I'll have to disagree with your outrage here.
In this instance, General Atomics:
1) already owns the land - they aren't stealing local or federal lands and
2) they are using funds from their ill-gotten profits they have made off the MIC (bad) to benefit their working employees who live on the local economy there (which is why the community council was happy - it provides incentive and a tax base that can support the area). Instead of funnelling the money out of the community and pushing it up the corporate food chain into the pockets of Saudi Princes, Hedge Fund managers, and the revolving Board Membership class or squirreling it away into the Caymens or Black-Ops projects.
And they are not taking government work or resources away from government workers while doing it. They are not using federal land to build on, and do not seem to be taking local tax and infrastructure advantages with this particular endeavor.
This work will provide jobs for people in the community who aren't engineers or code-jockeys (even if it is short-term), not particularly harm the local environment, require that GA make some moves to improve the local infrastructure to support the new facility, and help the local commuity economy by providing incentives for the large workforce to remain in the area - because they feel they have a better quality of life and the company "cares" for them - and perhaps recruit even more workers who will live and circulate money within the local community.
Bad they exist in the form they exist at that plant (I agree, I prefer General Atomics would be making profit in providing support and resources to the DoE, EPA, NASA, NOAA or SPACE-X rather than building drones for a police state), but they aren't hurting anything with this local project. It's probably one of the very few decent things they are doing.
Haele
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