Descent into tyranny

Debate over drones morality

2012-10-03T13:37:00.000+02:00

In a recent article at the Guardian the philosopher Bradley Strawser made the moral case for the drones war, which can be explained in one sentence:"There's no downside"

Strawser is an outspoken and unique advocate for what is becoming arguably the US's single most controversial policy: drone strikes. Strawser has plunged into the churning, anguished debate by arguing the US is not only entitled but morally obliged to use drones.

"It's all upside. There's no downside. Both ethically and normatively, there's a tremendous value," he says. "You're not risking the pilot. The pilot is safe. And all the empirical evidence shows that drones tend to be more accurate. We need to shift the burden of the argument to the other side. Why not do this? The positive reasons are overwhelming at this point. This is the future of all air warfare. At least for the US."

Responding to the Guardian article in an essay at Salon, Murtaza Hussain took issue with what he saw Strawser’s overemphasis on the drone pilot’s safety, at the expense of a concern for potential harm to civilians. Murtaza’s objections to drone warfare include the difficulty of surrender, the Obama administration’s looseness in defining potential targets and the common criticism that the relative cheapness of drone warfare encourages less public scrutiny.

Edit: Professor Strawser has written a follow-up to his original Guardian article in which he says some of his views in the original article were misattributed or misconstrued.

Efficiency in Bello and ad Bellum: Targeted Killing Through Drone Warfare [PDF]

2012-09-18T10:17:00.000+02:00

A peculiar feature of the targeted killing using drone technology debate is that it appears to set up a tension between the two traditional categories of the law and ethics of war, jus in bello and jus ad bellum. The more targeted killing technologies allow more precise targeting and reducing collateral casualties and harm (jus in bello), and that moreover at less personal risk to the drone user’s forces, perhaps the less inhibition that party has in resorting to force (jus ad bellum).

A strong version of this claim says: The perverse effect of increasing the efficiency of jus in bello through targeted killing (reducing civilian harm and increasing military effectiveness) is to reduce the efficiency of jus ad bellum (making the resort to force too easy). Improvements in jus in bello conduct ironically makes it too easy, too unconstrained (by lack of personal risk to one’s forces because of drones and lowered civilian harm because of improved targeting) to resort to force. This paper evaluates this claim, and more broadly the idea that jus in bello proportionality and jus ad bellum resort to force can each have a form of efficiency. It rejects the claim as incoherent, because the existence of sides in conflict results in incommensurable meanings of winning and losing in jus ad bellum, without which there cannot be an “optimal” level of the resort to force.

Via Social Science Research Center

CIA's Predator Drone Attacks

2012-09-12T19:08:00.000+02:00

The Vision Media brings for you The First Comprehensive Documentary on the deadly war by US and NATO forces against Pakistan. This is the first part of the documentary prepared for the presentation of the case of Pakistan and on behalf of millions of innocents who are being victimized by the deadly, ruthless and heartless Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in Waziristan Area of Pakistan in addition to the attacks by the western forces on Pakistan Army. Pakistan Army is has taken the greatest damage, causalities and financial loss for the US's war against the terrorists. In return, it is subject to the most deadly and treacherous attacks on it by its 'allies' including US armed forces and NATO army.

Pilotless robot plane smart enough to navigate through bad weather

2012-09-10T10:12:00.000+02:00

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been doing their bit to help save lives in the military for some time already – where pilotless vehicles ply routes in the air over battlefields in order to scout the enemies’ area as well as make strategic strikes against their high profile targets. Enter this particular futuristic robot plane which is capable of taking off, make a decent landing, and even avoid bad weather without the need for any human intervention at all. At this point in time, this unmanned passenger plane is undergoing a series of trials which intend to test robotic pilots’ abilities so that they need not collide with other small aircraft.

