Has the Favorite Whine about "How DARE another nation exercise the same sovereign rights as America?" in the so called "liberal" media. Who are these phantasmal "Liberal Media" anyway? Every press, TV, and radio syndicate in the country bows down before the Police State Warmonger-Whorelords. I guess it's people who don't snap to attention and throw out the Bellamy Salute every time their Masters bark at us. Internet Journalists who point out that Sovereignty held by only one nation, even over its fellow members of a Koalition of the Killing, is NOT nationalism but instead Empire. That no person or nation has an exclusive right to espionage or other forms of violence, like the Chair Force Cowards who sit at their "video game" consoles and direct Predator Strikes against people anywhere in the world, regardless of sex, age, condition, status as civilian or military, citizenship, Even BABIES and then blame the dehumanized "Targets" for "hiding behind Civilian Human Shields". I got your "Human Shields" right here in Colorado Springs. Not uncommon anywhere in the world. You put a police station in the center of a civilian population, the pigs are using "human shields" at least according to Pentagon/ State Department logic. Ft Bliss, Texas, smack in the middle of a metropolitan area including 17 towns in three states (Texas, New Mexico, and Chihuahua Mexico) with a combined population of about three million. San Diego-TiaJuana has U.S. Military hiding behind more than FOUR Million human shields. The Great Lakes Naval Station in Chicago IL, oooohhhhh.... The CIA, Pentagon, and another web of military stations in among all the Civilian Human Shields from Baltimore to Richmond. The Brooklyn Naval Yard. Nuff said. I guess their gander isn't quite as tasty smothered in goose sauce.
Tag: Predator Drones
Six year-old on No-Fly List, 86 year-old granny tased in bed. Some “Freedom.”
Detentions without trials, evidence, warrants,... just the faceless and nameless assertion of some Torture Freak Pervert in the State Department or Homeland Security. Doesn't matter about National Sovereignty since the only National Sovereignty the Torture Freaks recognize is their own. Not the sovereignty of the American People either, just the nameless and faceless pukes who are too cowardly to put their names behind their actions in DHS and FBI and CIA and State Department and Department of "defense". Like the anonymous Coward Pukes who direct the Predator Drones. But this is the "Freedom" we're exporting to the entire world. The "Freedom" to bow before our corporate masters, people here and people abroad alike, are to bow to the so-called "free" market and their enforcers. If we don't bow to the Military-Facist-Police State stormtroopers they're entitled to use any level of force they deem necessary to force compliance. Some "Freedom". Petraeus is vowing to continue exporting that "Freedom" and jamming it down the throats of the people of Afghanistan, at gunpoint, for years, decades, generations to come. Mighty "White" of him. The 6 year old girl is named Alyssa Thomas. It's so absurd even Fox News is OUTRAGED! about it. They weren't similarly OUTRAGED against the Flying Imams being denied the right to travel, or the two cases of the Flying Rabbis who made international news for praying, in Hebrew, on flights. If this signals a change of heart on their part, and they're willing to apologize for their almost two decades of Racist slanted "journalism" that directly contributed to the current situation, and perhaps make amends in some way... Then that would be a case of Good On Them. I don't think that will happen, by the way. They'll spin away any connection they had with the No-Fly List, the so-called "Patriot" Act, any War Crimes they encouraged in the Global War On Civilization, crimes they encouraged in One-man Militia (or even bigger militia like the Minutemen) like the murder of Briseña Flores committed under the influence of Fox and Friends anti-American Hate Speech, the murders at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville Tennessee, again at their urging but they'll deny it to the hilt... unless they can find some way to spin pointing a shotgun at children in church to be a "good" thing... They spin so much their name should be Dreedle News. But, gentle readers, and even the paid-to-troll readers, remember these incidents when they're exhorting us to exalt the "Heroes" who are spreading that "Freedom" globally. Remember that it's "Freedom" to lick the boots of the Conquering Crusaders or DIE! (or be sent to the Torture Chambers) Or like the very elderly and disabled grandmother in El Reno, Oklahoma in much pain, on oxygen and was apparently too weak to get up and offer to lick the Pigs' Jackboots for them so they tasered her in her bed. Jun 25, 2010 ... EL RENO — Police officers here are being sued for using a Taser last December to ... You gotta love
2-word punchline for President Obama: Predator Drones
A protective father warns off potential First Suitors with the specter of Predator Drones. Nothing outré about gallows humor, but people might be put off when it comes from the mouth of the judge-jury-and-executioner, taking aim. Of course, what have the Jonas Brothers really to fear? --US drones strike very few of their intended targets. Collateral civilians comprise 98% of drone victims, the Pakistani people are who probably got the willies at Obama's joke. Much as the average journalist would hope to credential for the White House Correspondents Dinner, they could wonder how the Jonas Brothers got an invite. If President Obama wonders if any charges of immorality are going to stick to his administration, among the Bush legacies which he has failed to cease and desist, among them specifically extrajudicial killing, disproportionate application of force and failure to protect civilians from hostilities, I have two words: War Crimes. Or his will do: Predator Drones.
