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In what will likely not surprise too many, The Pentagon has admitted it has deployed drones to spy over U.S. territory for non-military missions over the past decade. Confirming yet another conspiracy theory is conspiracy fact, FBI director Robert Mueller testified before Congress that the bureau employed spy drones to aid investigations, but in a “very,very minimal way, very seldom.” The report concludes, “the appetite to use spy drones in the domestic environment to collect airborne imagery continues to grow.”

As USA Today reports, the report by a Pentagon inspector general, made public under a Freedom of Information Act request, said spy drones on non-military missions have occurred fewer than 20 times between 2006 and 2015 and always in compliance with existing law.

The report, which did not provide details on any of the domestic spying missions, said the Pentagon takes the issue of military drones used on American soil “very seriously.”

A senior policy analyst for the ACLU, Jay Stanley, said it is good news no legal violations were found, yet the technology is so advanced that it’s possible laws may require revision.

“Sometimes, new technology changes so rapidly that existing law no longer fit what people think are appropriate,” Stanley said. “It’s important to remember that the American people do find this to be a very, very sensitive topic.”

The use of unmanned aerial surveillance (UAS) drones over U.S. surfaced in 2013 when then-FBI director Robert Mueller testified before Congress that the bureau employed spy drones to aid investigations, but in a “very,very minimal way, very seldom.”

The inspector general analysis was completed March 20, 2015, but not released publicly until last Friday.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Jailing an Anti-Drone Protester

January 21, 2016

Jailing an Anti-Drone Protester

As the U.S. government fights its endless wars around the globe, some Americans are moving beyond despair and confusion to challenge the military machine, people like Mary Anne Grady Flores, who was sentenced to six months in jail for photographing an anti-drone protest, writes Bill Moyers.

Mary Anne Grady Flores is in jail today and American citizens everywhere can surely breathe a sigh of relief that we are safe from her criminal behavior at least for the next six months.

That’s the length of the sentence this 59-year-old peace activist in upstate New York began on Tuesday — one day after the United States honored Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for his commitment to nonviolent civil disobedience. If he were here today, the martyred Dr. King would surely be shaking his head that America still has a problem with peaceful dissenters of conscience.

A Predator drone firing a missile.

And what exactly did Grady Flores do to warrant spending the next six months in jail? She photographed a peaceful protest outside Hancock Field Air National Guard Base near Syracuse, New York. The base is where the U.S. trains pilots to launch drone strikes in the Middle East, particularly in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

It wasn’t a crime for her to be taking pictures of the demonstration, but when she briefly and unintentionally — yes, unintentionally — stepped onto a road that belongs to the base, she violated what authorities called “an order of protection,” which had been issued in 2012 to forbid protesters from approaching the home or workplace of Col. Earl Evans, a commander of the 174th Attack Wing of the Air National Guard. She had never met Evans, never threatened him, never showed any intention of harming him.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Drone terror: Welcome to the barbarism of ‘civilisation’

November 28, 2015

Drone terror: Welcome to the barbarism of ‘civilisation’

Mass murder is fine as long we are the ones doing the killing to stop other people killing us

Terrorists like to believe they are committing mass murder for a noble political cause.

Islamic State (IS) acolytes believe they are fighting against the evil “Crusader” states of the kuffar (disbelievers), to establish a global khilafah (caliphate).

“War on terror” proponents believe they are defending Western civilisation against barbaric terrorists hell-bent on destroying our “values” and “way of life”.

Both frames depict the enemy in sub-human terms, as barbarians outside the gate. Both justify colossal destruction of civilian life as necessary and inevitable to obtain noble political goals.

In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, once again, people wondered, debated: how can people become so unfathomably evil that they deliberately commit mass violence against innocent civilians?

The answer is simple: dehumanisation. Killing is easier when those you are killing are categorised as existing somehow outside the frame of one’s own humanity, and thus, less than human, Other.

The brutal massacre of 130 people in Paris on a Friday night, in the heart of the city, when people were out with friends and family, illustrates how terror works: strike suddenly, to inflict fear and panic, to paralyse society. President Hollande rightly described the mass murders as an “act of war,” requiring a “pitiless” response.

