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Drones Evolve Into Weapon in Age of Terror
Intelligence Services Overcome Philosophical, Legal Misgivings Over Targeted Killings; Pilotless Attacks Doubled in 2010
The Sept. 11 attacks triggered a revolution in U.S. spycraft as the intelligence services shattered a longstanding taboo by launching an expansive program of targeted killings by remote control.
US Predator Drone - Intelligence Services Overcome Philosophical, Legal Misgivings Over Targeted Killings; Pilotless Attacks Doubled in 2010 The intelligence failures that preceded 9/11 rocked U.S. intelligence, prompting an expansion of surveillance in the U.S., and spawning new communications-intercept programs overseas.
But the greatest shift both in tactics and mindset has been the embrace of the pilotless, hunter-killer aircraft known as drones.
Fighting terrorists who acknowledge no boundaries, the CIA has in many ways returned to its World War II roots. Its predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services, was formed in 1942 under William "Wild Bill" Donovan to collect intelligence for the military, organizing guerrilla operations, parachuting into enemy territory and orchestrating sabotage.
"CIA has never looked more like its direct ancestor, the OSS, than it does right now," said former CIA Director Michael Hayden. "It is as intensely operational as it's ever been."
The CIA, which doesn't formally acknowledge the covert program, has killed about 2,000 militants with drones, U.S. officials say, most in the past two years as President Barack Obama's national security team aggressively expanded the program.
In 2010, the number of drone strikes more than doubled, to 114, and this year, drone campaigns are expanding. The CIA now plans flights in Yemen, and the military is using drones to kill militants in Somalia.
"The United States has been fighting al Qaeda for more than a decade now, so it's only logical that counterterrorism would be a top objective for the CIA," said agency spokeswoman Marie Harf. "When the country goes to war, its intelligence agencies do, too. That's always been true, from the days of the OSS in World War II until now."
Legal challenges to the drone program have secured little traction. The main debate inside the government has been over how to execute the campaign without irreversibly damaging Pakistani cooperation.
American citizens can be targets, too. Under the legal authority for the drone program, the CIA must consult the National Security Council before capturing an American posing an imminent threat, but no additional consultation is required to kill an American, a former senior intelligence official said.
"The reason there hasn't been more of an outcry about it is, it's the Obama administration defending this authority," said the American Civil Liberties Union's Jameel Jaffer. "But the authority is going to be used not just by this administration but the next one, and not just the war on terror but the next war."
As the reliance on the drone campaign grows, some intelligence veterans are quietly questioning whether the remote-control killings violate ethical boundaries. "They shouldn't be judge, jury and executioner," said a former U.S. official. "It's an important program, but are there checks and balances?"
American unease with assassination dates back to the CIA's 1960s-era plots to kill figures such as Cuba's Fidel Castro, which spurred President Gerald Ford to issue an executive order banning political assassination.
CIA officials split in the 1980s over how to interpret the ban, according to Robert Chesney, a University of Texas law professor and author of a forthcoming paper on the topic. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan authorized CIA "action teams" to kill terrorists if an attack was imminent, and officials at the time debated what that meant.
The rise of the drone program can be dated to about a decade later, when in 1998 President Bill Clinton authorized the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his senior associates. But White House and CIA officials disagreed on whether they could kill the terrorist leader.
The next year, with al Qaeda hiding in Afghanistan, a handful of CIA officers looked into using Predator drones to peer into the unreachable territory. The CIA gussied up the Air Force's castoff surveillance Predators and spotted bin Laden in Afghanistan.
"We thought, we need to be able to see him and kill him at the same time," said then-White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke.
The CIA group set out to arm the Predator and had a version in the summer of 2001. But officials decided not to launch it. Some felt that the technology wasn't proven, and others worried that it would be seen as a lethal weapon theCIA didn't have sufficient authority to use..
"We built it, and everyone was getting in a tizzy because it was an 'assassination tool,' " recalled the former U.S. official. Mr. Clarke agreed.
There also were disagreements over who should pay for it, other former officials said. In addition, questions lingered about the craft's missile-firing technology, according to then-CIA Director George Tenet.
After Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush moved to authorize covert action, including for those responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Armed-drone testing grounds quickly moved from the Nevada desert to the mountains of Afghanistan.
