This week, tucked down at the bottom of the Bend City Council's always dry agenda is one item that caught our attention: A letter of support for drone flight testing. You read that right. The city is actually pursuing a chance to get a piece of the controversial unmanned drone strike program, the same one that has killed scores of civilians, including, recently, women and children attending a wedding in Pakistan.
The same one that the Administration refuses to even acknowledge, yet relies upon heavily. The drones may or may not be a necessary part of the war on terror, but there's no doubt that they stand on shaky moral and ethical ground, turning life and death battlefield decisions into little more than a videogame played from the safety of a control room in D.C. - to say nothing of Pakistan's sovereignty. So why does the city want any part of it? Not surprisingly, it's all about the money. The drone program is worth hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars and growing fast in this world of easy war. I guess that makes it a good replacement for Cessna. But why stop there? Isn't there a landmine business in need of some cheap industrial land. WTF, why not Juniper Ridge?
