Droning On

Continuing from below, we (the people) are pretty much screwed until the development of ways & means to counter any & all of these devices. No doubt pepper-sprayers & other crowd-control attachments will be available in the next fiscal yr.

The U.S. military has gone from having just a few drones at the outset of the Iraq War to now over 7,000.

A sociopathic subcontractor for a privatized police force, fondling his joy-stick in front of a monitor in an industrial park in a right-to-work state will be raining napalm & depleted uranium on crowds of big-city protesters by ... 2013, let's guess.

The Iron Cross alone makes us a little nervous.

Y'know?

ADDED: From the blue Wired link above:

As of May 3 [2010. 18 mos. ago! — M.B.], American unmanned systems had carried out 131 known airstrikes into Pakistan, well over triple the number we did with manned bombers in the opening round of the Kosovo War just a decade ago. By the old standards, this would be viewed as a war.

But why do we not view it as such? Is it because it is being run by the CIA, not by the U.S. military? This has certainly minimized public debate, but it is the 21^st-century equivalent of the equally not-so-covert fleet of repainted B-26 bombers the CIA sent to the Bay of Pigs invasion. We have ended up in a very odd situation: that the only true air war that the United States is fighting right now is not one commanded by an Air Force general but by a former congressman from California. This also means that not only are civilians handling weapons of war but also that civilian officials and lawyers, rather than military officers, are wrestling with complex issues of war, such as operational concept and strategy, rules of engagement, etc., that they do not have the background or mandate to manage.

We are not now, nor have we ever been at war anywhere in East, South or West Asia.