With its deadly drones, the US is fighting a coward's war

[sad sally]

George Monbiot
guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 January 2012

The ancient Greeks, unlike the Jews or the Christians, invested their gods with human failings. Divine judgment, they believed, was neither flawless nor dispassionate; it was warped by lust, vengeance and self-interest. In the hands of Zeus, the thunderbolt was both an instrument of justice and a weapon of jealousy and revenge.

Those now dispensing judgment from on high are not gods, though they must feel like it. The people striking mortals down with drones are doubtless as capable as anyone else of self-deception, denial and cognitive illusions. More so, perhaps, as the eminent fictions of the Bush years and the growing delusions of the current president suggest.

Barack Obama began last week's state of the union address by claiming that the troops who had fought the Iraq war had "made the United States safer and more respected around the world". Like Bush, like the gods, he has begun to create the world he wants to inhabit.
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This danger is acknowledged in a remarkably candid assessment published by the UK's Ministry of Defence, which also deploys drones, and has also used them to kill civilians. It maintains that the undeclared air war in Pakistan and Yemen "is totally a function of the existence of an unmanned capability – it is unlikely a similar scale of force would be used if this capability were not available". Citing the German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, it warns that the brutality of war seldom escalates to its absolute form, partly because of the risk faced by one's own forces. Without risk, there's less restraint. With these unmanned craft, governments can fight a coward's war, a god's war, harming only the unnamed.

edited with better link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/30/deadly-drones-us-cowards-war?du

[grntuscarora]

1. Took a few tries

to follow the link, but glad I did. Well worth the read.

[izquierdista]

2. It WILL come back to bite them

Unlike nuclear technology, which requires large amounts of capital and labor to pull off, drone technology will be easy for small guerrilla bands to acquire. You can go to Youtube and watch drone video of police and protestors in Warsaw, and it wasn't a police drone taking the pictures. I'd be willing to bet that the first 'terrorist' attack on the people who launched this drone war won't be a dirty bomb or a hijacked airplane, but a drone attack. And FOX news will want Condi Rice's analysis on how "no one could have imagined that RC controlled planes could be used in such an attack".

[sad sally]

4. And MSNBC will have John Brennan, President Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor, on

still claiming that zero civilian casualties have occurred as a result of U.S. drone strikes.

Droning On
By John Feffer, November 22, 2011

Someday soon, you'll be checking your new Clear Skies app as a routine part of your preparations to go out for the evening. First, you'll look at your smart gizmo to read your latest email to make sure there hasn't been any change in plans. A quick glance at Facebook lets you see who’ll be joining your group of friends at the bar. Weather and traffic apps inform you of what to wear and what route to take. Twitter will tell you about any major news developments you should be retweeting to your tweeps to prime the conversational pump over drinks.

And your new Clear Skies app will let you know if any unmanned drones are hovering 12 miles up in the stratosphere with your head in their sights.
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So you'd better get ready for a world in which it's not just people "out there" who must suffer from the omnipresent whir in the sky. We thought that we would always be the hand on the joystick. But even in video games, tables turn, and the hunter becomes the hunted. Perhaps a foreign country doesn't like your criticisms of its human rights record. Perhaps another country thinks you're a terrorist. Better watch your head. We will continue to develop technologies to keep ahead of the curve. But drones are a game changer. They herald a democratization of destruction.

And that soon-to-be-developed Clear Skies app won't protect us, any more than the schoolhouse desk protected earlier generations who got down on their hands and knees to escape the fire from above.

http://www.fpif.org/articles/droning_on?du

[DeSwiss]

3. ''We are led by the least among us.'' ~Terrence McKenna - K&R n/t

[MrSlayer]

5. Anything other than battling to the death face to face with melee weapons is cowardly warfare.

Bows, slings, catapults, cannon, guns, bombs, drones and so on are the weapons of the coward. Wade in there with your bastard sword or warhammer if you have honor. Getting yourself covered with gore and hearing the death screams close up gives you a different perspective. It takes a lot more personal courage to get into that.