This might be the future of air travel according to the engineers behind this new technology. To date, unmanned aircraft have seen rather limited military use in war zones, including Afghanistan. British police have relied on small remote controlled models that have been fitted with surveillance cameras. On-board cameras are used to scan the sky for potential hazards, where the robotic pilot is capable of spotting another aircraft, in addition to hot air balloons and also parachutists so that one can take evasive action.

Via Ubergizmo

War Is Betrayal [Opinion]

2012-09-06T22:10:00.000+02:00

by Chris Hedges
Complete Article: Boston Review

War comes wrapped in patriotic slogans; calls for sacrifice, honor, and heroism; and promises of glory. It comes wrapped in the claims of divine providence. It is what a grateful nation asks of its children. It is what is right and just. It is waged to make the nation and the world a better place, to cleanse evil. War is touted as the ultimate test of manhood, where the young can find out what they are made of. From a distance it seems noble. It gives us comrades and power and a chance to play a bit part in the great drama of history. It promises to give us identities as warriors, patriots, as long as we go along with the myth, the one the war-makers need to wage wars and the defense contractors need to increase their profits.

But up close war is a soulless void. War is about barbarity, perversion, and pain. Human decency and tenderness are crushed, and people become objects to use or kill. The noise, the stench, the fear, the scenes of eviscerated bodies and bloated corpses, the cries of the wounded all combine to spin those in combat into another universe. In this moral void, naïvely blessed by secular and religious institutions at home, the hypocrisy of our social conventions, our strict adherence to moral precepts, becomes stark. War, for all its horror, has the power to strip away the trivial and the banal, the empty chatter and foolish obsessions that fill our days. It might let us see, although the cost is tremendous.

We condition the poor and the working class to go to war. We promise them honor, status, glory, and adventure. We promise boys they will become men. We hold these promises up against the dead-end jobs of small-town life, the financial dislocations, credit card debt, bad marriages, lack of health insurance, and dread of unemployment.

[...]

The allure of combat is a trap, a ploy, an old, dirty game of deception in which the powerful, who do not go to war, promise a mirage to those who do.

[...]

The myth of war held fast, despite the deep bitterness of my grandmother—who acidly denounced what war had done to her only son—and of others like her. The myth held because it was all the soldiers and their families had. Even those who knew it to be a lie—and I think most did—were loath to give up the fleeting moments of recognition, the only times in their lives they were told they were worth something.

[...]

Any story of war is a story of elites preying on the weak, the gullible, the marginal, the poor.

[...]

At fifteen he was approached in school by a military recruiter.
“He sat down next to me at a lunch table,” Millard says. “He was a Marine. I remember the uniform was crisp. All the medals were shiny. It was what I thought I wanted to be at the time.
“He knew my name,” Millard adds. “He knew what classes I was taking. He knew more about me than I did. It was freaky, actually.”
Two years later, as a senior, Millard faced graduation after having been rejected from the only college where he had applied.

[...]

“I really wanted to go to war with somebody, because we were attacked,” he says. “But the one question I couldn’t answer was, who were we going to go to war with?”
"It’s not about defending the country or serving our people. It’s about working for some rich guy who has his interests."

[...]

The disillusionment comes swiftly. It is not the war of the movies. It is not the glory promised by the recruiters. The mythology fed to you by the church, the press, the school, the state, and the entertainment industry is exposed as a lie. We are not a virtuous nation. God has not blessed America. Victory is not assured. And we can be as evil, even more evil, than those we oppose. War is venal, noisy, frightening, and dirty.

[...]

I knew that these people on their way to work or home or dinner had no idea what it was they were supporting. They did not have a clue as to what war was like, what it made people see, and what it made them do to each other. I felt as though I didn’t deserve their support, or anyone’s, for what I had done... No one should ever support the people who do such things.

Warfare by Remote

2012-09-01T18:56:00.000+02:00

CNN's Nic Robertson reports on the UAV drone, that is revolutionising the battlefields in Iraq & Afghanistan.

