By Greg Thrasher VOD Washington Bureau
May 24, 2012
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Our country spends billions of dollars on the purchase of weapons and hi tech security devices under the premise of national defense and the protection and safety of the home land. Retired generals leave our armed forces to peddle their services to defense contractors in the weapons industry.
America not only arms itself but our nation is also the number one arms dealer and weapons supplier in the world. We have more weapons of mass destruction than any other nation on the globe. America is indeed a profitable merchant in the market of warfare products.
CREECH AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. -- An MQ-1 Predator takes off.
Last week this escalation in military purchases and devices came to the our homeland, not to protect us from our external foes but to assist and augment the armory of our local police departments.
The Federal Aviation Administration loosened the restrictions on local police departments’ surveillance of us to allow them to use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, also commonly known as DRONES. Our nation’s high court, the Supreme Court, has even ruled that warrantless surveillance by manned aircraft is not unconstitutional and does not violate the 4th Amendment of our federal constitution.
Linwood Avenue Detroit: Not 1967, but 2010, part of a police army that descended on the home of a lone mother and child, Maryanne and Ariana Godboldo, as she stood her ground to keep courts and police from illegally seizing her child.
In far too many powerful public and private circles there are advocates focused on introducing the military into our cities and other venues. We now face the specter of entire cities being profiled by the usage of military-designed DRONES. Local municipalities, already burdened by fiscal deficits and lousy revenues, are actually spending huge outlays of their budgets in the purchase of these hi tech anti- freedom profile driven devices.
Where is the outrage from our public officials, activist groups and even police unions over these invasive surveillance and anti -privacy domestic military machines in our nation’s urban airspace??
Detroit FBI chief (center) with Police Chief Ralph Godbee at right announce joint federal, state, county and city :"war on crime" in Feb. 2012.;
One of the real dark potentials of these DRONES is not only their ugly invasion and violation of privacy rights, but these DRONES also have the capacity to be lethal and deadly. The applications and operational features of DRONES are truly unimaginable. The growing militarization of our local law enforcement departments is not to be excused by fictional claims of terrorism and excessive urban crimes . We must reject and defeat the myths about crime and anarchy in our cities. We must defuse and deflate the notions that our cities are cesspools of violence and crime.
The proliferation of the myth of crime and the profiling of entire bandwidths of people based upon their hue and types of clothing is dangerous. Such a public policy creates a fertile soil for the introduction of military devices like DRONES into our domestic venues. DRONES are part of the arsenal of gadgets and devices which destroy the freedoms of all Americans. We must reject all kinds of devices and gadgets which at the end of the day are WMD’s on American xoil.
Contact Greg Thrasher at planeidea@msn.com,
Great writing. Our military industrial complex makes its greatest money when a war is ongoing. Our government even contributes weapons for the Syrian child killing, we cannot allow the Ruskies to have all the munition business you know.
To use the drones here at home is a slippery slope leading to home grown government sponsored terror pretending to be counter terror.
Waste, the drone program could save the lives of soldiers at the expense of civilians over there however would you have trusted Bull Conner with armed drones? Don’t laugh history does repeat itself.
Detroit needs about forty million dollars for a light rail to save what is left of downtown. It already lost its chance at rapid bus transit long ago. Our government is hesitant but has no problem with the DOD spending s400Million dollars each on 187 Raptor Jets that have never seen combat and most likely never will as pilots have expressed their fear of flying them for reasons such as fumes in the cockpit and dangerous G forces that are generated in flight.
This is true insantity as we watch our aging infrastructures and inner cities disintegrate. What were we doing in Vietnam? Now what are we doing in Afghanistan where farmers have never heard of 911 and we find our armies indirectly supporting Russian interests by taking over their quagmire?
At what point do we say no more? If you look back in history there are always needle point moments when the tide turns one way or another – for the better or worse. It is good to have conscientious commentary on significant issues to remind us where we are from time to time. Makes you ponder the real meaning of freedom if we need this to enjoy that.
I am so happy to read another super commentary by Thrasher on this site. I miss his efforts and I hope he writes more on VOD.