Okay, so I won't name names, for obvious reasons, but I will tell you that my brother works in Defence Signals Directorate, as part of the Australian arm of the ECHELON system. Mostly just bureaucratic paper shuffling. While intelligence gathering is not strictly part of his job, he is in regular contact with American CIA and NSA personal working out of Pine Gap, and they talk.

While I don't see my brother a lot- once or twice a year- when we do get together we're liable to lay into the booze, and that's when my brother talks. Talks a lot, in detail. I've heard all kinds of crazy stuff, but these recent rumours about Chinese troops in Mexico brings back one of my brother's favorite stories, so I thought I'd share what I remember.

Now, I don't know if this concerns the photos that have been going around GLP lately- my brother has never showed me a photo of these places, of course - but the way he tells it, for several years now the Chinese have had secret treaties in place with the Mexican government for the establishment of military bases in northern Mexico. Over a dozen I think he said, maybe more. Huge, sprawling bases in the desert, each one designed to accommodate an entire Chinese army of 50-60,000 men - a "group army", my brother calls them. They have barracks, command centres, airfields, repair facilities, the works, all connected by rail and highway to ports on the coasts.

But these bases? They're all empty.

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