When Science Fiction Becomes Reality:
Crowding Skies with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to Snoop and Kill
(Detailed Report)
April 10, 2010
Do you remember "the Jetsons"? A futuristic cartoon sit-com that first
aired in 1962, it was about urban life and new fangled gadgets in the
year 2062. The Jetson family lived in the Skypad Apartments in Orbit
City, where all homes and businesses are raised high above the ground on
adjustable columns. George Jetson, a computer engineer, commutes to
work in an aerocar that resembles a flying saucer with a transparent
bubble top. His wife, Jane Jetson is a stay at home housewife who has a
robot for a maid. (What does Jane do all day?!?) The city skies are
crowded with aerial vehicles that zip around in designated "air" lanes,
traffic stop lights included.
Almost 50 years later, in 2008, we looked into the growing trend in UAV
unmanned aerial vehicles aka drones or flying robots. Our research was
published online in an article, "It's a Bird, it's a Plane, it's a
...UAV? We were concerned that the Canadian military was going to test
and use UAV's at Trenton air base near and over Tyendinaga, an
Ongwehonwe community. Would we become targets for their exercises?
Trenton Expansion
At that time, the Canadian government announced plans to spend $500
million to expand and upgrade the Trenton base, the largest air base in
Canada having an international airport. Close to 4,000 people already
work there. It is one of several Canadian air bases being considered as a
NATO FOB forward operating base. The JTF2 Special Forces are being
relocated there too. Search and Rescue is operated out of Trenton. The
top military commander at Trenton, Russell Williams is facing charges
for murdering two women. He is in jail under suicide watch.
Over 42,000 Classified people and 23 million tons of Classified goods
already pass through Trenton each year. The bodies of soldiers killed
in Afghanistan are delivered at Trenton and then taken along the 401
"Highway of Heroes" to Toronto. Patriotic flag-waving citizens stop to
honour the dead as they pass. We are saddened at the senseless waste of
lives.
The Canadian military is getting more and more equipment that needs
testing and training. In October, 2009, Pomerleau Inc. of Ottawa got a
$40.5million contract to construct an Air Mobility Training Centre at
Trenton where the CFAWC Canadian Forces Air Warfare Centre is already
located. It is largely about the huge Globemaster and new Hercules
planes that fly troops and equipment all over the world to fight in
perpetual warfare. UAV's and new rotorcraft are also tested in
simulations and real flights. Many more contracts are being awarded for
maintenance and construction of hangars, aprons, garages, runways,
electrical wiring, new roads, etc. at Trenton. Millions of dollars are
being spent while growing numbers of homeless people live on the
streets of big cities like Toronto and Vancouver.
Busy "National" Air Space
According to a new US National Aeronautics Research and Development Plan
released with little fanfare March 4 by the White House's Office of
Science and Technology Policy, "an important new goal for the nation is
integration of unmanned air vehicles into the national airspace system".
They want lots of money for R&D to "eventually achieve full
integration of manned and unmanned systems throughout the NAS National
Airspace System".
They need to develop better "sense-and-avoid capability" for the UAV's
to avoid collisions. They want planes to be able to take off and land
in shorter distances. They want the air lanes to be closer together and
to increase traffic at major airports. They want to build faster
supersonic jets. They say they want to develop alternative fuels and for
planes to make less noise. They anticipate all this will be
accomplished within ten years as the civil (border and police agencies)
and commercial demand for UAS's is growing quickly.
The United States expects to play a "leading role in ensuring global
interoperability" while their citizens are living in their cars and
tent cities.
If you ask most people, they don't know much about UAV's or UAS's.
They'll need some explanation of the terms. They will likely be
surprised at what you tell them, about UAV's coming in all sizes and
where and how they are used. Most people still think they are just used
for surveillance. They'll get wide-eyed when you tell them they are
being armed with Hellfire missiles and that they're being used on the
Canada-US border and have been used on the Mexico-US border for some
time. The US military has killed hundreds of people in Pakistan using
the Reaper drone or UAV.
Absurd and offensive names are given to UAV's like Mosquito, Mantis,
Raven, Hawk, Predator and Warrior. The smallest UAV's can be packed in a
back pack and assembled on the ground by one person. They look like
toy planes. Some UAV's can stay in the air for days and travel at
speeds up to 200km/hr. Depending on how they are powered, they can be
very quiet. The big ones need a crew of hundreds to maintain and
operate them. They look like a small plane with a humpback. There's
nobody in it!
