New Top Secret Information on the US's Drone Program
New operational information on the US’s drone program, published by the Intercept and Der Spiegel.
Comments
Aaytch • April 20, 2015 9:28 AM
Concerning the pie charts provided by those that assert the military spends “About half of every income tax dollar collected in the USA”, I believe they present a very distorted view. Instead of military spending being 55% of “all” US spending (which would be true, more or less, if “all” meant “all discretionary”), the actual percent for 2015 is 16%, which is lower than it has been since the end of the Cold War 30 years ago. Also, as a percent of GDP, the military spending of the US is now running at about 4%, which is lower than any country in the Middle East, and lower than Russia too.
Beware the man that presumes to tell the truth with a single pie chart.
Kevin • April 20, 2015 12:08 PM
It’s sad to see that when it comes to copying a movie, you can be prosecuted simply for providing a link to it, but when it comes to facilitating the murder of innocent people? Well, that’s nothing that anyone needs to concern themselves with…
albert • April 20, 2015 12:59 PM
@Aaytch,
Something I’ve been curious about.
Actual figures for 2014:
Individual income tax collected: $1733B
Total Federal Revenue: $5823B, of which income tax accounts for ~30%
More telling is the total spending by nation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
Our military spending far outstrips 9 of the 10 top spenders.
see: http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/year_revenue_2014USbn_16bs1n_1011#usgs302
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Grauhut • April 20, 2015 5:28 PM
@Jim: “The German government is deep in bed with the American war machine. They are partners in every way.”
Its worse, we are not partners, we, the German side, are treated like submissive servants.
And the article is not correct, ComputerWeekly did a better job. Satellite was somewhen. There is a BT fiber link across Europe, from GB via Ramstein, Stuttgart, Italy to Djibouti.
“A single acronym in a US defence contract notice provided the clue that established the role of the UK’s telecoms infrastructure in supporting controversial US drone flights.
It was buried in an official notice unearthed by legal charity Reprieve last year. The document showed the US Defense Information Systems Agency (Disa) had awarded BT a contract to provide a fibre-optic line between a US military communications base at RAF Croughton, Northamptonshire, and Camp Lemonnier, in Djibouti, the base for US operations in the Horn of Africa. …
The US military uses JWICS and SIPRNET for classified communications. Computer Weekly understands the DISN connection would be routed to Stuttgart via the US air force base at Landstuhl/Ramstein and RAF Croughton in the UK. Disa would not confirm the existence of a DISN trunk between the UK and Germany, but a map of SIPRNET published by the US Department of Defense (DoD) in 2004 shows it was an established route.”
Steve Kinney • April 20, 2015 6:09 PM
The “pie chart” on U.S. tax forms consistently under-represents military spending by a large margin: It only shows current annual Congressional appropriations. Left out: Discretionary spending, service on war debt (a large part of the Federal deficit), and secondary costs such as the Veteran’s Administration, military pensions, etc. The true figure comes closer to 70%.
albert • April 21, 2015 10:52 AM
@Steve
Yes. I left those out. It’s a standard accounting shell game. Which bin does this go in? ‘Non-military’ military spending. 🙂
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For info on SOP, see:
https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2015/04/socom-2015/
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There’s a link to a CRS report there as well.
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fajensen • April 21, 2015 11:17 AM
@Grauhut
Its worse, we are not partners, we, the German side, are treated like submissive servants.
Fun Fact; if one go to one of the better brothels in Copenhagen and pay for some “German” – it involves a good thrashing with plenty of humiliation on top.
Celos • April 21, 2015 11:35 AM
That is “Der Spiegel”. “Der Speigel” sounds somewhat revolting to a native-speaker.
And yes, likely German law was violated intentionally and repeatedly. Of course, nobody will be punished, because it was those in power that did it. Same problem everywhere.
albert • April 21, 2015 2:02 PM
@Bruce
I use the ‘2nd letter’ rule:
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‘ie’ = eee sound, Spiegel,
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‘ei’ = iiii sound, Schneier, stein,
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(Not a native speaker) maybe Celos has more examples?
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@fajensen
Funny, and don’t forget ‘English’, which involves no contact, only humiliation 🙂
Brothels, the microcosm of society….
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Grauhut • April 21, 2015 2:36 PM
@Celos: “Of course, nobody will be punished, because it was those in power that did it.”
Of course, thats why we have a chief federal prosecutor who needs to be carried to prosecution! There is no such agency in Germany, its all just an internet conspiracy theorists sh*tstorm! 🙂
Aaytch • April 22, 2015 12:31 PM
55% ? 70%? Nonsense.
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/
Freddy • April 23, 2015 3:31 PM
@Everyone
Oh my God the sky is falling! Let’s all take any additional information about the drone program as an indictment regardless, since we need more reasons to hate it apparently.
@Kevin
murder
noun
1.
Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder) and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder)
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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
Jim • April 20, 2015 8:20 AM
The German government is deep in bed with the American war machine. They are partners in every way. The talk of human rights violations is just that, so much talk and even more double-talk.
Yet, it’s good another piece of the permanent war is revealed. A feature that strikes me is the phenomenal COST of this war especially in terms of dollars per enemy killed. I highly doubt it’s worth it to the average tax payer. (About half of every income tax dollar collected in the USA.)
I can easily see the technologies employed and tax dollars spent used to expand mass surveillance and police state control of Americans and Germans alike.