 |
| European Neuron Stealth Drone |
She gives a false location, but Tarkin destroys Alderaan anyway. As an "ultimate weapon", the fearsome capability of the Death Star is revealed and it continues to be used as a weapon of choice.
In the real world of military strikes and the mounting losses of civilian lives in Arab and Muslim nations, in the United States' war on terror one of the many weapons of choice are drones, which can be deployed anywhere in the world, and their effects are immediately devastating. It is the indiscriminate killing of so-called targets of interest without the mobilisation or loss of US troops on the ground.
Added to this is the highly dubious tactic of "double taps", whereby a second strike closely follows the first strike, as people gather to help the injured. This makes the use of drones even more controversial because it increases the number of casualties to include rescuers. It also blatantly reveals the destructive power drone warfare. It enables President Obama to become "really good at killing people".
It is ironic that President Obama has been the direct beneficiary of both the anti-war and the civil rights movements, which allowed many generations to discover their inner power and harness it for positive change.
The relationship of the struggle for human dignity led by the civil rights movement and the victory of President Obama should never be underestimated or underappreciated.
But this continuation and strategic escalation of the "war on terror" policies, in particular drone warfare, mars his legacy. I voted for President Obama in two elections hoping that he would uphold the legacy of the real "Jedi order" of civil and human rights advocates.
But alas, it is a loss and a profound disappointment that he opted for the allure of the "Dark Side". What would Martin Luther King, Jr and Nelson Mandela say about the drones? The easy, silent and clinical deployment of death and destruction while constructing the illusion that it is a sound, legally defensible policy and in-line with universal human right principles is confusing at best, and outrageous at worst.
Blood is not an argument and the ability to kill without being seen and not knowing how many are being killed is not a rationale or an argument for dealing with the threat of terrorism.
Drones are in reality a growth industry and are part of the economy and they are no longer only an ethical, moral and legal justification for fighting terrorism.
The choices that we make in the military industrial economy are used to expand government and private expenditure to save "us" from the imminent threat. War is business and the business of war is the ongoing securitisation of societies across the globe.
Drone production, deployment, and warfare moved from the battlefields of Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen to US and European urban centres, where police has started using drones. The peaceful spin-offs of the military drone technology are many and their use in the civilian market will complicate our relations with them and curtail the ability to resist the constant deployment of this weapon of choice.
Indeed, the American public accepted its utility first in fighting terrorists abroad but it was only a matter of time before corporate and security interests saw the giant domestic market and moved to create the needed rationale for its adoption across the country. Fear of terrorists abroad has led us to accept government intrusion into our privacy, and now spying and wire-tapping our conversations and deployment of drones are all driven by economy and growth dynamics.
Becoming good at killing people is about selling and marketing weapons of choice in the modern battlefield that has no limits for rationalising death and destruction, and no rationales are more alluring than money and power.
Read more: Drones: The dark side of power - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
No comments:
Post a Comment