“A fighter jet might see a target for 20 minutes. We had to watch a target for days, weeks and even months. We saw him play with his kids. We saw him interact with his family. We watched his whole life unfold. You are remote but also very much connected. Then one day, when all parameters are met, you kill him. Then you watch the death. You see the remorse and the burial. People often think that this job is going to be like a video game, and I have to warn them, there is no reset button.”
—— Neal Scheuneman, a drone sensor operator who retired as a master sergeant from the Air Force in 2019.
sam enderby
A momentary misgiving as Burns describes it. But the guy – now 88 – was finally getting some sort of recognition for his button-pushing I guess and who am I to decry such as had I been him 70 years ago I would have pushed too and have no doubt that it was the right thing to do- such certitude at that time and in that place and with THAT enemy. But still you have to wonder through the many years if the thought of those houses and those women and those kids ever rose up again. Which is why another article posted this week by Nan Levinson that I read on the TOMDISPATCH.com (and here I tender an all important plug to those of you who may not know of this site – go there.) and it may have been published too on the HuffingtonPost and in Mother Jones online (always connect, to borrow from E.M. Forster) shifts into the present and offers us, at least the spectators from afar, the bleacher BUMS, if you will, of the DESOLATION and AGONY of our fierce doings (to steal from Coleridge- see previous post anent Dwight MacDonald) a glimpse perhaps into the painedpsyche of those “mandates we send for the certain death of thousands and ten thousands” and what and how is being done or trying to be done to help the healing. In the article, titled “MAD, BAD, SAD-What’s Really Happened to America’s Soldiers”, Ms. Levinson writes:
“I’ve spent the past seven years talking with current GI’s and recent veterans, and among the many things they’ve taught me is that nobody gets out of war unmarked. Thats especially true when your war turns out to be a shadowy, relentless occupation of a distant land, which requires you to do things that you regret and that continue to haunt you.”
The toll such MORAL INJURY exacts can be relentless and the official manuals both military and psychiatric are starting to finally take a good hard look at what is undoubtably a well precedented pathology leading to what is now called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Ms Levinson again:
”In trying to heal from a moral injury, people struggle to restore a sense of themselves as decent human beings, but the stumbling block for many veterans of recent US wars is that their judgment about the immorality of their actions may well be correct. Obviously, suffering which can be avoided should be, but it’s not clear what’s gained by robbing soldiers of a moral compass, save a salve to civilian conscience. And despite all the gauzy glory we swath soldiers in when we wave them off to battle, nations need their veterans to remember how horrible war is, if only to remind us not to launch them as heedlessly as the US has done over these last years.”
Now one of the more astonishing (to me) “developments” over time, meaning over a number of wars , is the Progress that our Military leaders have made in getting our boys and girls in uniform to use their weapons more ( its ironic that this little piece is taking me a little longer to get down as there is always -it seems -one more connection, one more reference that will bind this together better than what it is right now- get to the point mister- yeah, well its July 3 now which in case you’re keeping score is the 149th anniversary of the Third and Last Day of the Battle of Gettysburg and you want to talk of firing weapons), and now, finally, we’re getting the volunteers to shoot first and ask questions later (I could get snide and make a comment here regarding the good training they receive for a career in the NYPD but I won’t). Still the big Brass is finally able to start moving away from those Boots on the ground approach ( although for the past 60 odd years there was always the unspoken of eventuality of a more permanent end to this- and to everything else for that matter but as things went along the military and their favorite corporations just found the money to be too good- I guess) and with the advance in technology and weapon systems and computers and, well like everything else lately they are finding out that hey maybe we don’t need so many public employees afterall – although I’ve also read that the Privateers- the Third Party Contractors, Cheney’s Friends, are doing quite well (I wonder if thats what President Obama had in mind when he caught all sort of flak for saying the “private sector’s doing ok”?) So the hell with trying to win the Hearts and Minds as we did in Vietnam – oh, wait a minute- that’s not right but we are in Afghanistan and Pakistan(?) just like we did in Iraq because everywhere we go we’re treated as Liberators and Conquering Heroes or am I mixing my non sequiturs again because Sen. John Kerry once told us, nay warned may be better, that they ( the soldiers) found” that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from” over 40 years ago so why wouldn’t it work today? They’re fighting terrorists Over There so they won’t have to Over here? And how do you tell who’s a terrorist and who’s just your average Afghani or Pakistani or Somali or Omani or Iraqi or Irani (or Armani- just kidding) person with an unwieldy beard, a long nightgown with sandals, and a shmatta on his head – the same way we differentiated the good Gooks from the bad in Vietnam (now Sam.)? And from thirty thousand feet in a flying machine?
