Posts tagged drones

Is Lockheed Martin funding ‘drone outrage’? 10:21 am / 02 May 2013 by Charles Davis, at false dichotomy by charles davis

Outrage over the unilateral, arbitrary killing of people from Pakistan to Yemen with unmanned US military aircraft – drones – is growing beyond just the regions being bombed and the offices of CODEPINK. It's even sneaking its way into the US Senate, if only for a hearing. Though opposition to remote-controlled killing may not be mainstream, now it's at least being acknowledged. But is this outrage being bankrolled by the military-industrial complex?

That's what one military expert who has never served in a military is suggesting. On Twitter, the armchair warrior who goes by the name “The War Nerd” posted that he keeps “having this feeling that a big part of the drone outrage is funded by Lockheed Martin.” It was a bold claim, backed by the argument that “Defense [sic] is all about $” and a fighter jet costs a lot more than a drone. The post was subsequently shared by a number of left-wing journalists, primarily his colleagues at the Not Safe for Work (NSFW) Corporation, an outlet that is essentially Playboy without the pictures.

But is it true? Well, if Lockheed Martin is fueling outrage over drones, as some on the left are now suggesting, it is going about it in a most curious way. Indeed, it almost appears as if the the world's largest military contractor is funding support for drones, aware that while they might sell for less than a jet, that only means the government can buy more of them.

For instance, consider: The chairman of the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus, which exists to “[s]upport policies and budgets” that promote the increased use of drones, is California Republican Buck McKeon, who also chairs the House Armed Services Committee. McKeon's top campaign contributor? Yeah, it's Lockheed Martin. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who co-chairs the caucus – stacked with dozens of the best friends the military-industrial complex ever had – also gets cash from Lockheed Martin. In fact, the Bethesda, Maryland-based company gives more money to congressional drone advocates from border states (that is, the politically more important ones) than any of its competitors.

Another way Lockheed Martin is financing opposition to President Barack Obama's drone wars in perplexingly bizarre ways is by funding a favorable PBS documentary on the “Rise of Drones.” And by ramping up its own production of unmanned aircraft and buying out its drone-manufacturing competitors. And by building planes that carry drones. And by building the “video-game-like interface” that helps drone operators pilot Lockheed Martin's drones.

It is all very strange, isn't it? Why would a firm that manufactures drones and drone-supporting congressmen and drone-carrying planes and drone-flying computers be funding opposition to its products? It just doesn't make sense. It's kind of stupid, really. It's really stupid.

Say what you will about America's merchants of death, the folks running Lockheed Martin have been pretty adept at making money. Last year, the company had revenues of over $47 billion, more than 80 percent of which came from the US government. They would not, it seems, be dumb enough to bankroll a campaign against a technology they tell their investors is one of their key “growth opportunities.” The simple answer to why Lockheed Martin would be funding outrage over drones is: Um, it wouldn't be. It's not. Wait, do I smell booze on your breath?

And that raises its own question: If Lockheed Martin is clearly not behind drone outrage, who is funding the shoot-from-the-gut conspiracy that said outrage over drones is being driven by something other than dead bodies? Corporate America, actually. Mr. Nerd, as a staff writer for NSFW, is paid for by way of a generous grant from executives at the online shoe store Zappos, a subsidiary of sweatshop titan Amazon.com. And his colleagues are just as divisively conspiratorial, it turns out, with one positing that the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” was a CIA plot to turn Americans against Muslims, a theory that similarly furthered the right-wing agenda by dividing the left – or at least seeking to – and furthered the gross, right-wing-approved narrative that there was something inherently fishy about Muslims building a place of worship in Manhattan.

Conspiracy theories have been crafted out of less.
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The Soldierless War Is Here. 11:49 am / 29 April 2013 by ann arky, at annarky's blog.


