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America's Deadly Robots Rewrite the Rules of War
The kohl-eyed Hakimullah Mehsud probably is dead. He was the target for a missile fired last month from an unmanned aircraft hovering over the Afghan-Pakistani border - but launched by an operator in the US.
A predator drone. For the first time ever, a civilian intelligence agency is manipulating robots from halfway around the world in a program of extrajudicial executions in a country with which Washington is not at war.(AP Photo/U.S. Air Force, Staff Sgt. Brian Ferguson) Mehsud
was the ruthless mastermind of multiple suicide bomb attacks in
Pakistan. He was part of a suicide mission on December 30 at Khost,
just across the border in Afghanistan, which killed seven CIA agents
who were working on the covert operation that now appears to have ended
Mehsud's brief and brutal leadership of the Taliban in Pakistan.
In the artistry of war, the insertion of a Jordanian double-agent who detonated his explosive vest inside this super-sensitive CIA bunker was flawless. But, in their payback, the enraged Americans confirmed the breadth of a new horizon in modern warfare - launching 15 clinical drone attacks in which more than 100 people died along the border, as Washington's electronic eyes and guns sought out Mehsud and his Taliban and al-Qaeda allies.
War does not get more radical than this - technically, politically and, perhaps, ethically.
Consider: for the first time ever, a civilian intelligence agency is manipulating robots from halfway around the world in a program of extrajudicial executions in a country with which Washington is not at war.
Consider, too: the drone wars were initiated under the presidency of George Bush. But it is the Democrat Barack Obama who has given them flight and stumped up sufficient funding to spark serious debate on the end of the ''Top Gun'' era of the fighter-pilot.
And there is this: despite decades of American disquiet about assassinations abroad and a shrill Republican critique of him as a security wuss, the professorial Obama is the new killer on the block, authorising more drone attacks in the first year of his term in office than Bush did in his entire presidency.
At the White House these days they hold their breath, praying for a turnaround in the war in Afghanistan to vindicate Obama's gamble in dispatching 50,000 more young Americans to a conflict some deem unwinnable.
But confidence in the use of state-sanctioned lethal force in the undeclared American war in neighbouring and nuclear-armed Pakistan borders on the giddy. "The only game in town" was how CIA director Leon Panetta described it last year.
As a covert operation, insufficient data is released to judge its efficacy. It took publication by the Pakistani media of Google Earth images of Predator aircraft on the ground at a base in Pakistan to elicit oblique CIA confirmation that the program actually operated there. Last month a CIA spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, only said the agency's ''counter-terrorism operations - lawful, aggressive, precise and effective - continue without pause".
Mehsud's is an impressive scalp of war - for Washington and Islamabad. He had been in the leadership post for just five months after his predecessor of two years, Baitullah Mehsud, suffered a similar fate in August.
The first drone strikes of the new presidency took place on Obama's third day in office - four Arabs, presumed to be al-Qaeda associates, died in a strike in the border region. But as many as 16 members of the extended family of a respected pro-government tribal elder died when the second drone strike that day went terribly awry.
A study by the New America Foundation last year found that just six of 41 CIA-launched drone attacks in the border region had targeted al-Qaeda members. Eighteen of the targets were Taliban and 16 of them alone were efforts to kill Baitullah Mehsud - which, depending on who did the counting, racked up more than 300 additional civilian deaths.
Body-counting is a fraught business. Called Revenge of the Drones, the NAF study concluded that, since January 2008, the American kill has included ''about 20 leaders of al-Qaeda, the Taliban and allied groups ... in addition to hundreds of lower-level militants and civilians. Under President Obama, the strikes have taken out at most [a] half-dozen militant leaders while also killing as many as 530 others - of those, around 250 to 400 are reported to have been lower-level militants, about three-quarters; and about a quarter appear to have been civilians."
The number of civilian deaths and their implication are hotly debated - because of the extent to which they inflame anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and because the vaporised death of a target denies any opportunity to capture and interrogate him.