“As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups….the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboo (I believe that was Cheney’s second choice after waterboarding)- all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.”-wrote George Orwell in yet another context but not altogether that different in finding himself in a somewhat similar situation between his conscience and his country and the Moral Injury inflicted. But the CIA never seems to have any qualms (this may seem a harsh and unreasonable statement but I believe history bears it out ) in their ever expanding role in our lives and wars and an article that appeared last Fall in the Wall Street Journal explained that the expansion of the CIA’s “undeclared drone war” in certain areas required a Wider Standard as to who was being targeted. Evidently the Drones or as the army Techs know them – the UAVs (show of hands please? – the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) are as precise and accurate as they can be – right now – but they still have some tweaking to go through so in the meantime we need newer standards that preclude “knowing” who the targets are and to include anyone who was anyway associated with the presumed unknown target or mark so we won’t aim at mere individuals but groups who happen to be around the intended mark and call this a Signature Strike ( we’re supposed to give Pakistan some advance notice if we intend to kill 20 or more “unknowns” at once). I’d hate to think that the CIA is thinking, too, that such a standard could eliminate any unexpected witnesses to the event so not knowing is a help – just blips on some electronic screen or a stick figure in a shoot-em up video and we can fill in the names later or in an ironic ( for me, because I like the guy) plot twist it now has been reported that President Obama has a little Kill List (Michael Corleone as The Mikado) of those he has condemned. And so Signature Strikes are the lessons not learned in another part of the world a couple of generations ago although we are now more moderate in our violence.
reasons that all of us living in a so-called post 9/11 World need not bother to think about for all that was handled rather pathetically by the Bush Administration and now the Obama Administration ( The WAR ON TERROR will just continue and in case you haven’t figured it out we can do nothing but lose – How many of us feel freer? Is the price of freedom so cheap that America sells out to fascist dollars in the guise of so-called teaparty patriots? That right-wing politicians blatantly state they want America to fail because they hate the thought of a Black Man in the white house and then proceed to do everything they can do to succeed at it and this is not regarded as treason- there is, afterall, a war on- right?) and just as another ”northern” part of a country once received its share of our bombs the DRONES this time are falling on a region called NORTH WAZIRISTAN (and yes there is a south), more then 70% according to the New America Foundation. Its web-site has one of those user-interactive maps like the Google apps; it shows the mountainous topography of Pakistan and uses multi-colored
YOU are not here |
” When I pushed the button and saw the bombs going down, I saw what looked like a housing estate and I thought there are women and children down there..”
And Pakistan is an ally. Listen to another witness among our “friends on the ground” in the near and dear places of our faraway combat ( and forgive me the loss of this citation. I found it on line and wrote down the “address” then promptly misplaced it – along with the vermouth cap) The quote is verbatim,
“Well,the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq. They don’t see children, they don’t see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody. I am part of the answer to the U.S. terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people. And, on behalf of that, I’m avenging the attack. Living in the U.S., Americans only care about their own people, but they don’t care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die.”
We may take issue with some of his facts but there is no denying his anger and outrage and, quite frankly, we still haven’t got the knack for winning those elusive hearts and minds.