Yemeni foreign minister admits U.S. drones used against militants

2012-08-31T19:28:00.000+02:00

Yemen has asked for U.S. drones to be used “in some cases” to target al-Qaeda leaders in the country, its foreign minister told AFP on Wednesday.

“Drones were used upon Yemen’s request in some cases against fleeing al-Qaeda leaders,” Abu Bakr al-Kurbi told AFP on the sidelines of a counter-piracy conference in Dubai, in a first official Yemeni confirmation.

Yemeni troops have this month recaptured a string of towns which al-Qaeda militants overran last year across the province of Abyan.

In an interview with ABC television’s “This Week,” U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta defended in May the use of drones as “the most precise weapons we have” in the campaign against the militant group.

His comments were the first time the U.S. formally acknowledged the use of unmanned drones against al-Qaeda suspects in Yemen, where such reports had not been confirmed.

“The fear lies in the infiltration of extremists and terrorists into Yemen” from Somalia, said Kurbi. “It is very difficult for us to tell the difference between someone displaced for humanitarian reasons and a terrorist.”

In February, the commander of the African Union forces in Mogadishu, Major General Fred Mugisha, said Somalia’s al-Qaeda allied Shebab fighters, close to collapse, were fleeing the war-torn country in large numbers for Yemen.

Earlier this month, a Somali suicide bomber killed the army commander for southern Yemen, General Salem Ali Qoton, who had led a five-week-long offensive against the jihadists.

Last year a record 103,000 refugees, asylum seekers and migrants crossed the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea from the Horn of Africa — mainly Somalis and Ethiopians.

Kurbi said al-Qaeda militants had “developed their capabilities to move from one place to another,” adding that “it is not unlikely” that jihadists in Yemen might have in turn fled to neighboring Oman.

Omani media on Tuesday quoted foreign ministry official Saeed Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi as saying his country was investigating reports that al-Qaeda militants had infiltrated the Gulf sultanate.

His remarks came after a security official in Sana’a said five al-Qaeda militants had escaped from a prison in the western Yemeni city of Hudaydah.

Yemen and Oman share a long border through desert and mountainous regions.

On Saturday, the army took control of the southeastern town of Azzan, an al-Qaeda bastion deserted by the militants a week earlier.

According to several sources, the fighters who fled Azzan, in the southeastern Shabwa province, have sought refuge in an eastern region of Yemen close to the border with Oman.

via AFP | Al Arabiya News

CIA Confidential: Inside The Drone War

2012-08-28T18:59:00.000+02:00

They were the invisible warriors in Iraq, Afghanistan and most recently Libya. But drones, the CIA's elusive, unmanned counterterrorism war planes, add a new level of danger for CIA operatives in the field. After a string of drone attacks on key al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership, an undercover Taliban sympathizer penetrates deep into the heart of drone war headquarters and detonates a suicide vest, killing seven of the CIA's most effective officers.

Silent Screams: The Impact of U.S. Drone Attacks

2012-08-23T18:58:00.000+02:00

Silent Screams deftly interweaves exclusive footage of tribal villagers in Iran with families in neighboring Afghanistan and Pakistan. Explicit scenes detail civilian suffering in war-torn Afghanistan and Pakistan as a result of bombardments by drones, 'unmanned aerial vehicles' controlled remotely by pilots thousands of miles away inside the U.S. Spotlighting the destructive costs of U.S. wars, this documentary adroitly binds the plight of civilian victims abroad with the countless Americans whose vital needs go unmet as a result of spiraling military spending. Silent Screams echoes the desperation around the globe for victims without a voice. Visit www.silentscreams.info for information and educational kits to cultivate action and demand real change in how your tax dollars are spent.

Obama's secret drone war explained

2012-08-15T18:17:00.000+02:00

The Obama Administration has approved five times the number of covert drone strikes that his predecessor did. Thomson Reuters Digital Editor Chrystia Freeland sits down with Reuters' Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist David Rohde to discuss his special report detailing the quiet expansion of presidential power under Obama.

