Drone Operations People Speak and Palestinians Besieged

I. The Drone Operations People Speak
The Guardian newspaper interviewed several people involved in drone operations in the war on terror. Michael Hass, a former senior airman in the Air Force, described children as "fun-size terrorists" and likened killing them to "cutting the grass before it grows too long." He described widespread alcohol and drug use among those who pilot the drones from a great distance. There have been earlier reports of drone pilots having psychiatric problems due to killing by remote control, in addition to the reality that they are considered to rank below those who actually fly warplanes.

Former Air Force Staff Sergeant Brandon Bryant said: "We kill four and create 10 [militants]." Clin Westmorelnad told the Guardian that "in the short-term, drones are good at killing people, but in the long-term they're not effective."

This past October, the Guardian published a cache of classified documents leaked by a government whistleblower that showed how the program killed people based on unreliable intelligence, and that the vast majority of people killed in a multi-year Afghan  campaign were not the intended targets. The military, by default, labeled non-targets killed in the campaign as enemies rather than civilians.

. II. Palestinians Besieged
"In 2010, more than 800,000 Palestinians had been imprisoned by Israel, including 8,000 children under the age of 18 arrested since 2000. As of November 2015, there were 5,621 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails." "In fact, most Palestinians are confined to one or two towns or villages in the West Bank, and the majority cannot go to Jerusalem  [1]

Israeli Prime ;Minister Benjamin Natanyahu announced that his government would undertake more stringent measures to suppress Palestinian protests, including the use of live rounds against demonstrators and the immediate demolition of homes of those resident belonging to Palestinians involved in violence.

Diana Butto and Nadia Hijab advocate that the UN Security Council should authorize a similar protective force for Palestine, with the clearly expressed mission of bringing freedom to Palestinians. They say: "While a political solution remains elusive at present, an international protection force will ensure that lives are placed above politics. Such a force would not only protect Palestinians but could address security issues for all concerned until a just and lasting peace arrangement can be reached."

ADDENDUMS:
*"A Bain study of 1,000 people found that more women than men just starting out in their jobs aspired to reach senior management. Over time, however, the level of women's ambition dropped by 60 percent, while the men's remain unchanged." "Various studies have found that women are not rewarded for pushing to advance or to get more pay -- they are, in fact, penalized." "Women start by leaning in, but quickly realize that what they're leaning into is the immovable wall of structural sexism." [2]

*Given the conflicting medical advise about how often to test for the presence of a serious medical problem -- especially cancer -- now comes a request to turn down the dial on testing. PSA screening is being discouraged because it causes many men to be diagnosed  with prostrate cancer that are not destined to ever bother them. Therefore, as the relevant data comes in, the target size should be adjusted so that the number of patients told they will need intervention more closely approximates the number that can be expected to develop serious cancer. There are harms to screening that happen here and now: false alarms, biopsy complications, overdiagnosis, treatment and treatment complications all occurring soon after testing. [3]

*The six largest financial institutions have assets equivalent to nearly 60 percent of U.S. GDP, issue 35 percent of mortgages and issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards. [4]

Footnotes
[1] Diana Butto and Nadia Hijab, "Palestine Besieged," The Nation, November 9, 2015.

[2] Bryce Covert and Mike Koncjal, "Blocked Ambitions," The Nation, November 16, 2015.

[3] H. Gilbert Welch, "Turn the dial back when diagnosing cancer," The Albuquerque Journal, November 28, 2015.

[4] Bernie Sanders' November 2015 Newsletter.