Argentine officials seized and impounded cargo from a USAF C-17 at Argentina’s Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires, provoking a diplomatic fight with the United States. “It’s absolutely necessary that they immediately return that material. It makes no sense for it to have been confiscated this way,” said US assistant secretary of state for Latin America, Arturo Valenzuela, reports the Wall Street Journal. The Argentines took equipment including firearms, medical-morphine, and surveillance gear from Army Special Forces advisors who arrived on the C-17 for a US-sponsored counterterrorism training program for Argentine police. Argentina’s foreign minister Hector Timmerman accused US officials of smuggling arms and narcotics into the country, asserting that they had not declared the training items on the flight manifest. (See also Voice of America report)
The new defense reconciliation bill includes $7.2 billion for Air Force and Navy aviation accounts, almost half of which will buy more F-15EXs. While electronic warfare, drones, connectivity and airlift all get attention, the F-35 was conspicuously absent from the package, with no explanation given.