DRONES, VIDEO GAMES, AND LONG DISTANCE KILLING

By now we're all probably well aware of the recent trends in the USSA to supply state and local law enfarcement with drones, doubtless all part of the effort to keep us safe and secure from the hordes of barbarian terrorists storming our shores and borders (and if you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale, cheap). Really, this is about keeping the oligarchy safe, pure and simple; it's about Heimatsicherheit.

But what, really, lies behind the move to robotical warfare?

I submit that in a sense, the move is really about the need to anaesthetize the American soldier, in to insulate him or her against the reality of the implications of the policies and technologies being put into place. Consider the following the article at Lew Rockwell's website. I read this, folks, and I had the same nauseating, sickening feeling of disgust and despair that I always feel when reading of the mechanized machinery of death in the Soviet gulags or the Nazi Konzentrationslagern, and, as the article itself points out, I am not the only one drawing such connections:

Portrait of a Drone Killer: ‘I Have a Duty, and I Execute My Duty’

The grizzly and malevolent beauty of such a technology, in alliance with the context or engineered meme of a "war on terror" is that it allows the powers that be to define the enemy as essentially an invisible enemy, without any real definable borders and thus, potentially present anywhere and everywhere. It is an anonymous enemy, to be dispatched with anonymous weapons hiding in a far-distant control both an invisible person controlling the weapon. Secret trials can assemble like the Venetian Council of Ten lists of enemies of the state, or domestic "criminals" deemed a threat to the oligarchy, secret sentences can be handed down, and secret attacks may now be executed at a convenient distance by people driving to unmarked buildings, stopping first at Starbucks for a latte, and perhaps on the way home from "work", at the grocery store of a gallon of milk or ice cream for the kids.

"When instructed to kill someone he has stalked from the air for a prolonged period, 'I feel no emotional attachment to the enemy,' Brenton insists. 'I have a duty, and I execute my duty.' When the deed is done, he points out, nobody 'in my immediate environment is aware of anything that has occurred.'

And thus we have returned to the same moral position that Nazi leaders were hung for at Nuremberg: I was just following orders of my superiors.

The only difference is, we would like to think we have made it cleaner, perhaps "more moral" because, after all, we are a "democracy," and our soldiers take oaths to uphold a piece of paper that no one else pays any attention to... One wonders, when those soldiers or sheriffs or city police chiefs or RCMP or Scotland Yard officials finally get the order to drop the first drone on the first home in the US or Canada or the UK, what the reaction will be then...

See you on the flip side.

Posted in

Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

13 Comments

  1. amunaor on August 17, 2012 at 5:10 pm

    This makes the asinine joke that fell from our Dear Leader’s mouth, “I’ll be sending out predator-drones to take out any unqualified dates in pursuit of my daughters”, even less palatable than it already was!

    Note the targeting criteria from previous news articles: “suspected” “militants” are based upon a “pattern of life” analyses; ascertaining physical identity of suspicious looking target is not required. In other words a software algorithm is written to assist the trigger happy assassin in the adventure of tracking and pinpointing the doomed individual, whose life is about to be snuffed out.

    Any normal person looking at the above scenario would double over and puke their guts out in disgust! I swear, this country has gone completely off the rails.

    And now to picture the jack-booted, gaming cadet decked out in his remotely located hot seat; with built in live action feedback, designed to shake swivel and rock as the programmed software provides targets for the thrill of a lifetime. After the smoke clears from cadet’s flat-screen monitor revealing the body count for tally—bug-splats to those in the game; sweaty, game-boy cadet signs out and walks next door to wash it all down with a burger a shake so as to steady his nerves for the action packed, no risk kill.

    Based upon ‘Pattern of Life’ analyses, are not these psychopathic Gameboy operators exhibiting that very same pattern, that of a ‘Suspected Militant’, in dire need of a drone-oscopy?

    “Just look at that pile of dead bastards over there,” laughs, the desensitized, disposable shooter!

    WikiLeaks—Collateral Murder
    http://collateralmurder.com/



  2. Robert Barricklow on August 17, 2012 at 3:12 pm

    Crrently the drones are operated by humans, but that is changing, as the robotic sciences move in the direction of morse law. Currently they have no brain to speak of and are highly dependent on human operators. In the latest (s)think-tank research, university cutting-edge science including software applications, they are moving toward a pure science(IF) layed upon scientific tracks of robots, genetics,biology, chemistry, molecular, physics, nanotechnology, stealth & counter-stealth, extremely hastd materials, new microprocesors, you-name-it; than this is what you get –
    In the battle field of the near future, a proces of systems affecting systems, that digitizes the armed forces down to the individual soldier. Ironically this will lead to an evolution of the battlefield that will soon strip command of their battlefield descisions; too slow, too complicated, too human – the weak link in the KILL CHAIN.
    Bottom line, the human has become the weak link in a kill chain that just can’t afford to be human.



