Green Party: U.S. Violates Asimov's "3 Laws Of Robotics"

It was the legendary science fiction writer Isaac Asimov who predicted that robots would someday take over the difficult and dangerous jobs, freeing humans to pursue a better path. Asimov knew though that robots had an equal chance of doing good and bad for the human race, so he developed his "3 laws of robotics" to protect humans.

But even before the age of robotics has fully dawned, the U.S. government has tossed out all three of Asimov's 3 laws. For the government, robots are just machines designed to kill human beings -- even innocent humans (women, children, and the elderly). The Green Party thinks this is a travesty, and Green Party Shadow Cabinet member David Swanson (pictured) puts it this way:

The three laws of robotics, according to science fiction author Isaac Asimov, are:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I would gladly have accepted a $20 million Pentagon contract for the job of pointing out these three laws.

OK, maybe $25 million.

Sadly, the Pentagon has instead hired a bunch of philosophy professors from leading U.S. universities to tell them how to make robots murder people morally and ethically.

Of course, this conflicts with the first law above. A robot designed to kill human beings is designed to violate the first law.

The whole project even more fundamentally violates the second law. The Pentagon is designing robots to obey orders precisely when they violate the first law, and to always obey orders without any exception. That's the advantage of using a robot. The advantage is not in risking the well-being of a robot instead of a soldier. The Pentagon doesn't care about that, except in certain situations in which too many deaths of its own humans create political difficulties. And there are just as many situations in which there are political advantages for the Pentagon in losing its own human lives: "The sacrifice of American lives is a crucial step in the ritual of commitment," wrote William P. Bundy of the CIA, an advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. A moral being would disobey the orders these robots are being designed to carry-out, and -- by being robots -- to carry out without any question of refusal. Only a U.S. philosophy professor could imagine applying a varnish of "morality" to this project.

The Third Law should be a warning to us. Having tossed aside Laws one and two, what limitations are left to be applied should Law three be implemented? Assume the Pentagon designs its robots to protect their own existence, except when . . . what? Except when doing so would require disobeying a more important order? But which order is more important? Except when doing so would require killing the wrong kind of person(s)? But which are they? The humans not threatening the robot? That's rather a failure as a limitation.

Let's face it, the Pentagon needs brand new laws of robotics. May I suggest the following:

1. A Pentagon robot must kill and injure human beings as ordered.
2. A Pentagon robot must obey all orders, except where such orders result from human weakness and conflict with the mission to kill and injure.
3. A Pentagon robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

This set of laws differs from Asimov's in a number of ways.  For one thing, it completely lacks morality.  It is designed for killing, not protecting.  By prioritizing killing in the First Law, rather than protecting, this set of laws also allows for the possibility of robots sacrificing themselves to kill rather than to protect -- as well as the possibility of robots turning on their masters. 

This set of laws differs much less -- possibly not at all -- from the set of laws currently followed by human members of the U.S. military.  The great distinction that people imagine between autonomous and piloted drones vanishes when you learn a little about the thought habits of human drone pilots.  They, like other members of the U.S. military, follow these laws:

1. A Pentagon human must kill and injure human beings as ordered.
2. A Pentagon human must obey all orders, except where such orders result from human weakness and conflict with the mission to kill and injure.
3. A Pentagon human must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The job of the philosophy professors is to apply these laws to robots while neither changing them nor letting on to have figured out what they are.  In other words, it's just like teaching a course in the classics to a room full of students.  Thank goodness our academia has produced the men and women for this job.

POEM

(This image of drone strike victims is from RAWA News.)

Drones Don't Take Names

by Brian McLaughlin

Innocents die

there's no wonder why

when the wars that are fought

are from drones in the sky

you see the way that they're flown

is too much like video games

yet the targets they strike

well they have actual names

sure some are combatants

but many are not

should an innocent child

be in that cross-haired spot

what about grandma and grandpa

should they die for no reason

has war become no more

than a mass killing season

in war we must know

where the enemy lies

how can we be positive

from those far reaching skies

with no eyes on the ground

can we really be sure

you see once innocents are dead

there just isn't a cure

More Bad News About Use Of Drones

I can understand why drones are used in a war zone. It protects the lives of pilots. Aircraft are in danger over a war zone of being shot down, so it makes sense to use a pilotless vehicle. But the thinking about using drones in other places, like in a country we are not at war with, is different. The government has told us that drones are used in those cases because they are more surgically-precise in their attacks than jets delivering bombs or missiles.

Unfortunately, that may just be a myth -- or a lie the government tells us to justify their use of drones. There is a new report, co-authored by Lawrence Lewis at the Center for Naval Analysis and Sarah Holewinski of the Center for Civilians in Conflict, which compares the effectiveness of both jets and drones -- and drones don't come out looking too good.

