Thursday, November 21, 2013
CONTACT ME AT: manessmorrison2@yahoo.com


News Clips For The Day

Afghan President Hamid Karzai: I don't trust the US – NBC

By Akbar Shinwari and Alastair Jamieson, NBC News

KABUL - Afghan President Hamid Karzai told tribal leaders Thursday that he did not trust the United States, hours after Secretary of State John Kerry said a final draft deal on troop levels had been reached.

"My trust with America is not good," Karzai said at a meeting of tribal elders and political leaders in Kabul. "I don't trust them and they don't trust me. During the past 10 years I have fought with them and they have made propaganda against me."

His remarks were made at the Loya Jirga - a grand council of tribal elders and political leaders – to support the new security deal governing relations between the U.S. military and the Afghan government for years to come.

Karzai faces a challenge in persuading the Loya Jirga to accept the pact, which allows for between 10,000 and 15,000 international troops - mostly U.S. - to remain in Afghanistan another decade or more.

The new proposal, still to be approved by both the U.S. and Afghan administrations, calls for a sweeping, long-term relationship with the United States, committing Washington to paying to train and equip Afghan security forces, and establishes the groundwork keeping armed American outposts in Afghanistan.

Although it allows for troop presence until 2024, the draft document says, “unless otherwise mutually agreed, United States forces shall not conduct combat operations in Afghanistan.”

In a speech, Karzai assured his audience that the new deal would mean U.S. forces will no longer be allowed to enter the homes of Afghans, except for some exceptional cases.

“In the past 12 years we have had both good and bad times with the U.S.,” he said. “Sometimes our relations are good and sometimes the relations are terrible. At some points, I thought about telling the U.S. to just leave Afghanistan and we will deal with our own situation. But I was always very patient and thinking about our country. We should be careful not to take a wrong step forward.”
Karzai says 10 to 15 k troops, mostly US, to stay another decade or more in #afghanistan

Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) November 21, 2013
He also stressed the importance of strategic ties with Washington: “We need a good friend in the U.S. You cannot live in this global village without a friend - but you need to have a strong, faithful friend.”

Karzai’s office also released a copy of a letter from President Barack Obama promising that “America's role in Afghanistan will be one of a supporting partner.”
The letter to Karzai said: “We will be cooperating in training, advising, and assisting your forces and in a targeted, smaller counter terrorism mission as we continue to help strengthen Afghanistan's own growing counter terrorism capabilities.”
The five-day meeting will now debate the draft and decide whether U.S. troops will stay or leave Afghan forces to fight the Taliban insurgency alone.

The agreement is highly significant because it outlines a broad, long term relationship with Afghanistan that commits the United States to sustaining the Afghan security forces for years to come, and likely deploying thousands of American troops in the country to carry out that training and the limited counter-terrorism role.
Twelve years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Every country where the United States maintains troops has a status of forces agreement. Afghanistan, however, appears to be a case apart. Afghanistan would be financially, and perhaps physically, dependent on its relationship the U.S. forces, which is not the case for Italy, Germany, Japan or other nations where the U.S. has a military presence.


Karzai must be very much afraid of being overrun by Taliban forces again, since he has substantial doubts about the link with the US even while continuing it. The following clip is from Wikipedia on the Taliban.

The Taliban (Pashto: طالبان ṭālibān "students"), alternative spelling Taleban,[7] is an Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan. It spread from Pakistan into Afghanistan and formed a government, ruling as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from September 1996 until December 2001, with Kandahar as the capital. However, it gained diplomatic recognition from only three states: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Mohammed Omar has been serving as the spiritual leader of the Taliban since 1994.[8]

While in power, it enforced its strict interpretation of Sharia law,[9] and leading Muslims have been highly critical of the Taliban's interpretations of Islamic law.[10] The Taliban were condemned internationally for their brutal treatment of women.[11][12] The majority of the Taliban are made up of Pashtun tribesmen.[13][14] The Taliban's leaders were influenced by Deobandi fundamentalism,[15] and many also strictly follow the social and cultural norm called Pashtunwali.[16]

