Bing maps reveals a secret US airbase in Saudi Arabia
Since the birth of Google maps, and its worldwide coverage of aerial images of practically the entire surface of the earth, it has been exposed to the curious glances of billions of navigators.
Microsoft jumped on the bandwagon through its own map system integrated into the Bing search platform, which has better things and worse than the reference competition.
But both platforms also reveal surprises and information that may be uncomfortable for more than one, as just happened with the location of a secret air base , unknown by the population, from the US Army.
Supposedly designed to be used by the infamous “drones”, or planes without pilots, that deliver death by radio control.
In the images you can see several runways in different states of construction, a nearby cement factory, fuel depots, homes and offices, and the peculiar hangars where these air weapons can be stored.
Closing our eyes to the awful reality that with the money being spent to spy on and kill people, they could eliminate most of the problems of hunger, poverty and disease of the target countries that cannot be other than the bordering Yemen and the nearby Ethiopia, Somalia or Eritrea, there are things in this "indiscretion" that lead me to reflect.
In google maps, in that same location reference is made to a military border defense airport, but there is no image. Therefore, it can be thought that it has been censored, like thousands of sites around the globe, at the request of the relevant authorities.
If this is so, on Bing you can see that the aerial capture has been embedded in the middle of a low resolution image of the sea of dunes where the base is located. That is, it has been set specifically, either automatically or manually.
Which leads me to two possibilities, either that it is not really a secret base and that it is going to be used not only to locate and assassinate suspected terrorists from the air (including collateral damage) but also for civil flights, whether sports or commercial, and therefore their public appearance.
Or that platforms like Bing once again demonstrate that it is more and more difficult for governments to escape the scrutiny of the Information Society , and thus be able to hide the shame from the eyes of the taxpayers who pay for all these “war games”.
Anyway, a “military secret” deserves a look, while I lasted on Bing if it shouldn't have turned up in the end.
On Bing Maps | Secret military drone base in Saudi Arabia