In 2002, the CIA and military split drone responsibilities, with the CIA taking Pakistan and the military taking Afghanistan. The U.S. agreed to consult with Pakistan before pulling the trigger, unless it found bin Laden or his No. 2, the former official said.
But by 2006, the U.S. relationship with Pakistan was growing more difficult. The Pakistanis started cutting peace deals with militants in the tribal regions and were slow to respond to drone-hit requests, several American officials said. The U.S. also believed Pakistani intelligence tipped off al Qaeda targets, they said.When there were zero strikes in 2007, then-CIA director Hayden began lobbying Mr. Bush to end the agreement to check with the Pakistanis first. "The frustration with the Pakistanis was the key factor," said one U.S. official. The CIA also wanted to go after militant groups that were targeting U.S. troops on the other side of the border in Afghanistan. After Mr. Bush approved the ramp-up, there were 28 strikes in the second half of 2008.
Mr. Obama had campaigned on refocusing the terrorism fight on al Qaeda. He and his team quickly sought to expand the drone program after his election in 2008. At the same time, the Obama team and worked to reduce civilian casualties. Pakistanis and human rights groups contest CIA claims that civilian deaths have been minimal. On Jan. 1, 2009, the CIA killed two top Al Qaeda planners, reinforcing the importance of the program for the incoming Obama team. Another hit that renewed the administration's commitment, a U.S. official said, was the killing of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in August 2009.
That fall, Mr. Obama approved a doubling of the CIA's predator fleet from seven to 14 drone orbits, which usually consist of three planes.
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91 Comments so far
Show AllThese machines are a sickening reflection of a diseased society.
If you pay federal taxes, then you are rendering financial support to the mechanical beasts and have no right to complain about it.
Stop putting up or shut up.
Do you pay federal taxes? If not, how have you avoided it? Do you offset your tax resistance by sending an equivalent amount of would-be tax money to a charity of advocacy organization?
Simply not paying taxes punishes the poor, entitlement programs, the nations infrastructure, it ability to enforce all sorts of useful regulations - well before it punishes the DOD or CIA. It also jsut plays into the the philosophy of the right.
I do not, can't, because of conscience.
As a comparison; on the county level, I never had kids and never minded paying for other's education. I never had a house catch on fire, but never minded supporting the fire departments, etc, etc.
Punishes the poor? I am the poor, but grow and give food to others in need, sometimes clothes or a few dollars.
Enforce regulations? Do you mean like the regulators that partied with BP or those that kept an eye on the finance industry?
If we lived in a civil society with a civil government, then I would agree, but the u.s. government is a criminal organization that kills people daily. They have declared the right to kill you, me, or anyone on the planet at their discretion.
Plays into the right wing philosophy? That's just goofy.
But HOW do you avoid not paying taxes? I thought only the rich got away with that.
Easy for the poor to avoid taxes. Just never make enuf$ to pay. The hard part is living on that little. But the PTB are making it easy to be unemployed!
egojoe, here is a better question; how do you sleep at night knowing that you are financing murder?
We weren't happy when planes were used to attack us. We called it terrorism.
Exactly. And it was not a failure of inteligence that prompted the use of drones. It was the want of using drones that prompted 911. I remember a NCIS show that showed the beginnings of the drones. 2003. Used for survellience at the time, but would be able to use weapons in the future. That show along with the spinoff helps naive Americans to accept the 'terrorists' are everywhere and the abuse of using traffic cams and hacking bank records along with the MIC video games.
They keep jamming down the fear factor all the time.
Now, panetta announces that another attack will happen. Too bad we wasted trillions of dollars, millions of lives for nothing.
I wonder what you call it when we use WAR FIGHTERS to do Police Work! Interpol could have done the job, if we hadn't turned the middle-east into a dammed War-Zone! With alot less cost and alot less cold-blooded Murder/ sorry I mean collateral damage!
Terrorism is a crime, War is a political statement! I with to hell our Politicans knew the differance! >^^<
The members of Himmler's Schutzstaffeln (the SS, for short), or Security Brigades, had a similar problem: they had to be trained to overcome their moral scruples and sentiments to carry out their murderous and gruesome deeds. The SS bred a race of men of steel whose Christian morality was expunged from them.