Writing in The New York Times, the counter-insurgency experts David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum decried the toll. Citing a civilian figure of 700, they extrapolated a civilian loss of 98 per cent of deaths or 50 civilians for each militant eliminated.
Bill Roggio, the managing editor of the respected American blog The Long War Journal, goes to the other extreme, claiming only 10 per cent of those killed could be described as civilians.
After a detailed study of media and other reports from the border region, Revenge of the Drones takes a middle course, opting for a civilian toll of about one-third of those killed.
Just like their political and military leaders, Pakistanis give conflicting signals on the drone wars. Last summer a Gallup poll found only 10 per cent support for the attacks, but about half in a study of 550 professional people living in the border region described the strikes as accurate, and a little more than half estimated that the strikes damaged the militants without increasing anti-US sentiment.
The changed ground rules making extrajudicial killing more acceptable are a product of post-September 11 thinking. In 2001 Bush overturned President Gerald Ford's 1976 prohibition on assassinations by US intelligence agencies - but there's something else in the works, too.
Despite its loyalty to Israel, the Bush administration condemned Israel's campaign of targeted assassinations in the Palestinian Occupied Territories in the weeks before the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. But, as critics of the drone wars struggle to get traction in public debate, it is curious that in the absence of any negative reaction to Obama's expansion of his remote killing program last year, the former Bush administration was under attack for revelations that it had considered dispatching more traditional hit-squads abroad to take out al-Qaeda operatives.
Forty-four countries now use unmanned aircraft for surveillance - only the US and Israel deploy them as killers.
In the first weeks of his presidency Obama reportedly wrestled with the moral and strategic implications of the program. But, as reported in The New York Times, he pointedly declared to one of his earliest Situation Room gatherings: "The CIA gets what it needs."
The American Civil Liberties Union explained in a Freedom of Information application last month: "It appears ... that lethal force is being exercised by individuals who are not in the military chain of command, are not subject to military rules and discipline; and do not operate under any other public system of accountability or oversight."
A Democrat's targeted killings, it seems, are not quite the same as those of a Republican.
The first drones flew before the September 11 attacks - searching for Osama bin Laden. Now the US Air Force estimates that about 15 per cent of its $US230 billion ($260 billion) arms-procurement program will be spent on robot equipment within five years.
Predators can fly 700 kilometres, then hover for 30 hours at a stretch, feeding real-time video and other data through 10 simultaneous streams to controllers in 10 locations. Priced at $US4.5 million, Predators carry sensors that intercept electronic signals and listen in on phone conversations - and they carry missiles. The newer Reapers cost $US17 million and can fly nearly 6000 kilometres.
The US Air Force now has more drone operators in training than fighter and bomber pilots.
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67 Comments so far
Show AllDang Capt Jim,
I didn't get to read your comment before some A-hole flagged it. This also happened to me a few times. Guys, when this happens try rephrasing your post with toned-down modifications so we don't suffer censorship and lose your insights.
Or try changing it into a question or humor.
I really like reading Onecaptjim, and hate it when I get to a story's comments too late.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Comment Police?
When will the people organize and mobilize? Why are we allowing this to happen? these are questions that baffle me daily.
Pablo30: "When will the people organize and mobilize? Why are we allowing this to happen"?
Because this drone program is not reported on television news in depth and certainly the actual results of dead civilians are not going to be shown. How much did you or have you seen of actual "battlefield" pictures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza or elsewhere in the alleged 32 other small wars we are engaged in one way or another? How much have you seen about the conditions in Gaza and Afghanistan and elsewhere? Headline: "Leading figure of the Taliban killed." Who cares about the civilians or reports it or discusses it?
And most people under 60 are no longer part of a seriously reading or curious culture, thanks to "Uncurious George" educational systems, and primarily the television habit taking up most leisure time. Cheap pulp novels, maybe are read; newspapers and magazines, which are mixed and limited in their coverage, are dying.
