those that profit from it.
TYC at 4/28/2010 3:59 PM

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