Living Under Drones

[DeSwiss]

Published on Sep 24, 2012 by bravenewfoundation

Since 2004, up to 884 innocent civilians, including at least 176 children, have died from US drone strikes in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan. A new report from the Stanford and New York University law schools finds drone use has caused widespread post-traumatic stress disorder and an overall breakdown of functional society in North Waziristan.

In addition, the report finds the use of a "double tap" procedure, in which a drone strikes once and strikes again not long after, has led to deaths of rescuers and medical professionals. Many interviewees told the researchers they didn't know what America was before drones. Now what they know of America is drones, death and terror.

Follow the conversation @WarCosts #UnderDrones

http://www.warcosts.com

- ''Surgical drone strikes'' are to surgery, as the FDA is to medical/pharmaceutical oversight. In both cases a lot of innocent people get killed for no apparent reason other than stupidity and/or greed. So if these so-called surgical drone strikes are killing innocent men, women, children and infants who are not terrorists, then why do we keep on calling them ''surgical''???

[PDJane]

1. As much as I support Obama,

I believe that some of his policies are absolute insanity. This is one of them.

[DeSwiss]

3. I understand completely.

- I can't get this kid's face out of my mind. And I'm glad of that, because it reminds me that I haven't yet lost my humanity.....

[font size=3]U.S. airstrike that killed American teen in Yemen raises legal, ethical questions[/font]



Washington Post | By Craig Whitlock | Published: October 22, 2011

One week after a U.S. military airstrike killed a 16-year-old American citizen in Yemen, no one in the Obama administration, Pentagon or Congress has taken responsibility for his death, or even publicly acknowledged that it happened.

The absence of official accountability for the demise of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a Denver native and the son of an al-Qaeda member, deepens the legal and ethical murkiness of the Obama administration’s campaign to kill alleged enemies of the state outside of traditional war zones.

Unlike the secretive U.S. airstrikes that have killed hundreds of foreigners in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, this case involved an American teenager. He was killed by the U.S. military in a country with which Washington is not at war.

Officials throughout the U.S. government, however, have refused to answer questions for the record about how or why Awlaki was killed Oct. 14 in a remote part of Yemen, along with eight other people.

link

''Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.''

~Martin Luther King Jr.

[Plucketeer]

2. Well, surgery is done - more and more -

"robitically". Drones are airborne robots - ergo..... Fortunately, a remote-controlled scalpel can be weilded with a bit more precision than the shrapnel from the warhead of an laser-guided missile.

[DeSwiss]

4. And yet they're polar opposites.....

...one robot tries to extend life, the other to take it.

- I imagine that when the drones are flying over us, we'll understand better how these people feel.....

[Plucketeer]

7. Agreed

You know - I find comfort and cowardice in saying "I'm glad I'm in my "twilight" years."

[DeSwiss]

8. I hear ya!

[Heather MC]

5. OMG I worked for the company that presented these

things to the government. It was back in 1999 I didn't realizes the Drones where the same thing until just now. we didn't call them drones. We called them UAVs unmanned aerial vehicles. I was on the Graphics team that put together the encyclopedia of UAVs. I had no idea this is what they would be used for. I was just a graphics person putting the book together. I never got to see one in person.

I was only at the company for about year. I left the company for more money at another company. Jobs were easy to come by in the 90's. So I had forgotten all about the UAVs

[DeSwiss]

6. I imagine this is also how Skynet was created. Life imitating fiction?

Like most robotics, UAV's have high positives for potential uses that save lives and for going into areas too risky for humans to enter. However, I think it not coincidental that our war-minded society first put these things to use as new way to kill.

- War: It's what we do.......

[Heather MC]

9. I am sure the engineers knew the end game

I worked in the Graphics department, My job was to make the book look pretty.