Also from Wikipedia, this is about “Pashtunwali” from pre-Islamic times:
Pashtunwali dates back to ancient pre-Islamic times and is widely practiced among Pashtuns,[5] especially among the non-urbanized Pashtuns in the countryside. In addition to being practiced by members of the Pashtun diaspora, it has been adopted by some non-Pashtun Afghans and Pakistanis that live in the Pashtun regions or close to the Pashtuns, who have gradually become Pashtunized over time.[4]
Pashtuns embrace an ancient traditional, spiritual, and communal identity tied to a set of moral codes and rules of behaviour, as well as to a record of history spanning some seventeen hundred years.[14]

Pashtunwali promotes self-respect, independence, justice, hospitality, love, forgiveness, revenge and tolerance toward all (especially to strangers or guests).[6] It is considered to be the personal responsibility of every Pashtun to discover and rediscover Pashtunwali's essence and meaning.
On women:

1. Naamus (protection of women) - A Pashtun must defend the honour of women at all costs and must protect them from vocal and physical harm.[4]

The Taliban did overrun Afghanistan and establish a government from 1996 to 2001 when the Americans defeated them. The following is from Wikipedia on the population of Afghanistan and the dominant tribes.

The population of Afghanistan is around 31 million as of the year 2013,[1] which includes the 2.7 million Afghan refugees that are residing temporarily in Pakistan and Iran.[5] The nation is composed of a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual society, reflecting its location astride historic trade and invasion routes between Central Asia, Southern Asia, and Western Asia. The majority of Afghanistan's population consist of the Iranian peoples, notably the Pashtuns and Tajiks. The Pashtun is the largest group followed by Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimak, Turkmen, Baloch and others.[6]

The dominance of the Pashtun people in Afghanistan must make Karzai's position very unstable. The following from Wikipedia contains Karzai's words.

In 2000 and 2001, he traveled to Europe and the United States to help gather support for the anti-Taliban movement. "Massoud and Karzai warned the United States that the Taliban were connected with al Qaeda and that there was a plot for an imminent attack on the United States, but their warnings went unheeded. On September 9, 2001, two days before the 9/11 attacks in America, Massoud was assassinated by al Qaeda agents in a suicide bombing."[14] As the U.S. Armed Forces were preparing for a confrontation with the Taliban in September 2001, Karzai began urging NATO states to purge his country of al-Qaeda. He told BBC "These Arabs, together with their foreign supporters and the Taliban, destroyed miles and miles of homes and orchards and vineyards... They have killed Afghans. They have trained their guns on Afghan lives... We want them out."[1]

The US wants a base in Afghanistan into the future like we have in a number of other countries. Our aid dollars will be involved in Afghanistan as well, along with undoubtedly a continuation of American casualties, since the Taliban is unlikely to quit fighting. I hope Karzai agrees to the continued relationship with the US, since without us he will probably fall and the oppressive rule of the Taliban will take over again, always being an inveterate enemy to the US. I think we need Karzai as much as he needs us as a large part of our position in the conflicts of the Middle East. Our involvement is unavoidable at this time.




Korean War vet removed from plane and detained in North Korea: son – NBC

By Alexander Smith, NBC News contributor
An 85-year-old Korean War veteran from California has been detained in North Korea while on vacation to the reclusive country, his son said Wednesday.
Merrill Newman was seated on his flight out of Pyongyang minutes from take-off when a uniformed official boarded the plane, requested to see his passport, and asked the stewardess to have him leave the aircraft, The Associated Press reported.

"My dad got off, walked out with the stewardess, and that's the last he was seen," his son, Jeffrey Newman, told the AP from his home in Pasadena, Calif.
The day before Newman was detained on Oct. 26, he met with North Korean officials and discussed his service in the Korean War 50 years ago, his son told the San Jose Mercury News.

"There's some misunderstanding here, a terrible misunderstanding, and my father has always had a deep respect for the Korean culture and the Korean people," he told the newspaper.

"We need to see what we can do to resolve that misunderstanding and return him home to his wife and grandchildren and put this behind us," Jeffrey Newman said.
Merrill Newman, who has been detained in North Korea since last month, according to his family.

Newman, a married grandfather and avid traveler from Palo Alto, retired as a finance executive in 1984.  He was a volunteer with the Red Cross for 50 years after serving as an infantry officer during the Korean War.

Jeffrey Newman said his father was slightly unnerved by the meeting with North Korean officials but thought nothing more of it until he was hauled off his flight.
"There have been other Korean veterans who've been back," he said. "My dad was not breaking any new ground. He's always wanted to go to North Korea; it's been a lifelong thing.

