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.