U.S. To Fly Armed Drones Over Libya

[sabrina 1]

U.S. To Fly Armed Drones Over Libya

President Obama has approved the use of armed Predator drone aircraft in the skies over Libya, The Associated Press reports, adding that Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the news at a Pentagon news conference.

According to the AP, "Marine Gen. James Cartwright, speaking alongside Gates, said the first Predator mission was scheduled for Thursday but it was scratched due to poor weather. Cartwright said the Predators allow low-level precision attacks on Libyan government forces."

More 'change' we can believe in! Drones are the reason the Pakistani people and the Afghan people want the US out of their countries.

So many innocent women and children have been killed by drones and in the most brutal and cowardly way, it is shameful that they have not yet been banned.

I guess this doesn't mean we are going to war in Libya. All we have to do is push a button somewhere thousands of miles away and we get to kill lots of people!

And all Qaddafi's forces have to do is pose as 'informers' and lots of rebels will die.

Just like Afghanistan.



Predator Drone

One of the cruelest and most cowardly weapons every used against innocent civilians.

Poor Libya!

[Moondog]

1. Yet another great decision by POTUS. n/t

[FiveGoodMen]

2. When will DU wake up and recognize that he's one of them and not one of us!?

[Ezlivin]

3. When we're awakened by the sound of armed drones flying over our houses

Those UAVs are just so useful for law enforcement and with a few additions....

We are becoming a police state.

[sabrina 1]

6. They're flying over Mexico

according to what I've read. I wonder what we don't know.

[Cascadian]

4. You cannot change a lemmings' mind to jump off a cliff.

But don't forget, it's all being done for "democracy'!





John

(The Cascadian is back!)

[sabrina 1]

5. I wonder if he, or Congress has any say in anything anymore.

Shouldn't Congress be required to authorize the use of these weapons on a sovereign country with whom, supposedly, we are not at war? Does the Pentagon just give the orders to the WH now, or does the president make these decisions without even consulting Congress?

[The Northerner]

7. +1

[sabrina 1]

13. I wonder if he has a choice. I knew he was never

a left-leaning democrat, but I did think he meant to end the wars and close Guantanamo, end torture. And I never thought he would order assassinations and these brutal weapons known to kill mostly women and children. If I had ever thought that, I would never have supported him.

So, either he completely fooled people, or the U.S. president has no power anymore. I can't decide which it is.

[indimuse]

16. Thank you!

rec.

[lib2DaBone]

8. Obama OKs Drones.. FDA gives go ahead for Big pharma to take over medical MJ...

but pressures Justice Department to bust Cancer patients for Medical MJ...

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/150698/big_pharma_set_to_take_over_medical_marijuana_market/

BO and Arne Duncan vs Teachers Union. On and On.. I can't watch this train wreck any longer.

[sabrina 1]

9. 'gives go ahead for Big pharma to take over MJ'

while busting cancer patients for using it. If anything shows that this country is no longer cares about people, this does. It really is an outrage. Money is God!

I know what you mean, it's hard to watch, especially when THIS was meant to be the cure. They just don't care what anyone thinks anymore, they have become royalty.

[Canuckistanian]

10. Those things only hit weddings and houses with kids in them

Can't they find a more effective weapon?

[sabrina 1]

11. Yes, but NOT according to Gates who had the gall to say

today that they are the most precise weapons we have. What a slap in the face of the people of Afghan who have been protesting the use of these deadly, criminal weapons which we KNOW have a record of killing 10 civilians for every 'terrorist' and have been the cause of the Pakistani government, under pressure from their own people, demanding that the U.S. stop using them.

If their purpose is to kill 'terrorists' then they are a complete failure. So, why are they ignoring the demands of both governments, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and now bringing them to Libya where the chances are they will kill even more civilians.

[Canuckistanian]

12. I agree

For such "precision weapons", they're guided by complete idiots with ZERO compassion or regard for 'collateral damages" - namely, innocent civilians.

[Mimosa]

14. Violent video games evolved from simulated war videos or vice versa?

So, an enlisted guy or gal can sit at a video cosole at a command center and fire the missiles at a 'target' thousands of miles away.

http://www.stripes.com/news/not-playing-around-army-to-invest-50m-in-combat-training-games-1.85595

Excerpt:

GRAFENWÖHR, Germany — The Army has created a video game unit and will invest $50 million over five years on games and gaming systems designed to prepare soldiers for combat.

Lt. Col. Gary Stephens, product manager for air and ground tactical trainers at Project Executive Office — Simulation Training and Instrumentation said Thursday that the $50 million has been approved for a "games for training" program starting in 2010.

"The Army takes this seriously," Stephens said of PEO-STRI and its Army gaming unit, which will handle military video game requirements. "We own gaming for the Army — from requirements through procurement," he said.

Game development has become a multibillion-dollar industry in recent years, with large game studios employing thousands of developers and sales that compete with Hollywood’s blockbusters.

"We want to take advantage of that, but we don’t have the intent to become a competitor with the commercial gaming industry," Stephens said. "We don’t have the intent or capability to be a commercial game house."