"Like the guys who go back to Normandy, the World War II veterans, these places had profound, powerful impacts on them as young men, and he wanted to see it again."
Dan Sneider, associate director for research at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, told NBC Bay Area that reports of the detention were unusual because Pyongyang had not tried to use it to leverage anything from the U.S.

Sneider said: “I hope that the North Korean government understands this is not a very smart thing to do under any circumstances and that they will see their way towards doing the compassionate and the intelligent thing and releasing him.”
Newman’s travel companion, Bob Hamrdla, also told the San Jose Mercury News: "I hope that the North Koreans see this as a humanitarian matter and allow him to return to his family as soon as possible."

A newsletter on the website of Channing House retirement complex, where Newman lives, said the trip was scheduled to last 10 days and the pair were due to be accompanied by two North Korean guides at all times.

Newman's family told the AP they have been working with State Department officials and the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang -- often used by Americans in lieu of direct diplomatic contact with the hermit nation -- in a bid to secure Newman's release.
The Swedish ambassador delivered the American's heart medication but it was unclear if he received it, the AP reported.

The State Department told NBC Bay Area that it was aware of reports that an American had been detained in North Korea.
"We have no additional information to share at this time," the statement added. “The embassy of Sweden in Pyongyang acts as our protecting power for issues involving U.S. citizens in North Korea.”

On Tuesday, the State Department issued an official warning to U.S. citizens not to travel to North Korea because of the risk of “arbitrary arrest and long-term detention,” but it did not link it to Newman.

According to the State Department, four Americans have been arrested after entering North Korea illegally since 2009, and two detained despite having valid DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) visas.

Newman’s is the second high-profile detention of an American citizen by North Korea in 12 months. In November 2012 Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American Christian missionary and tour operator, was sentenced to 15 years hard labor for "hostile acts against the republic."


North Korea is apparently very unpredictable and belligerent. If only the State Department had issued its warning in 2012 maybe this unsuspecting veteran wouldn't have gone there. I hope he comes home safely soon.





Flock of feral Turkeys causes flap in NYC – NBC

By Jennifer Peltz, The Associated Press

NEW YORK - Say "wild" and "New York City," and few might fill in these blanks: a flock of feral turkeys causing a flap in a city that defines urbanity.
Yet a population of roving turkeys on Staten Island has become a mess-making, traffic-stopping scourge to some residents, an impromptu natural attraction to others and a fraught project for government officials.

Since dozens of the turkeys were rounded up and killed this summer, the birds' future has become a topic as heated as a Thanksgiving meat thermometer.
"We don't want to kill them. We just want them to leave us alone," says Barbara Laing, who watched as at least 50 turkeys converged outside her house around sundown one recent evening with a chorus of honks — their own and those of drivers futilely trying to shoo them out of traffic.

The turkeys milled on the grass, flew up like cartoon ghosts into a large maple tree, and settled in for the night.

It's a sight that charms onlookers and sometimes residents, when the turkeys aren't fouling yards with droppings, devouring gardens, waking up residents with raucous pre-dawn mating sessions, and utterly disregarding dogs and other supposed deterrents.
"They really are a beautiful bird ... but they ruined our property," says Laing's sister and next-door neighbor, Mary Jane Froese.

After decades of effort to halt the decline of the symbolically American birds, experts say the nation's wild turkey population has rebounded from about 300,000 in the early 1950s to an estimated 7 million now.

The forest-dwelling gobbler has adapted to settings as populated as lower Manhattan, where a turkey nicknamed Zelda hangs out. They've been accused of attacking residents in Brookline, Mass., and menacing schoolchildren in Glendale, Wis.
Turkey tensions have come to a big-city head on Staten Island, where the birds started congregating at a state psychiatric hospital and attracting notice a decade or so ago.

Now, nearly everyone on the island seems to have a turkey story, not to mention an opinion.

Turkey gripes have led to at least one arrest — of a resident who set off fireworks to try to disperse them from his block in 2007 — and schemes such as coating turkey eggs with vegetable oil in hopes of preventing embryos from developing. (It didn't work.)

The controversy peaked in August, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture captured some of the estimated 80 birds at the psychiatric hospital and took them to be slaughtered, with state Department of Environmental Conservation approval.
After an outcry, an animal shelter in the Catskills agreed in September to take all the turkeys it could, 28 of them.

