The Catskill Chronicle

By Mort Malkin

And you thought those were turkey vultures over  Narrowsburg?

Abroad:

It’s hard to maintain a war, especially one in which our troops are occupying another country whose culture is unfamiliar to us. Sometimes, the ocupyee is 10,000 miles away from the US, and few Americans even know what continent the country is in. The anti-war activists may initially lead a few protests, but as the war goes on and a number of American deaths inevitably occur, a majority say: “Too much. Too much [American] blood and too much treasure.”

The President, Vice President, and Secretary of War (uh, Defense) generally up the ante and label the citizens of the occupied territory who shoot at our troops or explode improvised devices as “terrorists,” or at least as “insurgents.”

After a few years, the American public stops believing its own government. Few Americans have the patience to run a Hundred Years War. What to do? Recent advances in hi-tech imagery and communications to the rescue! Unpiloted aerial vehicles (UAVs or Drones) would solve the two main problems. American lives would not be at risk, and the drones are cheap. The drones could be “piloted” from control centers in the US, and the drones could be manufactured quickly by the aero-space industry at low cost to the Pentagon (the taxpayer). We could even convince the environmentalists — drones use less fuel than F16s. The pacifists, too, might assent — there would be less “collateral damage” and lives would be saved.

So, the current President, conversant with computer pads and smart phones, doesn’t have to rely on troops or torture. He just makes up lists — kill lists. The Vice President doesn’t even have to take the title of his office literally, as his predecessor did. With little objection from the American public and a large measure of secrecy, the use of drones was increased many fold. In response, Murphy showed up to invoke his Law. It turned out that pilots in Nevada were often getting inaccurate information and targeting the wrong people. Civilian deaths became frequent — shepherds, women gathering fire wood, a wedding party, a loya jirga (meeting of village elders), boys playing soccer…. The word was getting around the countryside, and we were losing the hearts and minds of the population. In fact, the drone attacks were becoming a recruiting tool for insurgents. You may ask “why not use the surveillance drones to identify ‘high value’ terrorists and send in a team of Navy Seals to bring them back alive?” A living prisoner might provide valuable intelligence. Dead men tell no tales. Oh, that wouldn’t work out. Dangerous live prisoners would have to be kept somewhere for the duration of the War on Terror — maybe Guantanamo or Bagram. We’d have to deal with hunger strikes and the Center for Constitutional Rights. Another strategy would be to cook the books on the number of civilian casualties by labeling all males younger than senior citizens as enemy combatants and calling such targeting “signature strikes.”

A joint study of drone casualties, reported by researchers from NYU and Stanford University who did extensive interviews in the tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, concluded that 75% of drone victims were civilians. The more than 300 drone strikes resulted in 2,000+ deaths. Surgical precision? The dependability of the drones may be judged by the 400 to 500 crashes of the unmanned planes because of mechanical failure, “pilot” error, or wrong  GPS coordinates. So much for the certainty of surgical precision.

Most egregious were “double tap” strikes. After an initial successful strike, a second would follow, targeting local first responders who came to the aid of any wounded. At the funeral of those who were killed by a drone strike, the second hit would take out family members and friends. They were sympathizers, no doubt. The barbarity of such double tap strikes certainly rises to the level of out-and-out war crimes.

Victims of drone warfare extend to the “pilots” who have never been anywhere near Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, or Somalia, except via computer screen. But, they must be having serious moral doubts about their work. Many have been reporting PTSD, some of them serious cases. Nor can it be attributed to “shell shock,” not in Nevada or Texas. The White House has just acknowledged (admitted) that four Americans have been killed by drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, Americans who have never been convicted of terrorism. They probably were troublemakers.

The US has no monopoly on the development and use of drones. Drones are basically model airplanes with miniaturized and infra-red cameras, GPS systems, and other sophisticated electronics. The attack drones — Predators and Reapers — have, in addition, sordid boom-boom missiles. China, in fact, is producing drones not only for their own military, but also for the export market. A country that produces smart phones, GPS devices, and remote controlled model airplanes is a natural to dominate the world drone market. China, without pirating any US patents, promises to bring the cost of a drone down from over $100,000 to less than $500. Also, with the most advanced solar technology in the world, the Chinese will be able to develop a solar-powered drone that will remain aloft for years transmitting high resolution photographs of the more than 700 US military bases around the world.

Iran, last year hacked into the software program of a large surveillance drone over Iranian air space and brought it down unharmed. They paraded the drone of the Great Satan before the TV cameras, and then set to work reverse engineering it. They are, in conjunction, researching flying carpet legends in the Persian Mythology section of their National Library. Don’t be surprised if they establish a designer drone industry with brand names like Tabriz, Kashan, Kerman, and Isfahan.

With a dozen or more nations already at the production level, the political cartoonists are having a field day, and Mad Magazine has highlighted the use of drones in their Spy Vs Spy spoofs.

At Home :

You mean Drones over US cities and towns? Not to worry — it will be just surveillance drones … at first. Predator drones will be used only in extraordinary circumstances, and they will be armed, not with Hellfire missiles but “less lethal” systems such as tasers, stun guns, tear gas, and (soft) rubber bullets. The surveillance drones will have thermal imaging, facial recognition, and text message interception technology. Personal privacy and unlisted phone numbers will become as obsolete as party-line phones.

The FAA presently controls all US airspace, and anyone operating a drone would require their permission and be under their oversight. The FAA, in turn, is run by the Executive Branch of Government (the White House) and is funded by the Congress, both of whom are lobbied by the aerospace industry. So who will use the drones over the US and who will manufacture them? The FAA has already approved more than 700 permits and 300 of these have been activated. Most have gone to such agencies as Homeland Security and the FBI, the Border Patrol, and select state & county police departments. Rite Aid Pharmacies and Domino’s Pizza have not yet been issued permits. Congress has yielded to the pressure of the drone industry and is leaning on the FAA to simplify the permitting process. Congress even has a drone caucus that does the bidding that industry.

As to manufacturers, there are the usual suspects from the aerospace industry and the military-industrial complex: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Boeing, General Atomics… In addition, there are smaller firms such as Jet Cat, AeroVironment, CyPhy Works, Octratron… They are designing drones that can float at altitudes up to 30,000 feet, and others that are as small as a mosquito and can fly inside an open window to take a   sample of your blood for DNA analysis.

For the few who fear that technology is leading policy by the nose, for those who value personal privacy, and for the monkeyshine hackers who like challenges — all are making common cause in finding ways to class the drones with napalm, land mines, and cluster bombs, and advocate for their banishment.

Here’s a sampling of the widespread opposition:

• The hackers have worked out software programs to take control of drones in flight and bring them down unharmed as trophies. A professor in Texas has already accomplished the feat.

• A noted libertarian-conservative commentator wrote an op-ed essay: “Rifles In the Air, America,” predicting that the first American who shoots down a drone over his home will be celebrated as a folk hero.

• If Fox News looks favorably on that view — he appears there occasionally — it may lead to the death of drones over America.

• Clothing designers are working on stealth hooded-cloaks, similar to the garb of Franciscan friars, that will invisiblize folks to the infra-red sensors of the drones.

• A few towns and cities have declared their air space as no-drone zones.

Remember Thomas Jefferson, who said: “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”