It turns out that drones are not the surgically-precise weapons that we have been told they are. Lewis, who has a top secret clearance, studied strikes done by both drones and jets between mid-2010 and mid-2011. He found that drones are 10 times more likely that the piloted jets to cause the deaths of innocent civilians -- exactly the opposite of what the government has claimed.

He has called for better training of the people who control drones (who don't get anywhere near the training of a jet pilot). I would go even further. While more training would be a good idea, an even better idea would be to stop the drone attacks conducted outside of a war zone. Too many innocent civilians are being killed, and in addition to being an immoral act, that creates more enemies than it kills.

CIA Attacking Unknown Targets With Drones

I have posted before about how the United States is misusing drones to attack people in countries we are not at war with -- and how many of the victims of these attacks turn out to be innocent women and children. But the true picture may be even worse than that.

Starting in September of 2010, the United States (mainly the CIA) directed 114 drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. These attacks, according to the government, are only supposed to be directed at either Taliban insurgents or al-Queda operatives. But in more than 25% of those drone attacks, the government now admits it really didn't know who they were attacking -- and simply called those attacked as "foreign fighters" or "other militants".

That means they have repeatedly attacked individuals and groups that they did not know for sure were terrorists. They just thought they might be terrorists because they were acting suspiciously or had been in contact with suspicious persons. These people might not have been terrorists at all, and show just how badly our drone program is being run. It should be unacceptable to attack anyone when we are not sure who they are -- and even if we are sure about a terrorist, they should not be attacked if surrounded by innocent civilians (especially women and children).

Innocent civilians are not "collateral damage", but human beings that have been murdered by our government. I don't have a problem with using drones to attack enemy soldiers in a war zone, but they should not be used to indiscriminately attack unknown people or in a situation where civilians are known to be. Doing this is not just wrong, but it creates more enemies for this country than it kills.

Why are we still in Afghanistan anyway? We are not accomplishing anything except to prop up one of the most corrupt governments in the world, and to run up the death toll of both Americans and Afghanis. It is time to end this nonsense and bring ALL our soldiers back home. And it is time to prohibit the use of drones outside of a war zone -- and then only if we can be sure no innocent civilians are there.

Public Opposes Foreign Wars - But Say Drone Attacks Are OK

(This photo is from the British Newspaper The Guardian. It shows the aftermath of a U.S. drone attack in Yemen -- an attack that killed 13 innocent civilians.)

There is a new poll out, and that survey contains both good news and bad news. It is a CBS News/New York Times Poll (conducted between April 24th and 28th of 965 nationwide adults -- with a 3 point margin of error). The good news is that Americans don't want this country to get into any new foreign wars.

The United States has been at war for nearly 12 years now in Afghanistan, and there still seems to be no end in sight. President Obama has said he will withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 (another year and a half), but he's not talking about removing all troops. He wants to leave several thousand soldiers there for "training" and "terrorism" purposes, perhaps indefinitely.

I'm sure that's why the public is not ready for another, possibly endless, foreign entanglement. In light of the ongoing and bloody civil war (and possible use of chemical weapons) in Syria, and the threats recently made by North Korea (both to its Asian neighbors and the United States), the poll  asked respondents if the United States should intervene in these countries. Here are those numbers:

DOES THE U.S. HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY IN SYRIA?
yes...............24%
no...............62%

HOW GREAT A THREAT IS NORTH KOREA?
requires military action now...............15%
can be contained for now...............56%
not a threat at this time...............21%

That's the good news -- that neither the government nor the conservative neocons have been able to convince the American public that military action is necessary in Syria or in North Korea. But the poll also contained some bad news -- in the form of support for drone attacks in foreign countries (many of which we are not at war with). The respondents were asked if they supported or opposed drone attacks against terrorists in foreign countries.

DRONE ATTACKS AGAINST TERRORISTS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES.
favor...............70%
oppose...............20%

And that support crosses all political lines:

REPUBLICANS
favor...............79%
oppose...............14%

DEMOCRATS
favor...............64%
oppose...............26%

INDEPENDENTS
favor...............70%
oppose...............21%

These are very disturbing numbers. Especially considering that many more innocent civilians are killed in these drone attacks that terrorists. We are killing hundreds of innocent men, women, and children to get a few terrorists. I would like to think that the poll's respondents would have answered differently if told that innocent civilians would also be killed in these attacks against terrorists, but there is no evidence of that. The sad truth is that far too many Americans just don't value the lives of innocent people in foreign countries.

They are just "collateral damage" -- an acceptable thing in the "war on terror" (even though those same people would scream bloody murder if a terrorist was targeted in the U.S. by a drone and innocent people were killed). Why does the fact of being born in a different country make these innocent lives worth less than American lives? Isn't the life of every innocent person equally sacred?

