Laura Flanders on The Nation June 23: Drone Attacks to Stimulate Economy?

Flanders writes, "No mention there—or anywhere—of what peace activist Kathy Kelly described on GRITtv. Namely, the charred flesh of children killed by accident, by remote—or, for that matter, Peter Singer's studies showing that drone pilots suffer PTSD at the same or greater rates as other soldiers

Perhaps the lack of concern is because drones are already flying the Canadian border and Americans are already getting used to them. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson recently told The Hill, 'We are working hard to make round-the-clock aerial surveillance the standard for all 2,000 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border,' too.

Or it could be the impact of all those Northrop Grumman ads on TV. Or maybe it's just the economy. At $4.5 million apiece, the drone program's great for Grumman. Almost everywhere its being sold as good news in a troubled economy."

Drones at home: FAA approves Predator drone to monitor Texas border

Dallas Morning News AirlineBiz blog
12:53 PM Wed, Jun 23, 2010
by Dave Michaels

Quick note: If we get drones in domestic operation, why would any of us think they wouldn't be used to hunt US: on a bad license plate number in a search for a fugitive or any other number of police operations conducted on poorly gathered intelligence, clerical errors and the like. Blackhawk helicopters are used to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border now, which I have seen with my own eyes east of San Diego. That doesn't mean those helicopters aren't used for other domestic purposes directed at civilians. For the details of my view on drones, do a quick search on this site ... or watch the Terminator movies again. Every action has an equal an opposite reaction. Your government is hunting foreigners with machines. I don't want to be hunted with machines, do you?

Full text ...

We reported earlier today that Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, had held up the nomination of the FAA's #2 official over aerial surveillance of Texas border. It seems that hold is now moot: the FAA today approved an unmanned aircraft to monitor 1,200 miles of the border, from El Paso to Brownsville, according to Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo.

"Today marks a critical next step in securing the Texas-Mexico border. By permanently positioning this aircraft in Texas, CBP can further combat illegal activity along our southern border," Cuellar said in a statement. "For five years, other southern border states have benefited from this technology and this will ensure Texas has the same tools in the box to combat the spectrum of threats we face."

Cuellar's press release says the plane will be based in Corpus Christi. Read on for more from the congressman about the FAA's decision:

Earlier this month, CBP began flying a remotely-piloted aircraft based in Arizona over a portion of West Texas. FAA's most recent approval will allow CBP to fly over the remainder of the Texas-Mexico border between El Paso and Brownsville along the Rio Grande.

In addition, CBP will patrol the state's coastline along the Gulf of Mexico. The remotely-piloted aircraft, known as a Predator B, can fly for up to 20 hours and provide to CBP real-time critical intelligence information from attached cameras, sensors and radar systems.

"Increasingly these aircraft will become a familiar means for providing homeland security," said Congressman Cuellar. "By putting eyes in the sky, we can provide real-time information to our law enforcement on the ground. This combination of technology and manpower keeps our law enforcement a cut above the challenges they face."

According to CBP, since 2005 Predator Bs have flown more than 1,500 hours in support of border security missions and have assisted in the apprehension of more than 4,000 illegal aliens, in addition to the seizure of more than 15,000 pounds of marijuana.

For more information on the CBP UAV program, visit cbp.gov

Backyard Predator Drones

"Each Predator and Reaper costs American taxpayers $4 million to $12 million and each Hellfire missile some $70,000, and the drones are causing anti-American sentiment to spread, especially in the Muslim world."

by Chen Weihua
China Daily 05/18/2010
chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn

I never realized I was so close to the war zone in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border until I went to Syracuse in upstate New York a week ago.

The Hancock Field there has been turned into a base for drones that fly over Pakistan and Afghanistan for bombing missions. This means that someone sitting in the control room is playing a computer game that is killing real people thousands of miles away.

The strikes may have achieved the goals of assassinating some Taliban leaders and militants; yet, high collateral damage has been reported by both Pakistani and US sources. Pakistani authorities reported that in 2009 alone, some 700 civilians died during the drone attacks.

The high casualties - of innocent people - should be a grave concern for "anti-war" President Barack Obama, who authorized more drone strikes in his first year as president than his predecessor George W. Bush did in his last four years in office.

Civilian deaths are clearly a problem. A CNN report last week quoted Tadd Scholtis, spokesman for General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, as saying US and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan could someday win medals for restraint that prevents civilian casualties in combat.

This proposal under consideration simply means that too many innocents are being killed, and that the army has not exercised enough restraint.

Unfortunately, many Americans are unaware of the nature of the drone attacks launched from an air force base near their home, despite numerous protests across the country against the drones.

Just a few days before my trip to Syracuse, peace activists from upstate New York gathered outside the Hancock Air Force base to oppose the unmanned aircraft attacks.

