Imagine you’re in a Monty Python sketch in a parallel universe (like, say, the one Faux Nooz viewers live in), Viking voices are raised in song:
Drones, drones, drones, drones
Drones, drones, drones, drones
Lovely drones, wonderful drones
Lovely drones, wonderful drones
Drones drones drones drones
Lovely drones
Lovely drones
Lovely drones
Drones, drones, drones, drones
Ah, Babylon.
The New York Times bumbles to the rescue with all the grace and sensitivity of a senile British blood hound, WOT’S ALL THIS THEN?!??
The Drone Question Obama Hasn’t Answered
Ryan Goodman / New York Times
THE Senate confirmed John O. Brennan as director of the Central Intelligence Agency on Thursday after a nearly 13-hour filibuster by the libertarian senator Rand Paul, who before the vote received a somewhat odd letter from the attorney general. [...]
In the interests of full disclosure, I am here to out a moron, so if this kind of thing offends you, please avert your eyes.
Here’s the dumb part:
Mr. Holder’s letter raises more questions than it answers — and, indeed, more important and more serious questions than the senator posed.
What, exactly, does the Obama administration mean by “engaged in combat”? The extraordinary secrecy of this White House makes the answer difficult to know. We have some clues, and they are troubling.... One could argue that that definition applied solely to prolonged detention, not to targeting for a drone strike. But who’s to say if the administration believes in such a distinction?
And if cats and dogs cohabitate together, isn’t that just an unmistakable sign of the Apocalypse?
And, you could say that ‘solipsism’ is just a fancy word for wanking.
The point here that the entire national media has missed, that I pointed out several YEARS ago and which has yet to make it into the national consciousness is that “drones” are reacted to EMOTIONALLY in a manner utterly inconsistent with the actual questions involved.
Instead we split one hair, and ignore the entire rest of the silver-backed gorilla. (Who is looking like he’s getting ready to rip us limb from limb and feast on our soft flesh.)
Substitute “black ops assassin” or “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” for “drone” and the question remains EXACTLY the same.
The conclusions remain the same, the micro-emphasis on a minor issue (the sensational, SCIENCE FICTION fantasy of “drone strikes” inside US borders killing “Hanoi Janes”) at the expense of reason remains the same, and the question “to drone or not to drone?” neatly precipitates out of the mixture, unaltered — a catalyst entirely unchanged by the violent chemical reaction engendered when Morons of the Press and Punditry meet ACTUAL policy questions of the Future.*
[ *And please note that, as a potential American, any NON-American is, by the transitive "potentiality" reasoning of the Anti Abortion Movement, an ACTUAL American, the notion of "US Citizen" is entirely meaningless. Shouldn't we be concerned with ASSASSINATION per se? Jeebus. Have these pricks no ethics or morals whatsoever?]
Cyril M. Kornbluth wrote a famous novella, now included in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame Vol. II about these, I recall distinctly.
More importantly, since March 1, 2008, I’ve been telling you about this on my blog, and now that it’s here, you’ve freaked out and run off through the snow with your pants around your ankles and toilet paper unrolling as your regal train. Let’s back up:
Killer Death Robots! 1 March 2008…9:01 pm
Return of the Killer Death Robots! 22 February 2009 · 2:46 am
They Catch Up on Killer Death Robots 19 November 2012 · 1:49 pm
You see, “drones” in our current usage have NOTHING to do with robots.
Let me say that again: drones have nothing to do with robots, as currently used. They are remotely operated aircraft with human operators who make human decisions about killing or not killing (e.g. Rand Paul’s questions would apply and be troublesome to the EXACT SAME DEGREE as asking about CIA Ninja Assassins who look like something out of a Quentin Tarantino movie).
These are the real concerns that HAVE to be addressed:
1. Fake “drones” controversy: what do we do about the massive, unconstitutional spookocracy created in the fear, terror and paranoia following 9-11? And shouldn’t we force the GOPs to take most of the blame, since it was THEIR majorities that created this monstrosity? (Drones are the least of it).
2. Real “drones” controversy: we are developing robot killing machines with the actual ability to use artificial intelligence to take the kill shots themselves. Isn’t THAT the incredible moral issue that needs debate here? and its corollary
3. Real “drones” controversy: we are destroying Americans’ privacy with surveillance -- and as I predicted long ago, when the Supremes made the abominable decision that you have NO privacy to any airspace above your home and property, meaning that nanodrones (the size of a mosquito) could literally hover millimeters above your roof taking pictures and there’s NOTHING you can do about it.
Those are the REAL issues. The notion that remote controlled drones are any different than bombs, or smart bombs, or precision guided missiles is only a controversy to the mind that either has the intellectual capacity of macaroni, or hasn’t really thought it through.
So: we are stymied by false dichotomies and false issues while the REAL life and death issues lie untouched, stinking like dead mackeral washed up into the midday sun.
We must either debate the REAL issues here, or else give in to the inevitable conclusion that we are morons barely even deserving of the drone strike that will mercifully end our imbecile presumption on the resources of a limited planet.
Grow a pair America.
And by that I mean: a pair of frontal lobes in your collective brain.
Or just drone on and on and on and on and on …
Drones, drones, drones, drones
Drones, drones, drones, drones …
Courage.