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From LATimes.com: Drone makers urge U.S. to let them sell more overseas

To be filed under - "Famous Last Words"

To the facts. Military defense megalith Northrop Grumman, along with the rest of the American based defense companies, are pushing for Congress to take a second look at a string of regulations limiting the sales of American made unmanned drone aircraft to other countries. At the moment, exports of such craft are limited by a coalition that was agreed upon during the Cold War, which limits the sale of drone crafts that are capable of flight and cargo load limits over a certain barrier. The idea back then was to limit how easily nations would be able to obtain ballistic missiles in a time when the technology was cutting edge. But now countries like Israel and China, who never signed on to the original agreement all those years ago, are getting to the point that they have quality drone craft for sale to the highest bidder, and American manufacturers are worried about getting cut out of the race.

I'm not gonna lie, folks. The article here actually did a pretty good job of getting me to think that opening up the drones market was a hot plan. I mean, if Israel and China are already on the ball, and if the article is right in projecting a decrease in the Pentagon's budget, then it sort of would make sense to open the doors to new markets. After all, a strong economic recovery is absolutely dependent upon an increase to our national exports, and it seems these days the only thing we're really good at producing is reality TV shows and killing machines. No one would doubt the quality of their purchase when they see the tag on their new billion dollar murder machine is stamped proudly with a Made in America insignia. Delivering Service with a Smile.

But then, thankfully, I shook my head and realized the fatal flaw of this argument. To me, and you're free to disagree here, there is something inherently misguided in the pursuit of stabilizing the sustainability of the military industrial complex. The second you begin to apply the mentality of an organization being too big to fail, which has served us so well with the banking interests in this country, to a murder for hire corporation like Northrop Grumman and its legions of lab coat clad miscreants designing red button after terrible red button, you may as well fully discard any hope of ever being able to legitimately discuss the prospect of world peace. Sure, it may sound like a hippie thing to say, but isn't that really the end goal here? A stop to all the unnecessary violence?

Now, I realize this isn't a dream that can be obtained tomorrow, next week, or even ten years from now, but I believe that allowing this insidious idea to take root in our national identity as a cornerstone to the market of destruction, it will take generations before we can undo the damage. I certainly don't pretend to have an answer for where all of that extra export money could be covered outside selling war machines to other countries, but hell, this is America. I'm sure we can think of something.



Three Monkeys Say: Two men standing on an open green/Twenty paces, no one in between