The internet has the info available, but statistically video games, Facebook-type sites, porn, the sugar-coated "How to Improve Your Life/Relationships and BE HAPPY, and other appealing cultural distractions, get more attention than sites similar to this one.
We are a people culturally, politically and religiously fragmented, divided, distracted, undereducated, spoiled, and unconscious.
Perhaps when we hit bottom, which it is likely we will, ... if we are fortunate, the majority of us will be on the same page or it will be violence and an every "man" for himself mentality; likely a mixture.
Further because there has never been an attack on us by other countries since the War of 1812 and far-from-the-mainland Pearl Harbor in 1941, we don't have a clue about the devastation and nightmarish horrors that come with modern warfare. We've been excellent at inflicting those things on others, but so far we've escaped. When you have never experienced that kind of thing, you can't know and are lulled into business as usual. Young soldiers are given a somewhat romantic picture of what it is to be in military service. When they find out what war is actually like, many of them end up with PTSD, harden inside, and are never the same.
I leave out 9-11 as an outside attack because every bit of evidence, in my opinion, points to a very well-planned and coordinated inside job, partnered by a small country that gets away with murder everyday and is our closest ally who we "will protect and defend no matter what" because they never do anything wrong.
This article itself talks about the availability of drone bombers before 9-11 and certainly long before that there was the ability to take over the controls of airplanes by setting that up ahead of time.
And that event certainly provided the desired carte blanche to go on a rampage of bombing, attacking, invading, occupying, and the plans for those things were made well in advance of 9-11. And we certainly aren't done as long as there are more available resources out there such as oil, natural gas, rare earth minerals, and etcetera, that the wealthiest, most powerful corporations need to remain at the top of the heap.
As a beacon of liberty, justice and freedom for all, the once-bright-light, now covered with blood, mud, ashes and pieces of putrid flesh has gone out or at least it can't be seen at this time if it still flickers.
Bad, nasty to really stupid people are in charge. And most of the U.S. population do not pay too much attention, especially those who have not had a direct hit yet economically.
So it is not time because the fever to organize is still at a cool to luke-warm stage.
Going after a good health care bill was declared by Obama as a priority. However, he was lukewarm, uninspiring, and quite unavailable throughout the whole process. But it has been a great distraction for people to spend their anger on, and certainly for many individuals and families that anger is justified. We need Universal Health Care, as so many other countries have had for a long time. That's a no-brainer. But since we are a Corporate Kleptocracy [thanks for that last, Jim Hightower], any health-care bill is now stalled between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Along with that, the people of this country have been conditioned to believe that sickness is inevitable and that just about any condition requires medical help, a visit to the emergency room, an appointment at the doctor's office, and a variety of expensive pills, including those to counter the side effects of the original pills. At the same time, my fellow citizens have been conditioned to eat things, drink things, and do things that would make anyone sick eventually.
Anyway, Pablo30, these are some reasons for why we are not organizing on behalf of Afghans, Pakistanis or prior, Iraqis, with more to come.
Same reasons for allowing our government to be taken over, which it has been. And I've been warning about that for a long, long time -- 9 l/2 years, but whether family or friends or neighbors, they really don't want to hear it; they are not ready to hear it.
Timing is everything. ... And on all these issues and more, Time will tell. Maybe it will have to shout or wail or groan or scream as the drones come roaring in.
peace, cm
"Because this drone program is not reported on television news in depth and certainly the actual results of dead civilians are not going to be shown. How much did you or have you seen of actual "battlefield" pictures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza or elsewhere in the alleged 32 other small wars we are engaged in one way or another? How much have you seen about the conditions in Gaza and Afghanistan and elsewhere?"
Yep. The Warmongering Corporate Media refuse to inform us, so we must inform ourselves and share this information widely in hopes of stopping the insanity committed in our names and with our taxes.