       The soldierless war creeps ever closer and closer. We can now strike at the heart of communities from a comfortable office. Young people can sit at what would resemble a games console and mark up their score in hits, oblivious to the terror and carnage that is happening as they watch a screen and push an innocuous button. A family wiped out, a village destroyed and they didn't get off their backsides. Drones, for surveillance, drones for destruction, drones for home and drones for abroad. Control and carnage from an air conditioned office block near you. 
This from Stop The War Coalition, CND, War On Want, Drone Campaign Network:

      Last Saturday saw hundreds march to RAF Waddington against the UK government's use of Drones in Afghanistan, now controlled from the military airbase near Lincoln. The largest demonstration against drones to date brought together Stop the War, War on Want, the Drone Campaign Network and CND and more than 600 members of the public to launch a national campaign against drones.
       The pressure of our campaign has already been felt after the Ministry of Defence was forced to admit just two days before the protest that the Waddington control centre is now in operation. But much of the secrecy about how British drones are being used, and the threat of new interventions, remains.
      A comment in January by the Secretary of State for Defence showed just how easy a new intervention might be when he had turned down a request from France to send drones to Mali because of the "unacceptable impact on our operations in Afghanistan". The question of whether or not British people want a new war in Mali was not even raised.
    The widespread media coverage on drones that Saturday's demonstration has provoked has started an important debate about their use and showed just how important a strong anti-drones campaign will be in the coming months.

Stop the War would like to thank all those who participated in Saturday's successful demo
  • Read the report from Common Dreams on the Ground the Drones demo, including TV reports from Sky and the BBC
  • David Shariatmadari argues that drones might be changing more minds about war now that killing is conducted from our doorstep
Sign our petition and share with your friends
  • Already signed by former archbishop Dr Rowan Williams, Dennis Halliday (former UN Assistant Secretary-General) and almost 4000 others. Please sign our petition to call on the government to abandon the use of drones as a weapon of war.

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Beheading And Other State Murders. 10:20 am / 16 March 2013 by ann arky, at annarky's blog.


       With so many weird opinions floating around on the internet, I had to convince myself while reading this article on Jadaliyya, on the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, that it was indeed irony.


Even though “[t]he beheading issue has always been a source of tension between Saudi Arabia and the international community,” the international community is not satisfied with this new approach. Having a whole bunch of people stand in front of a man, look directly at him as others are watching, and fire directly at him, is just so passé and, in the final analysis, not just inhumane, but also (please don’t let any children who watch CNN read this next word) graphic. Why can’t the Saudi Government kill in a civilized manner like the U.S. government does, with drones. Let someone else clean up the mess. And you don’t have to face your victims (and their families/neighbors/walkers by) after killing them. The Mideast policy preferences of the two countries almost mirror each other, so why not take them a step further? After all, what can go wrong with killing criminals and terrorists?
Read the full article HERE.

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Those Office Killer Soldiers. 1:02 am / 12 March 2013 by ann arky, at annarky's blog.


    Drones are hyped as the smart clinical method of dealing with the "really bad guys" of this world, but the truth is that they are weapons of terror. They create terror when ever they are sighted over an area and result in all sort of psychological problems for those who live in or near the area where they are used. This is over and above the sudden and brutal carnage caused by their devastating fire-power. These weapons of terror are used by Britain and the US to kill in other sovereign states without any declaration of war, illegal under international law. There is a feeling of helplessness, fear and hyper anxiety in men women and children when these killers fly overhead, for good reason. These are not surgical weapons, they can wipe-out a small village in one fell swoop and the perpetrators  will call it a success if among the many killed and maimed their appointed target lies dead.
      We are under the illusion that this is a solely America crime, but the UK is up to its armpits in this illegal, soldierless program of terror and assassination. It is no more than we should expect from any state. States will always use whatever means is at their disposal to maintain their power, no matter how fiendish, vile, brutal or how dubious its legality they may be, just as long as they can get away with it covertly or overtly. It is all part and parcel of their game of empire.