On May 18-19, protesters from across California and some from Nevada will hold a rally in San Diego outside the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, which builds the Predator and Reaper drones.

Cindy Sheehan, who held a prolonged anti-war protest in 2005 outside George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, led a rally near the CIA headquarters in Virginia early this year, calling the CIA-operated drone bombing "immoral" and "terrorism with a big budget."

Demonstrations were also witnessed last year outside the Creech Air Force Base, only 35 miles from Las Vegas, resulting in the arrests of a number of peace activists.

In contrast to the anti-war activists, mainstream US media and scholars have been relatively quiet on the issue. Most have been talking endlessly about Times Square bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad's ties to the Taliban and whether his legal rights and citizenship should be deprived.

They have largely ignored the rising anger among Pakistanis about the drone Hellfire missile attacks. Shahzad also reportedly claimed that his intention was to retaliate for the drones, which he saw in Waziristan, in northwest Pakistan.

A Gallup poll last August showed that only 9 percent of Pakistanis support the drone attacks, while 67 percent oppose them. The majority saw the US as a bigger threat than the Taliban.

A recent Newsweek report quotes local villagers as saying that every family there has one male member in the Taliban force.

In the war on terror, many Americans seem to be worried that criticizing the US government and military would make them look unpatriotic or un-American.

Each Predator and Reaper costs American taxpayers $4 million to $12 million and each Hellfire missile some $70,000, and the drones are causing anti-American sentiment to spread, especially in the Muslim world.

If that money is used to build schools there to reflect the US' soft power, it will win more hearts and minds and make Americans safer.

Stopping the drones launched from American citizens' backyards is no less urgent than finding the true connection of Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad.

US Predators carry out first strike in Khyber

From The Long War Journal, by Bill Roggio May 15, 2010 12:14 PM

Excerpted material of particular note:

"Both the Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Islam are known to operate bases and training camps in the Tirah Valley, as well as in Bara and Jamrud in Khyber. These safe havens enable these terror groups to launch attacks inside Pakistan as well across the border in Nangarhar province in Afghanistan. In November 2008, the US military attacked Taliban forces in the Tirah Valley after they retreated across the border from Nangarhar in Afghanistan. US strike aircraft and artillery killed seven Taliban fighters during the hot pursuit."


"The Khyber Pass is NATO's main conduit for supplies into Afghanistan; an estimated 70 percent of NATO's supplies move through this strategic crossing point. The Taliban forced the Khyber Pass to be shut down seven times between September 2007 and April 2008 due to attacks."

Decide for yourself: Predator drones on YouTube

"I'd say the thing I enjoy most about the job is knowing what's going to be in the paper the next day, and, when I read about it, knowing I was involved." Major Clayton Marshall, Predator pilot

"I guess the most rewarding is when I was able to assist with actually employing hellfire weapons."
Major James Ackerman, Predator pilot

US to expand Pakistan drone strikes

The US has reportedly carried out more than 100 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2008
Al Jazeera story May 6, 2010 13:07 GMT

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been granted approval by the US government to expand drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal regions in a move to step up military operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, officials have said.

Federal lawyers backed the measures on grounds of self-defence to counter threats the fighters pose to US troops in neighbouring Afghanistan and the United States as a whole, according to authorities.

The US announced on Wednesday that targets will now include low-level combatants, even if their identities are not known.

Barack Obama, the US president, had previously said drone strikes were necessary to "take out high-level terrorist targets".

Conflicting figures

"Targets are chosen with extreme care, factoring in concepts like necessity, proportionality, and an absolute obligation to minimise loss of innocent life and property damage," a US counterterrorism official said.

But the numbers show that more than 90 per cent of the 500 people killed by drones since mid-2008 are lower-level fighters, raising questions about how much the CIA knows about the targets, experts said.

Only 14 of those killed are considered by experts to have been high ranking members of al-Qaeda, the Taliban or other groups.

"Just because they are not big names it does not mean they do not kill. They do," the counterterrorism official said.

The US tally of combatant and non-combatant casualties is sharply lower than some Pakistani press accounts, which have estimated civilian deaths alone at more than 600.

Analysts have said that accurately estimating the number of civilian deaths was difficult, if not impossible.

"It is unclear how you define who is a militant and who is a militant leader," Daniel Byman, a counterterrorism expert at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy, said.

Jonathan Manes, a legal fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, said: "It is impossible to assess the accuracy of government figures, unattributed to a named official, without information about what kind of information they are based on, how the government defines 'militants' and how it distinguishes them from civilians."

US message

Former intelligence officials acknowledged that in many, if not most cases, the CIA had little information about those killed in the strikes.

Jeffrey Addicott, director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St Mary's University, said the CIA's goal in targeting was to "demoralise the rank and file".

"The message is: 'If you go to these camps, you're going to be killed,'" he added.

