Yukon
Rookie
- Feb 7, 2009
- 2,025
- 99
- 0
- Banned
- #1
"Sitting in a virtual cockpit is not as exciting as flying a fighter jet", noted CNN's breathless Laurie Ure, "but unmanned attack-plane pilots can enjoy a normal workday schedule". Captain Matt Dean agrees, "seeing bad guys on the screen and watching them possibly get dispatched, and then going down to the Taco Bell for lunch, it's kind of surreal". This is the Pentagon's version of Second Life, soon to be known as Exit Life. One day it will come to a war near you.
The latest unmanned bomber is called the Reaper and caries the same payload as an F-16 fighter plane, but happily, Laurie assures us - its pilots are not put in harm's way.' Of course not, they're eating tacos. Col. Chris Chambliss is commander of the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing, which was established last year as the first unit dedicated to unmanned aerial systems and remote controlled assassinations. "We're the victims of our own success", he tells a Defence correspondent, while he plays tapes of the victims of the Reaper. Chambliss says there is an "insatiable appetite" for his systems and their "capabilities" and his air-wing is currently flying 28 combat air patrols around the clock, and rising.
On Sept 8, while the boys from Creech were wolfing down their tacos, the London Times published an eight-minute of video of the massacre in Azizabad, the "most compelling evidence to emerge" of 75 civilian deaths. The hero here is an unnamed Afghan doctor who arrived at the scene with a cell phone and shot footage of weeping parents, injured children and charred babies - line upon line of shrouded corpses. Along with attack helicopters and a C130 Spectre gunship, armed drones were used in the attack.
And so it goes, this depressing spiral of wars without end, arms trading, Government lies, the obliteration of the innocent and an insane certainty that our Kilpingesque military missions are wise and noble. Oh yes, Australia's on board, fists flying. We're building a bigger navy to defend our sea lanes from, er, what? Oh yes, Asia's ascent. George Bush, Barack Obama and John McCain are pushing for a "surge" in Afghanistan, a country which never attacked anyone. True, it did harbour Osama bin Laden, just as America once harboured the Shah of Iran and still harbours anti-Castro terrorists and fully backed General Pinochet and nourished Pervez Musharraf and still trains torturers, etc, but as yet no army has invaded Washington.
Why are we in Afghanistan? "To spread democracy". Surely it's death we're spreading. If we cared about democracy we'd be listening to the locals, who want us out. In the most recent survey of public opinion, (this June, prior to the latest bout of killings), "more than six out of ten of those interviewed... said that foreign troops should leave." And let's not mention the encroaching famine - no-one else does.
The latest unmanned bomber is called the Reaper and caries the same payload as an F-16 fighter plane, but happily, Laurie assures us - its pilots are not put in harm's way.' Of course not, they're eating tacos. Col. Chris Chambliss is commander of the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing, which was established last year as the first unit dedicated to unmanned aerial systems and remote controlled assassinations. "We're the victims of our own success", he tells a Defence correspondent, while he plays tapes of the victims of the Reaper. Chambliss says there is an "insatiable appetite" for his systems and their "capabilities" and his air-wing is currently flying 28 combat air patrols around the clock, and rising.
On Sept 8, while the boys from Creech were wolfing down their tacos, the London Times published an eight-minute of video of the massacre in Azizabad, the "most compelling evidence to emerge" of 75 civilian deaths. The hero here is an unnamed Afghan doctor who arrived at the scene with a cell phone and shot footage of weeping parents, injured children and charred babies - line upon line of shrouded corpses. Along with attack helicopters and a C130 Spectre gunship, armed drones were used in the attack.
And so it goes, this depressing spiral of wars without end, arms trading, Government lies, the obliteration of the innocent and an insane certainty that our Kilpingesque military missions are wise and noble. Oh yes, Australia's on board, fists flying. We're building a bigger navy to defend our sea lanes from, er, what? Oh yes, Asia's ascent. George Bush, Barack Obama and John McCain are pushing for a "surge" in Afghanistan, a country which never attacked anyone. True, it did harbour Osama bin Laden, just as America once harboured the Shah of Iran and still harbours anti-Castro terrorists and fully backed General Pinochet and nourished Pervez Musharraf and still trains torturers, etc, but as yet no army has invaded Washington.
Why are we in Afghanistan? "To spread democracy". Surely it's death we're spreading. If we cared about democracy we'd be listening to the locals, who want us out. In the most recent survey of public opinion, (this June, prior to the latest bout of killings), "more than six out of ten of those interviewed... said that foreign troops should leave." And let's not mention the encroaching famine - no-one else does.