War Casualty Photos:
http://www.currentstateofaffairs.org/Iraq.html#pictures
http://mindprod.com/politics/iraqwarpix.html
http://vitw.org/archives/720
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/wpg2 (scroll down to albums)
http://www.thenausea.com/usa-iraq.html
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3462.htm
http://www.currentstateofaffairs.org/Iraq.html#dupictures
This should make General Atomics Aeronautical Systems happy-if they can keep up with the demand. I think the Pentagon should ask themselves the question--should we continue to go down this slippery slope, could it come back to bite us. I guess in their mind the ends justify the means, only problem they don't know where this will end.
they count on it never ending.
the corporations have become the first human immortals.
Yeah vdb,
And it's just a matter of time before these drones are deployed against US citizens in the USSA. Every Law Enforcement agency is clamoring for one right now: for "monitoring" and later they'll want armed ones in their fight against the fictitious war on drugs or to take out "domestic terrorists" (means all suspects, dead or alive). Hell the border towns already suffer their menacing fly overs. But it'll be good for ratings; it'll be all the new rage on the show "Cops":
"Eight Suspects in a suspected drug lab.... BLAMO!!!! Chalk up another one for the boys in blue!" (In reality: another dead barber shop, full of non-reported innocent victims.)
I'm glad I left.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
"I'm glad I left."
ditto.
(1971)
One day, I fear, this country will itself be occupied by foreign troops, who will use killer drones to hunt down those Americans who resist ... or a future US dictatorship will use them on its own citizenry to terrorize them into compliance.
What goes around comes around, y'know; think Hosea 8:7.
I fear that one day your fear will come true. As the American people start to wake up to the truth and some Americans will start fighting the evil corruption to end their control over our government; I fear that our own government will start using those weapons on those Americans who refuse to submit and accept the new America. Most Americans will just submit and accept and won’t fight as long as they can deceive themselves into thinking that we still have the America that was founded by our fore fathers. On the outside it will still look like the same America but inside it is not.
In some ways it is like a science fiction movie that allians take over the body of humans. On the outside it still looks like the human being but inside is an allian who has taken over that body. I look at America like that. Our government is corrupted and doesn’t do what is best for the American people anymore, but they put on a show to make the American people think they are doing what is best for them. Yet the reality is that they serve their corporate masters who tell them what to do.
People from the far right and far left know that something isn’t right. They understand that our Constitution is being shredded through a paper shredder. We Progressives say it is corporate control of our government and the Far Right White Nationalists say it is Jewish control. Progressives, Conservatives, White Nationalists all say they love America and are fighting to save her. People from all political views know this war is wrong and what we are doing is wrong and that someday we are going to have to face the music for our actions.
At one time I asked myself would it be possible for all of us Americans who can see the truth about our government being corrupted work together to fight the evil corruption that has overtaken our government? I didn’t think we would all sit around the camp fire smoking the peace pipe and holding hands singing about love; but I wondered if in our own little spere that we could all work toward the same goal and help each other when the other side needed help. Like in the American Revolution the North and South had to put aside their differences and work together to win victory; I think it is going to take all of us as Americans to work together to save this country that was founded by our ancestors.
I know I want us to fight. I love this country so much that I am willing to die to save her from going off that cliff. I am willing to pick up the sword that those who walked before me used when they fought. How many people are willing to fight and risk their lives fighting against this evil corruption that is destroying the America that was founded by our Founding Fathers? How many true American Patriots do we have left who know the truth and are willing to fight? I hear a lot of excuses why one can’t join the fight. Some of those excuses might be valid and others are lame; but if one is not willing to stand up and fight and wants to do nothing than that is the same as surrendering. I think that is what breaks my heart is that to many Americans make excuses on why they can’t join the fight to save this country from going off the cliff.
For every action there is a Cause and Effect. Our nation will be judged one day for all that we are doing over there. We won’t like what could be coming down the pike for us. Yes, I fear that one day those weapons will be used on those of us who refuse to submit and obey those in our government who already do these terrible things to other people. We went from the most loved to the most hated nation. We went from a light of hope in the world to the nation most feared because of our actions in this war. I don’t know if there is time to save this nation or if we need to accpet the fact that the America that was founded by the Fore fathers is dead.
well said...there is a fight coming...my hope would be that we enter it proactively, and united...if enough join, perhaps things would go easier than feared...
land, water, food and shelter must be shared, not privatized and hoarded...the earth must be protected from industrial death...energy use must be dramatically curtailed...individuals must reclaim the responsibility for their own existence...