For a lot of them, SS activity was remarkably consonant with Christian morality to start with.
Exactly! Crusades ring a bell?
I recall the Spanish Inquisition also had the Vatican's stamp of moral approval. Nothing 'un-Christian' about torture and mass murder. I mean, Jesus! The symbol of the religion is their god tortured and murdered, and they revel in this image.
How sick is a religion that deliberately glorifies a good man nailed and dying on a crucifix? Would it have been that difficult to glorify Christ's image and fix it in the imaginations of his followers as the person who delivered the Sermon on the mount? The crucifix image seems to be one that says, "This is your lot in life. This is what the best of us endured, so shut the fuck up if you think you've got it bad".
"After Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush moved to authorize covert action, including for those responsible for the 9/11 attacks.": So, um, why are Cheney and the other PNAC signatories still among the living?
"American citizens can be targets, too. Under the legal authority for the drone program, the CIA must consult the National Security Council before capturing an American posing an imminent threat, but no additional consultation is required to kill an American, a former senior intelligence official said."
What a "Brave New World" we live in.
Does that mean in the USA, too? I think it does, but they let it seem it only applies to bad citizens who decide to live among Muslims. We have whole neighborhoods of Muslims in many major US cities. When will the drones strike? After the 2012 elections?
That's the Patriot Act for ya! We're all targets on a list. Just waitin for our number to come up.
Osama as I am coming to understand was sofar gone (Diabeties/old-age) that he wasn't evpect to live out the year, that's why killing him became so important after 10yrs.
I wonder who is number one now!
As far as the drone issue qwe've had those since the 70s in the form of independly targetable ballistic missles.
Iraq is just the base we need to assure our oil for thte next 100yrs, after that we'll leave and they can go back to killing each other for the mosqe they goto to or the flavor of Islam. they worship.
When will the first rocket be fired, or bomb be dropped, or cruise missile be fired from a drone inside the U.S.? Will drone attacks inside the U.S. replace or become a complement to SWAT teams? Will drone attacks be used against "suspected" drug smugglers? Wow! Did you see that tractor trailer just explode? If someone believes this will not occcur, then someone is sadly deluded.
According to the far left newspaper USA Today, cops conduct from 70,000 to 80,000 no knock (read SWAT) raids every year. They don't mention that 99.9% of those occur in minority neighborhoods so whiteys don't have this special direct experience with government action. It is a short step from sending in storm troopers to sending in bombs. Back in 1985, the Philadelphia cops bombed a black neighborhood, so we have precedent.
Discussion in the MSM of this matter has been scant. In a "Washington Week" in April of this year, reporters discussed the possibility of killing Gaddafi with a drone. Someone said the intent of a policy authorizing that would be to persuade him to leave the country out of fear of being assassinated. Such use of the drones would clearly be terrorism, a fact not mentioned by the reporters. Don't hold your breath waiting for someone who is allowed to question Obama or his minions to ask if the administration agrees that the use of drones is terrorism. Progressives know the answer; most U.S. citizens have given the matter no thought.
##As long as we can justify attacking and killing human beings, and causing "collateral damage," in warfare, we've forfeited some of our humanity, regardless of what weapons we use. But there are international limits, even though war remains acceptable internationally. Should the use of drones be banned the way chemical and nuclear weapons have been? Should it be prohibited to deliver missiles, bullets, or bombs, by drone? Is it acceptable to kill people or destroy infrastructure by rockets seeming to appear out of nowhere? Is it morally acceptable for people to sit in rooms thousands of miles from the scene of murderous destruction and cause such destruction the way kids play computer games? Since people targeted by such attacks consider them terrorism, does their use really help us in the "war on terror"?
##Should we limit use of drones to destruction of infrastructure found by rigorous investigation to be havens for the enemy? Should each attack be preceded by a warning that at some time, the attack will occur? Should removal of non-combatants before a drone attack be a high priority? Should assassinations by drone be prohibited? (Since it didn't happen, there seems to be an unspoken NATO policy that Qaddafi shouldn’t be assassinated by drone.)
