Saturday, October 6, 2012

Drones in the news

Drones are something we don't give a lot of thought to. We blithely assume that we have some sort of inalienable right to fly them over foreign countries at will.

One of those countries is Pakistan, where today thousands rallied against America on exactly this issue. Pakistan has been gifted with hundreds of drone strikes causing thousands of casualties, and they are an American ally?

Seems this is a great way for America to alienate those few remaining friends she has in the world.

The drone is an attractive weapon for combat averse militaries. The "pilots" are essentially video-gamers sitting in air-conditioned offices thousands of miles from their enemies. Who is hit in these drone strikes is more often than not impossible to verify because there are no resources on the ground. It's a perfect weapon system for lazy cowards.

Like any technical advantage, our drone advantage won't last long. The Israeli Air Force shot one down  over Israel today, origin unknown. There will be many more to come.

And if drones of unknown origin can show up in Israeli air space, it's only a matter of time before they are over-flying New York and Los Angeles.


No comments:

Post a Comment