Drones and the Democratization of Destruction

[The Northerner]

Someday soon, you'll be checking your new Clear Skies app as a routine part of your preparations to go out for the evening. First, you'll look at your smart gizmo to read your latest email to make sure there hasn't been any change in plans. A quick glance at Facebook lets you see who’ll be joining your group of friends at the bar. Weather and traffic apps inform you of what to wear and what route to take. Twitter will tell you about any major news developments you should be retweeting to your tweeps to prime the conversational pump over drinks.

And your new Clear Skies app will let you know if any unmanned drones are hovering 12 miles up in the stratosphere with your head in their sights.

Sound like science fiction? Isn't drone surveillance and remote kills a problem just for people in the undeveloped regions of the world where life is cheap, collateral damage a daily hazard, and violations of national sovereignty the norm rather than the exception?

No doubt, people in the United States felt the same way about nuclear weapons during that brief period after 1945 when only one country in the world possessed the explosive new technology. Then, on August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, and Americans no longer felt quite so confident. Indeed, the United States began to experience a pervasive nuclear dread, with children practicing "duck and cover" in the classroom, parents digging out bomb shelters in the backyard, and the thought of fiery apocalypse never far from the thoughts of a bewildered and terrified populace.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-feffer/pakistan-drones_b_1108425.html

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. God bless computer hackers. nt

[msongs]

2. drone attacks are not "war" they are executions of women and kids nt