Category Archives: Drones

Preliminaries to 2016

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I hadn’t intended to write about this subject, but…it…it just irritated me. If you’ve read any of my postings during the past election, you’ll find I’m no fan of Ron Paul. The labels of being an isolationist was earned. When it comes to national security, the best I can say about Ron Paul is that he’s naive to extremes.

That does not necessarily extend to his son, Rand Paul. I’ve been watching him. While Rand Paul has made his own errors in policy, he’s not gone to the extremes as has his father.

The article posted below, purported about Representative Peter King and a run for President in 2016, paints both Pauls, and Ted Cruz, with the same brush. In essence, it’s the opening shots of the next Presidential election.

Rep. Peter King aims to save GOP from Sens. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz

By Ben Wolfgang – The Washington Times, Friday, July 19, 2013

If he ultimately decides to run for president in 2016, Rep. Peter King will do it for one reason: to save the Republican party from the “isolationist” policies of Sen. Rand Paul and others.

“It bothers me when the leading Republicans out there — someone like Rand Paul seems more concerned about an American being killed in Starbucks by a CIA drone than he is about Islamic terrorism,” said Mr. King, New York Republican, during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. “We are the party of Eisenhower and Reagan, which believes in a strong national defense. I’m willing to be out there and be a spokesman.”

Mr. King said he’s being encouraged to run for the Republican nomination for president because of his strong positions on national security.

While the race is still three years away, it’s widely assumed that Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sen. Ted Cruz also will seek the GOP nomination, and Mr. King believes the two freshman senators simply don’t represent true Republican views on national defense and security, Mr. King said.

“A number of people in the last several months, particularly in New York but also from around the country, were concerned about the lack of a real defense policy and a real defense debate among Republican candidates for president, focusing primarily on Rand Paul and Ted Cruz,” Mr. King said. “We have real national security issues. … We can’t have an isolationist trend, which I think is being pursued by Rand Paul.”

Peter King, like all to many members of the ‘Pub establishment, can’t tell the difference between external national security and internal federal tyranny. The more I read about this topic, and other quotes from King, Boehner, and the ‘Pubs in Washington, the more I believe they’re trying to find something to be a campaign issue against conservatives. The fact they’ve accused Ted Cruz with Rand Paul is telling.

To paraphrase Peter King, no one should be concerned about the CIA targeting Americans anywhere in the world—if it is for ‘national security.’ Domestic surveillance is the same as surveillance outside the US. It’s all about subversives and terrorists.

No, Mr. King, it is not. We have a document called the Constitution. It has an amendment, the 4th one, that protects citizens from intrusion by government. We only need to watch the police riot in Boston, turning people out of their homes without warrants, to see what can happen when that Amendment is ignored. The incident just brought to light in Nevada is also pertinent. That last one is a possible violation of the 3rd Amendment. It is certainly a violation of due process.

That does not mean Americans cannot be targeted outside of the US while actively committing treason. There should be, and is, I believe, existing procedures to provide due process in those cases. It does not mean, however, that we should give free rein to any federal agency, inside or outside of the US, to target US citizens for any reason—or, as it is appearing more often, for no reason that can be supported.

I fully support the use of drones to maintain our border security, to interdict illegal drug smuggling on land or at sea. I would even support some domestic use of drones—providing that use follows the issuance of a valid search or other warrant. I approve domestic use of drones as long as the use follows the due process provisions in our Constitution.

The establishment and Peter King seem to think such things as warrants and due process to be ‘flexible’ if circumstances warrant. I do not.

If this is to be a nation of laws, it cannot waive or ignore law at any level. To do so invalidates the primary premise. If warrants are deemed unnecessary, due to circumstances, the country is not, then, a nation of laws. It is whatever the governmental elites want it to be. A lawless tyranny.

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Accuracy

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One of the most important factors of writing an opinion blog—or posting news items and rants on social media for that matter, is accuracy in reporting.  It was brought to light in an exchange last night concerning a post ranting about surveillance drones.

The writer had an agenda against surveillance drones. I don’t have a problem with that. Everyone has agendas in one form or another. I have mine as well. The problem, in this case, was that the writer used a news item to support his views that had nothing to do with his agenda. He used the crash of an Air Force QF-4 target drone from Tyndall AFB, FL to support his agenda. The issue is that the QF-4 is a modified F-4 Phantom fighter-bomber that is frequently used as a target for fighter pilots under training.

A QF-4 drone crashed on takeoff near a highway in Florida. The writer used that crash to bash surveillance drones…a large stretch. Target drones have been used since WW II. The Air Force live-fire target range over the Gulf of Mexico has existed since that time as well. The Air Force has been shooting down drones in that range since WW II and this QF-4 isn’t the first one to crash or wander off course on the mainland. A QF-4 is not a Predator nor a Global Hawk surveillance UAV. Neither is it a small camera-equipped surveillance drone such as the one that crashed near Orlando last month.

No, the writer attempted to use the QF-4 crash to support a rant against drones, citing the capture of a drone by the Iranians, domestic drone surveillance, and drones being used to kill Taliban and Al Queda terrorists around the world. Yes, the QF-4 is a drone but it is as unlike a Predator or Global Hawk as a White Freightliner is to a MGB sportscar.

Using such broad rationalizations in a post, whether in a blog or in a social media post, erodes the credibility of the writer. It takes only a few such posts until the writer acquires a reputation for carelessness or worse, being thought as a member of the Tin-foil Hat Brigade. The former condition can be corrected after a long period of careful work writing accurate information with multiple sources—all which support the theme of the post.

The latter, however, once acquired is ruinous. Thereafter, every word, every sentence, no matter how accurate and appropriate, will be tainted by the reputation as a agenda-driven scandal and fearmonger. Ron Paul is an excellent example of this. He acquired a reputation of being a loose cannon, a conspiracy theorist, a whackjob during the Bush years. It doesn’t matter if the reputation was deserved or not. It followed Ron Paul throughout his political life. He attempted to return to the political mainstream during the 2012 election but it was too late. He’d acquired a reputation, deservedly or not, and voters discounted him—and his followers by extension.

The point of all this is that once a reputation is damaged, however inadvertently, it is extremely difficult to recover and heal that reputation. It is best to never place yourself in that situation.

I’ve been writing a blog since the Fall of 2008. I’ve made mistakes, misquotes, typos and a few errors of fact. Whenever I find these errors, I’ve correct them—usually within minutes of the posting. Sometimes that correction has come a day or so later. In a couple of instances, it was months later. I realize in that last instance, my readers probably weren’t aware of the correction, the update.

But, I knew. And it was important for me to maintain my personal standards just as I would point out errors of omission and commission I see in others.

I would urge my readers, whether here or within social media, to review the accuracy of your information before you press the POST button. If you make an error, acknowledge it, make the correction and move on. If you fail to followup or acknowledge the error, you will lose readers.

Before you make that post, validate the news item. Make sure it supports your thesis or your agenda. Is it appropriate to the subject at hand? Do a little work. I can’t count how many blog entries I’ve written to find them falling apart when one of my sources failed to support my theme or my initial premise was found faulty. More than once, that has caused me to post a “No Post Today,” message and hope to find a better, supportable topic the next day.

Reputation is important. It can be easily damaged or lost. Maintain your reputation or be ignored. It’s your choice.

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