Imagine, though, if attacks like that undertaken by IS in Paris were inflicted every other day on France and other Western countries. Imagine if a Charlie Hebdo-style massacre erupted every other week in the US, UK and France, killing a dozen or so victims at a time.

The outcry would be, rightly, deafening. Demands for retaliation would be self-evidently sensible. The need to take “all necessary measures” to crush the terrorists would be unanimously agreed on by Western leaders. Civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria might be dismissed as regrettable “collateral damage” in necessary self-defence.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Arming Dictators: An American Tradition

November 12, 2015

Arming Dictators: An American Tradition

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Recently the Obama administration announced another military aid package for Pakistan: eight F-16 fighter jets. Once again considerations of human rights and democratic values have been sacrificed to strategic calculations. Recall, the robust figures for US military assistance to Pakistan: more than $20 billion in weapons, training, and other activities between FY2002 and FY2015, making Pakistan the 16^th ranking recipient of US arms. And that amount does not include drone strikes.

The contrast between Obama the engager and Obama the warrior is striking. US arms exports to authoritarian regimes such as Pakistan’s, just one element of military aid, continue to rise even as we celebrate the President’s initiatives with Iran and Cuba. From 2009 to 2014, I count $12.5 billion in arms exports to eight other authoritarian regimes: Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. That figure is nearly a quarter of all US military exports in those years, which total $50.7 billion.

There is no evidence that those weapons, or military assistance as a whole, have moved authoritarian governments toward greater respect for human rights, social justice, accountable government, or environmental protection. Even their support of US policy on terrorism has been tentative, and in Pakistan’s case, two-faced, since its government accepts US drone strikes while its intelligence apparatus coddles al-Qaeda and the Taliban. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that military aid has abetted repression, official corruption, and strong-arm rule. Pakistan has thumbed its nose at US aid even more, expanding its nuclear-weapon arsenal to more than 100—an arsenal that heightens tension with India and, because it now consists of tactical nukes, is especially vulnerable to theft by terrorist groups. On top of that, we now have word that Pakistan has its own drones, probably built with Chinese help, adding to South Asia’s instability.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why NYT Dissed the ‘Drone Papers’

November 5, 2015

Why NYT Dissed the ‘Drone Papers’

When the “Downing Street Memo” surfaced in the UK in 2006 revealing that the intelligence to justify the Iraq War had been “fixed” around the policy, the mainstream U.S. media largely ignored it. The same has now happened with the leak of documents about President Obama’s drone war, writes John Hanrahan.

For that slice of the American public that still depends heavily on major daily newspapers as their main source of news, they might not even know that the on-line publication The Intercept has published a package of alarming drone-assassination articles based on secret military documents provided by an anonymous intelligence whistleblower.

These “Drone Papers” show, among other disclosures, that the U.S. government has been lying about the number of civilian deaths caused by drone strikes in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. For every targeted individual assassinated, another five or six non-targeted individuals are killed — giving the lie to the Obama administration’s long-standing claims of careful, precision killing of specific targets in order to avoid killing civilians.

The Intercept, relying on a cache of slides provided to it by its whistleblower source, posted its package of eight articles on Oct. 15, 2015. Among those picking up on the stories was the Huffington Post (which ran excerpts), and other outlets — including The Guardian, Newsweek, New York Magazine, NPR, the PBS NewsHour, CNN — which generally cited some of The Intercept’s main findings or speculated about a “second [Edward] Snowden” coming forth as a national security whistleblower.

As of this writing, the premier mainstream publications that carry influence beyond their own immediate readership in setting the nation’s news agenda — The New York Times and The Washington Post — have carried virtually nothing about what is in these explosive documents, which cover the 2011-2013 period. The documents show the inner workings, and the deadly failures, of the Joint Special Operations Command’s targeted killing programs, a/k/a assassinations, which President Obama signs off on.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Drones, IBM, and the Big Data of Death

October 26, 2015

Drones, IBM, and the Big Data of Death

LAST WEEK The Intercept published a package of stories on the U.S. drone program, drawing on a cache of secret government documents leaked by an intelligence community whistleblower. The available evidence suggests that one of the documents, a study titled “ISR Support to Small Footprint CT Operations — Somalia/Yemen,” was produced for the Defense Department in 2013 by consultants from IBM. If you look at just one classified PowerPoint presentation this year, I recommend you make it this one.

