Daily chart: disease. You are more likely to be killed by a non-communicable disease, like cancer or heart disease, than anything else. In 2008 they accounted for 63% of the 56m deaths worldwide.
My new book, Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050 is finally available today. Co-written with Tom Engelhardt, it also launches a new publishing venture of mine — Dispatch Books. For years, Tom (who brought the world Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus, Eduardo Galeano’s beautiful Memory of Fire trilogy and about 1000 other books by everyone from Noam Chomsky to Rebecca Solnit) and I have talked about starting up a small press. Now we’ve finally done it.
With Terminator Planet, we’ve carefully put together the best of our joint work on the subject of American robotic warfare, shaped and edited, and added a powerful new conclusion. The result is the first comprehensive history of drone warfare (with a preview of the drone’s possible future as well).
From the opening missile salvo in the skies over Afghanistan in 2001 to a secret strike in the Philippines early this year, or a future in which drones dogfight off the coast of Africa, Terminator Planet takes you to the front lines of combat, Washington war rooms, and beyond. Drawing on several years of research — including official documents, open-source intelligence, and interviews with military officers and Pentagon officials, we offer up a sobering, factual account of robot warfare combined with critical analyses you’re likely to find nowhere else.
Packed with rarely seen Pentagon photos, Terminator Planet provides a rich history of the last decade of drone warfare, a clear-eyed look at its present, and a far-reaching guide to its future. You used to have to watch science fiction movies to imagine where that future was headed, now you can read Terminator Planet — and know.
I hope you’ll take a look and perhaps download it as an ebook or purchase an old-fashioned hard copy.
Drones dog-fighting off the coast of Africa? That’s what the Pentagon envisions and that how I begin my latest article about a weapons system that’s failing to perform as promised, but is becoming ever more disastrously embedded in our world: “A Drone-Eat-Drone World.”
*This piece is also the concluding chapter of the new book that I have just published: Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050. More on that soon!
Drones dog-fighting off the coast of Africa? That’s what the Pentagon envisions and that how I begin my latest article about a weapons system that’s failing to perform as promised, but is becoming ever more disastrously embedded in our world: “A Drone-Eat-Drone World.”
The article includes both the military’s fantasy version of drone-on–drone combat in 2030 and beyond, and the increasingly grim reality of drones malfunctioning, going astray, or simply crashing-and-burning. The drone has been a remarkable fantasy weapon —so much so that the military has penned some wild fictions about its future. Increasingly, however, its reality is proving grimly mundane and far less like that of a sci-fi movie.
*(This piece is also the concluding chapter of the new book that I have just published: Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050. More on that soon!)
wnyc:
Timeline | The City’s Use of Stop-And-Frisk
WNYC created an interactive look back at the start of the policy, the legal challenges it has faced, as well as how the numbers have increased over time.
Picture of the Day: Tahrir Square in Cairo. Several thousand protesters filled the famously revolutionary Tahrir Square on Monday night to protest the presidential election, angry at being given a choice only between a Muslim Brotherhood candidate (Mohammed Morsy) and Mubarak’s former prime minister (Ahmed Shafiq). Many are torn between a reluctant vote for the MB and not voting at all. Shafiq’s nearby office was set on fire. Protests were also held in Alexandria, Port Said and Suez.
Credit: Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters. Via.
Michelle Obama’s book, “American Grown,” comes out today. She’ll be making many press stops, but in this short NYT piece about the book, it’s interesting that this is the statistic the newspaper chose as an example…particularly the day after Memorial Day.
Also, how long before the right echo chamber calls it “American Groan?”
The rest of the victims appear to have been executed, shot at close range. Among the body count were 49 children.
Rupert Colville, the spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights told reporters:
“What is very clear is this was an absolutely abominable event that took place in Houla, and at least a substantial part of it was summary executions of civilians, women and children. At this point, it looks like entire families were shot in their houses.”
[CBS]
The rest of the victims appear to have been executed, shot at close range. Among the body count were 49 children.
Rupert Colville, the spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights told reporters:
“What is very clear is this was an absolutely abominable event that took place in Houla, and at least a substantial part of it was summary executions of civilians, women and children. At this point, it looks like entire families were shot in their houses.”
[CBS]
![theatlantic:
State Department Human Rights Report Ignores U.S. Role in Abuses
Late last week — 89 days past its legal deadline — the State Department released its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011. The new, user-friendly interface allows you to find and read individual country chapters much more quickly and easily (and might explain the delay). For all its flaws, the report remains a must-read for its reporting and candor. It serves as a generally honest counter to the rosier assessments of U.S. partners and allies’ human rights practices.
From my vantage point of trying to understand the Obama administration’s policies and practices of target killings, the report is also notable for what it does not include; namely, any mention of U.S. involvement in or responsibility for such operations.
Read more. [Image: Reuters]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4se9exaDs1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
State Department Human Rights Report Ignores U.S. Role in Abuses
Late last week — 89 days past its legal deadline — the State Department released its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011. The new, user-friendly interface allows you to find and read individual country chapters much more quickly and easily (and might explain the delay). For all its flaws, the report remains a must-read for its reporting and candor. It serves as a generally honest counter to the rosier assessments of U.S. partners and allies’ human rights practices.
From my vantage point of trying to understand the Obama administration’s policies and practices of target killings, the report is also notable for what it does not include; namely, any mention of U.S. involvement in or responsibility for such operations.
Read more. [Image: Reuters]