September 22, 2012...let's get those gardens growing!
I will fight till my last breath for America. I love this land. I think I know how the Natives must have felt. This land is too good to not fight for. Misguided we have been. Now especially, so few actually profit. Don't know what it will come to. The Chinese are the latest to migrate in a 'closed society.' Shades of Explorer in New World vibe. Those first explorers, knocking locals to get to all the land amd water that no one can possess, truly, but one can pollute for everyone. Drones are pernicious killers, coming to a state of resistance near you. I shudder. It may certainly be very dark before the dawn.
Yes, you have a truly beautiful land, but as here in the UK, you sure get some s ...t governments.
See Texas Governor Wants Drone for Border Patrol http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/texas-governor-wants-military-drone-for-border-patrol/19351365
It's happening already.
"It's happening already."
Yes there are five bases that act as launch sites; Bellingham, Wash., Great Falls, Mont., Grand Forks, N.D., Detroit MI., and Plattsburgh, N.Y. to patrol the Canadian border.
One has to wonder what will be America's fate if this quote by Jesus is true: " All those who use the sword ( BOMBS) will die by the ( BOMBS) sword". Or how about, and I paraphrase: I shudder for my country when I realize God is just. I believe said by Abraham Lincoln, but I may be incorrect. Or what about Jesus quote : "What you sow you reap". There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. I do not claim to know the answers but if these sayings are true, then it will just be a matter of time before America is occupied by foreign troops and the average Americam freedom fighter and patriot will be labeled an insurgent or a terrorist.
Eventually both sides will eliminate the middle men and simply run conputer simulations of who wins and who dies. Packages of 'Kool-Aid' will be sent to the losing population.
Funny how art imitates life. In an episode on Star Trek the Enterprise visits a planet where computer generated wars are the norm; Capt. Kirk and company are in the simulation room during an attack; it is then reported that one side has taken a million casualties but the tri-corder reports no deaths on the planet. In questioning the participants, it is learned that one million people will have to report to a elimination site (what the Nazi's referred to as ovens) for disposal. In fifties years will they have national lottery for those being extinguished? This shit is taking on proportions of the theatre of the absurd. But the sheep will yawn and carry on with life as usual.
"Consider, too: the drone wars were initiated under the presidency of George Bush. But it is the Democrat Barack Obama who has given them flight and stumped up sufficient funding to spark serious debate on the end of the ”Top Gun” era of the fighter-pilot.
And there is this: despite decades of American disquiet about assassinations abroad and a shrill Republican critique of him as a security wuss, the professorial Obama is the new killer on the block, authorising more drone attacks in the first year of his term in office than Bush did in his entire presidency."
When are Progressive Democrats going to wake up to the truth that Obama lied to all of us when he said he would end this war? He not only is not ending this war, but has expanded it and has done more in this first year than Bush did in his entire presidency. President Obama is not the man Progressives thought he was when they voted for him. Yes, Obama is the new killer on the block.
When are Progressive Democrats going to face the truth and stop making excuses for Obama and continue to blame everything on Bush. Obama is the one at the helm these days and not Bush. Democrats are the one in power these days and they are no different than Republicans and lets face it they are worst when it comes to this WAR!!!!!!!!!!!!
The question I have is what are Progressives going to do about this? Are we going to be fooled again into thinking that the Democrats are going to bring the real change that Progressives want? Will Progressives swollow up the crumbs that Democrats offer them? I hope and pray not. We know the Republicans are just another face of the same corporate party. So what do we as Progressives do in the upcoming election this year?
