Backyard coup d'etat coming? 3,000 U.S. marines to be deployed to Peru this year

'Now y'all listen to me. This here's what we call a freedom bomb. You throw it at protesters as you drive by, then call it in as a terrorist attack by Shining Path druglords..."

It has been making practically no headlines outside Peru, and hardly any within, but a force of US Marines has apparently been mobilized to the Andean country—specifically to the conflicted coca-growing jungle region known as the VRAE, or Valley of the Apurímac and Ene Rivers. Peru's Congress quietly approved the deployment in a resolution Jan. 29. The first contingent of 58 soldiers arrived on Feb. 1, and a second of 67 troops on Feb. 15. They are to stay for a year on what is being called a "" mission. A much larger contingent is to arrive in September, a total of 3,200 Marines, for a six-day joint exercise with Peruvian forces. (Defensa.com, Feb. 19)

A small Marine Corps "" returned to the US in late November following a six-week training mission in Villa Rica, a district in central Oxapampa province, Pasco region—an area apparently chosen because its high jungle terrain is similar to that of the VRAE. The mission was apparently to train Peruvian marines for operations in the VRAE, where remnant Shining Path guerillas are said to be working with local narco gangs. Gen. John Kelly, head of US Southern Command, visited the VRAE in September to discuss sharing counterinsurgency skills with Peruvian forces. In a Lima interview with Marine Corps Times, Kelly cited the example of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), long faced by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and also used by the guerillas in the VRAE: "."

But the deployment is meeting some protest in Peru. Alberto Adrianzen, the country's representative to the Andean Parliament, told TeleSUR the decision to accept the Marines "."

Report from teleSUR:

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Comment: Sure, a 'training' mission to 'stop Shining Path narcotics fiends from subverting Peruvian freedom and democracy'...

Don't you just love how US military expeditions to the garrisons in the Empire's global colonies are always shrouded in the veil of 'protecting our allies from threats'?

70 years they've been doing this now, and no sign of them giving up the ghost.