So if one day, everyone in the military said, "I don't want to fight
anymore. I'm on strike", the US would go to the corporations and ask them to
hire contract military for higher wages? from other countries?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2016 12:27 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: U.S. Air Force Hires Private Companies To Fly
Drones In War Zones
Yup. I've read it and dozens of similar articles. Life has become
subordinate to Conquest. Greed driven Empires, many of them emerging
International Corporate Empires(ICE), have abandoned all rules and spit in
the face of Law and Justice in their headlong plunge to dominate the entire
Planet Earth. Or destroy it in the trying.
All Hail the Mighty American Corporate Empire(ACE), the mightiest military
force known to Man. The ACE is patterned after the old Roman Empire, only
on steroids.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/25/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Did anyone read this? It's horrible. It's the handwriting on the wall.
We'll
end up with a truly mercenary military force.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of S. Kashdan
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2016 11:33 AM
To: Blind Democracy List
Subject: [blind-democracy] U.S. Air Force Hires Private Companies To
Fly Drones In War Zones
U.S. Air Force Hires Private Companies To Fly Drones In War Zones
by Chris Thompson
CorpWatch Blog, December 16th, 2015
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16059&printsafe=1
U.S. Air Force officials has begun to hire private companies to fly
drone aircraft operating over Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The
unprecedented move is in response to demands from the Obama
administration to dramatically expand the drone war just as the
Pentagon faces a critical shortage of military pilots.
As a result, civilian pilots will directly participate in military
operations for the first time since the drone wars began about a
decade ago.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the Air Force signed contracts
with two private companies in 2015 to provide enough pilots to fly two
"combat air patrols" or 24-hour surveillance flights that would
involve as many as eight
MQ-9 Reaper drones per day. The Air Force plans to eventually expand
its fleet of privately piloted drones to 40 over the next four years.
Of the two companies, one, Aviation Unmanned, is a small,
veteran-owned outfit operating out of Dallas, Texas, which was awarded
a contract on August 24. The second is General Atomics, a large San
Diego, California-based military contractor that builds both the
Reaper and Predator drones and has been paid at least $700 million
over the last two years for a variety of drone support services. Their
contract was awarded April 15.
Good Jobs First, a watchdog group, reports that General Atomics has
received
$614.7 million in U.S. federal subsidies since 2000. This past August,
Department of Labor investigators found that the company violated
federal law by refusing to pay 901 of its employees the rate
determined by local prevailing wage laws. General Atomics agreed to
spend $945,000 to reimburse employees.
This is not the first time that private contractors have played a role
in the drone wars. Companies such as Booz Allen Hamilton, General
Dynamics and SAIC have long held contracts to analyze surveillance
data gathered by drones flying over war zones.
While Reaper drones are designed to be able to carry multiple Hellfire
and Sidewinder missiles, the Pentagon insists that these privately
operated Reapers will simply do reconnaissance and not carry weapons,
nor will the pilots have clearance to fire missiles.
Nonetheless, these contracts mark a dramatic uptick in the direct
involvement of private companies in military actions, which has drawn
criticism even from within the Air Force Judge Advocate General's
office who say that such involvement may be a violation of
international law.
"Military
services should be vigilant to avoid contracted intelligence
activities where civilians may exert a significant amount of influence
or control over targeting and weapons release decisions," wrote Major
Keric Clanahan, a legal advisor to the U.S. Special Forces, in a
recent article in Air Force Law Review. "It is imperative that
contractors not get too close to the tip of the spear."
The decision to deploy private drone pilots stems from a longstanding
crisis inside the U.S. military In early 2015, the Air Force operated
65 combat air patrols, or up to 260 drones patrolling war zones around
the world, but was under pressure from the Pentagon to expand the
number of drones in the air to 360. But pilots, overwhelmed by the
complexity of the work and the grueling schedule, began to vote with
their feet and quit.
At an October conference of military contractors and government
officials, General Robert Otto, the Deputy Chief of Staff for
Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, summed up the problem.
"Those crews have been stressed about to the limit," Otto said. "Over
time, pulling twelve hour shifts, six days a week, year after year,
and the only light at the end of the tunnel is their Form DV-214,
which their, you know, separation from service. And many of the pilots
have decided to take that option."
This summer, the Air Force was forced to reduce the number of combat
air patrols from 65 to 60, in order to keep its remaining pilots from
retiring at the end of their contracts. Nonetheless, the Air Force
projects that it will be 400 pilots short of the roughly 1,200 it
needs to keep the drone program running at current capacity.
Officials hope that the private contractors, along with additional
support from Army drone pilots, will fill the gap in the short term.
But over the long term, the problem of keeping a fleet of pilots in
the service is expected to get substantially worse.
According to a separate Los Angeles Times article, the Air Force
recently announced plans to radically expand its global drone
operation, adding 65 new Reapers to its fleet, doubling the number of
pilots, and building new drone operations centers at Air Force bases
around the U.S. The plan is expected to cost roughly $3.5 billion, and
the service will have to get Congressional approval before conducting
the expansion. Even if lawmakers go along, training new pilots and
building the new drone centers will take years. It will be a long time
before the service's current pilots see any relief, so the contractors
may well be called upon again to fill an ever-widening gap.