Critics say the expanded US strikes raise legal as well as security concerns amid signs that Faisal Shahzad, the suspect behind the attempted car bombing in New York's Times Square on Saturday, had ties to the Pakistani Taliban movement, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.

CIA-operated drones have frequently targeted the group over the past year in Pakistan, and its members have vowed to avenge strikes that have killed several of their leaders and commanders.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan's foreign minister, told CBS television channel that the US should not be surprised if anti-government fighters try to carry out more attacks.

"They're not going to sort of sit and welcome you [to] sort of eliminate them. They're going to fight back," Qureshi said.

A brief history of the unmanned aerial vehicle

An illuminating article appears on the Nebraskans for Peace web site about drone warfare and the history of UAV's.

StratCom: The Fulcrum for Drone Warfare by Loring Wirbel, Citizens for Peace in Space Colorado Springs, Colorado

Excerpt— "In the early years of the ‘War on Terror,’ missions involving Unpiloted Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) could be divided into those sponsored directly by regional combat commands in the Pentagon, and the more covert missions planned and executed by the CIA—both of which were supported by space and intelligence assets. The Pentagon-conducted missions tended to adhere to stricter rules of military engagement, which meant that if a drone directly targeted an individual al-Qaida suspect, chances were good that the mission was clandestine and run by the CIA.

In recent months, however, a third level of management has emerged, raising even greater questions of responsibility and accountability. According to journalist Jeremy Scahill and several other sources, the Pentagon’s secretive 'Joint Special Operations Command' (JSOC) manages unacknowledged armed UAV missions in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. These missions are run directly by Blackwater/Xe and several of its subsidiaries. Yet, because the ultimate authority for the missions goes back to JSOC, Strategic Command in Omaha (particularly its ‘Global Strike’ component) plays a more direct role in these even more deeply covert UAV strikes, than it does in CIA missions.

Demonstrators who went to the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia January 16 to protest the Agency’s drone attacks provided a rare and needed public face to these UAV missions which have become so commonplace in the past several years. Yet the protests only scratch the surface. The passing of armed-UAV authority among official combat commands, quasi-official CIA bases, and deniable JSOC/Blackwater missions allows the Pentagon to play a shell game that keeps activists from understanding who does what. And the central player shuffling the shells is Strategic Command."

Meet General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Incorporated

Extraordinary Edition piece by Collin on the First of May, 2010

It is the first of May, International Workers' Day, and I am trying to get my head around the U.S. situation in Pakistan. Which renders IWD of little difference from other days on the calendar where my preoccupations are concerned. Yet, aside from being overwhelmed as usual and unsure where to start, I do have something new to share with you which won't make much sense at first and probably hasn't much to do with the significance of May 1, International Workers' Day except that I have to leave for work and probably should have made a bid to get the day off so I could more clearly elaborate in these pages.

My question today is this. Who is General Atomics Aeronautical Systems?

And I mean aside from being a U.S. corporation led up by a charmain and CEO decorated in the business community, Neal Blue. His Vice Chairman is Linden S. Blue, which might give the impression General Atomics Aeronautical Systems is a family business of sorts. This notion is easier to gather than what's meant by, "Leading the Situational Awareness Revolution," which is boasted on the GA-ASI company web site.

The following are two defense industry accolades proudly listed on the company site:

LEAD San Diego 2009 Visionary Awards, Economic Opportunity, presented to Neal Blue, Chairman & CEO of GA-ASI, and Linden S. Blue, Vice Chairman of General Atomics

CONNECT Entrepreneur 2009 Hall of Fame Inductee, presented to Neal Blue, Chairman & CEO of GA-ASI, and Linden S. Blue, Vice Chairman of General Atomics

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems makes its home at an airfield situated between Palmdale and Lancaster, California, in a desert setting outside San Diego.

If you don't know already, GA-ASI is the patent-holder manufacturer of the unmanned aerial vehicles General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, or Predator B, and the MQ-1 Predator. The US Air Force classifies these aerial weapons, armed with optics, camera, transmitter for the video signal and oftentimes missles or bombs, as Medium Altitude Long Endurance or MALE.

These accounts, previously linked or listed in these pages, show some of the recent reports of the capabilities and applications of the proud fleet produced and distributed by the good people of San Diego, Palmdale and Lancaster.

"I was in Damadola when the drones came. They killed more than 80 teenagers – all students – and, yes they were learning the Koran, and the madrasah, the Islamic school, was run by a Taliban commander. But 80! Many of them came from Bajaur, which would be attacked later. Their parents came afterwards, all their mothers were there, but the bodies were in pieces. There were so many children, some as young as 12. We didn't know how to fit them together." This statement was taken by British journalist Robert Fisk from a Pakistani journalist who was forced to speak under condition of anonymity because he, like so many in Pakistan living in dangerous surroundings, has no immediate plan to change occupations.