Armed UAS drones need no defending
I was curious about the etymology of the term "drone" applied to military (& DHS) Unmanned Aerial Surveillance aircraft, these days, mostly Armed. Obviously Armed UAS are not named after the stingless unproductive bees whose task it is to impregnate the queen, nor lazy idlers, nor clueless computer sales techies, nor thankless menial worker drones. Anyone who's been around Radio Controlled model planes knows drones are named for the sound they make, a steady drone as they labor across the sky. While military aerial surveillance predates the Wright Brothers, and RC model airplanes have been around for half that time, it took the advent of asymmetric warfare to open the window to military drones. Their constant buzz offering the most intractable reason. By "asymmetric" I do not mean the US intelligence code for off-textbook warfare, for counter-insurgency methods outside von Clausewitz etiquette. I mean the inherency they obscure, war between foes lopsided. Look at a drone's design. It's more Gossamer Condor than military aircraft. Obviously an unmanned vehicle comprises fewer mechanical systems because it doesn't need to propel, nor sustain, a crew of human beings. It might need less armature for the same reason, except of course, today's drones are of high value in their own right. So why no armament? Why too, no powerful jet engines or swept wings for aeronautic superiority? This drone looks about as robust as a paper glider. Laymen can distinguish bombers from jet fighters, as they can trucks from a race cars. I'd say the military drone resembles more a stick insect than its accidental namesake the bee. Do Armed UASs have no need for evasive maneuver capability? I'll ask another obvious question, why do drones carry no customary insignia designating to whose side it belongs? In particular this element would be of primary importance when encountered by other aircraft. But a drone doesn't encounter enemy aircraft, nor allied aircraft who might confuse it for belonging to an adversary, because drones operate where aerial supremacy is already absolute. The key to a drone's military usefulness is that there is no opponent to shoot it down. An Armed UAS can drone all it wants, taking its sweet time laying siege to defenseless objectives and other targets of opportunity. The US Predator or Reaper models can glide when they want to surveil in silence, although otherwise their motors project their presence with the deliberate imposition of a school hall monitor. It is more efficient to deter the placing of IEDs than to try to catch insurgents in the act. Meanwhile all civilians are terrorized by the sound, associating it with sudden, unpredictable and often unjustified destruction and death. The WWII German Stuka dive bomber had inverted gull wings which were thought to produce a horrifying wail as the notorious aircraft attacked city populations, Guernica among them. In fact the sound was produced by a siren the Nazis called Jericho's Trumpet, mounted purposefully to spread fear on the ground. Like modern drones, the Stuka were not designed to fend off attackers
Military drones mirror public retreat
CLOSE GUANTANAMO is being interpreted literally, meaning close just the facility, but move the detainees to illegal incarceration elsewhere. Likewise, BRING THE TROOPS HOME means pacing a withdrawal with an increased deployment of military drones to keep up the killing. That's what the antiwar voice gets for pandering to the American preoccupation with only our own casualties. The latest Adbusters juxtaposes these surrogate killing machines with the western public's retreat into virtual communities. Pblks' Douglas Haddow had this to say in the latest issue, about the increasing use of surveillance attack drones, while the US withdraws "troops" from its militarized war zones. ...when we remove the humans from the equation -- when war becomes literally inhuman -- what's left to debate? War crimes will become guiltless: a mere twisting of knobs. Slowly, with each OS update, innocent casualties will be curbed to an acceptable level. The Marine will be replaced by the computer programmer -- a meek nerd so far from the action as to be absolved completely of its consequences. With robots off fighting our wars for us, we'll have nothing left to do but quietly sip our lattes and liten to our iPods. While somewhere, far off in the distance, a drone may or may not be dropping 50kg units of hellfire on some yet-to-be-named combatants. It's not even post moral ... it's a Zen algorithm that melts steel. This is a strange indicator of our retreat into the virtual when you consider that our so-called enemies are willing to sacrifice everything, their own bodies and very existence for a chance to kill one or two of our soldiers. We see their tactics as irrational, and they see us perhaps as we already are: machines.
