Teeny tiny spy drones are closer than you think

The full story, as usual, is at Danger Room.

Oh, come on--doesn't everybody want one?

On a lighter note, Slate has a short piece up about the entertainment site TMZ not wanting a drone . Though this may sound like non-news, the article is actually a nice summing up of what kind of red tape stands in the way of commercial and other non-military enterprises getting a drone, and why that won't last forever.

Getting around to making some drone rules...sort of

"The Slatest" has a piece on how the White House is finally getting around to making some rules for when it's appropriate to hunt people down with drones and kill them. It's here. The only actually heartening news out of all this is that the powers that be within the Administration are not so united as they might appear, and that the United Nations is going to set up a unit to investigate drone strikes early next year. Otherwise, we're still talking about some deep, deep denial. 

What happened to Leon Panetta?

I happened upon this rather dismaying report over at Danger Room today. Although at one point, Panetta apparently believed that the war against al Quaida was all but over, such is the case no more.

"Now, a more dour Panetta believes that it’s not enough to continue the drone strikes and commando raids in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia; they’ve got to expand “outside declared combat zones” to places like Nigeria, Mali and even Libya."

Now Secretary of Defense and previously the director of the CIA, many people also know that Panetta was Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff, and had a long and distinguished career in the House of Representatives. Not everyone, though, can say, as I can, that he was their representative, and attest that he was fondly thought of by many people on the Central Coast, which is where he was born. I can remember seeing him sitting in the outdoor dining area at Carmel Plaza once. He hosted a series of popular talks at the Instititute for for Public  Policy, which he and his wife founded at Cal State Monterey Bay.

So what happened to you, Leon? Or do you even know?

Accountability

I've got a backlog of drone material, but meanwhile, here's a lucid expostion of the anti-drone position by Barbara Lochbihler, Chair of the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the European Parliament. A small sample:

"The US drone program’s legal basis is entirely unclear, however. Given that most information about UAV activity is classified, it is impossible to know whether all drone targets directly participated in hostilities. And, while the Obama administration’s claim of zero or single-digit civilian fatalities may be true according to the official definition, it rests on the premise that any military-age male killed in a drone strike is a militant, unless intelligence posthumously proves otherwise."

Imran Khan

There are times when I am not entirely sure that it's a good thing to be so out there on my opposition to drone attacks. But at least I'm just an ordinary private citizen. Might be more difficult if you were a high level official who actually has some impact.  The news at Just Foreign Policy is that it might be quite different if you were a popular Pakistani politician, as Imran Khan, who the Guardian reports is on the Prime Minister fast track, was detained at the Canadian border while on his way to a U.S. fundraiser. He missed the fundraiser, but didn't miss out on doing some tweets about his experience.

Advice to drone prone Administration--don't underestimate the power of Twitter... 


Check out that Guardian post. It packs in a lot of information.

Israel shoots down drone

If I had time, I could probably post a new entry here every day. This entry comes from Slate. Apparently, today (Saturday), Israel shot down an unidentified drone that had strayed into their airspace. No one really knows who sent it yet, though Israel seems to think it was an Iranian drone sent in by Hezbollah. Read more about it HERE.  

Just Foreign Policy

Well, I can't leave up a positive drone post for too long, so I'll put up this LINK to a Just Foreign Policy post about why the drone strike policy will fail. An easy to read point by point analysis.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that there is a Petition you can sign against the drone strike policy in Pakistan. Or go HERE if you just want to cut to the chase and sign it.

Drones, the positive side

I actually have a backlog of negative drone reportage, but every once in awhile I suppose it's a good idea to mention some good things that can be done with them. In any case, here's an article from the Huffinton Post about some Swiss filmmakers who are using drones to photograph a world class climber tackling Pakistan's Karakoram, "one of the world's most demanding and forbidding mountain ranges".

birdlike drone, and more

Danger Room has come up with yet another drone post, this time about a gull-like drone that crashed in Pakistan but apparently flew even earlier into Iraq. Even Danger Room doesn't have all the answers on this one--though they certainly have a bit more than I do.

Not to connect too many dots that I'm probably not qualified to connect, but earlier this week I was hearing on the Rachel Maddow show that the brutal attack on the Benghazi consulate that killed an ambassador and three others may have been in retaliation for the assassination of an an al-Quaeda leader, Abu Yahya al-Libi. How is al-Libi thought to have died? By a drone attack.