Drones Shot Down Over Texas

2012-08-08T18:20:00.000+02:00

Following columnist Charles Krauthammer's observation that the first person to shoot down a surveillance drone on U.S. soil will be a "folk hero," gun enthusiasts in Texas have done precisely that as a protest against the use of spy drones on the American people. Using consumer drones as target practice, Alex Jones and the Steiner brothers tested out the best way to bring down the drones on the 10,000 acre Steiner ranch as part of filming for Brothers in Arms, a new show which focuses on firearms and the second amendment. With spy drones now commercially available for less than $1,000 dollars that are barely any different from the ones being used by police departments to spy on the public, Jones and the Steiners made short work of the devices during filming. This was an exercise in pushing the message that the use of surveillance drones in U.S. skies must be politically shot down because it represents a complete violation of the 4th amendment right to privacy. Congress recently passed legislation paving the way for what the FAA predicts will be somewhere in the region of 30,000 drones in operation in US skies by 2020. Privacy advocates have warned that the FAA has not acted to establish any safeguards whatsoever, and that lawmakers are not holding the agency to account. In addition, A recently uncovered Air Force document circumvents laws and clears the way for the Pentagon to use drones to monitor the activities of Americans. Incidents involving the drones in recent months have hardly provided positive spin for the industry, which is why Americans are set to witness a massive PR campaign that will "bombard the American public with positive images and messages about drones in an effort to reverse the growing perception of the aircraft as a threat to privacy and safety." Earlier this month, a mystery object, thought to be a military or law enforcement drone, flying in controlled airspace over Denver almost caused a catastrophic mid air crash with a commercial jet. Last summer, police in North Dakota used a Predator drone to spy on a family who refused to give back back three cows and their calves that wandered onto their 3,000-acre farm.

The Higgs bosom walks into a church and...

2012-08-05T13:06:00.000+02:00

The real end of the world

2012-08-02T12:50:00.000+02:00

How to buy nukes on the black market

2012-07-30T12:38:00.000+02:00

Drones decimating Taliban in Pakistan

2012-07-24T14:22:00.000+02:00

On Sunday a missile launched from a U.S. drone struck a house in Pakistan's remote tribal agency of North Waziristan, killing eight suspected militants, most of whom were loyal to the Pakistani Taliban commander, Hafiz Gul Bahadur. Bahadur has reportedly overseen multiple attacks against NATO troops in Afghanistan.

While the CIA drone war against al Qaeda in Pakistan is well known and is even, on occasion, publicly acknowledged by senior Obama administration officials, the strike against Bahadur's fighters is part of a lesser-known campaign to target Pakistani militants, who are less able to pose a threat to the U.S. homeland. This represents an expansion of the drone program that was overseen by President Barack Obama's administration.

In 2004 President George W. Bush authorized for the first time the covert lethal use of drones inside Pakistani territory. During his tenure, there were 45 drone strikes in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), according to data compiled by the New America Foundation.

But when President Obama took office in January 2009, the program ramped up quickly, accelerating from an average of one strike every 40 days to one every four days by mid-2011.

The New America Foundation maintains a database of every reported drone strike in Pakistan's tribal regions since 2004. We monitor reports about the strikes from reliable Western and Pakistani news sources, such as The New York Times, The Associated Press, CNN, Reuters, Express Tribune, Dawn, and Geo TV.

All told, the 307 drone strikes launched by the United States in Pakistan between June 2004 and June 2012 have killed an estimated 1,562 to 2,377 suspected militants, according to news accounts.

Of those strikes, 70% have struck North Waziristan, home to factions of the Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqani Network, which has often launched operations in Kabul against civilian targets.Over a third of these strikes have reportedly targeted members of the Taliban, with at least 10 of the strikes killing senior Taliban commanders, as well as hundreds of lower-level fighters.