Instead, the Army gaming unit will watch trends in the industry and identify technology that can be used for military training, he said.

The need for video games as training aids was judged so great that the Army wanted to get products out to units before the funding came online.

In addition to the $50 million, the Army gaming unit has an undisclosed additional budget to purchase a state-of-the-art commercial video game system that will be fielded for training in February.

The Army already uses a commercial first-person shooter video game — "DARWARS Ambush" — to train soldiers. Since 2006, PEO-STRI has fielded more than 3,000 copies of the game to the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard and Homeland Defense, Stephens said.

[sabrina 1]

19. "Violent video games evolved from simulated war videos or vice versa?"

I saw a military guy on tv several years and he was trying to warn parents against letting their children use violent video games. When asked if he thought they would affect the attitudes of children towards other people, he said 'absolutely'. He said the military USED them to desentitize soldiers to other human beings and that this was their purpose.

I don't know which came first, but he seemed to think the military came first and he was very upset that ordinary people, especially children, were now using them as games.

Sad to see how much money is spent figuring out different ways to kill human beings!

[Baclava]

25. I say enlist our future war fighters by linking PS3 games to these drones

Millions of keyboard commandos willing to fight on the side of the freedom fighters.

Make it so.

Call PS3

[pokerfan]

15. Drones in Libya: What Then?

"My quick reaction, as a journalist who has chronicled the growing use of drones, is that this extension to the Libyan theater is a mistake. It brings a weapon that has become for many Muslims a symbol of the arrogance of U.S. power into a theater next door to the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, the most promising events in a generation. It projects American power in the most negative possible way."

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/04/drones-in-libya-what-then/237702

James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States, and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter.

[NuclearDem]

17. I'd prefer drones to anything else

A single drone (depending on model) costs between $4.5 and $10 million. It takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain old jets, and each Raptor costs $150 million. The B-1s that make bombing runs over Afghanistan and cause just as much collateral damage cost over $280 million each.

Besides, if a drone gets shot down or crashes, there's no need for a rescue mission (which, IIRC, got a hell of a lot of flak here).

We don't need to be in Libya in the first place, but cheap pieces of metal piloted thousands of miles away versus expensive human deathtrap seems like a good tradeoff...

[sabrina 1]

18. Well, that's all very nice and 'pragmatic' and everything,

and it's good to know what YOU would like. Have you any idea of what those 'cheap pieces of metal' have done to thousands of innocent people?

Have you read about devastated parents picking up pieces of their dead, blown-apart children after the US, such a great country we are, sends another one of those cowardly machines into someone else's country?

I hope every single one of them is shot down. They are the most cowardly method of fighting ever.

Imho, any leader that thinks war is so great, should have to be there, on the front lines, until it's over.

[NuclearDem]

24. Yes, I do know what they can do to innocent people

I actually have been on the frontlines in Afghanistan and have seen the results of drone attacks firsthand.

[Distant Observer]

20. This a perfect example of the wilfulness and arrogance of the SPLENDID BLONDE BEAST

The Euro Power elite will not accept their will being stymied by former servants of their
empires. They will write whatever laws, invent whatever rationalization, create whatever information campaign (propaganda), kill however many people, to accomplish their objectives

[sabrina 1]

27. And now that we know that it doesn't matter which party

is in power, where do we go from here? We thought getting rid of Republicans was what we needed to do. But we got fooled again.

They used to work harder to lie to the people. Now, they don't even bother. Last week I heard we were not getting involved in Libya. Now we are told, not asked, nor has Congress apparently, that we ARE getting involved and they just announce it, no argument, no discussion. I guess the know the Right won't say anything, and now they have a Democrat in the WH, they know the Left won't say much either. I wish I knew what could be done about it before too many more people die.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. One of those "precision" attacks just blew up 5 women and 3 kids in Pakistan.

Conclusion: Either they aren't "precision" or they're aimed at killing women at kids.

[sabrina 1]

22. People all over the world have demanded these cowardly and

deadly weapons be banned and that the US stop using them.

I'm sorry to hear that even more innocents have died-by-drone. They just won't listen to people.

There's a third option to add to your other two. Money! They will stop using them when there's no money to be made.

I think they don't care who they kill, so long as they kill.

[inna]

23. this is just as outrageous as anything happening domestically,

yet it receives virtually no coverage.


what a scary, depraved and dangerous (for the world) place this country is becoming.


thank you for posting this, most people are just not "aware of" it (or don't give a damn, either way).


i'm absolutely sickened by this entire thing; it's a (negative sort of) epiphany experience for me.



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x939552#940620

[sabrina 1]

26. I thought so, Inna ~ but the truth is Donald Trump, Palin,

Charlie Sheen et al are far more interesting to even Democrats it seems.

I think this is one of the more outrageous, despicable decisions that has been so far.

I also think they've figured out that the American people in general don't care about some little kid in Libya or Pakistan being blown to bits and if they just announce it with authority 'we're sending drones to Libya' no one is going to question them.

The lack of outrage even here, proves they are correct. They can go on killing even children, they can lie, as Gates did about how 'precise' drones are, and who is going to question them?