Category: Neo-Facism

Drones: A Big Bad Nightmare

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), better known as the drone, is revolutionizing military power around the world. Despite the Pentagon’s Sequester, certain programs, like drone procurement have emerged unscathed, in part because the last two US administrations have embraced use of drones in combat theaters overseas. Meanwhile, a “drone caucus” has emerged in Congress that fiercely protects UAV funding and touts them as a way to help save money on defense, protect the lives of US soldiers, better patrol America’s borders, and assist domestic law enforcement agencies in surveillance.

In 2013, President Obama made a high-profile speech announcing plans to curb US use of drones. But events in the Middle East and North Africa, especially the rise of ISIS, have forced the US to shelve those plans. Yesterday, the Wrongologist reported that China was selling drones to Saudi Arabia. Consider this:

• More than 70 countries have acquired UAVs of different types. Of these countries, the US holds the largest share of UAVs
• 23 countries are reportedly developing armed UAVs
• The Teal Group forecasts an increase in global spending on UAVs from $6.6 billion in 2013 to $11.4 billion in 2022
• The Diplomat reports that China will be the largest UAV manufacturer over the next decade

Many countries want drones, and many will turn to China with its lower manufacturing costs, and similar drone technology. A report last year by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission stated:

Chinese companies appear to be positioning themselves to become key suppliers of UAVs in the global market.

Chinese UAVs are especially attractive to countries in Africa and the Middle East given their low cost and China’s the lack of export restrictions compared with their Western competitors.

Even the new US drone export policy is not competitive with China, since it requires countries buying our armed drones to assure the US that they won’t use them to carry out illegal surveillance, that they will abide by international humanitarian laws, and that they use them for legal purposes. Just how will we enforce that? Will the US assign personnel to the control vans and centers to monitor each flight, or depend on self-reporting by foreign governments?

In the past year, drones have crashed onto the White House lawn, placed radioactive cesium on the roof of the Japanese prime minister’s office in Tokyo, and worked the battlefields in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Iraq.

It is a formidable weapon that we are only beginning to understand. The concern is that they can be used against a nation’s homeland, since they are hard to detect and difficult to bring down. With drone proliferation, what will the impact be if large public gatherings become indefensible targets? Will sporting events like the Super Bowl be “protectable” by the city and state that hosts the event? Probably not. So, will they have to be protected by the US military? Images of US military patrolling the streets around the Super Bowl would provide an Orwellian cast to the big game.

The small quad-copter commercial drones that anyone can purchase (for between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars) signal the biggest problem for the future. They are equipped with GPS technology and high-resolution cameras. They could carry (small) loads of plastic explosive, or even chemical weapons to a precise location and cause havoc. Jamming GPS signals could be an effective solution, provided we had some idea about a targeted area. Universal GPS jamming probably would be impractical, since GPS is so important to our everyday lives.

We don’t seem to have much of a clue as to what to do about this emerging threat.

How will we adapt when drones (commercial or military) become ubiquitous? What would be the societal impact? Fear is already a great driver of our domestic politics. It is difficult to imagine how much more of our 4th Amendment rights could be sacrificed to protecting us from terrorist drones. Armed drones deployed against a densely-populated Western country is a terrorist dream!

Drone design of the future is receiving huge amounts of venture capital. The current new idea is swarming drones. The US Navy is currently testing a weapon that can fire 30+ small armed drones at once. The Navy calls the program “Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology”, or LOCUST. The Navy is also concerned about defending drone swarm attacks on its ships, since the vessels are relatively large targets.

Imagine if a terrorist could fire a “drone swarm” at Manhattan.

We won’t be putting this genie back in the bottle. Think of all the things that could possibly go (horribly) wrong by the US making drones the AK-47 of the future.

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Thirty Years of Wrong

Everyone probably knows about Jade Helm 15. It is a two-month operation by the Pentagon in which Special Forces from four branches of the military will carry out simulated operations amid territory designated as “hostile” in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado.

US Army Special Operations Command said that simulated exercises like this are routine. They also said that the public wouldn’t experience any disruption in their day-to-day lives, since the entire operation takes place in remote areas.

But, many Texans have expressed both suspicion and opposition to the project. Some claim it’s an attempt to institute martial law. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz told Texans that he is on it: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

My office has reached out to the Pentagon to inquire about this exercise…We are assured it is a military training exercise. I have no reason to doubt those assurances, but I understand the reason for concern and uncertainty, because when the federal government has not demonstrated itself to be trustworthy in this administration, the natural consequence is that many citizens don’t trust what it is saying.

And Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) called up the Texas Guard (one of three of Texas’ quasi-military groups), ordering them to “monitor” the Special Forces troops during their eight weeks of training.

Abbott seems to think his weekend warriors will accomplish…what? Then again, if you’re convinced that Jade Helm 15 is a false-flag operation designed to distract you while The Black Guy in the White House and his evil Muslim overlords plot a takeover of Texas, nothing will convince you otherwise.

It can be exceedingly difficult to discern where the parody ends and the serious conspiracy theories begin. Here is a claim from The Common Sense Show:

You see, there are these Wal-Marts in West Texas that supposedly closed for six months for ‘renovation’. That’s what they want you to believe. The truth is these Wal-Marts are going to be military guerrilla-warfare staging areas and FEMA processing camps for political prisoners.

How do you reason with people gripped with an ironclad conviction that all of the above is true, and that those who can’t see it, are dupes under the influence of Obama, Rachel Maddow, and George Soros?

Texas isn’t a barometer of much, except perhaps the price of oil pipe for fracking. Illegal immigration is going down. The number of Mexican-Americans in the voting population is going up. Rick Perry is still learning to count to three, and Ted Cruz, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, certainly knows which way is up. Apparently, he is more a deeply cynical man than a deranged one. Either way, he’s unfit for public office.

This false issue and the Republican response to it, is another example of Neo-Fascism in America. In this case, it is billionaires aligned with corrupt Republican politicians. They have an organization, ALEC, that drafts and shares model state-level legislation among state governments in the US. They have purchased state and federal legislators to do their bidding. Fascism doesn’t say, “We hate you!” It says, “Those guys over there hate you. They’re out to get you. Luckily, we’ve come to help you”.

This is the price we are paying for false equivalence by the media, which was popularized starting in 1982 with CNN’s Crossfire. It’s the same thing you get if you allow children to engage in anything their little heart desires: What do you get when there are no negative consequences for despicable actions, including bigotry, or in-your-face political ham-handedness?

You get a situation that is out of control, as it has been in the past 30 years.

Today’s conservatives/Republicans/libertarians are grown-up delinquents who have figured out that there is no bed time, no chores, no tests to take, and no need to eat their vegetables of responsibility.

The continuing assertion by the GOP that the President is behaving illegally, or that his orders should be ignored, is contributing to public distrust. Since our laws flow from the Constitution, it’s particularly annoying that those that claim to love it the most are directly attacking it with claims like this.

We are surfing down a very slippery slope. Right-wing politicians win elections by demonizing the government. They are now addicted to it. Like other addicts, they have to keep upping the dosage to get the same effect.

Unfortunately, they’re into serious overdose territory now.

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