I know that some believe that we can't achieve anything by joining and supporting the Green Party and working hard to find Progressives who would make good candidates to run for local and state office. I believe that we have time to start building on the foundation of the Green party. We start small and as we continue to win more seats on the local and state level we gain experience we need to move on to the federal level. I just don't see how voting for the least evil is going to be the solution to the evil corruption that is overtaking our government. By voting for the least of two evils one is still voting for evil.
We have the youth on our side and if they were to channel their anger and frustration into helping the Green party winning seats on the local and state level we might just start seeing results. Instead of just staying home and giving up on the political process, I hope they will see that the Green Party can be the Progressive party for the people.
Sometimes I wonder if their is a will in the American people to fight? Have we lost the will to fight for what is morally right, our freedom, and for truth and justice? Sometimes I think because we don't have a free press but a corporate media that Americans are not educated or informed enough to realize that America is standing at the edge of a cliff and that we might just go off that cliff. Our Constitution is being shredded and yet Americans just accept the lie that the American Patriot Act is for their own good and keeps them safe from terriorist attacks.
The Greens could form temporary coalitions with Progressive Democrats and push for proportional representation and other voting reforms from within the major party. Greens will get a voice they don't have now and will help remove the conservative Democrats that have taken over the Democratic Party.
ezeflyer,
I'm a civil Libertarian, But I would consider voting Green. The Libertarian Party is the third largest, but I fear too many Repukes and CEO's are already corrupting it. Not sure though.
One thing's for sure: Voting third party won't make things any worse than they are now. A corporate puppet will be proffered up in both sides of the Republicrat party in 2012. Repuke or Dem, we're going to get screwed again.
Might as well vote for principles and issues and not get Obombered once more!
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
...the most haunting and vile question to arise from this ultimate, sickening violation of humanity is simple: HOW LONG BEFORE THESE TROGLODYTES USE THE TECHNOLOGY AGAINST AMERICAN CIVILIANS????
It is not even a matter of "IF".....but merely "WHEN"!!
of course...anyone who can't look out their window and imagine one of these glistening in the sun as it hovers over your street is not paying attention...and not 10 years from now, either...
dubet,If you are not doing anything wrong why would you worry?
(Sorry, had to get that logical fallacy in there before some brownshirt does)
inverted: if you're not worried, how can you do anything right?
And to the victims of our Fourth Reich movement into ethnic cleansing:
http://nomorevictims.org/
Although euphemisms like extrajudicial killing and assassination are used in connection with drones, in reality the operators and their commanders are committing premeditated murder and they are criminals.
I suggest again that we consider this:
In the DAFT war to prevent future terrorism, human troops are targets ("...which killed seven CIA agents...").
Once the terrorists have identified themselves, the inhuman killers then swoop in ("...launching 15 clinical drone attacks").
I suggest again that we show America that this is DAFT.
Military families need to know that their loved ones are hired targets.
it is very interesting to contemplate that, if I were to lose my current job, I could pick up a paycheck killing people remotely...is that ethical?
as long as you're only in it for the money, yes.
Just Business to go with Just War.
Two downsides to the use of drone aircraft:
They broadcast our preference for waging war in the most cowardly way possible. Our enemies might fear our technology, but will be confirmed in their belief that we are a nation of poltroons.
Anybody can make them. Changing the rules is smart only if we have something, nukes for example, that few others can replicate. To introduce things like torture (a low tech weapon at which nearly every tribe on earth is more adept then ourselves) into the conventions of war is not very smart. Likewise, whereas easily assembled, inexpensive remote controlled model planes are a great way to access people we want to kill, they are also a great way for them to access us. As much as we would prefer it, our enemies might not always be bronze age primitives and their women and children. We should expect a Chinese knockoff to appear in our skies before long, as invasive terror becomes the name of the game.
"They broadcast our preference for waging war in the most cowardly way possible."
I hear this a lot here on this board and sort of am amazed by it. War hasn't had honor since forever. Maybe the last "honorable" act was the Brits dropping a wreath from a plane at the Red Baron's funeral.