Like a good poem, the ISR study has multiple meanings, and rewards careful attention and repeated reading. On its surface, it’s simply an analysis by the Defense Department’s Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Task Force of the “performance and requirements” of the U.S. military’s counterterrorism kill/capture operations, including drone strikes, in Somalia and Yemen. However, it’s also what a former senior special operations officer characterized as a “bitch brief” — that is, a study designed to be a weapon in a bureaucratic turf war with the CIA to win the Pentagon more money and a bigger mandate. The study was also presumably an opportunity for IBM to demonstrate that it can produce snappy “analysis” tailored to the desires of its Defense Department clients, as well as for current Defense employees to network with a potential future employer.

But the presentation’s most compelling meaning is much deeper: It’s a rare, peculiar cultural artifact that opens a window into the deep guts of the military-industrial complex, where the technologies of assassination and corporate sales converge, all described in language as dead as the target of an ISR platform kinetic engagement.

Edge Methods

In 2010, IBM employees delivered a talk at IBM’s Analytics Solution Center in Washington, D.C., titled “An Introduction to Edge Methods: Business Analytics and Optimization for Intelligence.” The audience was “the Defense and Intelligence communities,” and IBM’s goal was to explain to them how the company could help them with “managing large volumes of data” to derive “invaluable” insights. Among its already-existing governmental customers, IBM explained, was the ISR Task Force.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Drone Papers: The Assassination Complex

October 16, 2015

The Drone Papers: The Assassination Complex

From his first days as commander in chief, the drone has been President Barack Obama’s weapon of choice, used by the military and the CIA to hunt down and kill the people his administration has deemed — through secretive processes, without indictment or trial — worthy of execution. There has been intense focus on the technology of remote killing, but that often serves as a surrogate for what should be a broader examination of the state’s power over life and death.

DRONES ARE A TOOL, not a policy. The policy is assassination. While every president since Gerald Ford has upheld an executive order banning assassinations by U.S. personnel, Congress has avoided legislating the issue or even defining the word “assassination.” This has allowed proponents of the drone wars to rebrand assassinations with more palatable characterizations, such as the term du jour, “targeted killings.”

When the Obama administration has discussed drone strikes publicly, it has offered assurances that such operations are a more precise alternative to boots on the ground and are authorized only when an “imminent” threat is present and there is “near certainty” that the intended target will be eliminated. Those terms, however, appear to have been bluntly redefined to bear almost no resemblance to their commonly understood meanings.

The first drone strike outside of a declared war zone was conducted more than 12 years ago, yet it was not until May 2013 that the White House released a set of standards and procedures for conducting such strikes. Those guidelines offered little specificity, asserting that the U.S. would only conduct a lethal strike outside of an “area of active hostilities” if a target represents a “continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons,” without providing any sense of the internal process used to determine whether a suspect should be killed without being indicted or tried. The implicit message on drone strikes from the Obama administration has been one of trust, but don’t verify.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Eye in the Sky – 60 U.S. Police Departments Have Asked for Drone Certification

September 17, 2015

Eye in the Sky – 60 U.S. Police Departments Have Asked for Drone Certification

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Are drones coming to a police department near you? Possibly.

Next thing you know, they’ll be pepper spraying you from 10,000 feet.

From Yahoo News:

Los Angeles (AFP) – Drones are increasingly making their mark in the arsenal of US police forces, operating in a legal gray area and sparking concerns of constant surveillance of civilians.

Since 2012, government agencies can use small drones — weighing less than 55 pounds, or 25 kilograms — under certain conditions and after obtaining a certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration.

But the FAA, which is preparing small drone regulations, does not have authority on privacy protection and there is no specific framework on the issue on a national level.

Up to two dozen police forces are currently fully equipped with drones and trained to use them, including pioneers Grand Forks in North Dakota; Arlington, Texas; Mesa County, Colorado and the Utah Highway Patrol.

According to the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, at least 60 police forces across the country — from Houston, Texas, to Mobile, Alabama, North Little Rock, Arkansas, and Miami-Dade County — have asked for drone certification.

The FBI also uses drones for specific missions

Rights groups are not opposed to drones as such but rather are concerned that some law enforcement agencies will use them for constant surveillance of the population.

Silly conspiracy theorists. Your government loves you, and would never surreptitiously spy on you.

“Without proper regulation, drones equipped with facial recognition software, infrared technology and speakers capable of monitoring personal conversations would cause unprecedented invasions of our privacy rights,” the ACLU said.

“Tiny drones could go completely unnoticed while peering into the window of a home or place of worship.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

After Summer of Drone Dramas, BC Calls for Crackdown

September 6, 2015

After Summer of Drone Dramas, BC Calls for Crackdown

Province tells feds all UAVs should be registered and pilots certified.

Drone-BC

The British Columbia government wants all drones to be registered and pilots certified, according to a submission to a federal panel looking at the expanding technology. Whether it’s reports of near-misses with airplanes or spying on neighbours, Victoria is in a race to catch up with the burgeoning technology.

The submission is in response to federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt’s call for opinions on proposed amendments to drone regulations in Canada.

Drones weighing 35 kilograms or less can fly without authorization, but operators must conform to Canadian Aviation Regulation rules and respect federal, provincial and local laws about trespassing and privacy. Those who fly larger drones or for commercial purposes must apply for special flight operations certificates from Transport Canada.

”The advantages and opportunities that [unmanned aerial vehicles] present must be balanced with government’s interest in protecting the personal safety and privacy of its citizens,” said the B.C. report.

”Rapid development, growth and adaption of UAV technology are challenges to both the aviation sector and the public that require the attention of policy makers and regulators. Of particular concern to British Columbia is the unsafe use of UAVs in proximity to other aircraft, violation of personal privacy and the current inability for provincial or municipal enforcement.”

The report includes a list of civil aviation near-misses with drones in 2014 and 2015, mostly around B.C. airports, and a much-publicized allegation that a drone-sighting near Oliver, B.C. wildfires grounded water bombers for more than four hours for safety reasons in August. The only description of the drone in the Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System, filed Sept. 1, was that it was ”fluorescent orange-coloured from above.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

First State Approves Drones with Rubber Bullets, Tasers, Pepper Spray, Tear Gas, Sound Cannons for Domestic Use

August 28, 2015

First State Approves Drones with Rubber Bullets, Tasers, Pepper Spray, Tear Gas, Sound Cannons for Domestic Use

North Dakota has become the first state to approve government use of drones equipped with “less than lethal weapons”, including “rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas, sound cannons, and Tasers”.

The bill passsed largely due to the inherent corruption of the US political system, as the wording was modified to allow for weaponized drones and approved “thanks to a last-minute push by a … lobbyist representing law enforcement—tight with a booming drone industry”.

The Republican who originally proposed the bill had written it to ban all weaponization of drones, and he was dismayed that it ultaimately passed in a form that allows non-lethal weaponization.

Police claim the drones will only be used in “non-criminal” situations, such as surveilance, but did not mention that they have already been used in at least one criminal situation, or that the claim is dubious at best given the ultra-militarized and brutal state of policing in the US, which many, particularly those in ethnic minority groups, liken to military occupation.

A police deputy, explaining why he opposed requiring search warrants for use of drones, told Daily Beast that “you don’t want things that would potentially have a chilling effect on [drone] manufacturers”.

“It’s really all about the commercial development,” said Republican rep. Gary Paur.

As Daily Beast puts it, “In other words, limit civil liberties so Big Drone can spread its wings.”

Of course, there is a bit more to it than that, as numerous US crackdowns on pro-democracy protesters, including mass arrests of civilians and journalists, demonstrate.

Pentagon Plans to Boost Drone Flights 50% as Bernanke Warns Cutting Defense Spending Could Hurt Economy

August 18, 2015

Pentagon Plans to Boost Drone Flights 50% as Bernanke Warns Cutting Defense Spending Could Hurt Economy

In the event you were becoming concerned that the U.S. government might be backing away from its longstanding policy of endless violence, militarism and bloodshed, fear not. If we know one thing for sure, it’s that defense contractors and the military-intelligence-industrial complex must earn. And continue to earn it will.

So despite the Air Force having a hard time finding pilots for its drones, the Pentagon still plans to ramp up drone flights by 50% over the next four years.

We learn from the Wall Street Journal that:

The Pentagon plans to sharply expand the number of U.S. drone flights over the next four years, giving military commanders access to more intelligence and greater firepower to keep up with a sprouting number of global hot spots, a senior defense official said.

The plan to increase by 50% the number of daily drone flights would broaden surveillance and intelligence collection in such locales as Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, the South China Sea and North Africa, said the official, who provided exclusive details of the plan to The Wall Street Journal. It would be the first significant increase in the U.S. drone program since 2011, reflecting pressure on military efforts to address a cascading series of global crises.

While expanding surveillance, the Pentagon plan also grows the capacity for lethal airstrikes, the most controversial part of the U.S. drone program and its rapid growth under President Barack Obama . Strikes by unmanned aircraft have killed 3,000 people or more, based on estimates by nonpartisan groups.

Of course, the most offensive part about all of this, is that the “cascading series of global crises” mentioned by the WSJ, are the direct result of incredibly inept and destructive U.S. foreign policy in the first place. Recall the post from earlier today titled, Additional Details Emerge on How U.S. Government Policy Created, Armed, Supported and Funded ISIS. Here’s an excerpt:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Hacking Team and Boeing Subsidiuary Envisioned Drones Deploying Spyware

July 19, 2015

Hacking Team and Boeing Subsidiuary Envisioned Drones Deploying Spyware

There are lots of ways that government spies can attack your computer, but a U.S. drone company is scheming to offer them one more. Boeing subsidiary Insitu would like to be able to deliver spyware via drone.

The plan is described in internal emails from the Italian company Hacking Team, which makes off-the-shelf software that can remotely infect a suspect’s computer or smartphone, accessing files and recording calls, chats, emails and more. A hacker attacked the Milan-based firm earlier this month and released hundreds of gigabytes of company information online.

Among the emails is a recap of a meeting in June of this year, which gives a “roadmap” of projects that Hacking Team’s engineers have underway.

On the list: Develop a way to infect computers via drone. One engineer is assigned the task of developing a “mini” infection device, which could be “ruggedized” and “transportable by drone (!)” the write-up notes enthusiastically in Italian.

The request appears to have originated with a query from the Washington-based Insitu, which makes a range of unmanned systems, including the small ScanEagle surveillance drone, which has long been used by the militaries of the U.S. and other countries. Insitu also markets its drones for law enforcement.

An Insitu engineer wrote to Hacking Team this April: “We see potential in integrating your Wi-Fi hacking capability into an airborne system and would be interested in starting a conversation with one of your engineers to go over, in more depth, the payload capabilities including the detailed size, weight, and power specs of your Galileo System.” (Galileo is the name of the most recent version of Hacking Team’s spyware, known as Remote Control System.)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Retired General: Drones Create More Terrorists Than They Kill, Iraq War Helped Create ISIS

July 17, 2015

Retired General: Drones Create More Terrorists Than They Kill, Iraq War Helped Create ISIS

Retired Army Gen. Mike Flynn, a top intelligence official in the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, says in a forthcoming interview on Al Jazeera English that the drone war is creating more terrorists than it is killing. He also asserts that the U.S. invasion of Iraq helped create the Islamic State and that U.S. soldiers involved in torturing detainees need to be held legally accountable for their actions.

Flynn, who in 2014 was forced out as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has in recent months become an outspoken critic of the Obama administration’s Middle East strategy, calling for a more hawkish approach to the Islamic State and Iran.

But his enthusiasm for the application of force doesn’t extend to the use of drones. In the interview with Al Jazeera presenter Mehdi Hasan, set to air July 31, the former three star general says: “When you drop a bomb from a drone … you are going to cause more damage than you are going to cause good.” Pressed by Hasan as to whether drone strikes are creating more terrorists than they kill, Flynn says, “I don’t disagree with that.” He describes the present approach of drone warfare as “a failed strategy.”

“What we have is this continued investment in conflict,” the retired general says. “The more weapons we give, the more bombs we drop, that just … fuels the conflict.”

Prior to serving as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Flynn was director of Intelligence for the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During his time in Iraq, Flynn is credited with helping to transform JSOC into an intelligence-driven special forces operation, tailored to fight the insurgency in that country. Flynn was in Iraq during the peak of the conflict there, as intelligence chief to Stanley McChrystal, former general and head of JSOC. When questioned about how many Iraqis JSOC operatives had killed inside the country during his tenure, Flynn would later say, “Thousands, I don’t even know how many.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Veterans Urge Drone Operators to Refuse Orders to Fly

June 30, 2015

Veterans Urge Drone Operators to Refuse Orders to Fly

Letter Reinforces Call Made in National TV Ad Campaign

An increasing number of United States military veterans are counseling United States military drone operators to refuse to fly drone surveillance/attack missions – the veterans are even helping sponsor prime time television commercials urging drone operators to “refuse to fly.”

In a letter released recently by KnowDrones.com, 44 former members of the US Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines whose ranks range from private to colonel and whose military service spans 60 years, “urge United States drone pilots, sensor operators and support teams to refuse to play any role in drone surveillance/assassination missions. These missions profoundly violate domestic and international laws intended to protect individuals’ rights to life, privacy and due process.”

Among those signing the letter are retired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright, who resigned from her State Department post in 2003 over the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and former Marine Captain Matthew Hoh, who, in spite of pleadings by Obama Administration officials, resigned his State Department post in Afghanistan in 2009 in protest over U.S. strategic goals and policy there. Also signing are former U.S. Army Captain and CIA official Ray McGovern; former U.S. Navy Lt. Barry Ladendorf, president of Veterans for Peace; and former U.S. Army Sgts. Aaron Hughes and Maggie Martin, co-directors of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Speaking to the issue of disobeying military orders, the letter says: “Those involved in United States drone operations who refuse to participate in drone missions will be acting in accordance with Principle IV of the Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Judgment of the Tribunal, The United Nations 1950,” that states:

“The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him of responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Six Facts From ‘Sudden Justice’, a New History of the Drone War

June 12, 2015

Six Facts From ‘Sudden Justice’, a New History of the Drone War

Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone Wars, a new book by London-based investigative journalist Chris Woods, traces the intertwined technological, legal and political history of drones as they evolved on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the covert U.S. targeted killing campaign.

Woods is especially thorough on the issue of civilian casualties, arguing that in pursuit of the short-term goal of eliminating suspected terrorists or militants on the battlefield, both the military and CIA were slow to grasp the strategic damage done by civilian deaths. Woods also argues that the controversy over the number of civilians killed by drones stemmed from the United States’ elastic definition of who could be targeted, an issue not just in the CIA’s secret strikes, but also across the military.

U.S. drones have now fired on Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya and Syria, and are a feature of war that is here to stay. Their global use by the United States has set precedents “pushing hard at the boundaries of international law,” and the challenge, Woods writes, will be in “convincing others not to follow Washington’s own recent rulebook.”

The book is densely informative and includes interviews with drone operators and intelligence officials, a notable number of them on the record. Here are six new details that Woods unearthed in his reporting:

No one is exactly sure who ordered the very first drone strike in Afghanistan, in October 2001. The failed attempt to kill Taliban leader Mullah Omar was a collision of orders between the CIA, Air Force, Central Command and the White House. Retired Air Force Lieutenant General Dave Deptula says that when he saw the drone’s missile hit, he exclaimed, “Who the fuck did that?” (The book’s description of the first drone strike was recently excerpted in The Atlantic.)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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