##These are very serious questions that should have been the subject of extensive national discussion months, even years, ago. And reporters should have raised these questions. But we all know the major MSM outlets (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, CNN, etc.) don't include people who ponder moral issues.
##It's only a matter of time until drones launched by other countries could be flown over the U.S. For this reason, if no other, it's in the interest of the U.S. that other nations, through the U.N., NATO, and other international bodies, have a role in determining the use parameters of these weapons, as is the case with atomic weapons and biological and chemical agents. But the U.S. must not wait for international opinion to develop. It's more than obvious that to date, the drones have worsened world-wide hatred toward the U.S. This makes it urgent for the U.S. to take unilateral action to forbid improper use of the weapons, if moral objections in themselves aren't enough to trigger such action.
##The very idea of legitimate use of weapons like this is abhorrent. However, the most we can expect from a discussion of the morality of their use is strict control of their use.
##[I apologize for using "##" to mark paragraphs. Haven't been able to figure out how to put in paragraph spaces. If someone can explain how to do that, I'll see if I can revise this comment accordingly.]
Observe the following character string: < b r > < b r >
Imagine that string with no spaces between the first < and the last >
Typing the string without spaces is one way to create paragraph breaks.
Just after this line I typed < b r > < b r > but without thte spaces...
... and created a new paragraph beginning here.
If you want HTML tags to appear literally in your text, without having to put spaces around them and then explain that one mustn't use spaces in the actual tags, encode less than signs as < and greater than signs as > For example, the string <br> will appear in your comment as <br>.
Also, just for the record, the paragraph tag, <p>, is the normal way to make paragraph breaks. A single <p> should make a new paragraph, but the Common Dreams software treats <p> as if it were the line break tag, <br>, so you have to do two <p>'s in a row to get a paragraph break. That is, <p><p> produces the same results as <br><br>.
re "most we can expect from a discussion of the morality of their use is strict control of their use."
What I can expect is that any discussion will largely be moot.
Since 9-11, not only has it become standard procedure to 'rendition' others to a remote location for 'enhanced interrogation', or to remotely and extrajudicially assassinate whichever enemy du jour requires liquidation...
But justice itself, for reasons of 'national security' has been offshored to a remote, undisclosed location. Let's see attorneys try to get Pentagon officials to 'discuss' the matter, to work on strong, and 'constitutional' limits to drone use... More likely, we'll have a newsbrief about the secret, 'but scrupulously ethical' panel that reviewed and authorized continued, ramped-up even, use of this powerful new 'defensive tool' that protects our men in uniform, and sends a strong deterrent signal to those who would seek to harm our freedoms.
Anyone think it will ever be otherwise?
Justice is the interest of the stronger. Thrasymachus, Plato's Republic. We have come down to this. Nothing but power matters. Not empathy, not human decency, just power.
Sadly true. Even the ancients were well aware of this.
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
—Thucydides
Discussion in the MSM of this matter has been scant. In a "Washington Week" in April of this year, reporters discussed the possibility of killing Gaddafi with a drone. Someone said the intent of a policy authorizing that would be to persuade him to leave the country out of fear of being assassinated. Such use of the drones would clearly be terrorism, a fact not mentioned by the reporters. Don't hold your breath waiting for someone who is allowed to question Obama or his minions to ask if the administration agrees that the use of drones is terrorism. Progressives know the answer; most U.S. citizens have given the matter no thought.As long as we can justify attacking and killing human beings, and causing "collateral damage," in warfare, we've forfeited some of our humanity, regardless of what weapons we use. But there are international limits, even though war remains acceptable internationally. Should the use of drones be banned the way chemical and nuclear weapons have been? Should it be prohibited to deliver missiles, bullets, or bombs, by drone? Is it acceptable to kill people or destroy infrastructure by rockets seeming to appear out of nowhere? Is it morally acceptable for people to sit in rooms thousands of miles from the scene of murderous destruction and cause such destruction the way kids play computer games? Since people targeted by such attacks consider them terrorism, does their use really help us in the "war on terror"?Should we limit use of drones to destruction of infrastructure found by rigorous investigation to be havens for the enemy? Should each attack be preceded by a warning that at some time, the attack will occur? Should removal of non-combatants before a drone attack be a high priority? Should assassinations by drone be prohibited? (Since it didn't happen, there seems to be an unspoken NATO policy that Qaddafi shouldn’t be assassinated by drone.)These are very serious questions that should have been the subject of extensive national discussion months, even years, ago. And reporters should have raised these questions. But we all know the major MSM outlets (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, CNN, etc.) don't include people who ponder moral issues.It's only a matter of time until drones launched by other countries could be flown over the U.S. For this reason, if no other, it's in the interest of the U.S. that other nations, through the U.N., NATO, and other international bodies, have a role in determining the use parameters of these weapons, as is the case with atomic weapons and biological and chemical agents. But the U.S. must not wait for international opinion to develop. It's more than obvious that to date, the drones have worsened world-wide hatred toward the U.S. This makes it urgent for the U.S. to take unilateral action to forbid improper use of the weapons, if moral objections in themselves aren't enough to trigger such action.The very idea of legitimate use of weapons like this is abhorrent. However, the most we can expect from a discussion of the morality of their use is strict control of their use.[Comment revised to include paragraph spacing; thanks to dkshaw! In all instances, all the characters, with no spaces, were inserted.]
