Drones, dollars, and the open-source insurgency

Yesterday, I wrote on the massive new $636 billion "defense" spending bill passed by the House of Representatives. An article in today's Wall Street Journal should make us further question the efficacy of this type of high-technology spending. A MQ-1 Predator drone costs some $4.5 million dollars each. They have a wingspan of approximately 48 feet, weigh 2,250 lbs. when loaded, have a range of over 2,000 miles, and have a ceiling altitude of 25,000 ft. They can be loaded with two hellfire missiles, making them available for a combination of reconnaissance, combat or support roles. The MQ-9 Reaper drone, the larger and more-heavily armored cousin of the Predator, cost about $10.5 million each. The Air Force maintains a fleet of 195 Predators (total cost ~$877.5 million) and 28 Reapers (total cost ~ $294 million). The New York Times reported earlier this year that they are flying 34 daily surveillance patrols in Afghanistan and Iraq, up from 12 in 2006. They transmit some 16,000 hours of video each month. Insurgents can spend $25.95 to purchase Skygrabber, a program available on the internet which allows them to intercept the video transmitted by these drones.

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U.S. House approves funding to maintain the empire

As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize -- or do not want to recognize -- that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet. This vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire -- an empire of bases with its own geography not likely to be taught in any high school geography class. Without grasping the dimensions of this globe-girdling Baseworld, one can't begin to understand the size and nature of our imperial aspirations or the degree to which a new kind of militarism is undermining our constitutional order. ---Chalmers Johnson
It is with the context provided by that quotation from historian Chalmers Johnson that one must understand today's news that the House of Representatives has approved funding today for defense maintaining the empire. The level of spending has been approved at $636.3 billion dollars-- nearly two-thirds of a trillion dollars(see related post on how much a trillion really is) to maintain our network of more than 800 military facilities in more than 140 countries around the world. That spending includes $128.3 billion for fighting our current wars, although Afghanistan is expected to require an additional $30 billion to fund the most recent troop increase.

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“Going Muslim” as the new “going postal”

The shootings at Fort Hood last week have provoked a media feeding frenzy. Questions abound, and there is no dearth of speculation as to the shooter's motives. Most articles I have seen waste no time pointing out that the shooter was a Muslim, that he exclaimed "Allahu akbar" before shooting, and that he is linked with radical imams and possibly Al Qaeda. That's from the ostensibly "impartial" media, but there are also a few extremely distasteful editorial perspectives that are unfortunately quite mainstream that I wanted to comment on today. I'm afraid my ability to edit sarcasm out of my posts declines in direct proportion to the insanity and hypocrisy with which I'm confronted, so bear with me. First, Forbes featured an article by Tunku Varadarajan entitled "Going Muslim", a play on the old phrase "going postal". He describes it thusly:

As the enormity of the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan sinks in, we must ask whether we are confronting a new phenomenon of violent rage, one we might dub--disconcertingly--"Going Muslim." This phrase would describe the turn of events where a seemingly integrated Muslim-American--a friendly donut vendor in New York, say, or an officer in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood--discards his apparent integration into American society and elects to vindicate his religion in an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans. This would appear to be what happened in the case of Maj. Hasan.

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America’s paranoid irrationality

How paranoid have we become? Here's what Allison Kilkenny of Alternet has to say:

The culture itself is sick, which is why America has a military budget that is almost as much as the rest of the world’s defense spending combined, and is over nine times larger than the military budget of China, and yet Americans feel more afraid, and more paranoid, than ever. Everyone is against us, we're told. Everyone hates our freedom, and our amazing culture. China wants to overtake us. The entire Middle East wants us dead. Europeans laugh at us, and think we’re stupid. Emperor Penguins are plotting something. Canada is about to attack. And then there's Iran. Don't even get us started on Iran. Until Americans decide to break this addiction to "The List," this cycle of irrationality will continue into the foreseeable future.
And see this post, for the best friend of America's politicians: peddling nightmares.

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