On another site – this one given over to the review of computer video games – ok, I was reaching here but I was hoping for a description of just what a drone impact would be like; something I haven’t been able to come up with in all the places I’ve been online, so- one participant was kind of naysaying the quality of his visuals when he wrote ” about their drones only dealing damage when it is destroyed (I took this to mean like a kamikaze). HITS LIKE A DAMN TRUCK (now we’re getting there),dies in like 2 secs, but manages to Damage and Stagger” and this “The Pulse & The Death EXplosion”. This is the language of our video game players and I doubt that our Military Drone drivers and support techs and such can come up with a more descriptive phrase for their actions than this from one of those video-game participants- “If I go fishing with someone, I wouldn’t want him to use a grenade, even if that means we’d get a ton of fish.” There are rules.
When John Kerry spoke 41 years ago on behalf of Vietnam Vets Against the War and others before Sen Fulbright’s Committee on Foreign Relations during the March on
I’m Somewhere to the right of the monument and about 3/4 of the way back |
Washington (your martini drinking blogger remembers sleeping in the rain hard by the Washington Monument – there was a stage nearby and plenty of grass but no martinis for me back then) he cited some statistics regarding the care of the Vietnam veterans or the lack thereof – at the time now remember- April, 1971- 57% of the Vets entering VA hospitals Talked of Suicide and 27% tried! “because they come back to this country and they have to face what they did in Vietnam, and then they come back and find the indifference of a country that doesn’t really care.” And then in the midst of this extraordinary testimony by this very brave and articulate soldier he says, “No ground troops are in Laos so it is all right to kill Laotians by remote control” in a context involving false body counts and winding down the war. He was using a biting sarcasm to make this point. Even then we were testing the drone out. One more because I can’t resist: “Finally this administration (this would be Nixon- ask your grandparents about this guy) has done us the ultimate dishonor. They have attempted to disown us and the sacrifices we made for this country. In their blindness and fear they have tried to deny that we are veterans or that we served in Nam. We do not need their testimony. Our own scars and stumps of limbs are witness enough for others and for ourselves.” Oh, yeah. Just wait until you try to run for president.
Today, according to the V.A. (see the Levinson article) it is estimated that upwards of 20% of the 2.3 Million troops who have cycled (and recyled and…) through Iraq and Afghanistan Suffer from PTSD. Thats a lot of healing to tend to. In a larger sense and certainly not to detract from the wounds of our current returning veterans we as a country, as a nation, have never as a People (if we are) really confronted ourselves in an honest way over our engagement in Vietnam but enough about me.
There’s a new institution underway being set up by the good folks at the Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Tx called the SOUL REPAIR CENTER which will conduct research and education about Moral Injury in combat veterans and we can only wish them the best. Now if we could just have some of these centers for the rest of us bleacher bums; for those who “have loved to swell the war-whoop”.
What is it like to push a button a half a world away and blow up some people you were trying or not to kill? What does that do to a person? Anything? Or is the world become one big Video Game?
A Mr. Middleton , an analyst with a British think tank, ( cited in the Independent?) has this to say regarding the U.S. use of “killer” drones in Somalia: “There is a danger that a War prosecuted in Somalia exclusively with Drones will disengage the U.S. from finding a political solution. If you can control the threat that way, you have no incentive to build a sustainable solution.” Of course this can obtain in all other areas and for how long? A Moises Naim writing for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will have to have the final word here- but only for now- He conveys that the American Drone “fleet” is now spread out through Turkey, the Horn Of Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula. Soon there will be if there isn’t already a huge demand for civilian use of drones and of course there is the Elephant in the room- the one Orwell didn’t shoot- and that is eventually the Terrorists themselves will start making these things and with just the right kind of warhead “suitable to travel from Afghanistan to Manhattan, from remote mountain roads to stadiums full of people”. Great.