Alex Rodriguez and David Zucchino of the Los Angeles Times wrote May 2 from Pakistan, "Their whir is unmistakable, a buzzing hum that prompts the tribespeople of Waziristan to refer to the fleet of armed U.S. drone aircraft hovering overhead as machay, or wasps. The Khan family never heard it. They had been sleeping for an hour when a Hellfire missile pierced their mud hut on an August night in 2008. Black smoke and dust choked villagers as they dug through the rubble. Four-year-old Zeerak's legs were severed. His sister Maria, 3, was badly scorched. Both were dead. When their cousin Irfan, 16, saw them, he gently curled them into his arms, squeezed the rumpled bodies to his chest, lightly kissed their faces, and slid into a stupor."

In his piece, Fisk learns the drone operator technique of returning to the scene to attack rescuers, a tactic reminiscent of the horrific fire bombing of Dresden by Allied planes in WWII. "They killed 14 men in just one night last month, at Datta Khel in north Waziristan. The drones come in flocks, and five of them settled over the village, firing a missile each at a pick-up truck, splitting it in two and dismembering six men aboard. When local residents as well as Taliban arrived to help the wounded, the drones attacked again, killing all eight of them. The drones usually return to shoot at the rescuers. It's a policy started by the Israeli air force over Beirut during the 1982 siege: bomb now, come back 12 minutes later for a second shot. Now Waziristan villagers wait up to half an hour – listening to the shrieks and howls of the dying – before they try to help the wounded."

Fisk praises journalist Amir Mir for his work in Pakistan. Mir reported April 10 for Pakistani news site The International News, "Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians."

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a law suit merely to provide an inquiry into the numbers and details involving civilian casualties. Democracy Now reported March 17, "The lawsuit seeks details under the Freedom of Information Act on the circumstances under which drone attacks are authorized as well as the number and rate of civilian casualties. The ACLU first filed its request in January but says the government simply refused to respond. Jonathan Manes of the ACLU’s National Security Project said: 'The public has a right to know whether the targeted killings being carried out in its name are consistent with international law and with the country’s interests and values.'

In short, I think people who live in the United States should be asking themselves who exactly General Atomics Aeronautical Systems is and what it does. Who are its friends? What kinds of tax subsidy does GA-ASI receive? Who holds its corporate charter and can it be revoked? Does GA-ASI have any records of what's happened in the reports above and do its officers and shareholders ever think about these issues? Can the issue of civilian deaths be more important than job creation, successful business ventures and relationships with powerful people in industry and government?

By answering these questions, we stand to learn a great deal. I have to leave for work now.

LA Times story on Predator and Reaper campaigns

Drones have transformed combat against Islamic militants in Pakistan's tribal areas, the rugged belt of villages and badlands hugging the border with Afghanistan. Since 2004, analysts say, Predator and Reaper drones operated by the CIA have killed at least 15 senior Al Qaeda commanders, as well as several top Pakistani Taliban leaders and hundreds of fighters.

The small unmanned planes can hover for hours while gathering infrared camera footage. Onboard lasers pinpoint targets for supersonic Hellfire missiles or 500-pound bombs. The attacks cost no American lives.

But civilians who had nothing to do with the Taliban or Al Qaeda also die in these strikes. Calculations of how many vary widely, from fewer than 30 since 2008 to more than 700 just last year. The Pakistani government restricts access to the tribal areas and has only nominal control there. Militants seal off attack sites, and victims are buried quickly, according to Islamic tradition.

Still, the deaths inflame anti-American suspicions, particularly among middle- and upper-class Pakistanis outside the tribal areas, many of whom are convinced that Washington wants to colonize their country or wrest control of its nuclear arsenal.

Inside the poor, isolated and politically powerless tribal areas, the reaction is more nuanced. Some say bluntly that they would avenge the killing of their relatives, if they could only reach those remotely piloting the drones buzzing thousands of feet over their heads. Others say they understand the need for the program, and even support it if it helps drive out the militants. They loathe the constraints the Taliban places on everyday life.

But many don't understand why a technology that pinpoints its targets with lasers and infrared cameras can also kill innocents. And they would prefer that Pakistanis, rather than Americans, were flying the drones.

The CIA's covert Predator and Reaper drone missions over Pakistan are separate from the U.S. military's unmanned flights in Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. military officials say.

Pakistanis are in some ways partners in the effort. U.S. conventional forces are banned from the tribal areas, but Pakistan tacitly acquiesces to Washington's reliance on drones to strike militant camps and hide-outs. The U.S. also relies heavily on the Pakistani military and intelligence services for on-the-ground information. If the intelligence is faulty, or if civilians are near militant targets, civilian casualties are almost inevitable.