Feathers were ruffled anew last month when more birds were rounded up and killed. State officials said the roundups were necessary because the flock was launching "attacks on patients, employees and visitors" and raising sanitation concerns.

And in an urban quirk, officials deemed Staten Island's wild turkeys to be not quite wild — rather, a mix of domestic and wild strains, meaning they couldn't be released to mix with other, fully wild turkeys elsewhere.

Officials envision the slaughtered, now-frozen birds becoming a turkey dinner for food pantries, but they're awaiting test results for pesticides and other chemicals the birds might have gobbled up. The results aren't expected before Thanksgiving.
Some residents and local officials backed the roundups as necessary, if regrettable.
If the birds can't be released in the wild, "I would rather see them slaughtered than see them cause an automobile accident," says Staten Island Borough President James Molinari. "They're not made for a city."
But others were aghast.

"It's a horrible thing. You take animals and just kill them? What kind of world are we living in?" says Joe McAllister, a local neighborhood association president who joined dozens of people at an August roadside protest denouncing the slaughters. Online petitions have gathered thousands of signatures.

For now, it's unclear whether more captures are planned. In the meantime, Froese and Laing watch their ad-hoc turkey flock with a sense of familiarity, if not fondness.
"It's very interesting to watch them. It really is. You learn a lot from it," Froese says, but "now it's time for them to move out."


There are a number of wild animals that have started coming to cities where they can find food. Environmentalists blame it on loss of their natural habitat and encroachment of human housing deeper into what used to be “the country.” That includes bears, cougars, raccoons and coyotes. They pose a rabies risk and even when healthy may attack humans. Even these turkeys are attacking humans. They just aren't large and dangerous enough to cause real harm. In this case, there are hungry people in the cities and wild turkeys are very good food. They aren't pets. I'm for gathering them up and making them into food for the food pantry.




Congresswoman robbed near Capitol Hill – NBC
By Frank Thorp and Andrew Rafferty, NBC News

Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., was attacked and robbed Tuesday night while walking near Capitol Hill, suffering a blow to the head that caused her to temporarily lose consciousness.

Meng suffered a bruise on her chin and underwent a CAT scan at George Washington University Hospital after the perpetrator came up behind her and struck her in the back of the head. Meng said she lost briefly consciousness but suffered no serious injuries and was back to work in the House by Wednesday afternoon.

"While this was a frightening ordeal, I fortunately was not seriously injured," Meng said in the statement. "Obviously, things could have been much worse. I thank the U.S. Capitol Police and the District of Columbia Police for responding quickly and professionally."

Meng, 38, is a freshman Democrat who represents parts of Queens.
Meng was walking towards her Washington apartment after having dinner at a D.C. restaurant when she was struck near Sixth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. As she fell to the ground, the perpetrator took her Gucci handbag, then fled on foot. She initially was disoriented and unable to tell investigators where the robbery took place, according to the police report.
Capitol Police are leading the investigation into the incident. No arrests have been made.

"Of course it's scary, this could happen to anyone, male, female, young, old, and it's just another opportunity to remind people to exercise caution when they're walking," Meng told reporters late Wednesday. "And I'm very thankful because the situation could have been a lot worse, my tests from the hospital all came out negative so I'm fortunate."


I lived about twenty years in Washington, DC and often walked after dark on the streets. I had three confrontations in which I avoided attack. I always tried to walk on the more brightly lit streets and the ones which had the most foot traffic, so that there would be witnesses if anything occurred. I was always on guard – look at bushes and in alleyways as you go by to see that nobody is hiding there. In general I was not overly nervous, though, and didn't let fear keep me at home.

Capitol Hill is a large area and has parts that have wealthy to middle class homes and other parts that are more like ghettos. This congresswoman was going to her home, presumably in a “good” neighborhood, but there are criminals in all parts of the city. I don't know what the murder rate is there now, but it used to be high. Maybe she should carry mace or a pistol in her purse.





NYC sets deadline for stores in racial profiling probe – NBC
Verena Dobnik The Associated Press

NEW YORK — Probing allegations of racial profiling, New York City is giving 17 major retail stores until Friday to submit information on how they've dealt with shoppers suspected of stealing. 

The City Council tackled the emotional issue Wednesday at a hearing that included statements from Macy's and Barneys New York denying allegations by customers that they had been singled out and followed. 

City Council member Jumaane Williams calls the problem "staggering." 
The stores did not send representatives to the session in the City Council's main chamber. 