The Canadian military UAV program is currently run out of Kingston 1
Wing in Haudenosaunee territory, just east of Tyendinaga. It is moving
to Greenwood 14Wing and the Maritime Warfare Centre at Halifax in Nova
Scotia. This doesn't rule out some of their activities taking place at
Trenton on Lake Ontario and elsewhere. The St. Lawrence River and Great
Lakes are considered part of Canada's "Maritime" in a military context.
The Canadian DND is also acquiring more UAV's like Israel Aerospace
Industries IAI's Heron UAV tactical system. The Heron can carry some
pretty big bombs and drop them with great accuracy. It is used for ISR
Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaisance too. Why are these lunatics
spying on everyone? Why are they trying to kill so many people?
Border Patrol Flying Robots
In mid June, 2009, Canadian Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan
announced that Predator drones were flying from Fort Drum military base,
New York State over Akwesasne. These high flying UAV's are not visible
to a person on the ground yet they can photograph a license plate
number. At that time, Akwesasne Mohawks refused to allow armed CBSA
border guards into their community. Canada was arming CBSA border
agents all across the land. They were forced to move the Cornwall
crossing.
The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has used 2 big UAV's on the
Mexican border, Elbit's Hermes UAV and General Atomics' Predator. Both
can carry and launch bombs. The Predator used to monitor the Sierra
Vista border area, crashed in April 2006 and was replaced in November by
two more under a revised program funding $10million annually. The
purchase of another two UAV's the next year made one available to be
used on the Canadian border in a demonstration based out of Grand Forks,
North Dakota in late 2007. The CBP Unmanned Aircraft Operations Center
of North Dakota officially opened Feb. 16, 2009. Hermes trials have
taken place on the US-Canada border from Great Falls, Montana. Have you
seen one???
The US Airforce Association (AFA) published a press release about the
Predator UAV, "The Air National Guard has also accelerated its Predator
commitment in five states" including New York. Former F16 fighter
pilots returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are now being retrained to
operate the big unmanned bombers. New York State's MQ-9 Reaper attack
squadron will be ready for 2011.
What is the purpose of using armed drones over the Canada/US border
which runs through Haudenosaunee and Nishnaabe communities? Who exactly
will the Air National Guard be remotely attacking from Hancock Field
Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, N.Y.?
The US military men praise themselves for keeping America safe from drug
dealers and illegal immigrants. They harass Indigenous communities,
even attacking and killing thirsty people in the Arizona desert with
UCAV's (unmanned combat aerial vehicles).
The CBP, a civilian agency, works with the Air National Guard, a part of
the war department, in a growing trend that blends military with police
and other civilian agencies as well as Canadian, Mexican and other
forces under Pentagon command.
The Spectacle and the Money
The US and Canada will hold UAV trials in June. They've invited all
NATO members to send UAVs of all sizes. The boys will have their toys
cavorting in the skies near Halifax, Nova Scotia the third week of June
2010. These war mongers want to show off their "interoperability" with
UAVs, testing civil/military cooperation as they act out various
scenarios.
While Canadian figures are not available, Teal Group predicts that
beginning 2008, the annual US spending on UAV research and development
alone, will be $1.2 billion while the purchase of new UAV's each year
will cost about $450 million.
The 21st century soldier/cop will be able to kill masses of people
without ever looking into their eyes, without ever hearing their cries
for mercy or their shouts of defiance and without ever smelling the
stench of their dead bodies. He will sit safely and comfortably,
faraway in a place like Trenton or Halifax and commit all this carnage.
He won't get his legs and hands blown off, apparently there will be no
risk for him. He's worth a lot of money because of all the education
invested in him. He's part of an elite squadron of pampered kids,
mentally disengaged from the rest of humanity, delusional that they are
better than everyone else.
Indigenous or Natural Law teaches us that all Human beings are connected
to each other. We have an instinct not to kill other humans. It goes
against our nature yet it happens all the time, causing great mental
harm to the perpetrators themselves. Statistics of soldier suicides
reveal how safe the soldiers really are. Vietnam bears testimony to
this though they try to hide the truth that after 59,000 Americans died
in the Vietnam war, another 59,000 came home and blew their own brains
out. Current figures for Iraq and Afghanistan are kept secret.
We as humanity must kick this awful war making habit. Our survival
depends on it.
KITTOH<kittoh@storm.ca>
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