babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Drone Me Down on the Killing Floor
June 16, 2012 - 4:34am
Drone Me Down on the Killing Floor - by Pepe Escobar
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31593.htm
"..Any self-respecting jurist would have to draw the inevitable conclusion; the United States of America is now outside International law - as rogue a state as they come, with the Drone Empire enshrined as the ultimate expression of shadow-war.."
all about drones - 'killer', 'predator', 'reaper' etc..
Did he mean to write "relays the info that suits its contingencies..."?
If the Pakistani army intelligence is still in bed with the American CIA since their parntership began with the Talibanization of 1980's-90's Pakistan and Afghanistan and ongoing today, then surely Pakistan is a deeply corrupt nation run by a tiny elite few seeking "strategic depth in Afghanistan" same as before.
And surely the dramatic takedown of Usama bin Laden in Abbatobad was a complete fabrication without any evidence whatsoever for their extraordinary claims. Charade they are.
Our Drone Planet: Interview with Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse on the Past, Present and Future of Drones
http://www.hnn.us/articles/146912.htm
Alberta Set to Become Hub for Drone Innovation (and vid)
http://presstv.com/detail/2012/09/05/259919/alberta-hub-drone-innovation/
"They fly, they spy, they kill. Drone innovators are seeking to establish a National Drone Testing Centre in Alberta and are requesting that the government relax laws restricting the useage of drones in civilian airspace.."
Murder and Trauma In Our Name: America's Drone Terrorism
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/19/americas-drone-terrorism/
CIA Chiefs Face Arrest Over Horrific Evidence of Bloody Video-Game Sorties
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220828/CIA-chiefs-face-arrest-h...
"...I am told that the people who push the buttons to fire the missiles call these strikes 'bug-splats'. It is beyond my imagination how they can lack all mercy and compassion, and carry on doing this for years...?"
Israel: Misuse of Drones Killed Civilians in Gaza
http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/06/30/israel-misuse-drones-killed-civilians...
"Israeli attacks with guided missiles fired from aerial drones killed civilians during the recent Gaza fighting in violation of the laws of war, HRW said in a report released today. The attacks with one of the most precise weapons in Israel's arsenal killed civilians who were not taking part in hostilities and were far away from any fighting..."
Israeli Designed Drones Fly Over Alma Quebec
http://www.cjnews.com/node/89838
Questions on Drones, Unanswered Still
How Drones Help Al Qaeda
'Mini-Drones'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4dYstnkGVo
Pakistani Group Sues Over Assassination Drone Attacks (and vid)
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/04/270338/pakistani-group-sues-us-o...
'Pakistan Government Absolutely Incapable of Defending Frontier' (and vid)
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/04/270420/pakistan-govt-cant-defend...
"Despite a resolution passed by the parliament of Pakistan to stop US drone attacks on its soil, there has been a complete failure of action taken against the continued attacks.."
Continuing Devastating US War Crimes - by Nat Hentoff
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/continuing-devastating-us-wa...
"...Drones, she wrote, after spending weeks in North Waziristan, 'are a constant presence...with as many as six hovering over villages at any one time. People hear them day and night. They are an inescapable presence, the looming specter of death from above. And that presence is steadily destroying a community..."
and some names of those to be killed, (but not the kids or other 'collaterals') are personally chosen by the peace laureate president so loved by so many here..
Drone Warfare - review
Another review
excerpt:
Moreover, the rise in use of drones by the military has caused a military culture clash as seasoned fighter pilots question the experience of ‘pilots’ who have never seen the inside of a cockpit. In another scary development, private contractors and other non-military agencies, including the State Department have drones, with non-soldiers at the controls, and the massive increase in the use of drones requires even more pilots, causing a sharp drop in entry and training standards.
The market for drones is increasing worldwide, and U.S. use of drones has greatly expanded under, as Benjamin reminds us, “the Nobel Peace Prize winning President Obama.” Drone Warfare explores the high demand for drones, and details their uses as tracking, monitoring, and killing machines. The book has plenty of unsurprising information on the insidiousness of the usual culprits from the military industrial complex, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing, among others, and their sales to questionable regimes.
What is astounding is Benjamin’s description of the domestic use of drones along the U.S. border by both state and local law enforcement agencies and the serious threat to American privacy raised by Obama’s direction to the Federal Aviation Administration to integrate drone programs.
Furthermore, Benjamin documents the appalling use of drones by the CIA and the administration to kill U.S. citizens without trial, or even without charges being brought against them. Benjamin funnels legitimate outrage into a constructive argument that clearly explains how the use of these unmanned aerial vehicles as judge, jury, and executioner is entirely extrajudiciary, and violates the right-to-self-defense precedent under international law as well as other just war principles.
