David Patterson is a veteran member of VFP CA Hugh Thompson Memorial Chapter 91 in San Diego, CA.
As a 62 year old Electronic Technician I have embraced emerging technology for almost 50 years. However, the Drone technology carries with it an insidious edge that is in my view being exploited by our politicians and the military industrial complex. Although technology is neither good nor bad generally, the development of Drones is leading us into uncharted waters internationally and domestically, and to fix it requires Congress get busy providing oversight. But don’t expect Congress to act unless we pressure them to do so.
On the good side Drones can be used to manage crops and forest fires, find lost kids and provide maritime surveillance. On the bad side some high-brow studies suggest that we are creating more enemies than we kill with Drones, terrorizing people in our war on terror and fueling our government’s trend toward a surveillance state.
Much Drone use is cloaked in secrecy and thus undermines our Constitution. Such subversion is most obvious when our government kills American citizens by Drone, justified with legal arguments that we can’t see. We need to drive home the premise our President is not king, and he cannot have the power of life and death over our citizenry. Worse yet there is evidence that we have killed political enemies of “friendly governments” with Drones, for reasons that may never be known. Drones have blown up wedding celebrations, and children and people that had nothing to do with terrorism, including village elders that had previously supported America’s efforts. The onslaught of Drone attacks has brought us to the point that we, America, have become the enemy of many moderate Middle Easterners. In Northern Pakistan and other places our Drones have been heard overhead for many years, and the people on the ground lie in fear night after night that they might be killed. Terrorism comes in many forms, and our technology is terrorizing people around the world. In the war on terror, Drone technology makes us the terrorist.
Our President has his own secret army armed with Drones, the Joint Special Operations Command, JSOC. This army at the President’s command can strike 24/7 around the globe, and we will never know if those actions were justified or even legal, because they are cloaked in secrecy. This flagrant and frequent misuse of deadly force has emboldened terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, and they are resurgent across the war-torn Middle East, determined to destroy America. Really? Has that been our goal since 9-11 to fuel endless war and provide unrestricted government spending on the military?
Congress is loathe to act because Drones present a quid pro quo money for influence game, that that helps corrupt our system of representation. Drone technology greases the skids of a proverbial slippery slope, that of waging war without having to pay for it with our own blood and little money. As a Veteran I know that war cannot be easy or cheap if we are to be serious about the better alternative of peace. However, Drone technology lets us kill people across the globe without risking our own soldiers, and it is so inexpensive we can wage Drone war on many fronts without breaking the bank. Thus, war by Drone has become too easy and cheap for our politicians, and extremely profitable for their supporters, the military industrial complex. Public money in private pockets is the end game being played out with Drones.
Finally on the domestic front our freedom of association and privacy are threatened by Drone use. We know that various government agencies have used the border patrol Drones over 700 times for unknown reasons in 2012, and that Homeland Security is bringing Drones back from the war zones to use in our skies as well. To get a feeling for the capability of our government to surveil us, search for “argus-is” on youtube, where it is demonstrated that a Drone fitted with this technology can monitor and track every moving thing in it’s field of view, and loiter for very long periods of time. Ultimately the threat of the government “knowing all” about our movements will undermine our willingness to exercise our right of freedom of association. When American’s cease to associate for fear of the government, our free society dies.
Ultimately oversight by Congress in the only solution for reigning in Drone technology, and it’s up to us to force Congress to do it.
Dave Patterson
San Diego Veterans For Peace
www.sdvfp.org
1003 6th street
Ramona, Ca 92065
760-207-9139
Books regarding Drones:
Drone video:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/attack-drones/
Argus-IS