The United States' aggressive drone campaign in Pakistan slowed considerably in 2011. There were 70 drone strikes in the tribal regions that year, down from 118 in 2010, which saw the peak number of strikes since the program began.According to our data, 6% of the fatalities resulting from drone strikes in 2011 were civilians, up 1 percentage point from the figure in 2010. Over the life of the program we estimate that the civilian casualty rate is 16%.

Clearly, as the years have progressed, the drone strikes have become more precise and discriminating.

In March 2011, Pakistani Maj. Gen. Ghayur Mehmood acknowledged this when he said "the number of innocent people being killed is relatively low" and that "most of the targets are hard-core militants," the first such public acknowledgment by a senior Pakistani military officer. Similarly, President Obama made his first public comments about the covert drone program, when he told participants of a Google+ "hangout" on January 30, 2012, that the United States only conducts "very precise precision strikes against al Qaeda and their affiliates, and we're very careful in terms of how it's been applied."

Even if it is the case that there are relatively few civilians killed in the strikes, the drone program is quite unpopular in Pakistan. During the summer of 2010 the New America Foundation sponsored one of the few public opinion polls ever to be conducted in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas and found that almost 90% of the respondents opposed U.S. military operations in the region.

The wider Pakistani public shares this sentiment: A June 2012 Pew Research Center poll found that about three quarters of Pakistanis consider the drone campaign to be unnecessary.

Even so, the strikes may have contributed to a relative decrease in violence across Pakistan. There were 41 suicide attacks in Pakistan in 2011, down from 49 in 2010 and a record high of 87 in 2009. The 118 drone strikes carried out in 2010 coincided with an almost 50% drop in suicide attacks across Pakistan, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, which monitors Pakistani militant groups.

(Another factor in the reduction in terrorism in Pakistan surely was the Pakistani military's own operations against the Taliban, particularly its 2009 campaigns in Swat and South Waziristan. Some 1,600 Taliban fighters were killed during "Operation Rah-e-Rast" in Swat while hundreds more surrendered to the government.)

Evidence of the drone strikes' impact can be found in the description provided by David Rohde, the former New York Times reporter held by the Taliban Haqqani Network for months in 2009, who called the drones "a terrifying presence" in South Waziristan.

Officials: U.S. may repay Pakistan

Key militant commanders reportedly started sleeping outside under trees to avoid being targeted, while Taliban militants regularly executed suspected "spies" in Waziristan accused of providing information to the United States, suggesting they feared betrayal from within.

Last month, a top Taliban commander in South Waziristan halted all polio eradication efforts in the area for fear that the health workers were, in fact, U.S. spies in disguise assisting the CIA drone program.

The CIA drone attacks in Pakistan have undoubtedly hindered some of the Taliban's operations, killed hundreds of their low-level fighters, and a number of their top commanders. But they have also slowed considerably since their peak in 2010, and have come under harsher scrutiny both in Pakistan and the West, rendering the program's future in the region uncertain.

The CIA strikes may also be fueling terrorism. Faisal Shahzad, an American citizen of Pakistan descent trained by the Pakistan Taliban, tried to detonate a car bomb in Times Square on May 1, 2010. The plot failed, but Shahzad subsequently claimed that the drone program had fueled his anger against the United States.

Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst, is a director at the New America Foundation and the author of the new book, "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden -- From 9/11 to Abbottabad." Jennifer Rowland is a program associate at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank which seeks innovative solutions across the ideological spectrum.

Via: cnn.com

Supersonic Mini-Drone Being Built for Military and Civilian Use

2012-07-19T14:01:00.000+02:00

Researchers at the University of Colorado are building the smallest supersonic jet engine ever made — and are attaching it to a 22lb UAV. The drone research is being led by Dr. Ryan P. Starkey, a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at UC Boulder. Starkey says his UAV could be used for a variety of purposes ranging from penetrating and analyzing storms to military reconnaissance missions. The idea is to develop a platform that works for missions that require long-distance, high-speed travel without placing human pilots in danger.

