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Domestic bases also operate from command and control centers in California, Arizona, New Mexico, North and South Dakota, Missouri, Ohio, New York, and perhaps elsewhere. Eventually they could be anywhere.
Washington plans escalated surveillance and predator drone operations at dozens of global sites. Expanding them to hundreds is likely. The Pentagon and CIA are tightlipped.
Currently, around one in three US warplanes are drones. One day perhaps they'll all be unmanned. Sanitized killing is cheap and efficient. Rule of law principles and other disturbing issues aren't considered. Secrecy and accountability go unaddressed.
Last September, the Washington Post headlined, "US assembling secret drone bases in Africa, Arabian Peninsula, officials say."
Pentagon and CIA officials plan aggressive campaigns against "al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen, U.S. officials said."
Ethiopia is home to one installation. Al-Shabab fighters are targeted. Another is based in the Seychelles. Since September 2009, Air Force and Navy MQ-9 Reaper drones operated there.
Called "hunter-killers," they're equipped with Hellfire missiles and satellite-guided bombs. Operational secrecy suppresses details of planned missions.
Besides elsewhere, drones are used in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, and Yemen. Among other locations, they operate from Djibouti.
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