 An armed Reaper over Afghanistan (U.S. Air Force/Lt Col Leslie Pratt/ Flickr)

This from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
    Legal proceedings were begun in London recently against British Foreign Secretary William Hague, over possible British complicity in CIA drone strikes.
     Britain’s GCHQ – its secret monitoring and surveillance agency – is reported to have provided ‘locational evidence’ to US authorities for use in drone strikes, a move which is reportedly illegal in the United Kingdom.
Also this:
    One psychiatrist told researchers that many of his patients experience ‘anticipatory anxiety,’ a constant fear that they might come under attack. The report goes on to note that:
"Interviewees described emotional breakdowns, running indoors or hiding when drones appear above, fainting, nightmares and other intrusive thoughts, hyper startled reactions to loud noises, outbursts of anger or irritability, and loss of appetite and other physical symptoms. Interviewees also reported suffering from insomnia and other sleep disturbances, which medical health professionals in Pakistan stated were prevalent.’---"

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The Advance of the Soldier-less War. 7:01 am / 07 March 2013 by ann arky, at annarky's blog.

     War is always a brutal nightmare, but the rapid advancement of the "soldier-less war" takes us into the realms of some science fiction horror movie. The idea of states controlling vast swaths of the planet by a bunch of youngsters sitting in a comfortable office near their home, in front of their console, boringly doing their 9-to-5 job, must be the nightmare of nightmares. Brutal death and devastation administered from a swivel-chair in an air conditioned office by people who have no conception of the death and destruction that they are implementing. It separates real bloodshed and death from the reality of those administering the devastation.
This appeal from Stop The War Coalition:

  Ground the Drones - sign the petition
    Stop Britain being a launchpad for killer drones. We call on the government to abandon the use of drones as a weapon of war.
     Signed by: Chris Cole (Drone Campaign Network); Jeremy Corbyn (MP for Islington North); Lindsey German (Convenor, Stop the War Coalition); Kate Hudson (CND); Rafeef Ziahdah (War On Want).
This spring, the UK will double its number of armed Reaper drones in Afghanistan and will for the first time begin operating drones over Afghanistan from a new facility at RAF Waddington near Lincoln.
    CND, Drone Campaign Network, Stop the War Coalition, War on Want and others will protest against the drones at RAF Waddington, Lincoln on the 27 April.

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The enabling opposition 2:23 pm / 22 February 2013 by Charles Davis, at false dichotomy by charles davis

My latest column for Al Jazeera addresses progressive Democrats and their faux-opposition to murder by drone. Check it out, kid.

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Imperialist Office Warriors. 6:23 am / 14 February 2013 by ann arky, at annarky's blog.


      President Obama's inaugural speech last month was the voice of hypocrisy, The Prince of Peace stated, and stated without a hint of embarrassment, that “A decade of war is now ending,” --”We, the people, still believe that enduring and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.” What that translates into is, “We will not be sending so many of you overseas to kill and maim, you will be able to do this from a comfortable office in Nevada and Saudi Arabia.
     We are now seeing foreign invading troops preparing to leave Afghanistan without having achieved their object, since nobody seems to be able to say what was the object. That doesn't mean the end of the military campaign, the war will continue from computer screens in the form of drones. According to a report from the area of North Waziristan, from 2008 to 1012, there have been around 147 drone strikes, killing 894 people with 211 injured. This year has seen an escalation in the number of drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen.
      The face of imperialist wars is changing, weapon laden armour plated boots will still be called on to do some of the dirty work, but this will be their cleaning up operations. The real slaughter will be done by young smooth faced office workers, sitting at their desks marking up scores on hits, just like any other computer game. Only this time it is for real, real bodies being blown to bits, real children dying, real homes being demolished. No need to be a battle hardened trained killer, you can make you way up the military ladder by having the highest score of hits in the office.
       Just to encourage those 9 to 5 office work killers and make them feel part of the “hero” brigade, they are considering creating a medal for the cyber-killers. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta recently announced that the Pentagon is creating a medal that can be awarded to troops who have a direct impact on combat operations, but do it well away from any combat zone.
     To those on the receiving end of drone warfare, the result is just as bloody, destructive and terrifying as any other type of warfare. There is no such thing as clean humane warfare. Drones of course sanitise it for the perpetrators of that destructive violence. You can kill from 9 to 5 and then go home to your family and have a night out. This is the new imperialist warfare. In an interview Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta. Asked by journalist Martha Raddatz whether the 2014 pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan would mean an increased reliance on drones, Panetta said: “ I think that's reality. We've done that in Pakistan. We're doing it in Yemen and elsewhere. And I think the reality is it's going to be a continuing tool of national defense in the future.”
     There is a ready trained army of computer literate kids, experts at computer games all well able to spend a few hours a day playing their game and getting paid and walking away as if it were “just a game”. It is a frightening thought, but it is our future, unless we do something to change the system.
 