Drones And American Morality

Unless you've been living under a rock somewhere, you know that the United States uses drones (remotely-piloted aircraft) to attack persons considered to be an enemy. I personally don't have a problem with the use of drones in a war zone (although I generally disapprove of war itself). If war has been declared, then there is going to be killing in a war zone (by soldiers of both sides). It just makes sense to use a method of killing that protects your own soldiers.

But the United States doesn't just use drone attacks in a declared war zone. We have used drones to attack people considered to be enemies in many countries -- countries that we are not at war with. And many times it is done without the knowledge or permission of the country in question. That is an act of war -- and the only way we get away with it is because we are the richest and most powerful nation in the world. And a tiny country is very unlikely to try and strike back, especially if we pay them off.

But there is another, even more important problem, with using drones to attack people we don't like. While the government might like to think drones are a precise instrument that targets and kills only those we want dead, that is not true. It is not uncommon at all for innocent men, women, and children to be killed in the drone attack (collateral damage). And even if one was to consider drone murders to be an ethical way to dispose of an enemy (without charges or trial), there is just no way to defend the killing of innocents when targeting an enemy.

That is my personal opinion, but sadly, it does not seem to be the opinion of a majority of Americans. The Gallup Poll recently surveyed a national random sample of 1,020 adults on March 20th and 21st. The poll had a margin of error of 4 points. Here are some of the results (with the number given being those saying "yes"):

SHOULD WE LAUNCH DRONE ATTACKS AGAINST SUSPECTED TERRORISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES?
General public...............65%
Democrats...............55%
Independents...............61%
Republicans...............79%

SHOULD WE LAUNCH DRONE ATTACKS IN OTHER COUNTRIES ON U.S. CITIZENS SUSPECTED OF BEING TERRORISTS?
General public...............41%
Democrats...............41%
Independents...............35%
Republicans...............50%

SHOULD WE LAUNCH DRONE ATTACKS ON SUSPECTED TERRORISTS IN THE UNITED STATES?
General public...............25%
Democrats...............21%
Independents...............24%
Republicans...............31%

SHOULD WE LAUNCH DRONE ATTACKS IN THE UNITED STATES ON U.S. CITIZENS SUSPECTED OF BEING TERRORISTS?
General public...............13%
Democrats...............10%
Independents...............12%
Republicans...............21%

The results of this survey of Americans is very troubling. While the Republicans seem slightly more bloodthirsty than the other groups, the truth is that all groups surveyed show Americans are quite willing to kill foreigners in other countries suspected of being terrorists (in spite of the probability of killing innocent foreigners). It is only when the person being attacked is American, or the attacks are located in the U.S., that the majority begins to oppose the action. Why? Isn't a terrorist still terrorist regardless of where he/she may be living?

I can only think of one reason. Far too many Americans think the lives of innocent Americans are more important than the lives of innocent people who are not Americans. That is very troubling. Why should the life of an innocent person be valued less because they were born and live somewhere outside the United States? What (other than selfish interest) makes the life of an American of more value than the lives of people in other countries? Is that even a moral position to hold?

Life is the most precious commodity that any human can have. And that is true regardless of where in this world that life exists. If it is moral to use drones to kill people (many of them innocent) in other countries, then it has to be just as moral to do that in this country. And just the opposite is true -- if it is not moral to use drone attacks in the U.S., then it is not moral to do it in another country. Life is sacred, regardless of citizenship or country of residence.

In short, the morality of using drones to murder civilians is questionable anywhere. The only exception is in a war zone (where the morality of war itself comes into question).

New Military Medal Overvalued ?

The medal pictured at left is the newest military medal. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced its formation on February 13th. It is called the Distinguished Warfare Medal (DWM), and is meant to be awarded for "extraordinary achievement" by a soldier in the fields of cyberwarfare or combat drone operations. It is to be awarded for single exemplary acts -- not sustained service.

I don't have a problem with the medal being awarded for those who show excellence in cyberwarfare or combat drone operations. Excellence should be awarded in all areas. However, I do have a problem with where the military ranks the DWM among the medals it hands out. It is ranked above the Bronze Star (even with V designation) and the Purple Heart.

That is just wrong. The Bronze Star (with V) and the Purple Heart are awarded to those who have been in actual combat. These people have put their lives in danger (and some of the recipients have received them posthumously). But the DWM is awarded to soldiers who fight their war from a well-protected bunker, usually far from the actual combat zone.

The wife of one Bronze Star recipient (who died in the action in which he won that award) thinks this devalues the heroism of soldiers in combat. Veronica Ortiz-Rivera said:

"To know that somebody sitting at a computer who never risked their life is going to get something that’s worth more, it almost puts less of a value on what my husband did and what so many other men have done. To take that new medal and give it a higher classification than the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart is disrespectful. Maybe I’m just biased because my husband was killed in combat.