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from April 15, 2022 New York Times:
The Casualties at the Other End of the Remote-Controlled Kill https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/us/drones-airstrikes-ptsd.html?smid=tw-share
seven plus years later:
from New York Times (March 10 is the 75th anniversary of the U.S. firebomb raid on Tokyo)
FROM NYTIMES SEPT 14, 2019
Drones Strike Big Saudi Oil Centers, and Houthis Claim Responsibility
We recently read:
April 19, 2018 (6 yrs hence & counting)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/arts/design/drones-kill-yes-but-they-also-rescue-research-and-entertain.html?ref=todayspaper
4 1/2 YRS HENCE:
Papers Offer a Peek at ISIS’ Drones, Lethal and Largely Off-the-Shelf
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WE'VE WAITED OVER 4 YEARS FOR THIS HEADLINE: WHAT TOOK THEM?
Pentagon Confronts a New Threat From ISIS: Exploding Drones
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The Upstate NY Coalition
to
Ground the Drones & End the Wars
We seek to educate the public and Hancock Air Base personnel about the war crimes perpetrated in Afghanistan with the MQ9 Reaper drone piloted from Hancock Air National Guard Base, on the outskirts of Syracuse. It is also our mission to illuminate the perversity of a society that chooses war over all other solutions.
We also seek to educate the public about drone proliferation and the danger of blowback, as well as the surveillance and civil liberties threat the Predator, Reaper and other military robots pose domestically.
Drawing legitimacy from International Law and from the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Upstate Drone Action members heed our consciences and the Nuremberg mandate to expose and impede our nation's war crimes. Committed to nonviolent direct action as well as other forms of public education, members periodically endure arrest, trial and even incarceration.
- And from the Dark Side
- Flightglobal News on UAVs
- The Drone Industry's new website as of 2/13: Increasing Human Potential
_______________________________________________________________________________________________and please check out Pratap Chatterjee's recent article from Tom's Dispatch, reprinted in AlterNet:
The Capricious Way America Conducts Drone Strikes
A New Kind of Mental Disturbance? Drone Pilots Are Quitting in Droves
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Reprinted from AlterNet December 30, 2013: News & Politics Please check out the full article-
We’re going to need more SOUL REPAIR CENTERS.
U.S. Drone Strike Kills at Least 7 in Pakistan as New Prime Minister Announces Cabinet
By SALMAN MASOOD
Published: June 7, 2013
- ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — At least seven people were killed late Friday when an American drone fired three missiles at a house in northwestern Pakistan, according to an intelligence official, hours after the country’s new prime minister announced his cabinet.
TEN MONTHS LATER:
U.S. Drone Pilot Explains What It’s Like When You Realize You Just Killed A Kid
Bryant worked in a trailer in Nevada. And he blasted targets in the Middle East, half a world away.
This is Bryant’s description of his first “shot”:
MCEVERS: In 2006, Bryant found himself wearing a flight suit and sitting in a kind of trailer in Las Vegas, Nevada, surrounded by monitors and the low hum of computers and servers. On his very first sortie as a pilot, Brandon watched from the drone’s camera as American soldiers got blown up in Afghanistan. There was nothing he could do. That was before he’d ever taken his first so-called shot. I asked him about that.
What was one of the more – if it’s OK to talk about this – one of the more memorable moments when that – when you had to do that?
BRYANT: I’ll talk about my first shot because I still think about that.
MCEVERS: This time, it was insurgents Brandon saw on the screen – one group who had been firing at U.S. troops and another group who was standing away from them. Brandon was ordered to fire a missile at the second group.
BRYANT: We fired the missile, and 1.2 seconds after the missile fires, it sonic booms. And so the sonic boom gets there before the missile does. And the guy in the rear hears this, and he runs forward to the two guys in front and then the missile hits. And after the smoke clears, there’s a crater there. You can see body parts of the people. But the guy that was running from the rear to the front, his left leg had been taken off above the knee, and I watched him bleed out.
The blood rapidly cooled to become the same color as the ground, because we’re watching this in infrared. And I eventually watched the guy become the same color as the ground that he died on.
