Wednesday, December 14, 2011

I am the eye in the sky...

... looking at you...
“Eventually, we’ll have to put an end to this, one way or another.”

Sheriff Kelly Janke of North Dakota’s Nelson County uttered that ominous sentence in mid-September, during what the local media giddily described as a stand-off with local farmer Rodney Brossart and his family. By that time, Sheriff Janke, with the help of the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Air Force, had already run the table where o “non-lethal” means of compelling the family to surrender were concerned. This included everything from the Taser used during Brossart’s June 23 arrest to the precedent-setting use of a Predator-B drone to conduct surveillance of the home several days later to facilitate the arrest of the farmer’s three sons...

“As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed,” continued the Times.  “Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

That was the “one way” Janke had already tried. What, pray tell, would have been the “other” – short of equipping the drone with Hellfire missiles and using it to annihilate the Brossart family as suspected terrorists?

If this had happened, the Brossarts would not be the first Americans to be killed by way of a drone-fired missile...

As the War Without End drags on, it seems the sophistication of the toys at the State's disposal, and the tolerance of the public for said toys to be employed both at home and abroad, steadily increases.  Thus does war continue to be the health of the State... and very likely the ailment of the public.

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