The United
Arab Emirates has signed $1.4 billion in military contracts that includes $200
million worth of U.S.-made drones.
Washington has
traditionally used “obedient Arab dictatorships” in the Persian Gulf as military
bases in the region, according to antiwar.com.
Arming
adversarial Arab monarchs with drones merely feeds the process of proliferation,
the report added.
“The UAE says
the Predator drones, built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, will not be
outfitted for weapons capabilities, but used for reconnaissance,” The Associated
Press reported.
“The number of
countries that have acquired or developed drones expanded to more than 75, up
from about 40 in 2005, according to the Government Accountability Office, the
investigative arm of Congress,” USA Today reported in
January.
“The prospect of
other countries using drones in the same lawless, lethal, unaccountable way the
U.S. has is unnerving to Americans, who have long believed they should not be
subject to the rules everybody else must follow,” writes John Glaser of
antiwar.com.
“When we possess
such weaponry, it turns out there is nothing unnerving or disturbing,
apocalyptic or dystopian about it,” Tom Engelhardt observes in Terminator
Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050. But “when the first
Iranian or Russian or Chinese missile-armed drones start knocking off their
chosen sets of terrorists, we won’t like it one bit,” the report quoted
Engelhardt as saying.
The United
States uses drones not only to spy on its own citizens across the country but to
launch missiles overseas to apparently kill “suspected militants.” According to
international media reports, American drone strikes have so far killed thousands
of civilians over the past decade in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, and
Somalia.
ARA/HJ
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