The setup is familiar by now, if only because the image has
long-since bled into pop culture ubiquity. A four-wheel-drive races
across the desert floor somewhere in the badlands of eastern Yemen, a
long wake of dust trailing behind in the baking air.
Unbeknownst to the five occupants of the vehicle, this scene exists also in cyberspace. The car’s precise location, its speed and bearing, a detailed dossier on one of the passengers and considered speculation on the others.
A pixelated image of the tiny glittering speck is routed through a small constellation of satellites, through a ground station in central Australia, parsed through an operations centre in the United States, and bounced back again to the reaper drone wheeling two miles above. The feedback loop is seamless, conducted at the speed of light.
Time’s up. An anti-tank missile howls out of the sky. The vehicle detonates.
It will later be alleged that one of the dead is a member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a group who shares its political lineage with the network that flew passenger aircraft into the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre in September 2001. Two things about terrorism were burned into the western collective consciousness on that bleak morning: terrorists kill indiscriminately, and they have casual regard for international law. The fiery catastrophe in downtown Manhattan casts long shadows even today.
Read more: Two Australians were killed by US drones. Of course that's our business | Scott Ludlam | Comment is free | theguardian.com
Unbeknownst to the five occupants of the vehicle, this scene exists also in cyberspace. The car’s precise location, its speed and bearing, a detailed dossier on one of the passengers and considered speculation on the others.
A pixelated image of the tiny glittering speck is routed through a small constellation of satellites, through a ground station in central Australia, parsed through an operations centre in the United States, and bounced back again to the reaper drone wheeling two miles above. The feedback loop is seamless, conducted at the speed of light.
Time’s up. An anti-tank missile howls out of the sky. The vehicle detonates.
It will later be alleged that one of the dead is a member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a group who shares its political lineage with the network that flew passenger aircraft into the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre in September 2001. Two things about terrorism were burned into the western collective consciousness on that bleak morning: terrorists kill indiscriminately, and they have casual regard for international law. The fiery catastrophe in downtown Manhattan casts long shadows even today.
Read more: Two Australians were killed by US drones. Of course that's our business | Scott Ludlam | Comment is free | theguardian.com
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