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By George Orwell
By Orville Schell (Afterword), Sebastiao Salgado (Foreword) $45.00
$22
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 isafmedia (CC BY 2.0)
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British soldiers in Afghanistan have been issued several drones known as Black Hornet Nanos, palm-sized unmanned aerial vehicles “that can scout around corners and obstacles for hidden dangers” and transmit live video and still images to a handheld controller up to half a mile away.
Posted on Feb 8, 2013
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 AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta
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By Thomas Hedges, Center for Study of Responsive Law —
The confirmation hearing of John Brennan to become CIA director began and ended Thursday with questions about his oversight of the drone program that is said to have been responsible for the deaths of at least 2,629 people.
Posted on Feb 7, 2013
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On “The Daily Show” on Wednesday night, Jon Stewart criticized President Obama for the government document recently obtained by NBC News that details the administration’s legal argument for supporting drone strikes on suspected al-Qaida members, including those who are U.S. citizens.
Posted on Feb 7, 2013
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 Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com (CC BY 2.0)
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The first disclosed unmanned drone strike of 2013 killed top Taliban leader Mullah Nazir as he reportedly met with senior leaders of his group in South Waziristan early Thursday morning, security officials say.
Posted on Jan 3, 2013
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 Official U.S. Navy Imagery (CC BY 2.0)
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Seoul is seeking four “advanced” surveillance drones priced at a total of $1.2 billion to gather intelligence on North Korea’s activities after the U.S. turns over wartime command of Korean troops—a legacy of the 1950s Korean War—later this decade.
Posted on Dec 26, 2012
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 Official U.S. Navy Imagery (CC BY 2.0)
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For what would be the third such occurrence in the last year, the Iranian navy claims to have captured a U.S. surveillance drone that flew into its airspace. However, the U.S. government says none of its pilotless planes are missing.
Posted on Dec 4, 2012
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Aislin, Cagle Cartoons, The Montreal Gazette —
Posted on Nov 22, 2012
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 Swamibu (CC-BY)
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The “conventional wars” the U.S. is waging may be winding down, but the implementation of a new phase in drone attacks means that the war on terror is far from over.
Posted on Oct 25, 2012
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 Daquella manera (CC BY 2.0)
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Israeli troops are searching for the remnants of an unarmed drone of uncertain origin that their air force shot down in the south of the country Saturday. Though it appears to have been gathering intelligence, local reports suggest it was not from the Gaza Strip.
Posted on Oct 6, 2012
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 AN HONORABLE GERMAN (CC BY-SA
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Five alleged Pakistani militants connected to the Taliban warlord Hafiz Gul Bahadur were killed in a drone strike Saturday as the United States pressured Pakistan to attack Taliban forces that may become the country’s crucial allies once foreign forces leave.
Posted on Aug 18, 2012
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 MITNewsOffice/YouTube
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Scientists funded by the Pentagon have created a robot for the purpose of looking into hard-to-reach places, from spaces trapped beneath earthquake rubble to the private quarters of state enemies.
Posted on Aug 11, 2012
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 An Honorable German (CC BY 2.0)
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By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch —
The CIA’s global drone assassination campaign has turned much of the rest of the planet into what can only be considered an American free-fire zone.
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 AP/FBI File
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The CIA killed Fahd al-Quso, a high-profile al-Qaida leader wanted by the FBI for his role in the 2000 bombing of the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole, with a missile fired from a remote-controlled drone in Yemen on Sunday.
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 ElDave (CC-BY)
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By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch —
If Apple made weapons, they would undoubtedly be drones, those remotely piloted planes getting such great press in the U.S.
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 codepinkphoenix (CC-BY)
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A Washington Post poll found that 83 percent of Americans approved of the U.S. government’s use of flying robots to kill terror suspects overseas, while 65 percent found no fault even if those targeted were American citizens. Liberals and Democrats consented to the killings as well, with favorable showings of 55 percent and 58 percent, respectively.
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 Blyzz (CC-BY)
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By Tom Engelhardt —
The defense cuts that will change the American way of war may mean little in monetary terms, but in imperial terms they will make a difference: They will offer a direct challenge to national sovereignty.
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 Wikimedia Commons/Central Intelligence Agency
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Members of al-Qaida, the Taliban and militant groups from Afghanistan and Pakistan met up twice late last year in an effort to combine forces against America’s diminished presence in Pakistan—one common target on which they might agree to focus.
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Occupy Des Moines protesters decide it’s high time to occupy the Democratic headquarters, and they won’t be the last; Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” gets more viewers than Fox News; and one of America’s most visible poets fell out of grace thanks to a racist poem. These discoveries and more after the jump.
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 Maulim (CC-BY)
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The worldwide uprisings of 2011 have seen ordinary people use surveillance and communication technology to protect themselves against oppressive governments. Now, New York City’s Occupiers are taking such tactics to the skies with the “occucopter,” a lightweight, camera-mounted helicopter that can be controlled with an iPhone.
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 Swamibu (CC-BY)
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By Nick Turse, TomDispatch —
The skies seem full of falling drones these days. The most publicized of them made headlines when Iran announced that its military had taken possession of an advanced American remotely piloted spy aircraft, thought to be an RQ-170 Sentinel.
