Welcome this is james corbett of the corbett report, with your sunday update from the center for research on globalization at global research, CA on this 10th day of july 2011, and now for the real news.

Unmanned aerial vehicles are once again grabbing headlines. As the UK government was forced to admit last week that on RAF drone, killed four afghan civilians and injured two others in an airstrike in Helmand earlier this year, expressing deep regret over the incident, a Defense Ministry spokesman said, and ISAF investigation was conducted to establish of Any lessons could be learned from the incident or if errors in operational procedures could be identified.

The report noted that the UK Reapers cruise actions had been in accordance with procedures and UK rules of engagement. The incident is likely to renew debate about the RAF drone program. Operated from the US Air Force’s, Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

Just this March, the Ministry of Defence released a study of the issue that looked at some of the troubling questions that the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in warfare raised. It is essential that before unmanned systems become ubiquitous, if it is not already too late that we consider this issue and ensure that by removing some of the horror or at least keeping it at a distance, that we do not risk losing our controlling humanity and make War more likely.

The report then goes on to ask if the US drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen in fact herald a new era of warfare, an era in which military intervention will be used simply because it can be done without any risk whatsoever to the attacker.

The US military and CIA, under the leadership of Nobel Peace Laureate, Barack Obama, is currently using aerial drones to carry out attacks in six different countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya and now Somalia.

Last month, Washington admitted using drones to commit assassinations of Somalis who it claims have ties to Anwar al-awlaki himself, an American citizen who the Obama administration is attempted to assassinate without a trial.

It is uncertain. Who else is on the president’s list of American citizens, whom he has unilaterally declared the right to kill, but his DOJ has successfully blocked any judicial oversight of the decision in the core.

The use of drones are becoming more frequent in every theater and have begun to cause great consternation with erstwhile allies such as Pakistan, where the citizens in the government are increasingly protesting.

The drone strikes from two thousand four to the end of his presidency in January 2009. The Bush administration launched 46 drone strikes in Pakistan since taking over the White House Peace Prize recipient Obama has launched 213 such strikes.

Now reports are surfacing that the CIA is building a secret base at an undisclosed location that will be used for carrying out assassinations in Yemen in justifying the move. An anonymous US official was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying that Yemen is now the most capable most imminent threat to the US.

It is uncertain how a small nation of 23 million people in the arabian peninsula with a defense budget, 13 hundredth the size of america ‘ S could possibly pose any type of threat to the largest most well-funded military in the history of the world.

But the justification for the drone strikes have been made numerous times by various government officials. In March of last year, harold koh, a legal adviser to the State Department, made the case that the use of unmanned aerial vehicles against any nation it deems to be a threat.

Is legally justified with respect to the subject of targeting, which has been much commented on in the media and international legal circles? Obviously there are limits to what i can say publicly. What i can say is that it is the considered view of this administration, and it has certainly been my experience during my time as legal advisor that US targeting practices, including lethal operations conducted with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Uavs comply with all applicable law, including the laws of war. In april of this year, the White House approved the use of missile equipped drones in NATO’s Libyan campaign. Since then, 42 drone attacks have been launched on Libya.

According to global research, associate money, Nasim Roya, who is in Libya on a fact-finding mission, the NATO bombing campaigns have struck mainly civilian targets and constitute more proof that the so-called humanitarian nature of the campaign is in fact a cover for a brazen war of aggression.

That is being enabled by a complicit, lap dog establishment media. He joined the corbett report from tripoli to talk about the situation on the ground. Last week they’ve, been bombing sites that have nothing whatsoever to do with military facilities, combat or command and control.

They’ve been bombing rayner, eens food storage places. Hospitals, people from around the world have seen it. I’ve spoken to foreign nationals, who’ve, been living here for business reasons or for family reasons, or they just like Libya, general fellow Canadian was telling me was hell a bomb everywhere residential areas.

They’ve, been bombing for no reason. I spoke to an Italian lady, the other day she was telling me she used to believe everything the media said until she started living with me. She was singing contradicted reality.

She’s disgusted. I’ve spoken to people from all over the world. You’ve been living here. Dave they’re in shock. Is that the tent, but they cannot bring the media fabrications to terms with reality, and I can tell you right now: I was in Tripoli on Friday, with a vast, a group of foreign journalists from all over the world: Britain, France, the United States, Russia, Japan, I Mean China and washington post-abc: all of them lied about the the event over a million people.

Roughly the government says about two million were there and they said nothing about it and all these people were there freely. No one forced anybody to come. The next day, the BBC reported because a lot of these people came out of town to show their work for the government and for Libya and to show they’re against this war of aggression by NATO.

So a lot of them slept there during the night and they left in the morning and BBC reported that they’re fleeing triple they slept in relieving. These are the type of lies here now. The US Air Force is developing new drone aircraft.

That can be launched from aircraft carriers, eliminating the need to secure and operate drone bases in foreign countries. The sea bass drones are likely to be deployed in Asia as a counter to an increasingly aggressive Chinese military presence in the region.

The United States is developing a new generation of drones that could be used on aircraft carriers. A US Navy officer has said that some of these drones would be deployed in Asia and would play an integral role in future US operations in the region.

Experts say the new generation of drones could be used on any of the 11 US carriers worldwide sea bass. Drones would have a combat radius of over two thousand seven hundred kilometers and would remain airborne for 50 to 100 hours.

Land-Based drones are in wide use in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Deadly air strikes are carried out on an almost daily basis in Pakistan. The fear is that the u.s. is aggressive use of drone strikes in multiple locations against countries with whom they are not at war is setting a dangerous precedent and spurring a new arms race.

The economic times reported last Thursday that china is now ramping up its own research into drone technology, which it plans to sell to strategic partners like Pakistan itself. The victim of numerous American drone strikes more worrying still is that the use of drones by police forces across the u.

s. and the UK is being normalized as part of a process of incorporating unmanned aerial vehicles into domestic surveillance programs. In 2007 the UK’s. Merseyside police demonstrated a UAV that it was preparing to use for its policing operations against anti-social behavior.

In 2010, a local news station in Houston captured a secret test of a new spy drone to be used by the Department of Homeland Security to spy on American citizens. In March of this year, the miami-dade County Police Department announced a new unmanned spy drone that is capable of looking into people’s homes.

Now, even the military itself is wondering whether the use of drone vehicles and the increasing push towards autonomous weapons systems that require no human input once they are launched, is leading us toward a world of troubling new possibilities.

As the UK defence ministry report from earlier this year reads, we must be sure that clear accountability for robotic thought exists, and this in itself raises a number of difficult debates, is a programmer guilty of a war crime.

If a system error leads to an illegal act, where is the intent required for an accident to become a crime? There is a danger that time is running out his debate and development of policy even still possible, or is the technological Genie already out of the ethical bottle, embarking us all on an incremental and involuntary journey towards a terminator like reality for more on this story and Other breaking news and current events please go to global research, CA for more research and analysis by james corbett.

Please go to corbett report com,