Remotely Piloted War: How Drone War Became The American Way of Life

[marmar]

from TomDispatch:



Remotely Piloted War
How Drone War Became The American Way of Life

By Tom Engelhardt


In the American mind, if Apple made weapons, they would undoubtedly be drones, those remotely piloted planes getting such great press here. They have generally been greeted as if they were the sleekest of iPhones armed with missiles.

When the first American drone assassins burst onto the global stage early in the last decade, they caught most of us by surprise, especially because they seemed to come out of nowhere or from some wild sci-fi novel. Ever since, they've been touted in the media as the shiniest presents under the American Christmas tree of war, the perfect weapons to solve our problems when it comes to evildoers lurking in the global badlands.

And can you blame Americans for their love affair with the drone? Who wouldn’t be wowed by the most technologically advanced, futuristic, no-pain-all-gain weapon around?

Here’s the thing, though: put drones in a more familiar context, skip the awestruck commentary, and they should have been eerily familiar. If, for instance, they were car factories, they would seem so much less exotic to us. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175507/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_the_arrival_of_the_warrior_corporation/#more (story follows a brief intro)