Tag: drones

Categories
defense & war government transparency public opinion

Only a Test?

drones, military, defense, brainwashing, PSYOP, psychology

“This has been a test, and only a test. 

“Of the Emergency Propaganda System.

“In case of a real emergency, we would have bombed you already.

“Or infected you with a new disease from one of our gain-​of-​function labs.

“Or (and this is a real stretch) found the missing plutonium that’s always whispered about.

“Instead, the mystery drones were a scheduled test run of a newly developed drone technology, which the FAA had this last month scheduled as a testing period for the product. The developer is an above-​board military contractor in New Jersey. The test period was indicated in a bulletin. Somebody outside the military must’ve read it.

“Now, if we had the interests of the citizens in mind we would have made a big deal out of the FAA bulletin. Or at least referred to it after people began noticing the drones.

“But let’s get real. We did not do either of those things. Instead, we reacted as if we knew nothing. And, of course, most government functionaries knew nothing. But the Biden administration knew,* and the Federal Aviation Administration knew, and the CIA and the NSA and the military knew. We could have told everyone the whole truth.

“We didn’t because we needed to learn how people would react to a swarm of oversized drones dotting the skyscape. This was a test of how Americans would react in a possible (and admittedly eerie) emergency.

“And, boy, did citizens react entertainingly. Some people — easily confused by parallax effects — saw more drones than existed, misidentifying normal airliners for drones, for grand example.

“Some people opportunistically made fake video footage. Some of those fakers may or may not have been paid by tax dollars.

“And some people noticed non-drone UFOs, and reported them. We won’t talk about those, either, even when they appear over the Pentagon.

“Remember: Only a test.”

And this, here at ThisIsCommonSense​.org, is Common Sense. And I’m Paul Jacob.

* Unless nobody bothered to tell the Lame Duck-​in-​Chief. See Wednesday’s witless assurance.

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Illustration created with Flux and Firefly

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Accountability media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility

War on Page A‑10

war, news, newspapers, defense, spending, Iraq, bombs, drones, soldiers

War was once big news. Now? Not so much.

Which may be a function of the never-​ending War on Terror, no end in sight in Afghanistan and an Iraq War that is officially over … except for the fighting.

Last October, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein busied fact-​checkers by claiming the U.S. was “bombing seven countries.” True, declared PolitiFact: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

Yemen is better known after January’s raid that killed Navy SEAL Ryan Owens, wounded three other SEALs, and killed 14 to 25 Yemeni civilians, including children. Last week, during President Trump’s speech to Congress, Owens’s widow, Carryn, received a thunderous ovation.

But, as I argued at Townhall, “Ryan Owens and his widow and her three now fatherless children deserve more than applause.“ How about thoughtful policies and a Congress that holds the executive branch accountable?

Invading Iraq was a mistake. So was President Obama’s swerve over to destabilize Libya.

“We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves,” President Lyndon Johnson once said … right before he sent more American soldiers to Vietnam.

Consider that U.S. Special Forces were deployed to 70 percent of the world’s nations in 2016. And, in recent weeks, President Trump asked for a $54 billion increase in military spending, and we have learned of Pentagon plans to seek a “significant increase in U.S. participation” against ISIS.

We owe it to those in uniform to ask tough questions, including: Is what we’re doing really worth a single American life?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

Further reading:

Reason: Is the Military Really “Depleted” After Years of Record-​High Spending?

The Atlantic: Fighting Terrorism With a Credit Card

The National Interest: America Is Never (Ever, Ever) Ending the War on Terror

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Categories
video

Video: Warrior Robots Today and Tomorrow

Let’s put some context to Rand Paul’s concerns about checks and balances vis-​a-​vis drone strikes. Robots have entered the battlefield. And are about to buzz and boom big time. The future — even the present — is science-fictional.

Categories
ideological culture

The Dictators’ Drones

Partisanship leads to mass delusion.

The “targeted” drone runs of George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama have killed thousands of innocent people in foreign lands — without a declaration of war.

The main theme of Greg Greenwald’s terrific and much-​tweeted Guardian article, “Obama: a GOP president should have rules limiting the kill list,” is how Americans have deluded themselves by partisan loyalty and trust into caring about constitutional limits only when thinking about “the other guys.” Democrats fear Republicans in charge, but not their own “Messiah” (to use Andy Levy’s term for the president, on RedEye).

Republicans fear The Socialist Kenyan with his finger on the button, setting off cluster bombs and cruise missiles and the like, but applauded the previous, “Texan” president’s bombing runs a great thing, just what the War on Terror required.

But of course, when drone strikes in multiple Muslim countries kill thousands, when innocents are killed “collaterally” (the previous euphemism) but are redefined as “terrorists” because of proximity or familial relationships, and when even American citizens overseas are targeted for kills without any legal framework for such decisions, something has gotten out of hand.

The president is now above the law, like a Roman emperor. Might as well call him “dictator” and let it go at that.

Both progressives and conservatives need to be reminded that the rule of law — as “inconvenient” as it may seem when it comes to fighting terrorism — is there to protect all of us, including those who wield power.

And not merely from others. Also from ourselves.

Why? Power tends to corrupt. No one is immune. And who seeks to be corrupted?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.