`One moment there was the hum of a motor in the sky above.  The next, on a recent morning in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, a missile blasted a home, killing 13 people.  Days later, the same increasingly familiar mechanical whine preceded a two-missile salvo that slammed into a compound in Degan village in the tribal North Waziristan district of Pakistan, killing three.

What were once unacknowledged, relatively infrequent targeted killings of suspected militants or terrorists in the Bush years have become commonplace under the Obama administration.  And since a devastating December 30th suicide attack by a Jordanian double agent on a CIA forward operating base in Afghanistan, unmanned aerial drones have been hunting humans in the Af-Pak war zone at a record pace.  In Pakistan, an “unprecedented number” of strikes -- which have killed armed guerrillas and civilians alike -- have led to more fear, anger, and outrage in the tribal areas, as the CIA, with help from the U.S. Air Force, wages the most public “secret” war of modern times.  

It is now common knowledge that we are going to give, or loan as we did Surface to Air missiles to Bin Laden in the 80's in Afghanistan, Drones to Pakistan. This is all we need! In this rush to supply Pakistan weapons that India doesn't even have, guess what will happen? Of course, we will have to provide Pakistans swore enemy with these same Drones. And what have Russia and China been doing while we have been making these bigger and better Drones. They are doing the same thing. This shit is getting out of hand and the privacy of people all over the world is at risk.  

 .  Now, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates indicated on arriving in Pakistan last week, we are thinking of giving the Pakistanis their own unarmed surveillance drones, while from Iran to China, Israel to Russia, powers everywhere are rushing to enter the age of 24/7 robotic assassination along with, or just behind, us.  You might think that this would give the Pentagon pause, but a prospective arms race just gets the blood there boiling, and when it comes to Terminator-style war, as Nick Turse indicates below, the U.S. Air Force has plans.  Boy, does it ever!

This "Forty Year Plan" that the Air Force already has in action, is not only for military missions. They are going to be all over the world, even flying over this country and spying on American citizens. It is already rumored they have been on the border with Mexico, following illegal aliens into the United States. How easy it it going to be for the politicians and the Security Agency's to start ordering them to spy on demonstrators in this country that have a constitutional right to assemble and protest this very issue. I am in no way an expert in any of this. I just read like any American should to keep track of our government. No government of a free nation should be able to spy on it's own citizens. But my friends, the next time you are sitting out on your porch bitching about your government,watch what you say, because you never know who's listening, or watching for that matter!