Attack Drones: Freedom is so fucked
Armchair freedom fighters like me count on there remaining some parity between the forces of oppression and man's inexorable drive to be free. Masses can repel the few, nonviolence can shame the hesitant, terrorism can haunt the genteel, IEDs can pick off the occupiers, training can dispatch the sentries, but how to overcome automatons? We've confronted impregnable drones in scifi movies, and now such drones have become reality. They're bits of nothing in the air really, but a literal boatload of firepower has got their back. The Economist reports that drones can monitor the activity of shoeboxes from an altitude of near-space, beyond the range of an RPG fired from a hot air balloon. A drone's vulnerability remains its communications channels, but even intercepting those is outside the realm of non-military technology. While drones reduce the exposure of real soldiers to harm's way, they increase a military force's effectiveness. Drones are lauded as cheaper to operate as conventional jet fighters, but in reality their functionality draws on greater resources. The Economist writes of a drone the size of a corporate jet called a Global Hawk, which requires a staff of 20 to 30 to operate. Many more than would be necessary inside a C130 gunship, but of course, almost all of them manning new killing devices. So long as the empire has an unlimited budget to spend, Freedom Fighters are fucked, and terrorists will be the only recourse. The only target available to the adversary of a drone, is the command center which controls it. Be it in America, or a distant military base, that's where the enemy will have to strike. Or the American public will have to renounce the budget which affords this technology. You may not be bothered by the notion that remote-operated drones can monitor human activities and rain destruction upon them when appropriate. The old, "what have I to fear if I'm doing nothing wrong?" Wait until you are the wrong side of the oppressors. Coca Cola kills union organizers in Colombia. Walmart would probably like to kill you in their parking lot if you are leaving with a shopping cart filled insufficiently relative to you debit card balance. They already know it, but a drone in their hands will give them the ability to find you.
US extrajudicial reach extends to assassination of spouses and progeny
In a demonstration that they are closing in on Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, the US military is claiming success with a drone attack on his father-in-law's Waziristan home, where a missile killed Mehsud's second wife, three unidentified civilians, and wounded four children. The US has posted a $5 million bounty on the head of Mehsud, based on charges he bore responsibility in Benazir Bhutto's 2007 assassination, and for other suicide bombings. All charges he denies, but the Taliban leader won't face his accusers long enough for unmanned drones to launch a missile his way. Zanghra village had been targeted by US drones before, but no bounty had yet been announced for Mehsud's extended family members. That proved to be no indication that US drone pilots in Nevada would not be carving notches for them. While American warriors, by doing their missile targeting from the continental US, have made legitimate military targets of Air Force bases in Nevada, California and Colorado. Now they expand the battlefield to include combatant wives, relatives and progeny. As it should be. (Imagine the relatives and cronies of our economic-war combatants, of our war criminal leaders, and our war industry profiteers; their folks at home contemplating their own culpability and vulnerability to suffer for the crimes by which their benefactors were able to enrich them. You don't have to be remote piloting the Predators or Reapers, nor raining the Hellfire missiles upon America's civilian adversaries to merit responsibility -- it's enough to be hollering along to "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue.") And, as in the case of Baitullah Mehsud, the extra-judicial assassinations are acceptable for even non-combatants, suspected-of-crimes-only, and their family and extended family.
What happens in Vegas, kills in Pakistan
Happening in Las Vegas this week: the Armed UAS Unmanned Aerial Surveillance Conference, May 12-13, where military brass can catch up on the latest remote killing devices proving so, so popular with Pakistanis right now. (I heard a correspondent relate that the US drone attacks in Pakistan were making the people there "very, very, very, very angry.") Wouldn't what happens in Vegas --at a conference center or a climate controlled, video-console barcalounger at a base nearby-- be akin to a terrorist training camp in the remote Hindu Kush mountains, where militants made plans to terrorize a civilian populace from afar?
State terrorist air strike Made in USA
Latest missile strikes upon Pakistani civilians have been traced to aerial drones flying under markings of the US military. It's believed the armed pilot-less aircraft are operated from remote control centers in the United States. As usual, officials for the US deny knowledge of the air strikes. Terrorism experts know from similar previous acts that the unpredictable and indiscriminate targeting of sovereign citizens is decided from information which originates from torture/interrogation coordinated with client state contractors, ultimately used by gunman at video consoles, operating under cover of state branches of military service.