Why is a drone any worse than a fleet of bombers carpet bombing Dresden or using Napalm in Vietnam? If you look at actual statistical data, far fewer "civilians" are killed with drones than were in WWII with bombs or probably even civilians by gunfire in firefights who simply get in the way.
If your argument is that all war is wrong, then I am totally with you. But this faux angst over the "honor" of drones? That is simply masturbation frankly - feels great, doesn't mean anything.
As for changing the rules, I agree totally. You better have one HECK of an edge before you introduce something new to war. Tanks were a good example, these are not.
I'm given to promoting the idea that there is nothing honorable in soldiery. Recruiters use such slogans: the few, the proud, the brave, to appeal to the adolescent romanticism of our teenaged warriors. It should be broadly known, especially by the young, that we have not had a viable enemy since 1945 and that dressing up in a helmet and mirrored sunglasses does not make an acne-faced kid less of a thug and a coward. You are correct that all war is an abomination, but as an anthropological fact of life, as long as our testosterone-addled children require a rite of passage, it will probably continue. There would be honor in it if we were truly defending the fatherland (which we are not) - as we must admire the courage of the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan and Gaza for defying our technological death machine. Our wars have become piracies. So until we are able to evolve beyond it, an interim position might be trotted out, that our wars are not really wars, and that cowards are not qualified to hand out medals for bravery.
I would be just as worried about American UAVs as Chinese knockoffs.
This is about refining the ability to control ever greater numbers of people with few people at a safe distance, in a controlled environment. The advantage that "the people" have always had is their numbers, and it's slipping away. If we don't stand up to the economic/media elites soon, the opportunity will pass.
I also wonder about the psychological effects of turning the sky, for so long and so many the source of beauty, life, and the "doorway to heaven", etc., into a place or direction from which surveillance, intimidation, and violence comes (quietly). This can't be a good thing.
Exactly Dwayne Crowe,
Well stated. Historically, the drone is a mental weapon. German Buzz Bombs of WWII on England were known not to produce any meaningful impact on the enemy physically beyond a few casualties at the impact site. This did not stop the English Buildup, but it did disrupt the peace of mind of millions. If you're not sleeping well at night, you're not doing a good job at the assembly plant in the morning and you're going to bug your superiors to move the plant underground.
Our predator drones are the same imho. They are designed to cause panic and exodus of poor populations who have the misfortune of sitting on gas pipeline paths to India that evil multinationals like Unical, Bectel, PezPen, Carlyle Group, and others covet so that CEO's can ship the rest of our American jobs to wage-slave factories in good old Cheap India.
Enough is Enough.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
The MIC knows that for every "enemy" they kill, two will be produced. The more poor people they kill, the more enemies they make, the more fear the MIC can strike in American's hearts, the more money it can fleece out of them.
"In the first weeks of his presidency Obama reportedly wrestled with the moral and strategic implications of the program."
what utter bullshit!
there was a sign hanging on the oval office door reading "OUT TO LAUNCH" within half a week of his becoming the new decider.
Yes, invisible and inaudible "moral wrestling" seems to have become a regular opener for unpopular announcements.
Any resistance casualty in an area with only occupation government can be reasonably considered civilian.
We need to drop altogether and at once the jeu des mots that fig-leafs these murders, assassinations, imprisonments and tortures.
As with other military "advances," this raises the relative efficacy of nonviolent resistance across the spectrum.
Out of site; out of mind. As long as MSM doesn't cover the misery, death and outrage of these drone attacks and the consequences that more enemies are created and continually have to devote more resources to this, people will be more concerned with shopping and watching TV.
The state of fascist amerika inna nutshell !
Truman wiped out thousands of civilians with two bombs and is considered a hero for saving lives.
No he isn't. he's a mass murderer,
and no one any longer believes that
"saving lies" crap.
voxclamantis:
I can't remember how many countries already have UAV's-- more than 40, I think. The first time I googled this question I got a specific number but lost the note. One of the Indian UAV's even had a funny name. But these things are essentially unfunny, and our last two presidents, along with a lot of other people prominent in the news, are clearly weak in the head-- "morally, mentally and physically bankrupt," as my grandfather used to say.