 
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DRONES AND MASS KILLINGS. 5:11 am / 15 December 2012 by ann arky, at annarky's blog.

   
  A relevant comment from "An Elegant Feast":
  
      The media has another sensationalist story about gun violence to push, and they are going to push it, hard.  And of course, anytime a child dies, it’s a tragedy.  When it occurs with violent, brutal force, it is especially repulsive.  But there is something even more disgusting than this.  When we only concentrate on the deaths of american children that are murdered by a mentally disturbed individual, we offer silent complicity to the scores of children that the US government murders in cold, rational, calculation.  According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the US government has killed 176 children with drone strikes in Pakistan.  Where is the outrage for those deaths?  I guess when it occurs at the hand of Obama and Clinton, it becomes convenient for the media and the so-called american left to look the other way.  The consummate celebrity, Obama had a press conference to show his tears to anyone who could stomach them.  If the sight of a crass, unrelenting killer is so upsetting for the president, someone needs to quickly remove every mirror from the white house.
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BOMBING THEM IN TO DEMOCRACY. 2:24 am / 11 December 2012 by ann arky, at annarky's blog.


      One feature of Western foreign policy is that other countries can't create democracy without the might of the Western military and Western government intervention. The powers that be preach this idiotic message that for democracy to spread anywhere in the world, it needs the fire power of the West, of course ignoring the fact that we don't have democracy here. People across the world can't do that for themselves, the ordinary people of Pakistan and Yemen can't have democracy unless we go in with our drones and special forces. The West's big lie is that by its war on terror, it is spreading democracy, when in fact they are creating chaos in an attempt at permanent domination.
This from Freedom Socialist Party (US):
      Who knows how many die from these attacks, since they are carried out secretly by the CIA. And civilian casualties are falsely minimized by counting every male of military age an enemy combatant. I guess “Kill-them-all” is the policy at hand. Hundreds of non-combatants have died, including a good many little girls and boys.
Obviously, this didn’t just start with Obama. Pakistan, the sixth most populous country in the world and territorially home to several ancient cultures, was artificially created in 1947 by the British Empire. From the beginning, the country has been dominated by a right-wing military, backed first by Great Britain and then the United States.
Since the 1980s war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, Pakistan’s state apparatus has been mixed up with the Islamic fundamentalists in both countries. In fact, the Taliban was nurtured and funded by the United States in Afghanistan. So much for the myth that the U.S. brings secular democracy and women’s equality to the Middle East.
      Only the people themselves can do that, and they are trying desperately. Before she was attacked, Malala said, “If the new generation is not given pens, they will be given guns by the terrorists. We must raise our voice.”
      Forty-four years ago (1968) Pakistanis, with women in the forefront, launched a stunning revolution. They forced a dictator to abdicate and ran society for 139 days. Workers occupied factories, peasants seized land, and students took over the schools and colleges. This can happen again and I have no doubt that Malala Yousafzai, and other determined young women and men like her, will be a part of that struggle.
Read the full article HERE:

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BIG BROTHER IS RELENTLESS. 1:12 pm / 24 September 2012 by ann arky, at annarky's blog.


     How long before we see them over head here, as we go about our normal business. Big Brother has all the best of technology.
From Polizeros:
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