My mother survived WW2 in occupied Holland. She told me how V2 rockets used to frighten the Dutch population when the Germans launched them against Britain as some strayed off target and hit Holland. You could well imagine what those in Britain were thinking at the time or civilians living in Pakistan or Afghanistan today. These are convenient killing machines intended to create terror.
robvann -
Your analogy between Nazi Germany's use of the V-2 rocket during WWII and the current CIA/Pentagon use of Predator drones today is well taken. Both technological devices (land based missles and pilotless drones) kill by remote control beyond the horizon, with the human actors out of harms way and essentially faceless. In my opinion, there is absolutely no moral difference, nor legal difference under international law, for a nation state to incinerate people with a V-2 rocket or incinerate people with a Predator, anymore than there's a meaningful difference between shooting somebody with a primitive shotgun or with the latest hi tech handgun.
The historical and strategic differences are as striking as the similarities in your example. Germany and England were in a formally declared state of war, each openly seeking to make the other capitulate. Use of V-2 rocketry was a post-Dunkirk innovation. These devices augmented the manned bomber blitz that itself was strategically seen by the German military planners as a prelude to a ground invasion of the British Isles (Operation Sea Lion, eventually scrapped by Hitler).
There was no pretense that V-2's were trying to pinpoint assassinate Winston Chruchill, the Royal family, or target top individual commanders of the British war effort. The use of buzz bombs certainly was not clandestine, cloaked in deniability on the part of the Germans. The major point of the whole murderous tactical endeavor (as your post points out) appeared to be creating terror - sowing widespread pain and panic in the civilian population, basically a form of large scale psychological warfare. Secondarily, V-2's simply augmented the preexisting German bombing campaign of English cities - the purpose of which was to get the Royal Air Force off the ground, so it would be destroyed, so that the Third Reich's land invasion of Great Britain could proceed.
Well, it sure as hell didn't work, did it?
What reason is there to believe that 21st Century drones will somehow politically succeed where 20th Century V-2's or massive carpet bombing by conventional piloted aircraft universally failed?
Bill from Saginaw
So much wrong here...where to begin?First of all (maybe?) the invocation and adoption of the good old WW II glory days of the OSS on the say-so of Michael Hayden? Because "It is as intensely operational as it's ever been."(?)And then all that drivel about what this or that executive order meant. If there were questions, why didn't they just fucking ask? I suppose believable deniability might be invoked here. After all, imagine requesting or demanding that a leader provide leadership. And then, there's all that delicious power one is afforded when operating under such ambiguity.Or how about the claim that, "...the covert program, has killed about 2,000 militants with drones, U.S. officials say...", with no reference to the innumerable cases of proven "collateral damage."There's more, but this comment is too long already. This can hardly be an example of what critics in the past extolled as a clear separation between the editorial and the news-reporting functions of the Wall Street journal.
terrorism: any act of aggression against the US or its military forces
militant: anyone killed by US military forces or black ops
See how easy that is...
Nazis overcame philosophical, legal misgivings, too.
"The CIA, which doesn't formally acknowledge the covert program, has killed about 2,000 militants with drones, U.S. officials say, most in the past two years as President Barack Obama's national security team aggressively expanded the program."