As far as reacting to something so obviously horrid about being an American-- the proud use of our drones-- one might consider these words of Nadezhda Mandelstam writing in the book HOPE AGAINST HOPE about situations like Stalinist Russia toward which we seem headed.
"I can testify that nobody I knew fought-- all they did was to lie low. This was the most that people with a conscience could do-- and even that required real courage."
I am struck by how projective conservative critics always are of anyone who opposes our wars. They long ago tried to claim 1984 and George Orwell as their own when actually they were the Orwellian ones. They're always throwing around names like Adolph Hitler but don't know much about Joseph Stalin, who was just as bad or worse. They're like Hitler with his buzzbombs sputtering over London (drone rockets) and like Stalin and Hitler both with their use of obscuring thought and language. Worse, they couldn't care less who gets killed unless it's an embryo.
How's this for a Republican scenario in the next three years? Kill all the adults and children but save the embryos to make a new book: LORD OF THE FLIES, THE PREQUEL.
"I can't remember how many countries already have UAV's-- more than 40, I think."
Only two countries countenance these act of state terrorism, using drone platforms to launch targeted assassinations. Israel and USA.
Such acts could be prosecuted as war crimes under international law, and that is why Germany, Britain, France and the other 38 or so possessing UAV’s only use them as unarmed recon platforms. As America and their Zionist Nazi friends test the edge of the envelop it is up to the rest of the world to prosecute the criminals. It might not happen tomorrow, but there is no statute of limitation on war crimes, and the perpetrator can be arrested at any time by any government signatory to the international conventions.
"At the White House these days they hold their breath, praying for a turnaround in the war in Afghanistan to vindicate Obama's gamble in dispatching 50,000 more young Americans to a conflict some deem unwinnable."
I wish we'd quit dumbing ourselves down into the oversimplification of "winning" and "losing". Since 40 percent of casualties are friendly fire in Afghanistan, it appears to me we are fighting ourselves. Wall Street doesn't want to leave since a large military in the region is propping up the dollar. As well, Big Oil doesn't want to leave since they are laying the TAPI natural gas pipeline to India so more American jobs can be exported to India and it's two-dollar-a-day workers. CEO's are gaining record bonuses in the middle of this depression for good reason. They replaced the high-benefit American worker with a slave who gets no money and no comparable health care or retirement. Then there's the MIC selling weapons to both sides.
Endless war is a win-win for the Robber Barons. It is the abject ruin, however, of the taxpayer. Ralph Nader and others are right. We must end corporate "personhood" or all is lost.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
The gorilla sleeps where he wishes. When we have the most sophisticated, deadly and costly weopons in the world and we are in a war with a people (or group) with surplus weapons from world War II, we are ghe gorilla. The rules of war have not been observed by this country for a long time. By the way, this nation has not decisively won a war since 1945.
Congress, the only body with the authority, has not declared war since 1945.
I suppose this is why the rules have not been held as being pertinent.
War is a business.
The targets are people without constituencies.
The excuses given by the killers are BS.
The targets have no mutual defense treaties with nations armed with modern weaponry, and are not consumers of what we have to sell.
AfPak areas are the last places the MIC can expend its wares and not disturb shopping patterns.
They are the only "Indians" left. Drone killing is as easy as it was to shoot Natives and buffalo from moving trains in the American west only 150 years ago.
The root of the problem is Corporatism with profit as its only consideration.
I don't think it is much of a stretch to paste the label "anti-christ" on the corporatate business model as it presently manifests itself in human society. Much the same as Rome imposed itself on the society of the dreamer.
The wrong people are raised to the top of the power structure for the wrong reasons, and the spew of their efforts is death, destuction and eventual chaos.
And, for those of you taking notes, OBL, Alqaida and their ilk are just as complicit as any of the others.
Gandhi, ML King, LaoTzu and Nature show us the way through this aberrant mess.