My favourite review of the book: Drone Warfare: Killing By Remote Control
excerpt:
In Drone Warfare, a haunting piece of investigative journalism, Medea Benjamin puts to rest any illusions of drones being a more humane and precise way of engaging in war and points to the reality of human suffering, of villages being destroyed because of alleged connections to “militant” groups. People are reduced to demographics and mercilessly slaughtered by someone behind a computer a world away. And this happens, in the main, without even the formalities of war. It is instead an assassination program, of highly dubious legality, whose collateral damage or unintended consequences are the many destroyed villages, the wounded and the dying.
excerpt:
Behind it all is the insidious face of corporate greed. The drone market is a growth market, and is set to become even bigger. In the meantime, in the theoretical world of robotics, a brave new future is being envisioned when drones may be equipped with technology that can “hunt, identify, and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans. (Benjamin, 159)
Confronting the horrifying reality, and disturbing visions of the future, Benjamin raises a call to action. Governments must not be allowed to murder with impunity, noxious technologies should not be unquestionably accepted under the all-encompassing rubric of “security.” The barbarism of sitting in an air-conditioned room destroying the livelihoods of others thousands of miles away is perverse and will come back to haunt America. We must not allow killing to be made easy. Benjamin warns:
Drones aren’t a unique evil – but that’s just the point. Drones don’t revolutionize surveillance; they are a progressive evolution in making spying, at home and abroad, more pervasive. Drones don’t revolutionize warfare; they are, rather, a progressive evolution in making murder clean and easy. That’s why the increased reliance on drones for killing and spying is not to be praised, but refuted. And challenged. (Benjamin, 215.)
Drone Warfare is a clearly written analysis of the dismal reality underlying the banal rhetoric of the “war on terror.” It is a wake-up call to the ongoing, excessive, and racist violence perpetrated by the military-industrial complex under the (increasingly thinning) auspices of democratic government. It is a call to create a more human world.
So who is it that they claim to be killing with their robotic drones? What is their justification for drones?
Fidel most of us think they lie so who cares what they say in public. Spies and other security agents lie as part of their job so nothing they say can be trusted. Like in crime the best idea is usually to follow the money. in imperialism the best idea is to follow the resources. All the rest is just misdirection. I know I don't care to spend my life proving spies lie because I already know that and besides American intelligence is an oxymoron.
Should we invade Mali to stop al-Qaeda? Look at Somalia first This GobNPail article mentions drones a number of times.
And, ahhem! It appears that our colder warriors are concerned about some sort of invisible army of darkness or some such. Sounds like a phony enemy as far as I can tell.
Scuse. Carry on.
EXCLUSIVE: Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on Americans
“This is a chilling document,” said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU, which is suing to obtain administration memos about the targeted killing of Americans. “Basically, it argues that the government has the right to carry out the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen. … It recognizes some limits on the authority it sets out, but the limits are elastic and vaguely defined, and it’s easy to see how they could be manipulated.”
Drone Strike Limitations Considered By Congress After Justice Department Memo Surfaces
CNN (at confirmation hearing for new CIA warmonger):
Number of drones launched
Bush: less than 50
Obama: more than 360 so far
Drones, Surveillance Towers, Malls of the Spy State, and the National Security Police on the Northern Border
quote:
Perhaps Tussing realizes that his audience holds a new breed of border-security entrepreneur when his initial Army-Marine joke falls flat. Behind the small audience are booths from 74 companies selling their border-security wares. These nomadic malls of the surveillance state are popping up in ever more places each year.
Hanging from the high ceiling is a white surveillance aerostat made by an Israeli company. Latched onto the bottom of this billowing balloon are cameras that, even 150 feet away, can zoom in on the comments I’m scrawling in my notebook. Nearby sits a mannequin in a beige body suit, equipped with a gas mask. It’s all part of the equipment and technology that the developing industry has in mind for our southern border, and increasingly the northern one as well.
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/02/07-5
The US Drone Assassination Program and the Threat of Dictatorship - by Bill Van Auken
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/02/09/pers-f09.html
"Some press accounts of the hearing have referred to Brennan being 'grilled' on the US drone assassination program. On the contrary, the proceedings resembled nothing so much as a well-fed cat being questioned by a panel of skittish mice."
Obama’s Expanding Kill List
75% of Americans approve of bipartisan war parties'/Murder Inc.'s extrajudicial killings.
US Plans To Use Drones At Home (and vid)
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/02/20/289873/us-plans-to-use-drones-a...
"According to reports the US Department of Homeland Security is moving ahead on its plan to use surveillance drones for the purported aim of 'public safety applications'..."
Harper, No Attack Drones!
Sign/Circulate the Petition
http://www.ceasefire.ca?p=14962