Some of the goals of his research project are to design, test, and eventually launch for production an unmanned aerial vehicle capable of:

1) setting the world speed record,

2) providing an in-situ resource for measurements and/or sensor deployment within or around hurricanes/tornadoes,

3) sub-scale sonic-boom testing, and

4) use as a military drone.

Starkey is also the founder of Starkey Aerospace Corporation a.k.a. Starcor (not to be confused with Stark Industries) a company designed to transition advanced propulsion research out of the Busemann Advanced Concepts Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) to government and industry. Starcor set out to not only push the boundaries of what is possible in propulsion but to rethink the traditional concept of an aerospace company.

Move up http://i.forbesimg.com t Move down

The UAV is approximately 7ft long and 5ft wide, weighing 110 pounds when fully fueled, as such it currently has a limited range. While many companies are currently researching supersonic UAVs, only Starkey’s prototype has perfected the necessary propulsion system.

Gregory S. McNeal is a professor who specializes in law and public policy. You can follow him on Twitter @GregoryMcNeal.

Photo: GoJett software-in-the-loop flight testing

Drone program will dismantle our freedoms

2012-07-15T14:15:00.000+02:00

How many freedoms are the American people willing to give up for so-called security? How many Draconian laws, passed by our so called "representatives," are we willing to tolerate before screaming? "Enough is enough!" Well the answer to those two questions is: It may already be too late.

In January, Congress, with the support of Rep. Goodlatte and Sens. Warner and Webb, passed HR 658 which gives the Federal Aviation Administration the go-ahead to use thousands of unmanned drones to basically spy on the population of the United States. Obama, without comment, signed the bill on Feb. 14.

Since Obama signed the bill, hundreds of drones have already begun flying over the U.S. to spy on and monitor our population. ABC news has reported: "Drones can carry facial recognition cameras, license plate scanners, thermal imaging cameras, open WiFi sniffers and other sensors. And they can be armed."

Thousands of civilians have been killed with these kind of drones in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The government estimates that as many as 30,000 drones will be deployed over the U.S. within the next 10 years.

The Department of Defense has reported that this massive drone infrastructure, with 110 drone launch sites, is already being erected within the U.S., with billions of tax dollars being allocated (we pay for our own chains in this country).

The so-called "war on terror" has destroyed our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Our representative government now sanctions: detention without trial, torture, warrant less spying and now a multibillion-dollar program that prepares the U.S. government for a confrontation with its own population.

You have to wonder: Who really runs our so-called representative government?

Author: GLENN LINDLEY (Waynesboro)

America’s angels of death

2012-07-10T12:48:00.000+02:00

"A drone is an expression of human will, the expression of a ‎borderless world where life and death sits in the hands of a decision ‎making hierarchy that will never be touched by a drop of blood, ‎never see a parent’s tear, never understand what war is‏."

Gordon Duff

FARNBOROUGH: EADS showcases additive-layer manufactured UAV

2012-07-09T22:30:00.000+02:00

EADS (OE13) is displaying an unmanned air vehicle built wholly by a three-dimensional printer using a process known as additive layer manufacturing (ALM).

The battery-powered UAV was designed by students from the University of Leeds under EADS supervision. A version with metallic, flight-capable wings will be manufactured in EADS's Filton facility in the UK.

ALM involves using a laser to heat up powdered metal to form a shape, to which layers are added in the same form until it reaches the desired thickness.

"EADS has developed the technology to the extent that it can manipulate metals, nylon and carbon-reinforced plastics at a molecular level, which allows it to be applied to high-stress, safety-critical aviation uses," says the company.

3D printing has become relatively common in aviation as a technique for building very light custom designs. While no aircraft are in service using 3D-printed components, several test structures and entire UAVs have been built for testing purposes.

