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CounterPunch
December
21, 2002
DRONES:
The Militarization
of Daily Life
by KURT NIMMO
Now comes word the Ministry of Homeland Security
is looking into the idea of buzzing the US-Mexico and Canada
borders with pilotless surveillance aircraft, otherwise known
as drones or UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). "I think
it would be very important that the president initiate a study
on the future use of UAVs by elements of the federal government
other than the military," incoming Senate Armed Services
Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., told the media the other
day.
When Warner says "other than military,"
he is talking about private industry contracted by the Ministry.
Like an increasing number of US prisons and other one-time
government functions, many homeland security operations will
be performed by for-profit corporations. It's an ideal way
for the Bushites to get around the pesky provisions of Posse
Comitatus, which stipulates the military cannot be used for
domestic law enforcement. Granted, the Border Patrol is run
by the feds -- and will be soon rolled into the Ministry of
Homeland Security -- not local police agencies. But once UAVs
are soaring imperiously above the border -- and people get used
to the idea, thanks to praiseful news coverage (everybody likes
a high-tech gadget story, especially if said marvel of engineering
defeats illegals and terrorists who hate our way of life) --
how long before police departments far and wide decide to use
these devices to monitor street corner drug dealers, speeders,
black-clad anarchists, and other contemptible tub-thumpers up
to no good? Talk about the militarization of daily life.
Warner admits UAVs can be "quite
intrusive," and even dangerous to individual privacy. Not
to worry, though, because this will be something addressed by
the study he wants Bush to undertake. One has to wonder, however,
where Mr. Warner was vacationing when large segments of the
Bill of Rights were expunged with the passage of the USA-Patriot
Act and the recently shooed through Ministry of Homeland Security
contrivance. Is privacy really a concern as five-time felon
John Poindexter attempts to juggle all manner of public and
private databases together into a snoop's dream? Or John Ashcroft
conniving Neighborhood Watch programs organized to denounce
terrorists and dangerous anti-American grousers?
But never mind. After the CIA used a
UAV armed with Hellfire missiles to off a handful of suspected
al-Qaeda types in Yemen last month, the bad-ass rep of these
whiz-bang drones has increased to near mythical proportions.
So what if they have failed repeatedly in Afghanistan, or they
crash when it rains, snows, or Zeus sneezes. Even the bombed-to-bare-essentials
Iraqis have shot down a few Predators with ease. In fact, it
seems these glorified model airplanes can be knocked out of
the sky with a lucky shot from a peashooter. Or at least a well-aimed
rock thrown by a Palestinian grade school kid.
Regardless, expensive UAVs are good for
business. Ask James Roche, Secretary of the Air Force and former
head of Northrop Grumman (his old employer manufactures the
Global Hawk and the experimental X-47A Pegasus UAV). As for
the Hellfire missiles that blew the unconvicted American Ahmed
Hijazi to bits in Yemen for the infraction of riding in car
with the assumed buddies of Osama, ask Cheney's wife, Lynne,
who serves on the board of the largest death merchant in the
world, Lockheed Martin (she receives $120,000 in compensation,
which is pocket change for the Cheney clan), the company famous
for cranking out Hellfires and other murder devices (F-117,
F-16, F-2, F/A-22, C-5, U-2, ad nauseam) like I-Hop cranks out
butter pancakes. Since there is no shortage of rogue nations
and pesky illegals, business will be surely booming (no pun
intended) for the likes of Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin,
Boeing, Raytheon, General Electric and, of course, the Carlye
group where Dubya's daddy works.
"These [UAVs] are hot," exclaims
Daryl Davidson, executive director of the Association for Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle Systems International, a sort of pimping outfit
for UAVs. Not to let potential market share slip from grasp,
Boeing has devised a UAV for commercial use -- a cute little
model dubbed the Sentry Owl -- which it hopes to sell for "property
monitoring and pipeline security," according to CongressDaily.
Since these things have an uncanny habit of falling out of the
sky when folks nearby turn on their radios, it only seems prudent
the insurance industry come up with a new policy. Or maybe Bush
needs to pass a law -- like the one he wants to wave through
to protect pharmaceutical corporations against lawsuits -- to
make sure ambulance chasers don't sue the pants off Northrop
Grumman if perchance a few UAVs fall out of the sky and kill
innocent citizens.
Everybody, it seems, wants to get into
the UAV act. Not only the Border Patrol, but also the Coast
Guard, the Transportation Department, the Energy Department,
and even the FBI want a piece of the action (imagine the post-COINTELPRO
possibilities for the FBI if they lay hands on a squadron of
these babies crammed full of electronic snoop hardware; it's
enough to make the folks over at Earth First! think twice about
spiking old growth trees). Maybe in the not-too-distant future
the rich will employ UAVs to patrol their exclusive gated communities.
The possibilities -- and lavish reward for investors and stockholders
-- are nearly limitless.
Meanwhile, down here in Las Cruces, New
Mexico, a mere 40 miles from the Mexican border, I will keep
my eyes trained on the sky for UAVs. Since more than a few so-called
illegals pass through here on their way to sweatshops, orchards,
agricorp plantations, and factories determined to beat the minimum
wage, I may yet see a few UAVs buzzing around up in the wild
blue yonder. Who needs an Israeli-style fence to cordon the
border against desperate third world interlopers when Northrop
Grumman is on the job? All Fortress America needs is good old
Horatio Alger can-do ingenuity -- and, of course, ample subsidization
from increasingly shackled and distracted taxpayer-citizens.
Kurt Nimmo
is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New
Mexico. Visit his excellent online
gallery. He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
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