"Lowering the threshold on acceptable civilian casualties"

By Chris Rossini

America's drone program is such a disgrace. Military pilots sitting at computer screens obliterating other human beings on the other side of the world in video game fashion.

Meanwhile, totally innocent people must live in a permanent state of fright, never knowing if they're in the wrong place at the wrong time. At any moment, and without warning, a missile can drop in their vicinity and end it all. 

"All the while", as Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson puts it, "the military pilot, sitting in a cushioned recliner in an air-conditioned room halfway across the world, is immune from the violence wrought from his or her single keystroke."

As families of innocent victims stew in resentment, rage, and desire for revenge, Americans get to use the "at least there's no boots on the ground" excuse to whisk the atrocities out of their minds.

The Trump Administration has put boots on the ground in Syria, Iraq and Kuwait, and is conducting military drills outside of North Korea. The boots are marching.

All the while, even the use of drones themselves may take a turn for the worse as well.

The Washington Post reports:

The Trump administration is close to finishing a review that would make it easier for the Pentagon to launch counterterrorism strikes anywhere in the world by lowering the threshold on acceptable civilian casualties and scaling back other constraints imposed by the Obama administration, senior U.S. officials said.

The ongoing review, which is being considered at senior levels of the National Security Council, would undo a series of rules that Obama imposed, beginning in 2013, to rein in drone operations outside active war zones.

How ironic that a $20 Trillion debt ceiling is being reached today, and no one bats an eye when saying the U.S. can launch strikes "anywhere in the world". The fantasy of being a "world policeman" has bankrupted the country in reality.

The fact that even one civilian casualty is "acceptable" shows how monstrous government violence really is.

How can it be "acceptable" to take even a single innocent life?

Many thousands have perished at the hands of a keyboard and computer screen, but apparently the "threshold" on what's "acceptable" may still be too high for those pressing the buttons.

As the presidential campaign and election fade into a distant memory, the Trump Administration is picking up right where the Obama Administration left off. 

​This is not "Making America Great Again" no matter how anyone tries to spin it.

(h/t Target Liberty)