Drone technology is advancing faster than the public or the legal system has time to catch up to their now ubiquitous use in America’s many war zones. US troops in Afghanistan will soon be able to deploy what’s called the Switchblade, a miniature drone that can be stored in a backpack and be launched from the ground to surveil or kill targets.
A California-based company, AeroVironment, Inc., developed the Switchblade to be fired from a small tube and can transmit wireless live color video, confirm a target, and arms itself at the operator’s demand, and shoot. The company’s website says it “is designed to provide the warfighter with a ‘magic bullet,'” that is “difficult to detect, recognize, and track even at very close range.”
The U.S. Army awarded a $4.9 million contract to AeroVironment this past June for deployment, and it is to be used very soon on an upcoming mission in southern and eastern Afghanistan.
Drones are fast becoming the weapons of choice for America. In the first nine months of 2011, US-led spy drones conducted nearly 23,000 surveillance missions in Afghanistan. At nearly 85 flights a day, that figure is almost double the daily amount from only two years earlier. The unmanned aerial vehicles are also used in Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Iraq and are being sold to various governments all around the world.
Part of the heralded appeal of the Switchblade and of drone vehicles generally is that they are precision vehicles that reduce the potential for collateral damage. But notably, two US soldiers were recently killed by a mistaken drone attack in a case of friendly fire.
Over the years, the drone war along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border has killed literally hundreds of civilians, including at least 168 children. Investigative journalist Noor Behram, on the ground in Pakistan for years counting civilian casualties from drones, estimated that for every 10 to 15 civilians, drone attacks kill one militant.
Ominously, military drone technology is increasing for domestic use as well. Expecting budget cuts, the defense industry has begun to shift the sale of the high tech drones from the Pentagon to local police departments.
Republican Presidential candidate and Texas Governor Rick Perry in a debate this week urged for the use of Predator drones along the US border with Mexico. “You use Predator drones that are being trained right up here at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada,” Perry said, “to use that real-time information to give those boots on the ground that information, and they can instantly move to those areas. And that is the way to shut that border down, to secure that border.”
The use of drones has dangerously permitted the government to disregard the sovereign borders of other countries and skirt their legal obligations to inform the American people of their aggressive actions abroad. Drones have eased the process of making war, and it doesn’t bode well for targeted countries, or for the US.
What goes around comes around…
How true. Just because you’re first with the technology doesn’t mean you have a lead forever, just look at what Japan, Korea & Taiwan did with the electronics, automotive industries
Ah, good ol' Rickster.
He will probably arm the Predator drones with Gardasil and fly them after 12 year old girls.
Perry, like all the RepubloCon candidates, are pure excrement. Ron Paul excluded, of course.
Rick Perry will call the system "SKYNET"
The leaders who abandoned rule of law, along with the citizens of the fading US Republic (who stood by as Dr.Strangeloves Without Borders took over) will be the most indignant and reactionary of all, when what goes around comes around: Massive proliferation of drone technology and ruthlessness. Murka can still innovate in world-changing ways… at least for one more round.
The banality of evil continues apace. You can murder civilians miles away and still be home in time to take the wife and kids out to dinner.
Take this to the next logical step, why risk sending a swat team into the ghetto when a missile will do just fine?
You can rest assured that some legal rat will find a loophole that says, with a straight Holderian face no less, that drones are not an invasion of privacy or even property because they never set a physical foot on the ground. So while it hovers and peeks through the shutters just outside your back yard it isn't REALLY violating you. Uh-huh… And the cops, now simply local extensions of the federal Stasi, must be salivating for ways to justify their existence through their use.
When will they be available at the surplus stores?
I can see this already. Put this in the hands of a ticked off infantry soldier who just saw his buddies legs blown off and see what he does with it.
I can tell you right now, he will arm and use it. Why? Because at that point you are insaine. Who will you use it on? That depends but pretty much anyone.
Here is one or those junctures in history best viewed from a distance….. Oh yes the drones, the murderers latest toy….. but there are countermeasures.. I remember that the Medina in many (most?) Arab/Muslim cities had covered passageways… and the locals will modify their behavior in other ways… Perhaps by wearing the Burka (Chodor?) All the hoop-la hides the reality… We are being spread thinner and thinner and hated by more and more billions.. Where IS Kenya…??