MCEVERS: Wow. So these guys had weapons strapped on their backs, but you did not see them using them, threatening to use them in any way.
BRYANT: Correct. These guys had no hostile intent. And in my own mind, I thought of, you know – in Montana, here, we have – everyone has a gun. Like, these guys could’ve been local people that had to protect themselves or something similar to that. And I think we jumped the gun, you know?
MCEVERS: Do you provide that information in any kind of follow-up reporting? You know, is there any exit interview where you report that information to your superiors?
BRYANT: There’s an after-action report, but the pilots are the ones that put it together. And the only thing that was in there was enemy combatants, confirmed weapons, all three taken out by one – by AGM-114 hellfire strike. So it doesn’t really go into very much detail other than to tell what happened and what was the result.
That was Bryant’s first shot. His second shot left an even more indelible impression:
MCEVERS: Did you ever have to take a shot that hit someone that was clearly a civilian?
BRYANT: There was one, as actually my second shot, which was about a month after my first shot. This one was routine. We’re watching this house. And end of my shift, it’s coming close to being dawn in Vegas, and so it’s nighttime over there. And there’s very little activity. Like, every once in a while, a guy leaves the back of the house. And this guy was some sort of lieutenant of the commander of the area or something. I don’t remember.
I think there was supposedly three people left in the building and all were military males. We just aim at the corner of the building, we’re going to fire, and we do. And there’s about six seconds left before the missile impacts and something runs around the corner of the building. And it looked like a small person. There’s no other way for me to describe. It was a small two-legged person.
And the missile hits. There’s no sign of this person. A large portion of the building’s collapsed. There’s no movement coming in and out of the building. So we lock our camera on there, and I ask the screener who disseminates the video feed, I asked: Can you review that? Like, what was that thing that ran on the screen? And he’s, like, “one second–reviewing” and comes back and says: Oh, that was a dog.
MCEVERS: When you reviewed that tape, what did you see?
BRYANT: It was a person. It was a small person. Like, there’s no doubt in my mind that that was not an adult.
MCEVERS: And that was the end of your shift, so you just, like, walked out into Nevada after that, right? What did it look like? You said the sun had just come up…
BRYANT: So I was getting out. The sun was coming over the mountains off in the background. And I remember just kind of – the light was too bright, and the dark places were too dark. I felt really numb. I didn’t feel distraught like I felt my first shot. I felt numb because this is – this was the reality of war. Like, three instances in three months showed me pretty much every aspect that there is: that good guys can die, bad guys can die, and innocents can die as well.
But Bryant didn’t quit. Until a few years later, when he realized how much he had changed.
MCEVERS: What made you finally quit? What was it?
BRYANT: One day, it was late 2010, we had a wall that had five pictures on it of top al-Qaida leaders. And I remember walking in one day, and I kind of stopped and looked at one of these guys. And I was like, man, which one of these mother (bleep) is going to die today? And I stopped myself, and I was like, that’s not me. Like, that’s just not who I am. I don’t think like that. I was taught to respect life, even if in the realities of war that we have to take it, it should be done with respect. And I wanted this guy to die.
So I tried to talk to a couple of people about it. And one of the weird things about the whole drone community is that you don’t talk about anything that you’ve done. You just don’t. So I just shut up and didn’t talk to anyone about how I was feeling or how I was doing.
MCEVERS: So you quit.
BRYANT: Yeah. I just – I couldn’t do it anymore.
Bryant lives in Montana now. He’s going to college on the G.I. bill. Otherwise, things aren’t going that well for him. He has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He doesn’t have a place to live. He just stays with friends.
