[A-List] Like killing flies

[Tony B.]

http://www.timesrecord.com/articles/2009/06/23/opinion/letters/doc4a410a46e9925659592879.txt

Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Times Record (Brunswick, Maine)

Dear Editor:

The national media made a big deal about President Obama killing a fly. His 
“I got the sucker” was even compared to a similar moment by honest Abe 
Lincoln.

But sadly little time in the national media is spent describing the tragic 
consequences to hundreds of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan 
who have been killed by United States unmanned aerial vehicles, or “drones” 
as they are popularly called.

These drones are directed by military space satellites and flown by U.S. 
soldiers sitting at computer terminals inside Creech Air Force Base near Las 
Vegas, Nev. The Air Force named these drones the “Predator” and the 
 “Reaper.”  The pilots watch in “real time” as cameras on the drones send 
back images from the war zone and in split-second time a button is pressed 
and missiles are fired. Is it the Taliban?  Is it a wedding?

Can there be the slightest doubt that this “hands off” way of killing today 
is absolutely repugnant? What does it say about us as a nation that we can 
cavalierly kill from a distance with little conscience or public outcry?

It’s as if we are just killing flies.

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
http://www.space4peace.org
globalnet at mindspring.com
http://space4peace.blogspot.com  (Blog)

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