…from Press TV, Tehran
[ Editor’s Note: We have all heard about this story, but it needs to keep being told and questions asked continually about where should the lines be drawn, and should one command structure have the final say on what it does.
In our judicial system, a warrant for arrest has to go before a judge to issue it, but for the drone business where killing was their line of work, there was no “outside monitor” with legal experience and qualifications to make such a call.
The military command structure wanted to produce “results”, and had pressure to do so. I am not sure to this day if any major reforms were made regarding the final call on targeting.
That said, the part below about the guy with his legs blown off, that is sad yes, but missing the context of what he had done, if he really did do something, and we as the public will probably never know, as with so many other similar situations.
I never forget that the terrorist side was slaughtering people with total abandon. I still have the video of the Idlib jihadis cutting off a kid’s head (12) for being an informant, in the back of a pickup truck. I forced myself to watch it.
Gratefully I could see they had drugged the kid up well first. He could not even hold his head up. He died quickly, which is always much better than slowly. And the dummies that made the video, I think it was used to eventually dispatch the guy that did the knife work.
And who knows, maybe a drone was used, and if so, I hope it got the right guy… Jim W. Dean ]
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– First published … February 07, 2020 –
A former US drone operator is speaking out against the atrocities he says he was forced to inflict during his time in the armed forces and says the American military as “worse than the Nazis.”
Brandon Bryant was enlisted in the US Air Force for six years. During his time with the military, he operated Predator drones, remotely firing missiles at targets more than 7,000 miles away from the small room containing his workspace near Las Vegas, Nevada.
Mr. Bryant says he reached his breaking point with the US military after killing a child in Afghanistan that his superiors told him was “a dog.” Mr. Bryant recalls the moment: After firing a Hellfire missile at a building containing his target, he saw a child exit the building just as the missile struck. When he alerted his superiors about the situation after reviewing the tape, he was told “it was a f***ing dog, drop it.”
Following that incident, Mr. Bryant quit the military and began speaking out against the drone program.
During his time in the Air Force, Mr. Bryant estimates he contributed directly to killing 13 people himself and says his squadron fired on 1,626 targets including women and children. He says he has been left suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Mr. Bryant said he saw the man he targeted bleed out from his legs and watched as his body went cold on his thermal imaging screen.
“The smoke clears, and there’s pieces of the two guys around the crater. And there’s this guy over here, and he’s missing his right leg above his knee. He’s holding it, and he’s rolling around, and the blood is squirting out of his leg … It took him a long time to die. I just watched him,” Mr. Bryant said in an interview with GQ.
“That image on the screen is still in my head. Whenever I think about it, it still hurts me,” Mr. Bryant said. “When I pulled the trigger, I knew that it was wrong. When the middle struck I knew in my soul I had become a murderer.”
Other airmen in Mr. Bryant’s squadron celebrated his first kill, saying “Brant’s popped his cherry.” Mr. Bryant was enlisted from 2006 to 2011, working as a sensor operator, which helps direct missiles to their targets.
In a conversation with the Roots Action Network, Mr. Bryant recalled an instance early in his enlistment where he and his fellow drone operators were shown a video montage of drone strikes, after which they were told their jobs were to “kill people and break things.”
“It went against everything that I had ever learned about honor and justice and training. It was terrifying how dismissive people were about the whole affair. We were safe in the US and those over there were not. We win. But that’s not how it goes,” Mr. Bryant said.
Mr. Bryant said that despite his misgivings about the program, his superiors used punitive measures and mockery to keep him in line.
“It broke my spirit. It went against everything I learned about being a warrior, about holding yourself to higher standards. My superiors psychologically beat me and ridiculed me to keep me in line. They took away my free time and forced me to sit in a seat or be tried under the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) for disobeying orders,” Mr. Bryant said. “In a sense, it was my prison. I served my time to learn and reflect. And so I hold the key now, to the entire apparatus. I just don’t know what to do with it.”
He has said the US military is “worse than the Nazis” because “we should know better.”
Mr. Bryant said he and his family have been threatened for speaking out against the drone program and that he has lost friends and been estranged from other members of his family over his whistle-blowing.
Ultimately Mr. Bryant wants the public to understand the dehumanizing effect of the drone program on the operators and the individuals targeted.
“I would want people to know, beyond its existence, the consequences it has on us as a species to delineate our power into something so easily destructive. Every time we get closer to that edge, we’re going to have to realize where it places us,” Mr. Bryant said.
(Source: The Independent)
Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus. He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022. He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews. He now writes and posts periodically for VT.
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70 million Germans fought for survival against 600 million in the British and French empires, which attacked Germany, not the other way around. Rescuing the aggressive Polish military dictatorship was merely the ridiculous excuse they used to have another go at wiping our their hated German trade rival. Add to this the 320 million people of the US, whose government made provocation after provocation against Germany, and the USSR, whose maniacal dictator assembled an invasion force 295 divisions strong on Europe’s eastern border.
