NYT Undercounts Drone Deaths in Pakistan
By Peter Hart
November 30, 2012
<http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/11/30/nyt-undercounts-drone-deaths-in-pakistan/>
Pentagon: A Human Will Always Decide When a Robot Kills You
BY SPENCER ACKERMAN
11.26.12
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/human-robot-kill/
Top Gun meets Terminator: Autonomous US stealth drone completes 1st test launch
30 November, 2012
https://rt.com/usa/news/us-drone-launch-autonomous-986/
Anti-drone protesters knocked off course by broad restraining order
Demonstrators who have gathered at New York air base for years say
their constitutional right to protest has been compromised after
colonel granted strict order of protection
Karen McVeigh in New York
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 November 2012
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/28/drone-protesters-escalation-charges/print>
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33202.htm
Bipartisan Group in US Congress Promotes Drone Killings
By Patrick Martin
World Socialist Web Site
December 02, 2012 "Information Clearing House" - A large bipartisan
group in Congress is promoting the building and use of drones,
according to an investigative report published November 25 in the San
Francisco Chronicle and the Houston Chronicle.
The report was made public the same day that the New York Times
reported that drone strikes ordered by President Obama have killed
more than 2,500 people over the past four years, and that the Obama
administration was moving ahead to codify and formalize the procedure
for targeting individuals and groups for deadly violence by CIA and
Pentagon drone operators.
The report by the Center for Responsive Politics and Hearst
newspapers examined the flow of campaign contributions from
corporations engaged in building and arming drones to Democratic and
Republican congressmen and senators.
The biggest donors include General Atomics, which makes the Predator,
the number one remote killer for the CIA and Pentagon; BAE Systems,
which makes the Mantis and Taranis drones; Boeing Co., maker of the
hydrogen-fueled Phantom Eye; Honeywell International, which makes the
RQ-16 T-Hawk; Lockheed Martin, which makes the RQ-170 Sentinel; and
Raytheon Co., maker of the Cobra.
More than $8 million in campaign contributions from drone
manufacturers and operators has flowed into the coffers of the 60
members of the House Unmanned Systems Caucus. The majority of the
House members are from California, Texas, Virginia and New York,
including the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Howard
"Buck" McKeown, a California Republican, and Silvestre Reyes, a Texas
Democrat who lost a primary election and leaves Congress at the end
of the year.
The Senate group of drone promoters comprises eight members,
including liberal Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and is
co-chaired by Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
The very existence of what the CRP/Hearst report calls the "drone
caucus" is an indication of the profound degeneration of American
democracy. It was not so long ago, in the 1970s, that leading
Democrat Henry Jackson became notorious as the "senator from Boeing."
Now an entire caucus has been formed of promoters of weapons of mass
murder. What is next: The napalm caucus? The poison gas caucus?
According to the CRP/Hearst report, the principal activity of the
"drone" caucus has been to promote the use of these weapons within
the United States, including passage of the FAA Modernization and
Reform Act, signed into law by President Obama on February 14, which
requires the FAA to complete the integration of unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs) into the national airspace by September 2015.
Drones have become big business for US police agencies, beginning
with the federal Department of Homeland Security, which recently
signed a $443 million deal with General Atomics to increase its fleet
of Predator drones-capable of firing missiles as well as
surveillance-from 10 to 24.
The FAA projects that 30,000 drones could be flying in US airspace
within 20 years, operated by local, state and national police and
security agencies, as well as private corporations.
The US buildup has sparked a global arms race in drone building and
deployment. More than 50 countries operate surveillance drones, and
many of these are beginning to fit their drones with weapons.
According to a Pentagon study, enemy drones could be a "very serious
threat" to US aircraft carriers and other large ships, and to "supply
convoys and other combat support assets which have not had to deal
with an airborne threat in generations."
While the US has 8,000 drones deployed and plans to spend $37 billion
on drone warfare over the next eight years, a recent report by the
Pentagon's Defense Science Board noted with considerable worry, "For
UAVs, the US currently has limited dedicated defensive capabilities
other than fighters or surface-to-air missiles, giving the enemy a
significant asymmetric cost advantage. The increasing worldwide
focus on unmanned systems highlights how US military success has
changed global strategic thinking and spurred a race for unmanned
aircraft."
For the time being, the US military-industrial complex holds the lead
in the drone arms race, but the Pentagon study pointed to the
"asymmetric cost advantage." In other words, drones can be a cheap
and cost-effective alternative for countries that cannot afford ICBMs
and aircraft carriers.
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