JAZZ-ART-POLITICS: Here and Now: November 2010

War Machines: Recruiting Robots for Combat

Published: November 27, 2010

New robots — none of them very human-looking — are being designed to handle a broad range of tasks, despite controversy about the impact on future warfare. See article in the New York Times.

: What makes war impossible to win is the human love and knowledge. The human in the soldier can't see kids and women as the enemy it is ordered to obliterate. And Soldiers get confused and disheartened when they read new papers and learn of the $708 billion the military machine receives and how the money lands in a few, very secretive hands -Obama does not even know which- while they are sacrificed: 6,000 soldiers have died, 50,000 are maimed for life and 100,000s have psychological damages. Now if wars are conducted with machines the human element won't get in the way and the public will less likely get informed and see the horrific pictures of war; the military will be empowered beyond what is safe for the US and the world. Soldiers will be video gamers removed from the actual blood baths while the few benefiting from the war -the ones who want to control opium production for pharmaceutical use in Europe and in the US; and to protect oil pipelines which carry stolen petroleum for European and American consumption - will fill their pockets with impunity from war crimes.

US rejects call in UN human rights body to abolish death penalty

The US has not yet agreed to abolish the death penalty while even small African countries such as Angola have abolished it years ago.

The US along with Iran, China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are responsible for 88% of all deaths by execution. See http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777460.html The US has aligned with countries known to violate human rights and indeed it is a violator itself: it has been responsible for the Japanese concentration camps, the use of weapons of mass destruction against sovereign nations, the imprisonment of thousands without trials, the torture of hundreds and the death of millions.

And again this is another year the US will not abolish the death penalty. The question is: who made that decision? The UN's invitation was to the American people and thus we should have had a chance to a referendum vote or at least the right to a public debate.