By: Dan Thisdell http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/farnborough-eads-showcases-additive-layer-manufactured-uav-373935/

Predator Drones [Video]

2012-07-07T18:17:00.003+02:00

The future of warfare lies within what looks like an overgrown toy airplane. Watch as we dissect the Predator system, from the Ground Control Station in Las Vegas to a Ku Band satellite in orbit, then back down to the Predator in-flight over the battlefie

Drone industry promises not to be evil

2012-07-07T13:00:00.002+02:00

We will respect the rights of other users of the airspace.
We will respect the privacy of individuals.
We will respect the concerns of the public as they relate to unmanned aircraft operations.
We will support improving public awareness and education on the operation of UAS.

However something is hide behind these good intentions: Forbes

New Sperm-Shaped Surveillance Drone

2012-07-07T11:51:00.000+02:00

Named after an all-seeing Greek god with 100 eyes, the Argus One is perhaps the strangest looking surveillance drone yet constructed. But the odd design of the airship is not deterring customers. In fact, it may be attracting them.

The bizarre spy drone is capable of flying for days on end at heights of between 10,000 and 20,000 feet and can carry up to 30 pounds, including cameras and sensors. It is designed specifically for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions and is virtually undetectable by radar, making it ideal for stealth use. The unusual shape, aside from making it resemble a giant floating sperm, helps it handle poor weather conditions.

The Argus One has been tested in Nevada, and plans are afoot to develop a smaller, more portable version at the request of unnamed government parties. Earlier this year WSG submitted a provisional patent application for a hybrid Argus drone that was designed to be “packaged in a standard size crate that fits in the back of a full size truck or HUMVEE and to be rapidly deployable within hours by a small crew.” The hybrid will be able to function as an aerostat, meaning it’s tethered to the ground, but could also fly freely.

Perhaps more importantly, could the Argus One eventually be deployed beyond conflict zones—for surveillance on U.S. soil? With the use of drones domestically now becoming popular among law enforcement and border control agencies, it’s not a far-fetched prospect.

In the meantime, if you spot a sperm-like object floating across the horizon while passing through Nevada—don’t worry, you’re probably not hallucinating. The chances are it’s just an Argus One out on another test run.

Via www.slate.com

Where The UAVs Go After Afghanistan

2012-07-03T12:01:00.000+02:00

When the U.S. pulls most of its forces out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, over a hundred large (Predator, Reaper, Global Hawk) U.S. Air Force UAVs will go with them. Most of these will not go back to the United States. […]

In Colombia, American intelligence advisors are eager to have these large UAVs to track drug gang and leftist rebel operations.

In the Pacific, American advisors in the Philippines want to bring the same kind of surveillance to seek out Islamic terrorists and leftist rebels there.

In South Korea UAVs can fly just south of the DMZ (the Demilitarized Zone that separates North and South Korea) and see many kilometers into North Korea.

Via www.strategypage.com

Drone strikes: There is no moralising the indefensible

2012-07-01T10:58:00.000+02:00

In advocating premeditated murder, proponents of drone warfare have accepted the premise that in order to fight the terrorists, we must imitate their violent ideology and tactics. In essence, we have now become the monsters that we pursue.

We have moralised the indefensible; we have normalised extra-judicial, pre-meditated murder based on mere suspicion – all in the name of fighting terrorism.

Via The Verdict

Fear of flying? This compilation of historical data may help you

2012-06-30T14:33:00.000+02:00

Table 1 and 2 show the death risk for the different travel modes in the EU:

Historic Aviation Rate Accident

The first flight recorded by a machine heavier than the air was the Wright brothers flight in 1903 (USA)
In the early years (1920-50s) commercial aviation was a quite dangerous transportation mean.

Which type of flying is safer?

Accident summary by Injury and Damage

Accidents by phase of flight

Accidents per World Region

Data from EASA, Boeing and FAA