I'm not saying that killing Ambassador Stevens was just or right. I'm just saying that if a drone was behind that death, the provocation it subsequently causes is not exactly incomprehensible.

hoo-hoo hoooo hoo-hoo

Danger Room tells us in a recent post that iarpa, the research project end of the intelligence gathering community, wants to overcome a fairly obvious problem with drones, which is that they are loud as all get out. To that end, they have inititiated the Great Horned Owl Program, which, despite the animal loving sound of it, is actually intending to imitate the silent swoop of the birds. The general idea is that they won't hope to keep drones quiet for all that long, but only for a crucial part of a mission. They would run on battery power for a short time, something like a hybrid car.

Nocturnal owls are known to be the most silent of birds. This National Geographic article has it all, but essentially, these owls' trailing feathers are ragged like the edge of a scarf, and help to break up the sound as air flows over the top of the wings and into the downstream.

I'm not too crazy about an owl sneaking up on me in the dark, let alone a drone...  

Stone Links

The New York Times in its online Opinionator section has some useful links up on drone warfare in its Stone Links  section. I haven't read them yet, but I take it that there is an argument being made for them. For those of you who have hit the paywall, I'll try to post the links after I have read them.

Wait a minute--I agree with Rand Paul on something?

Yes, it's true. I don't want any drones flying over my backyard and seeing what kind of bathing suit I'm wearing either either. 

X-47B--the Navy's baby

There has been a ton of new stuff to post about drones, but I just haven't had the time recently. Let's start here with yet another link to Danger Room, which is currently discussing the Navy's new drone at some length. But here's a look first:



As the article has it, the proprietary software allows the drone pilots to program where they want the drone to go. "Then they go off to get a sandwich."

The big deal for the Navy, whose creature this is, is that they are really really hoping to be able to launch and land one these things off the deck of an aircraft carrier.

My question after watching the thing in in action is the same one it always is: Doesn't anybody besides the Apple ad guys remember HAL?

Drones in the courts

Slate reports that relatives of U.S. citizens killed by drone strikes are suing the American government. Panetta and Petraeus are named in the suit. Read all about it here .

And if you live near California's Central Coast...a live event

With surprisingly perfect timing for this blog, the bookstore that I work at is hosting an event for Medea Benjamin's Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control . It will be at 7:30 on Monday, July 23rd. Even if you can't make it, you can order a copy at the above link. 

McChrystal in Aspen

Danger Room has yet another drone post. This time it conveys General Stanley McChrystal's thoughts on the use of drones at the big league Aspen Ideas Conference. Not as pro-drone as you might think. Not as anti-drone as you might hope, either. 

Earth from space--I hope without drones...

No eye in the sky

The Danger Room once again is our source for the news that a chopper drone, rather ridiculously named the Hummingbird, will not be deployed  in Afghanistan anytime soon.

Terminator Planet

Not very long at all after I decided to start this blog, I got an email from the excellent TomDispatch.com that its editor Tom Engelhardt and co-author Nick Turse have published a new book on the subject. It's called Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050. You can get it HERE.

I haven't read it yet, but that's no reason why you shouldn't.

The U.N. ain't happy

A new article in Slate, U.N. Questions Obama's Use of Drone Strikes , shows us just how unhappy the international community is with current White House drone strike policies.   

It seems that the moment is now

And now, a place to voice your OPINION on the matter.

Drones in the U.S.

As promised, the segment from Rachel Maddow's show the other day, hosted by Ezra Klein:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Drone Off--an introduction

There are probably very few people in the world who need to start a new blog less than I do, but the truth is, I've been thinking about doing this one for awhile. Tonight, I saw a good piece on drones on the Rachel Maddow show and though it turns out that I can't link to it yet, it kind of pushed me over some line of indecision about this. I'll get it up here soon, but one of the startling statistics it presented revealed that most of the world is against drones and the majority of America is for them. Call me an internationalist then, because those things creep me out. A lifetime of science fiction movies should have convinced people of my central tenet here: drones are not our friends. Here are a couple of Danger Room links to get us started.

U.S. Military Wants Drones in South America, But Why?

Revealed: 64 Drone Bases on U.S. Soil

Feel free to comment, and dissenting views are welcome, but if you're mean to other people here, I shall use my dronelike capacity to delete you.