Reply #14: "Billions for weapons of war" cuts in funding for Katrina victims and social programs.

[madfloridian]

"More millions in military toys and weapons, and there still people in the U.S. dying of hunger, sickness, jobless and homeless..."

"Just hope nations with such advanced capabilities have an equally advanced doctrine of responsibility."

"Great! disconnected from the violence and suffering it creates makes it easier to inflict with less danger of thinking about what your actually doing (killing other humans)."

"It's clear we are an ingenuous and resourceful people that we can create such an effective fighting machine. But if the goal of such a vehicle is to help end the conflict(s) that we currently are engaged in, then it seems quite a misuse of that intelligence.

I think we can agree that we are already very deadly, and that being 5% deadlier won't change the face of the conflict in a place like Iraq."

Those are from the comments after this article.

Predator's Big Bro Preps for War

The Predator, put together as sort of a robo-plane pilot project, was never really designed to be anything more that a surveillance plane. But, during the Balkans conflict, Predator footage started being used for targeting. Then, in 2001, the CIA hooked missiles on to the undersides of the wings of its Predators.

The Reaper, on the other hand, was built from the beginning to fight.

"Whereas the Predator is primarily an intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance aircraft, the MQ-9 was designed as a primary strike asset," Lt. Col. Jonathan Greene tells Inside Defense. "In training we’re concentrating a lot on counter-land operations -- close air support, air interdiction and we’re very good for time-sensitive targeting, with a loiter capability of about 15 hours."

"By the end of the summer, we expect to begin our first combat deployment -- probably late summer, early fall," he adds. "Our goal is to deploy for combat by early this fall."

I still can not take in the fact that we really do not know about how many Iraqis we are killing. How many innocent civilians.

It is like a strange kind of madness has taken over this administration and it's brainless followers.

Power is all, truth and honor mean nothing.

I never thought I would live to see it. It breaks my heart. My hubby has quit watching the news. He says he can't take it.

I hope there is a way out of there for all our sakes, but I really doubt it.

I did all the calling and emailing and rallying I can do, so now I can just write about it. And hope someone reads it and cares what we are doing.

These are machines for killing. They are being used in a country that never harmed us. We have displaced millions while calling them enemy combatants and telling them to leave their homes.

Southern Iraq Can't Support Any More displaced persons. Turning them away.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1383

Someone above was quibbling about my use of the word robot, which was the word used by the paper I quoted.

I would rather we have a really big quibble about right and wrong and morality.