“The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
– C. Little
Chicken Little got it wrong. The sky isn’t exactly falling, but it does pose lethal threats. Those threats are near and long term, domestic and international. They entail surveillance and terror.
Weaponized unmanned drone aircraft – the Predator, the Reaper, the Global Hawk – have no crew on board. Hence no head, no heart. These drones are amoral robots exquisitely designed to spy and to kill, to maim and to demolish. Out of the blue, their 500-pound bombs and Hellfire missiles strike like lightning bolts.
Stateside technicians piloting them see their human targets as through a soda straw. Their computer screen vision is severely constricted. Their cultural understanding is distorted by American exceptionalism and prevailing Islamophobia.
Further, the pilots’ moral vision tends to be compartmentalized. How could it be otherwise? Military training features “killing and blowing up things.” Recruits are dehumanized, the better to dehumanize the “enemy.” They are programmed to follow orders without question. Extensions of the drones, they too become robotized.
In their illegality, their immorality and their inhumanity, these death squads play the devil. In executing non-combatants without judge or jury – without due process – these vigilantes and their chain of command play God.
Why should we care?
Out of self-interest – whether narrowly or broadly defined. Drone technology – cheaper and more nimble than jet aircraft or nuclear weaponry – rapidly evolves and proliferates.
Currently, the US and Israel are on the very cutting edge of drone design and deployment. For fear of being arms race losers, dozens of other nations are also acquiring drone technology. Some use drones to intimidate domestic dissent or to suppress tribal minorities.
Drones become dark angels exacting revenge. Not all nations look fondly upon the US and its “interests.” Given the resentment generated by promiscuous drone strikes, this hostility and dread triggers blowback. The world is not made safer.
Drone strikes are classified, anonymous. Often, they defy investigation. Often, the victims can be neither named nor counted. But we know drone strikes occur in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, as well as in Muslim areas of Africa and the Philippines. And who knows where else.
Thanks to the US nuclear arsenal, the leaders of every nation have long been forced to defer to the US. Now, in the face of the US drone fleet, they must doubly do so. Opposing the world’s most militarized nation – one that claims the obscene privilege to assassinate whenever and wherever it chooses – is imprudent.
Chickens come home to roost. Will we be next? Drone targets won’t always be the poor, the defenseless, the non-Judeo-Christian. Nor will the targets always be “them” or “over there.”
With billions in contracts and research grants, the US drone industry is burgeoning…and busy lobbying. The FAA is mandated to expedite domestic drone use. Conveniently, much of the US population think drones are “cool” and “save lives.”
Thanks to pro-drone mainstream media hype, the public is already de-sensitized to extrajudicial execution. Opting for a delusional security, they tolerate, even welcome, creeping surveillance at home. Think NSA.
Police and intelligence agencies drool at the prospect of using these toys – initially unweaponized – here. Whether we trust the President and his advisors, whether we embrace the Pentagon and Homeland Security agenda, must we keep ceding unaccountable power to them?
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy