It’s almost as if the U.S. doesn’t want you to know what they’re doing in that part of the country. Nah. That couldn’t be it…

Posted by: XLemming | Jun 20 2017 18:50 utc | 4

Your drone would be called Russian propaganda b.

Posted by: Peter AU | Jun 20 2017 19:15 utc | 6

@Anon | 1
Excellent link. Her twitter thread says it all.
Cheers 🙂

Posted by: AtaBrit | Jun 20 2017 19:35 utc | 8

“As far as technology itself and education is concerned, technology is basically neutral. It’s like a hammer. The hammer doesn’t care whether you use it to build a house or whether on torture, using it to crush somebody’s skull, the hammer can do either.” – chomsky
always loved that quote. our constant civilian use of what used to be military tech proves it daily.

Posted by: the pair | Jun 20 2017 19:51 utc | 10

Vox populi (comments to NYT news item on the topic, NYT is pretty sly in picking articles that can be commented, so I guess they are not supportive):
RL Groves Amherst, MA 2 hours ago
The US has no legal right or legitimate national interest in this matter. The Russians and Iranians are present by invitation of the sovereign government of Syria. It is clear that the US intends to partition Syria and weaken or destroy the Assad regime. This is reckless. It easy to see that our “Friends”, the Saudis and Israelis are behind this.
30 Recommend (top, I skip several in similar spirit)
edpal New York 57 minutes ago
Congrats to the Times. It looks like you are going to get the war with Russia you have been prepping your readers so ardently for. Give a moment’s thought to the thousands of innocent Russians who will perish when our nukes hit? Are your profits and your munitions investments worth the thousands of Americans who will perish? Maybe The Russians will be weakened if we attack first, but they will retaliate.
4 Recommend
Frank Beal Göteborg/Pittsburgh 57 minutes ago
Mission creep, or just a creepy mission?
4 Recommend (I like this one, “in brevity is wit”)
Kathy Lollock Santa Rosa, CA 57 minutes ago [A deep thinker, so I will comment a bit in brackets]
We are seeing an escalation before our eyes. [killing a robot is an escalation after killing people??] Beyond a doubt Assad is a brutal monster [just look at his fangs!]; and like so many dictators now and before him, it would have been better if he were never born. One thing that should be uppermost in our minds is that Putin is his ally. These are two individuals who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals.
We should not be cowardly, and we should face up to them. [I admire the rhetoric. I just thought that this is a comment that supports our valiant soldiers and leaders. But good rhetoric utilizes surprise:] But risking another war in which our soldiers will die, be maimed, or injured is not the way to go. [Bring our fleet back from Japan!!!]
Except for a number of Americans who confuse war with duty and courage, for the most part we citizens are fed up with our involvement in the Middle East. Sixteen years of battling first Afghanistan, then Iraq, and now Syria has accomplished nothing. How long will we sacrifice our young men and women [and innocent drones] for unwinnable wars in an area of the world that at its root is still tribal? [You know, the civilization over there is merely six thousand years old] How long will it take for our political leaders to comprehend that these groups have no desire, at least at this time, to become democracies.
Let us instead be humanitarians for the innocent somehow, someway. [I would pass a law prohibiting scary looking humans from kissing babies for political gain.] And call it a day. That takes a lot more courage than bombing and killing. [Good job, Kathy. In spite of a modest number of recommendation, I feel that this is the best rendering of the popular sentiment.]
4 Recommend

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jun 20 2017 20:17 utc | 12

Bonaparte – “Anti, Anti”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vkE5Xs5omA

Posted by: Scotch Bingeington | Jun 20 2017 20:50 utc | 14

Assad killed some of his own people. Abraham Lincoln also killed many thousands of his own people.
The US federal government maintains its right to kill its own people if they attempt to overthrow it.
The US has no right to interfere with Assad and his government in Syria.

Posted by: fast freddy | Jun 20 2017 21:17 utc | 16

Thanks for the semantic hilarity, b! Personally, I loathe the term “drone” for an UFV (Unmanned Flying Vehicle) as it debases bees, which are a very noble and extremely important insect. RPA (Remotely Piloted Airplane) would also be proper since the helo-type are sold only to civilians and would be very difficult to weaponized. One aspect of the remote technology I’ll always recall: After 911, it was denied that such remote guidance existed or had the capabilities we all witnessed, then as soon as Afghanistan was invaded RPAs appeared to terrorize the region using the same technology that was denied existed just a few months earlier. My theory about the Dancing Israelis is they were Mossad-linked RPA engineers exulting at the triumph of their technology having piloted the airliners into the WTC.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 20 2017 23:08 utc | 18

Maybe the US and UK can paint the drone UN colors, get the Iranians to shoot it down, and have an excuse for invasion …. oops, got that idea from the Downing Street Memo. As it turned out, sheer Team Bush determination and WMD fear-mongering got the US invasion they wanted.

Posted by: Curtis | Jun 20 2017 23:19 utc | 20

@18 karlof, ‘My theory about the Dancing Israelis is they were Mossad-linked RPA engineers exulting at the triumph of their technology having piloted the airliners into the WTC.’
it think the dancing israelis were exulting at the triumph of their/the cia’s technology … cutting the steel beams and dropping all three towers at the wtc … exulting most of all at their masterminding of the ‘islamic’ terrorist plot and at their handling of their muslim instruments : their saudis with the box-cutters who took care of the diversionary airplane crashes, traveling on their one-way, israeli-issued tickets to ‘paradise’. most of all exulting in their big-lie. the israelis learned their lessons well.
will we ever know the exact roles of the cia, israel, and saudi arabia in their ‘stunning’ performance on 9 september 2001? i hope so.

Posted by: jfl | Jun 21 2017 1:30 utc | 22

jfl @22–
Yes, your interpretation could be correct too. We’re both correct that their exultance resulted from the success of their mission. Yet another reason I was attracted by Russia.
I think we can safely say the Outlaw US Empire, Zionist Abomination, and House of Saud constitute the bonafide Axis of Evil–The Abrahamic Trinity of Evil.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 21 2017 4:26 utc | 24

How do people that write these articles live with themselves?
…
Posted by: Anon | Jun 20, 2017 2:36:05 PM | 1
No self-respect, and a crippling obsession with seeking approval are classic indicators of arrested development (absence of adult supervision/guidance).
They’re chosen for their weaknesses and quarantined from the real world like Seinfeld’s Bubble Boy.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jun 21 2017 5:08 utc | 26

“A US senator has warned against the United States’ measures in Syria, which is pushing Washington “closer and closer” to a military conflict with Iran and Russia, describing the move as “another mistake on the scope of the Iraq War.”
http://presstv.ir/Detail/2017/06/20/525989/Chris-Murphy-military-conflict-Russia-Iran

Posted by: Anon | Jun 21 2017 6:10 utc | 28

The CENTCOM said it was a Shaheed-129 UAV (iranian made !) : https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCxUFj3WsAAGImD.png

Posted by: Paul | Jun 21 2017 7:23 utc | 30

A drone is the operator of an unmanned aerial vehicle.

Posted by: Dadda | Jun 21 2017 11:54 utc | 32

Not to be outdone. Add the American Military News headline:
US shoots down armed Iranian-made Syrian Drone that was within shooting distance of American troops

A U.S. F-15 jet downed an Iranian-made Syrian drone that was armed and in firing range of American troops in southern Syria.

There and itchy.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
@jfl 22; karlof1
And curiously, on 9/11 within hours of the WTC Janes Defense disappeared the article on Israel’s remote control technology.

Posted by: likklemore | Jun 21 2017 14:03 utc | 34

@21: From Ari Ben-Menashe’s book “Profits of War”, p. 41 f.:

In that same month, with the assassination plan abandoned, a serious attempt was made to get Ayatollah Khomeini to agree to talks. Israel wanted to know where it stood when he came to power. Prime Minister Menachem Begin agreed with the intelligence departments that nothing would be lost by trying to talk to Khomeini. But who was going to do the talking on Israel’s behalf?
The task fell on the shoulders of an unlikely person—Ruth Ben-David. In the early 1950s this charming, gracious French Catholic woman lived in Paris and entertained ultra-orthodox Jews who used to visit from Jerusalem. Rabbi Amram Blau, then head of an orthodox Jewish sect in Jerusalem known as Neturei Karte, meaning Guardians of the Citadel, was among those who visited Paris. Being a widower, he craved female attention. He was introduced to the stunningly attractive woman with whom he whiled away the hours. Eventually they fell in love. They decided to marry and she converted to orthodox Judaism.
Before her husband died, she frequently accompanied him when he traveled to Turkey to attend seminars at which Jewish rabbis and Shi’ite mullahs entered into religious debates and tried to establish how theology could be brought back to earthly government. In those meetings Ruth met the exiled cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini. When Rabbi Blau died, his son from his first marriage took over the leadership of the Neturei Karte. But it was Ruth who was recognized as the matriarch of the sect.
Prime Minister Begin entrusted Ruth Ben-David with visiting Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris on his behalf in December 1978. She was to sound him out about how he would see relations with Israel if he were to take over—and what his attitude to the Jews in Iran would be.
Khomeini gladly received the emissary, his old friend. It was said she was the only woman he would sit alone with in a closed room. She had a long conversation with him at his residence outside Paris, and she reported back personally to Begin.
According to accounts directed to intelligence analysts from the Prime Minister’s Office, the meeting with the Ayatollah was very friendly. Khomeini made it clear that the Iranian Jews were Iranian citizens and Islam respected Judaism and all other religions that were not seen as heresy. He would not allow Baha’is to practice their religion in Iran, because in Islamic law it is stated that prophets who came before the Prophet Mohammed, including Moses and Jesus Christ, were true prophets, but anyone who came after him claiming to carry the word of God was a heretic, and heretics should be put to death. The Prophet Mohammed was the seal. Khomeini added that the Israeli state in Palestine was also a heresy and should not exist. However, the first interest of the Islamic state was to bring Islam and Islamic government to the Moslem populations in the Arab countries and rid the Moslem world of heretic governments. He also said that Mecca and Medina had to be liberated from the Saudis.
His message to Begin was clear: Don’t worry, Israel. First on my agenda is to deal with my Arab enemies. Then I will deal with Israel.

Interesting.

Posted by: Gesine Hammerling | Jun 21 2017 16:52 utc | 36

Very witty, b. I wonder why they chose the word drone. Is it drone as in a low continuous noise or drone as in male bee? In Spanish it is “aviones no tripulados” or unmanned aircraft. It seems that the genius of English is its ability to construct new terms for new things. So the brilliant “download” and “upload” was invented purely for the internet. Spanish can only manage the very old “descargar” for download, which can mean anything from unloading a truck to firing a gun. And the equally ancient “subir” for upload, can mean going up an escalator to anything related to an upwards movement.
Is it the language or is it the people? For example, a feudal tenant in medieval England was a “villein”. When the elites enacted their vicious theft of peasant land which they brilliantly framed as “enclosures” from the 15 century onwards, villein (peasant) changed to villain (criminal). When they enclosed the village commons i.e. the common land held by all villagers on which to graze their animals, the elites began to refer to ordinary people as commoners or common people, which was nicely taken up by Pulp in their famous song. So maybe collateral damage has its origins in feudal England.

Posted by: Lochearn | Jun 21 2017 22:31 utc | 38

@32 dadda
i agree, the drone is the one playing the video game that kills the wedding parties … and then those who try to help his victims, and then the people at the funerals of those he killed at the wedding parties … and then those who show up to help the victims he’s killed at the funerals. it’s not so much the remotely piloted aircraft, it’s the remotely pulled triggers, and the depraved murderers who pull them … who then go home to their own families and a tv dinner.

Posted by: jfl | Jun 21 2017 23:43 utc | 40

The following video clip shows an Iranian drone, filming a U.S. drone over Syrian desert. The guy who is talking says that:
“the U.S. drones are not designed to hunt or see other drones, but our drones are capable of hunting them. If we do not shoot them down, it’s just an act of mercy”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k07b5KyY0PA
It seems that the new military leadership is very inexperienced.The shooting down of Iranian drone will be retaliated in the most humiliating way. But if so, you will not hear it from MSM.

Posted by: Massoud | Jun 22 2017 23:02 utc | 42