Leave it to the right-wing WSJ to omit the fact that these same drones have killed over 10 times that number in innocent civilians during the same time-period. Also ommitting the fact that many of the so-called "militants" killed were assumed to be so, without any definitive proof, and that each drone attack is in fact in violation of U.S. and international law, which states that assassinations without due process are illegal.
But hey - details, shmetails.
Oh, come on now. This is the greatest country in the world, always has been, always will be. American exceptionalism, the indispensible country, dictates that every single act by this greatest of all countries is by definition good, righteous and just. Try and get with the program, willya?
You're right, I keep forgetting that. Even when the U.S. murders, er, I mean "causes collateral damage" to 100,000+ innocent civilians like we did in Iraq, that was not evil or bad or a war crime, because God blesses Amereicha. Now if, say, Iran were to kill 100,000 civilians THAT would be evil. Thanks for straightening me out.
Demonstorm, Don't talk about those 100,000+ innocent civilians. We're busy now mourning 3,000 in this country. You'll notice that in the coming commemorations, no MSM reports will mention the non-U.S. innocent victims of terrorism -- whether victims of our terrorism, or victims of our response to 9/11. No grieving survivors in Iraq or Afghanistan will be interviewed and hugged by commiserating reporters.
Demonstorm, Well said!
Yes, well said, by the way.
I will add to the chorus of approval with a, 'hear hear'!
The fact that predator drones kill far more civilians than "militants" is sufficient grounds to have them labelled as indiscriminate weapons. Indiscriminate weapons are illegal under international law.
Furthermore, these "militants" are mostly people who are attempting to defend their countries from US invaders. So tell me, Mr Obama, Mr. Pentagon spokesman, and all you low-lifes millionaires in Congress, how does that make it morally acceptable for us to murder them?
Excellent post by Manning.
Our leaders have become mad. The US is now the leading terrorist nation in the world. American democracy has been destroyed in order for the rich capitalists to rule the world and make money on every human transaction. Profits are their God. All this is called the New World Order backed up by the American Empire. . Not only has American democracy been destroyed, but Christianity in America has lost its moral force. Christianity in America with its Gospel of prosperity has walked away from the mind of Christ. Christianity in America is now a phony religion, with rare exceptions. Shame, shame shame on our churches that speak nothing of this. The collection boxes now rules Christianity in America. As a nation, the US no longer understands what it means to be truly human.
yup.
"Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty".
—George Washington
"The worst forms of tyranny, or certainly the most successful ones, are not those we rail against but those that so insinuate themselves into the imagery of our consciousness, and the fabric of our lives, as not to be perceived as tyranny."
—Michael Parenti
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
–John F. Kennedy,
Drone's are just a reverse form of American terrorism dressed in Nationalism.
Well said, Stone... May I use this?
I long for the days of just "Black Helicopters". At least then you had personal contact with those killing you.
Perhaps the only thing worse than the use of drones for the targeted assassination of alleged terrorists is the invasion, occupation and counter-insurancy use of military power for the alleged purpose of counter-terrorism.
Whatever the means the United States government has long been engaged in acts of terrorism.
Predator drones do, however, make it much easier to bring terrorism to a neighborhood near you.
What's more predator drones are proliferating. The extra-legal assassination of alleged terrorists and the inevitable killing of innocent people is disgusting and dangerous. How long before drone attacks become the new normal for all of us, wherever we live on the planet?
And sooner or later a hacker?
Bill Blum has said for a long time that a terrorist is just someone with a bomb and no air force.
Or, as Peter Ustinov put it: "Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich."
Obama supporters, and all those who simply believe its 'more sensible' to vote blue than red in 2012, take a close look at the above photo.
That's what you have become.
Rogue One this is Central:
This is Rogue One: We have visual. Target in sight.
Copy: * You have acquired identification?
Affirmative Central we have... wait, I can't tell if it is certified. Checking corporate data for crop identification.
Roger Rogue One, waiting for confirmation.
Oh boy! Central; appears this farmer signed last week. We are clear for next on daily. Phew* glad we averted that disaster!
Copy that Rogue One! clear for number 7.
( there will be plenty for all kinds of terror)