NINE MONTHS LATER:
Obama Drone War ‘Kill Chain’ Imposes Heavy Burden At Home
1. Additional references: Drone Warfare by Medea Benjamins
tikkun.org/nextgen/drone-warfare;Striking Back At the Drones
inthesetimes.com/article/13363/s…(be sure to read the comment by “Fred)
NATIONAL PTSD AWARENESS DAY — (Senate – June 28, 2012)
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I am honored to join my colleagues today in recognizing the Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, as their month-long PTSD awareness campaign comes to a close and in reflecting on our participation in the third annual National PTSD Awareness Day. I thank Senator Conrad for introducing the resolution to honor Army National Guard SSG Joe Biel who suffered from PTSD and tragically took his own life in April 2007 after returning from his second tour in Iraq.
All this month, we draw attention to PTSD which affects millions of Americans at some point in their lives. As chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, I am especially concerned with the impact that PTSD has had on our Nation’s serv ice mem bers and veterans. The number of veterans treated by the Department of Veterans Affairs, VA, for PTSD or related symptoms has reached 475,000 and there are likely more cases that go unreported, undiagnosed, or untreated each year. In fact, as the drawdown of Afghanistan troops continues, we can only expect those numbers to follow the steady rise previously reported. VA and the Department of Defense, DoD, need to be ready now.
This unpreparedness is a tragedy. Whether the wounds they return home with are visible or invisible, no veteran should be left to face their injuries alone, and I am committed to seeing that they never have to.
Already, we have seen a change in how VA and the DoD treat PTSD. Earlier this year, we learned that hundreds of serv ice mem bers and veterans had their PTSD diagnoses reversed over the course of 5 years at Madigan Army Medical Center in my home State of Washington. In the wake of this shocking discovery, Secretary of the Army John McHugh ordered a comprehensive, Army-wide review of medical files from the past decade to uncover any other problems with misdiagnoses. Two weeks ago, Secretary Panetta announced that he would be ordering a similar review across all of the armed services. I applaud these actions taken by Secretary Panetta and Secretary McHugh, but we are a long way from winning the battle on mental and behavioral health conditions.
That is why earlier this week I introduced the Mental Health ACCESS Act of 2012. This bill will require VA and DoD to offer a range of supplemental mental and behavioral health services to ensure that veterans, serv ice mem bers, and their families are receiving the care that they need and deserve. The Mental Health ACCESS Act of 2012 provides for comprehensive standardized suicide prevention programs, expanded eligibility to families for support services, improved training for healthcare providers, new peer-to-peer counseling opportunities, and reliable measures for mental health services.
Finally, we must overcome the stigma that surrounds PTSD. As VA’s National Center for PTSD has demonstrated, once diagnosed, PTSD and its symptoms can be treated and those who suffer from it can resume healthy and productive lives. Efforts like National PTSD Awareness Day and PTSD Awareness Month are critical to combating some of the most damaging misperceptions about PTSD.
In closing, as we look back on our efforts to raise awareness of PTSD throughout the month, we must also reaffirm our commitment to those veterans, serv ice mem bers, and families affected by PTSD. Our veterans and serv ice mem bers have made tremendous sacrifices for us and our country and we owe them the support and care that they deserve.
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Addendum #3 : In a NYTimes Op-Ed of Sunday, July 15, Scott Shane writes in “THE MORAL CASE FOR DRONES” (!) -parenthesis mine-
“…any analysis of actual results from the CIA’s strikes in Pakistan, which has become the world’s unwilling test ground for the new weapon, is hampered by secrecy and wildly varying casualty reports. But one rough comparison has found that even if the highest estimates of collateral deaths are accurate, the drones kill fewer civilians than other modes of warfare.”
The article has a few paragraphs of percentage citations worthy of a MacNamara or Bundy back in the day when such statistics counted for something (what?) and then there’s that last bit when a Henry A. Crumpton, identified as a former deputy chief of the CIA’s counterterrorism center “who tells in his recent memoir (I always find it fascinating when all these spy types take it upon themselves to write their memoirs)-We never said Lets build a more humane weapon. Lets be as precise as possible, because thats our mission-to kill Bin Laden and the people around him” . “Look at the firebombing of Dresden, and compare what we’re doing today…”
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4. “Colonel Brenton acknowledges the peculiar new disconnect of fighting a telewar with a joystick and a throttle from his padded seat in American suburbia. ” -
from Elisabeth Bumiller’s NYTimes article July 30, 2012-see link below
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/us/drone-pilots-waiting-for-a-kill-shot-7000-miles-away.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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5. Ex-president Truman’s grandson visits Hiroshima | Alternet.