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 bbc.co.uk
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After an American drone was downed last week in Iran, the U.S. made the unrealistic request that Iranian authorities return the spy machine, and on Tuesday, that appeal was unsurprisingly rejected.
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 Wikimedia Commons
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For some strange and troubling reason, the Senate’s recent passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, which could drastically change the way the American military relates to U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, failed to raise much of an uproar.
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 bbc.co.uk
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Well, this is awkward. Iran’s state-run Press TV reported Thursday that a special Revolutionary Guard “electronic warfare unit” had gained remote control of a U.S. drone and landed it after it had flown more than 100 miles into Iranian airspace.
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RJ Matson, Cagle Cartoons, The St. Louis Post Dispatch —
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 AP / Mike Redwood
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Claiming retaliation for American aggression in Pakistan, al-Qaida said Thursday that it was holding a U.S. citizen, 70-year-old aid worker Warren Weinstein, in that country after capturing him in Lahore four months ago. Al-Qaida boss Ayman al-Zawahiri announced Weinstein’s capture in a video demanding that the U.S. ...
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On Saturday, NATO forces clashed with Pakistani troops near the Afghanistan border, and 24 Pakistani soldiers were reported killed in the airstrike. Those are the facts that both sides agree on, but as Salon’s Glenn Greenwald notes in this “Democracy Now!” interview that aired Monday ... (more)
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The search term “Occupy” is now banned in China; online anonymity is becoming a thing of the past; and a new app called Bully Button protects children but it might just be another Big Brother act. These discoveries and more after the jump.
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 AP / National Counterterrorism Center
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Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, al-Qaida’s second in command and trusted confidant of Osama bin Laden, has been killed in Waziristan, Pakistan’s tribal region, a U.S. government official announced Saturday. The State Department had placed a $1 million reward on his head. (more)
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In this recent appearance on GRITtv, “The World As It Is” author and Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges talks with host Laura Flanders about the murder of Osama bin Laden and cuts through the noise to pose some tough questions about America’s fighting style. (more)
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 U.S. Air Force Photo
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Following a suspected U.S. drone attack that slaughtered 25 people – including eight civilians – in northwest Pakistan, American military personnel have allegedly vacated the Pakistani Shamsi Air Base, a key hub for U.S. drone activity.
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 Wikimedia Commons / Brigadier Lance Mans
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On Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that President Obama has given the go-ahead for U.S. forces to send armed Predator drones to Libya. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney officially disapproves of Obama’s strategy vis-a-vis the Libyan conflict.
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 AP / K.M. Chaudary
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It’s not like we couldn’t have seen this coming: Due in part to a special request made by the head of the Pakistani army, the U.S. has been asked to scale back significantly on the number of CIA operatives in Pakistan and to stop drone attacks on northern militants.
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 Wikimedia Commons / CIA
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Although there’s no official confirmation from the U.S., Pakistani officials said Tuesday that a senior al-Qaida operative, Sheikh Fateh, was killed Saturday by an American drone attack in north Waziristan, according to the BBC.
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 Wikimedia Commons / Brigadier Lance Mans
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What effects might killing by remote, as American soldiers who control drones from afar are charged with doing, have on operators’ mind-sets? One U.N. official is worried that this U.S.-led trend may give practitioners ... (continued)
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 youtube/islamallinone
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Sheikh Said al-Masri, the man who held the third position in al-Qaida’s chain of command, was killed with members of his family in an American drone strike in Pakistan within the last two weeks, according to reports. Updated
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After highly upsetting video footage, taken from a U.S. Apache helicopter, showing 12 Iraqi citizens being killed by American gunfire was posted on WikiLeaks, Stephen Colbert wonders how long it’ll be before the website’s proprietors can be tracked down by Predator drones.
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 cia.gov
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In case you didn’t know, there’s a “secret war,” as The New York Times puts it, going on in Pakistan, and the drone attacks that occasionally make headlines represent just one tactic that the U.S. is employing to target militants. Another involves CIA operatives joining forces with their Pakistani counterparts at the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, the ISI.
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 Original: U.S. Air Force / Master Sgt. Scott Reed
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The $4.5 million Predator unmanned aerial vehicle and its at least $10 million successor are considered the future of America’s Air Force and a big part of the president’s escalation in Afghanistan. Insurgents in Iraq (and probably Afghanistan) were able to track the planes and intercept video feeds using $26 software available on the Internet. (continued)
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 AP / Abdullah Khan
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The death toll after four days of militant attacks in Pakistan rose past 100 following another deadly blast, this time in the Shangla district of the Swat Valley, where a car bomb exploded near a market early Monday afternoon.
Posted on Oct 12, 2009
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said it, and judging by this three-part series from CNN, the age of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is upon us. It’s warfare by joystick—and the Predator drone is only the beginning.
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 blog.wired.com
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At least 20 people were killed in Pakistan on Friday in two missile attacks that are being attributed to unmanned U.S. drones near the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It was the first such strike since Barack Obama took office as president.
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 uavinfo.com
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One way the U.S. military could maintain a presence in Iraq, even if by proxy, in the near future is through the use of unmanned drones with foreboding names like the MQ-9 Reaper and the Predator, both of which are able to carry seriously sinister weaponry like the laser-guided Hellfire missile.
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