"I'm offended that Barneys New York and Macy's is not here. I think it's insulting, not just to the City Council, but to the city of New York and the people who shop there," Williams said. 

The NYC Commission on Human Rights has sent letters to 17 retailers — including Macy's and Barneys — requesting the following information: loss prevention policies; procedures for approaching and detaining individuals suspected of theft; records regarding all individuals accused of theft in the past two years; and what, if any presence, NYPD officers have in the retail locations. 

The stores are: Century 21, Loehmann's, Sephora, Target, Bloomingdale's, Bergdorf Goodman, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Sears, Lord & Taylor, Neiman Marcus, The Gap, CVS, Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys, Macy's, Bath & Body Works/Limited Brands/Victoria's Secret. 

Letters may be sent to additional businesses, but "we selected these locations based upon previous discrimination complaints against these stores, and the size and prominence of the stores," said Patricia Gatling, the city's human rights commissioner. "This is only the beginning of our investigation." 

The Associated Press requested comment from each of the retailers by phone and email; only Sephora replied as of late Wednesday, declining comment. 
While tensions over shoppers' charges that they are being followed in various stores have simmered for years, they've resurfaced again in recent months after several incidents. 

A 19-year-old City College of Technology student, Trayon Christian, sued the NYPD and Barneys last month, claiming he was racially targeted after buying a $349 Ferragamo belt in April at the Madison Avenue store. 

And Barneys customer Kayla Phillips, 21, filed a complaint with the city's police watchdog agency, saying she had a similar experience after buying a $2,500 Celine handbag in February. 

Barneys CEO Mark Lee had apologized, saying "no one should go through the unacceptable experiences described by Trayon Christian and Kayla Phillips in recent media reports, and we offer our deepest sympathies to them both." 

But the company said in a report issued Tuesday that its employees did not initiate any profiling, and did not call police requesting or suggesting that the customers be stopped or detained. 

Actor Robert Brown filed a lawsuit against Macy's, saying he was stopped inside its flagship store in Herald Square in June after he purchased a $1,350 Movado wristwatch. Brown said he thought he was stopped because he is African-American. 
Macy's has said it does not tolerate discrimination. 

The Rev. Al Sharpton also testified at Wednesday's hearing, as did Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union. 
"It's important that we hear from both the department stores and the police department what on earth is going on when people of color go shopping and end up in handcuffs," said Lieberman. 

No one represented the New York Police Department at the hearing. 
Hip hop star Jay-Z, who is promoting a Barneys holiday collection, said he's working with the retailer on issues of racial profiling. But a launch party planned for Wednesday was canceled. 


In the Trayon Christian case clipped in this blog about a month and a half ago, it seems to have been the police who overstepped their bounds with Christian, following him from the store and accusing him of not having enough money to buy the belt (because he was black and young). They asked him for ID and he presented it, but they said to him that it was fake. When they got to their office and checked, they found that his ID was valid and his credit card was good. They had to turn him loose. In response to the false accusations they leveled at him, he sued them and the department store.

Now the NYC Commission on Human Rights is investigating his and other cases. I will follow any more stories about this that I see. Information on the Commission is found on their web site: home.nyc.gov/html/cchr/html/law/rules.shtml‎ . They can assess fines and cash settlements as well as negotiating policy changes.




­

A Son's Death Reveals Chasms In Emergency Mental Health Care – NPR
by Rae Ellen Bichell
­ Parents who have a child struggling with serious mental illness live in fear that the worst will happen. The apparent suicide of a young man in Virginia after he allegedly attacked his father, a state senator, shows how difficult it can be for families to get help in the midst of a mental health crisis.

The recession brought deep cuts in states' spending on mental health. The reductions made it harder for people to get help before they're in crisis, mental health advocates say, and even harder to find a hospital bed in an emergency.
In the best of situations, crisis care is "like a labyrinth," says Ron Honberg, policy director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Arlington, Va.

On Tuesday, police were called to a home in rural Bath County, Va., after 24-year-old Austin "Gus" Deeds allegedly stabbed his father, state Sen. Creigh Deeds.
They found Gus Deeds dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His father was admitted to a hospital with stab wounds, and is in good condition.