  3. Peter on August 17, 2012 at 1:48 pm

    “And thus we have returned to the same moral position that Nazi leaders were hung for at Nuremberg: I was just following orders of my superiors.”

    Yes, the “Nuremberg defense”: “befehl ist befehl”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders



  4. Eddie88 on August 17, 2012 at 9:01 am

    Like many people, I am surprised that this all-consuming evil has risen so fast and so unchallenged. The election of B.O. made it inevitable, when he put the “liberal Democratic” stamp on “conservative Republican” policies.
    As any other views are deemed automatically crazy, there is no debate.
    The exact date when we officially become “worse than Nazi Germany” is the next subject for bets; or has it already come to pass?



  5. Hal Hichler on August 17, 2012 at 7:48 am

    I would imagine the drone operators are vetted just like TSA agents and only a specific psychological type with a specific IQ need apply. I picture them sitting in their cubicles simultaneously watching their prey and looking at internet pornography and high-fiving each other when they blow up a human being. I don’t think we will have the same problems the Germans had. These psychopaths have been perfectly conditioned by video games to be unmoved by death and destruction.

    And how about this scenario: you leave the bar after having a couple of cocktails and your smart car alerts the surveillance drones that you are under the influence. Immediately a predator drone swoops down and blows you and your car to smithereens. Now that is a nightmare scenario. Imagine all those poor teenagers smoking pot on the backroads and having to worry about drones following them on the drive home.

    If humanity does collapse into a nightmare world where drones rule the sky, I would have to really reconsider the Gnostic notion of the malevolent Demiurge ruling our material world.

    Josef Stalin: “The people who cast the votes don’t decide an election. The people who count the votes do.”

    MA Rothschild: “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes her laws.”

    Hillary Clinton: “Give me control of a nation’s drones and I will decide everything.”



    • Piney Woods Pete on August 17, 2012 at 8:05 am

      I read something a day or so back about how the FAA is rethinking the whole domestic drone program as their identify-and-avoid capabilities are practically nil, representing a very severe hazard to air traffic. The drone operators do not have the panoramic view of the skies as pilots of aircraft do. I’m sure much money will grease many palms at the FAA and in Congress, but the specter of the first mid-air collision and crash involving a drone would be difficult to justify in the name of “keeping us safe”. This, and the fact that they can be easily hacked and redirected will delay their deployment for many years the article stated. If not, I would hope that civic minded hackers and techies would devise various ways of defeating drones, from shooting them out of the sky to jamming their GPS systems or maybe blinding them with air to ground lasers. Let’s face it, domestic deployment of drones is so far beyond the pale that it justly may represent the straw exceeding load bearing capabilities of the American dromedary and bring about the long overdue procession of John Does with pitchforks along D.C.’s corridors. All Rise!



      • Hal Hichler on August 18, 2012 at 8:07 am

        lots of good points. i try not to live in fear but the drone thing can be a real source of despair. Maybe it is really just for psychological effect as from what you are stating they are vulnerable to hacking and redirection. Do you think the fluoride heads of America would really see this logic that drones endanger air travel and therefore pose a greater risk to their safety than protecting their safety patrolling the skies for “terrorists?” That kind of logic would really put their damaged brains to the test. Imagine the hoops the media and the government would go through covering this one up. All the sudden the media would proclaim a rash of disappearing planes or even ET attacks on our air travel.

        What if the day came when the ability to jam electronic systems became so perfected that anything air born had a 0% chance of not being destroyed by ground based jamming or short circuiting devices? All drones, helicopters, fighter planes would be made obsolete so long as they were electrically wired. This would lead to only one alternative for air attack in my estimation: a flying biological weapon with skin like armor and the ability to shoot fire or acid from its mouth or nostrils. I am talking about dragons– the predator drone of the future (and the past).



    • Robert Barricklow on August 17, 2012 at 10:26 am

      A swift cut to the chase.
      Loved it!



  6. HAL838 on August 17, 2012 at 5:52 am

    Well, the Nazis, past & present are all “carrot people,”
    the reality behind the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

    Hence the necessity of your non-event, the apocalypse of 2012,
    which centers around the Sun
    and ionization that only nature can provide.
    This destroys them, the “Totbot” nanites.
    AND
    the strangest and funniest things (I must admit) happen
    when they are completely ‘dead!’

    They incorporate into their nearest ORDERLY surroundings !
    The pile on my ancient rug has gotten thicker !
    My place has been cleaning itself, at least somewhat…………
    I have someone who comes in once a week
    and she smells their live stink lately,
    they are so flooding my house !! and my town.



  7. Piney Woods Pete on August 17, 2012 at 5:40 am

    We can only hope to see more groups like Anonymous, perhaps more corporeal and active in the US. and not just in cyber space. It’s bound to come to a head – let’s hope we don’t have ours detached in the process of slaying the Leviathan sucking all the goodness and wealth from the world.



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