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6. 18 Vets Kill Themselves a Day: We Hail Them As Heroes Then Treat Them Like
Garbage | Alternet.
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7. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/world/asia/qaeda-operatives-killed-in-drone-strike-official-says.html?ref=todayspaper
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8. http://livingunderdrones.org/report/
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-potent-but-crash-prone-weapon-in-the-counterterrorism-war/2012/10/25/42905082-1d2c-11e2-ba31-3083ca97c314_gallery.html#photo=1
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11/8/12 -AND THIS FROM A RECENT POST AT ALTERNET BY AL MCCOY
http://www.alternet.org/world/new-weapons-systems-could-give-pentagon-unprecedented-power-over-planet-or-lead-future?page=0%2C5
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“Did We Just Kill a Kid?”: Drone Operator Who Killed Afghan Child Can’t Sleep After Waging War Miles Away
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S. drone strikes in Pakistan on rise for 2013
- By Greg Miller, Published: January 10
- Current and former U.S. intelligence officials attributed the increased tempo to a sense of urgency surrounding expectations that President Obama will soon order a drawdown that could leave Afghanistan with fewer than 6,000 U.S. troops after 2014. The strikes are seen as a way to weaken adversaries of the Afghan government before the withdrawal and serve notice that the United States will still be able to launch attacks.
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Tending to Veterans’ Afflictions of the Soul
Published: January 11, 2013
- FORT WORTH — On a drizzly Saturday afternoon in September 2005, the Rev. Rita Nakashima Brock awaited her instructions at a vast Washington rally against the Iraq war. The protest march, numbering more than 100,000, was the latest and among the largest events in her nearly 40 years of pacifist activism.
Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times
Photos of Ms. Brock’s parents, who helped inform her work, in her office at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth.__________________________________________________
Drone Strikes’ Dangers to Get Rare Moment in Public Eye
By ROBERT F. WORTH, MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE
Published: February 5, 2013 109 Comments
Multimedia
Related in Opinion
ROOM FOR DEBATE
When Can the U.S. Kill One of Its Own?
Are targeted killings depriving U.S. citizens of constitutionally protected due process rights?
Samuel Aranda for The New York Times
Members of the Kaual tribe in the capital, Sana, on Tuesday. Two of their relatives died in a drone strike last month, they said.Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images
“He’s probably had more power and influence than anyone in a comparable position on the last 20 years.” Daniel Benjamin, a former top counterterrorism official at the State Department, speaking about John O. Brennan, President Obama’s choice to lead the C.I.A.Correction: February 5, 2013
An earlier version of a photo caption with this article misstated the given name of a former official at the State Department who said John O. Brennan wielded great influence in the counterterrorism field. He is Daniel Benjamin, not David.
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Drone Pilots Are Suffering From Low Morale: GAO Report
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There are many connections to be made in observing (and participating in) the fight for the Soul Of Amercia (as Mitt likes to say) and if you’re like me and given to a paralyzing despondency – my wife doesn’t want me to use Depression (although I fail to see the difference), our present state of affairs can be quite sobering, no more so than upon our booze budget and a remembered fondness for the better gin angels of the top shelf variety for the lower orders suffice us now and with long disposed expertise in assembling our evening’s martini we manage to save a small fortune ( financial advise when you least need it) in vermouth by using a technique favored by Mr. Winston Churchill and that’s just to wave the cap or cork of the vermouth over the glass of gin, served chilled with an olive of course or, having read something about Sir Winny and his habituations during the war, it seems there was a shortage of his favorite French vermouth so