Early reports said the family had received an emergency custody order from a judge on Monday, the first step in getting a person involuntarily committed to a hospital in the state of Virginia. But then local health officials had to find a hospital bed.
For reasons that remain unclear, that didn't happen. The custody order expired, and Gus Deeds was allowed to leave a local mental health facility. The state of Virginia has launched an investigation into the circumstances, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

When space can't be found in a psychiatric hospital, Honberg says, "families are basically left to fend for themselves." Nationwide, states have cut spending for treating mental illness in the past decade, resulting in longer waits for outpatient care and fewer inpatient beds.

A study by the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors found that state investments in mental health dropped by $4.35 billion between 2009 and 2012. At the same time, demand for both outpatient and inpatient services increased.
By 2010, the number of state psychiatric beds per capita was down to levels not seen since 1850, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center, a group that lobbies for more access to care. That was when the movement toward humane care of the mentally ill was in its infancy, and disturbed people were locked in prison.

Starting in the 1960s, many psychiatric hospitals were closed because treatment in the community was considered a more humane and less costly alternative. But outpatient treatment can be difficult to find, especially in rural areas. And inpatient care is still needed, especially for people considered at risk of harming themselves or others.

Last year, the Virginia Office of the State Inspector General found that over a three-month period, 72 of 5,000 people who met the criteria for receiving a temporary detention order didn't get one because no facility could accommodate them. The report also says that while the state's population has increased over the last decade, the bed capacity for psychiatric patients has steadily decreased.


Mental Health treatment is often the “red-headed stepchild” when it comes to the allotment of funds. It's a part of the overall “conservative” turn of mind. Too many people still don't consider it to be illness at all, but the product of sin. Others are ashamed of it, and therefore don't seek treatment readily for themselves or family members. Some of the conservative population don't approve of spending government money on human problems in general, since they don't bring in income or pertain to the national defense.

As a result we are apparently in a crisis of mental health treatment capability. As this article points out, rural areas are especially underserved, and even when patients at home are receiving medication and outpatient treatment they can become impossible for their parents or family members to handle. There is a need for hospital care. According to this news article the number of hospital beds is down to the levels of 1850. That is shocking.

Unfortunately there is no knight riding up on a white horse to save the day. This article is the first mention of the problem that I have seen since the movement of the 1980's when many hospitals began turning their inpatients out onto their own resources with medication and outpatient treatment only. I can only hope that more states will address the problem and provide funds for more and better facilities. After all, as the article points out, our population continues to grow and generate more cases of mental illness.



­

The European Union Says It Wants To Join The Drone Club – NPR
by Krishnadev Calamur
­ Seven EU countries say they want to join forces and start making their own military drones by 2020 rather than relying on the Americans.
The EU Observer website reported that the proposed "Medium Altitude Long Endurance (Male) craft ... can be used to strike military targets or for surveillance of migrant boats in the Mediterranean Sea."

European nations currently use U.S.-made drones for military operations. Britain used U.S.-made Reapers in Afghanistan and France used the Reaper in Mali.
It's hard to predict what the political atmosphere will be like if and when a European drone takes to the skies.

Drones have emerged over the past decade as an important part of the U.S.-led war on terrorism. They have been used to kill militant leaders in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. But they have also caused civilian casualties as well as raised questions of sovereignty.

Military drones are also an important source of revenue for the countries that make them.

A report by the Teal Group estimates that spending on unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, will more than double over the next decade to $11.6 billion annually, totaling nearly $90 billion over the next 10 years.

Israel and the U.S. dominate the global military drone market. UAV Roundup, a report published by Aerospace America, notes:
"The U.S. will remain the largest producer and operator of UAVs throughout this decade, accounting for about 45 percent of the global market. Israel is the world's second largest UAV producer – and the largest exporter, selling systems to some 49 countries, with fewer use restrictions than the U.S. places on its customers."
China has recently made great strides, too. The China Daily reported that at least three countries have bought Chinese military drones.


I have been “betwixt and between” on the US use of drones due to the collateral damage that too often ensues. On the other hand, it is more humane than a bomb which delivers worse damage and with less accuracy. Apparently, according to this article, most of the world is using drones already, or wants to use them. They are too useful for administering a “surgical strike” rather than a massive onslaught, and therefore can prevent a declaration of war, while eliminating a specific enemy combatant. It looks to me like drones are here to stay, despite their drawbacks. The only way around it is a state of peaceful coexistence between nations, and that doesn't appear to be coming any time soon.