Drone race will ultimately lead to a sanitised factory of slaughter

[The Northerner]

The CIA has killed more than 200 children in drone strikes outside of legitimate war zones since 2004, it is alleged. In Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia an estimated total of between 451 and 1,035 civilians were killed in at least 373 strikes according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the most accurate source of "kill statistics".

Who in their right mind would give a powerful unmanned air force to a covert organisation with such a track record for unaccountable and illegal killing? The number of strikes in Pakistan has dramatically increased from 52 under George W Bush during his five years of conflict to 282 during Obama's three and a half-year watch. Obama is establishing a dangerous precedent that is, at best, legally questionable in a world where more than 50 countries are acquiring the technology.

This is big business with billions of dollars at stake. Israeli companies are pursuing new drone markets in Asia and Latin America. The US has restricted drone sales to its allies but now, with defence budgets shrinking, companies such as Northrop Grumman and General Atomics are lobbying their government to loosen export restrictions and open foreign markets in South America and the Middle East. Other countries such as India and Pakistan are also hungry for the technology. Russia has unveiled its MiG Skat combat drone with on-board cruise missiles for strikes on air defences as well as ground and naval targets, while Iran demonstrated an armed rocket launched drone, the Karrar, in 2010.

But it is China that is showing the greatest commercial potential for selling armed drones. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission noted with concern that China "has deployed several types of unmanned aerial vehicles for both reconnaissance and combat". More worryingly, the Washington Post quotes Zhang Qiaoliang from the Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute as saying, "the United States doesn't export many attack drones, so we're taking advantage of that hole in the market". Given the 10-year spate of CIA drone strikes, what can be said when other countries use drone strikes against perceived threats in other states?

And this is just the beginning; current drones are like the Wright brothers' prototypes compared with what's coming next. And here is where the real danger resides: automated killing as the final step in the industrial revolution of war – a clean factory of slaughter with no physical blood on our hands and none of our own side killed.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/03/drone-race-factory-slaughter?newsfeed=true


So, as the military-industrial complex gets richer more civilians and suspects will continue to be slaughtered without trial and the surveillance state will continue to expand to monitor our daily behaviors?

I can't seem to find a justification for such at all.

[99th_Monkey]

1. Obama's drone policy & use is not only unconscionable ethically

it is also incredibly short sighted and downright stupid policy-wise,
as if there will be no "BLOW-BACK" as these death machines "get
into the wrong hands", as anyone with 1/2 a brain can see is
eventually going to happen.

The Terrorists won't even need to become suicidal to inflict
deadly strikes on American soil.
grrrr.

[2on2u]

2. Drones had better learn to detect other drones from afar, shoot first and ask questions

later... or not. Seems like we are going to have dronewarz once everybody who can afford them has them.

[Johonny]

3. the justification is not many people want to fight their wars

They want war, war, war but dead Americans cause negative poll numbers. Training troops is expensive, keeping them overseas is even more expensive. The last 100 years of war has been moving more in this direction. Remote killing machines that remove the need to risk your own life and more important leave little political blow back at home.

War in the next 100 years is going to be a very impersonal and very high body count process.

[woo me with science]

4. DU Rec