Insurgents, prairie dogs and Laser Tag
I remember discovering the difference between target shooting and Laser Tag. At a firing range you could look calmly down your gun sight and concentrate without distraction. Same with hunting. But Laser Tag, Paintball, or the doubtlessly misnomered Airsoft, let you experience what it's like to be shot at. Who would believe aiming a gun is so different under fire? In Laser Tag, you had to wear an infrared sensor to make yourself a target to your opponent's fire. We used to wrap the sensor belt around our heads because it seemed the most fair vulnerability. Otherwise it was too easy to obscure your sensor between you and the ground or against whatever you were hiding behind. On your forehead, the sensor would become visible whenever you yourself attempted to poke up your head to take a shot. I learned to cheat by crawling under cars to obscure my forehead in the undercarriage while my line of sight remained unimpeded. Of course I was a sitting duck when spotted. But from no matter what covered position, I found it much harder to take aim when adversaries were directing their fire at me. If you'd succeeded in concealing your vantage point, you were free to concentrate on your aim. But now you were challenged with a further trembling sensation in your fingers. Now there was a heightened hesitation to pull the trigger, because the moment you did, your position would be revealed and you'd attract fire. This is the predicament we discount when we think of military snipers. Though it seems quite plainly cowardly to shoot unsuspecting opponents from a concealed position, often snipers have to operate from hiding places deep in enemy territory. When they finally take their shot, snipers become prey themselves. I think about this immediate blowback consequence when I think of Iraqis or Afghans who contemplate taking aim at the US military machine. Insurgents face technology and firepower to obliterate the very hill from which they might be shooting. It would seem that anyone who would dare to stand armed against US forces would be a suicide bomber. It's near certain death to fire a Kalashnikov knowing that US electronics can very quickly extrapolate your location and bring ordinance against you like a fly-swatter against a fly. In WWII against Japan, we held a sad esteem for the suicide pilots of the last desperate Japanese efforts. The Kamikazes would pilot explosive laden aircraft which had no landing gears in case they changed their minds. It seemed like lunacy, and often they were young, and barely trained. I wondered if our soldiers accord the Iraqi or Afghan insurgents a similar awed respect. To merely raise your head from the rubble, without Kevlar armor, requires a bravery to defy the gods. What a cost to try to defend your homeland against America's overwhelming might. I couldn't do it. You draw almost certain overkill coming from unforeseen points, high in the sky, laser-guided by a team of technicians in climate controlled comfort on the other side
Air National Guardsmen are aiming Preditor and Reaper Drones from home
Bush has brought the Global War On Terrorism to American shores! Air National Guardsmen deployed at stateside bases are piloting and aiming the Predator and Reaper drones against peoples in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and victims yet unreported. Do you doubt they might be Filipinos, Colombians, Bolivians and South Georgians? If any of those aforementioned want to defend themselves, they could only attack those shooting at them from Arizona, California, Nevada and Texas. Residents of those states should know they are living in war zones if they live adjacent these installations. Do you know any of these soldiers? The specialists who guide and track the munitions directly to their target's alarmed faces are called "Sensor Operators" and have been experiencing PTSD right at home! 214th Reconnaissance Group Tucson, Arizona 163rd Reconnaissance Wing & 196th Reconnaissance Squadron March Air Reserve Base, California 432nd Reconnaissance Wing Creech Air Force Base, Nevada 14th Reconnaissance Wing Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base, Houston, Texas In case the CBS article is removed, we'll mirror it here: The Air National Guardsmen who operate Predator drones over Iraq via remote control, launching deadly missile attacks from the safety of Southern California 7,000 miles away, are suffering some of the same psychological stresses as their comrades on the battlefield. Working in air-conditioned trailers, Predator pilots observe the field of battle through a bank of video screens and kill enemy fighters with a few computer keystrokes. Then, after their shifts are over, they get to drive home and sleep in their own beds. But that whiplash transition is taking a toll on some of them mentally, and so is the way the unmanned aircraft's cameras enable them to see people getting killed in high-resolution detail, some officers say. "When you come in (with a fighter jet) at 500-600 mph, drop a 500-pound bomb and then fly away, you don't see what happens," said Col. Albert K. Aimar, who is commander of the 163rd Reconnaissance Wing here and has a bachelor's degree in psychology. "Now you watch it all the way to impact, and I mean it's very vivid, it's right there and personal. So it does stay in people's minds for a long time." He said the stresses are "causing some family issues, some relationship issues." He and other Predator officers would not elaborate. But the 163rd has called in a full-time chaplain and enlisted the services of psychologists and psychiatrists to help ease the mental strain on these remote-control warriors, Aimar said. Similarly, chaplains have been brought in at Predator bases in Texas, Arizona and Nevada. In interviews with five of the dozens of pilots and sensor operators at the various bases, none said they had been particularly troubled by their mission, but they acknowledged it comes with unique challenges, and sometimes makes for a strange existence. "It's bizarre, I guess," said Lt. Col. Michael Lenahan, a Predator pilot and operations director for the 196th Reconnaissance Squadron here. "It is quite different, going from potentially shooting a missile, then going to your kid's soccer game." Among the stresses cited by the operators and their commanders: the