There is no comparison with Germany’s war for national sovereignty and the US war for global domination.
Just a thought? “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”
The idea of ‘white people’s’ or the ‘race of white peoples’ is another lie. There is no such thing. However the EUROPEAN COLONIALISTS FROM 500 YEARS AGO CALL THEMSELVES EFFECTIVELY WHITE. ‘MOST” if not all of the world’s white, weapons, positions, and power ‘IS HELD’ BY WHITE PEOPLE WHO HAVE APPLIED THIS MATERIALISTIC DEFINITION OF WHITENESS TO THEMSELVES. ‘The only racism out-of-control is the anti-white racism it’s a purposeful coordinated effort on a global scale using past wrongs associated with colonialism” <— This statement is another flat out lie. Whites still effectively are killing middle easterners, Africans, Asians, and Latins at an alarming rate using subversive techniques of war. STOP LYING. EVEN the Jews from Ashkenazim ARE NOT ETHNICALLY JEWISH FROM ABRAHAMS LINEAGE, THEY FALL UNDER THE MATERIALISTIC DEFINITION OF WHITE 'CAUCASIANS FROM GERMANY AND EASTERN EUROPE". They have been part of Europeans descendants who have destroyed and controlled the world. Europeans and their descendants have been the biggest holders of power, the biggest thieves, liars, KILLERS AND RACISTS WHO HAVE BEEN DOING THIS FOR THE PAST 500 YEARS GLOBALLY EVERYWHERE TO EVERYONE . The next time you decide to lie so brazenly preface it with by stating you have no idea what your talking about.
The Nazi’s didn’t bomb Europe into the stone age, we did. Welcome to precision carpet bombing 1.0!
Many good comments below. I still remember being astonished reading in American History Books in the 1950’s how General George S. Patton innocently died in a car accident in 1945. All books repeated the same claim without exception. Patton was considered the greatest US General by the German Generals who were the best themselves. Recent evidence shows Patton was murdered by a US Military paid assassin who was paid $10,000 in 1945 by General Donovan, head of the office of OSS, predecessor of the current CIA to plan and murder General Patton. Ambush was the cowardly tactic used to kill Patton. Rubber bullets were used to cover tracks. He did not die at the scene but was finished off in the hospital later. The author even interviewed the assassin who was still alive when the research was done. Ike and cronies were in on it too. Almost none of the top brass attended Patton’s funeral. Patton had intended to return home and blow the whistle on Ike and his cronies. He might have even run for President himself and become president instead of the phony hero Ike. Another episode of betrayal and lies by the outlaw US Government then and now. No history book can be believed at face value. Americans are the biggest brainwashed fools on the planet.
Why was General George S. Patton murdered by the U.S. Government, approved at the highest levels beginning with FDR himself? Likely answer: General Patton was extremely intelligent. He kept a daily diary which is very difficult under normal circumstances but even more so under battle conditions. He knew all the dirt going on then. This scared everyone from FDR, Ike on down. He planned to return home and blow the whistle on these criminals who conducted the war. He likely also knew the lies of FDR and Pearl Harbor attacks to induce American fools into another war after WWI only years earlier. While some of his diaries have been published you can bet they were carefully scrubbed upon his murder since that was the main reason they outed him. He is buried over there with his men as he desired. General Patton may have been the single only true honorable U.S. General of WWII. He was from San Gabriel, California near Pasadena. The only blemish on him I know of was when he joined others in clearing the area of WWI Vets demonstrating in front of the WH for their unpaid checks. The US Government has a long history of an evil criminal enterprise covered up by lying history book authors.
We humans are connected to a ‘higher power’ and it has been highjacked by religion and ‘Holy’ texts Written by men with agendas and a desire for power and control. Christianity and the rest are socially decisive magnified when religious groups interact. We humans strive to connect to and interact with the bicremal force, the negative curvature of time, the ark, the joint resonance with 2 axis that give reason with position and momentum to create a future as described by Ernest Douglas from his transfomative post in VT.
“You should know what I am getting into.
Thesis psychosis is unconscionable deception of awareness to gain advantage of others by inducing neurosis which is beliefs in a position that excludes the possibility of momentum also known as dialectical materialism”.
…it takes quite an imagination to broad brush all of humanity into “we as humans”. …if that “we” includes me, go ahead and leave me out…yeah maybe there is a lot of people out there using their imaginations to capture other peoples imaginations for their own gain….and maybe some of them actually believe if only everyone would think just like them, paradise lost would be regained….” i try so hard to be just like i am, but everyone wants you to be just like them”…Bob Dylan…..in my imagination there is no higher power that I have been high jacked from or trying attain, but thanks for the offer, if that was what it was….
Air Force suicides up.
https://apnews.com/b6fa278e5078e3479adbe4745b765ed7
He has said the US military is “worse than the Nazis” because “we should know better.”
Remember this next time someone is called “unpatriotic” for taking a knee during the national anthem.
TUIR: It isn’t up to us to free the world.
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