It feels like it almost strips away a little of his heroism, honestly, although he is and always will be a hero to us."

I have to agree with her. No military medal, even one awarded for excellence, should be valued higher than awards given to soldiers who earned them in actual combat, where their lives were on the line. Creating the award was proper, but ranking it higher than the Bronze Star and Purple Heart was an egregious mistake -- and it needs to be corrected.

There Is No Justification

The picture above is hard to look at, and I debated before posting it. But I think Americans need to understand what their government is doing. We are using drones to attack civilian areas and countries we are not at war with -- and too many times the victims of those attacks are children and other innocent civilians. I understand that the supposed justification for these attacks is to kill terrorists, but I still believe attacking civilian areas with drones is nothing short of murder.

The latest outrage on the internet is the fact that the Obama administration has found some dubious lawyers to write them a legal justification for the drone attacks (a justification that they have refused to make public or even show the elected members of Congress). Frankly that doesn't pass the smell test. It has the same stench that was evident when the Bush administration found its own dubious lawyers to justify their use of torture.

I'm not surprised that both the Obama and Bush administrations were able to find some ethically-challenged lawyers to justify their criminal behavior, but that doesn't make it right. I'll bet if you were rich or powerful enough, you could find some lawyers that would justify the eating of human  babies (because of the need for nutrition and population control). All the odious legal justifications for torture and murder prove is that Bush and Obama found some attorneys that should be disbarred on ethical grounds.

There is no moral or legal justification for torture or for drone attacks in civilian areas (and in countries we are not at war with) -- regardless of what any sycophant with a law degree says. We were established to be a nation of laws, governed by the Constitution. Our forefathers fought and died to establish that.

If the government has evidence that someone has broken the law by conspiring to kill American citizens, then they should be apprehended and brought to justice (with a fair trial and the rights guaranteed them by the Constitution). But killing someone by a drone attack just because a "high government official" suspects them of criminal behavior (even without the killing of innocent civilians) is nothing less than a trashing of the Constitution and the rule of law -- and it really doesn't matter whether those individuals are Americans or citizens of another country.

I am a supporter of President Obama, and I believe he is trying to accomplish a lot of good things for this country. But I cannot support his continuing of the useless Afghan War, or his use of drones to attack civilian areas or countries we are not at war with. It is just wrong, and using the fear of terrorism to justify it does not even begin to make it right. We are becoming the evil that we claim to be fighting against.

U.N. To Investigate Drone Murders

The idea of using drones (unmanned aircraft piloted from a distance) to attack an enemy is not a bad idea in theory. It can rain down destruction on an enemy without putting the lives of those making the attack in danger. That's something the military has always wanted -- the ability to attack the enemy without endangering their own soldiers. And I don't really have any problem with drones being used in a battlefield situation.

But that is not how they are being used in a lot of cases. Too many times they are used to attack places where it is obvious that innocent civilians (many times children) are likely to be. They are also used to attack across borders (when we are not even at war with that country and would never send a manned aircraft to do the attack). Knowingly attacking civilians (even if a terrorist is among them), and attacking people in another nation without that country's knowledge and permission, are both violations of international law and common decency -- and unworthy of any nation claiming to support human rights.

Our government does both. While they claim that the killing of innocent civilians ("collateral" damage) is accidental, the body count is getting high enough to call that excuse seriously into question. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism says that from 473 to 889 innocent civilians have been killed in drone strikes. That's an awful lot of accidental killings, and they could all have been prevented if the U.S. would just stop using drones to attack civilian areas.

That is why the United Nations is going to investigate the drone killings of innocent civilians. The U.N. Human Rights Council has asked for the investigation, and that investigation will be on drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and the Palestinian territories (by the U.S., Great Britain, and Israel). The results of the investigation will be presented to the U.N. General Assembly in October of this year.

Retired General Stanley McChrystal has warned recently about the overuse of drones. He has a point. Overuse and misuse of drones can cause a lot of justifiable ill-will toward this nation -- and may actually (because of the killing of innocent civilians) create more enemies than it disposes of.

There is no doubt that drones are here too stay. Their value in combat is undeniable. But we need to adopt and follow some rules regarding their use -- and those rules should follow international law. Using a drone to attack any area where civilians are likely to be is nothing short of murder, and it must be stopped. NOW! And it doesn't matter whether it is a Republican or a Democratic administration that orders the attack -- it is still wrong.

Killing Children Is Always Wrong

This nation mourns the senseless slaughter of 20 children in Connecticut, and well it should. There is never an excuse for the murder of innocent children. But we should remember that while we mourn the deaths of American children, our own government sends drones to indiscriminately kill innocent civilians in other countries, and many of those are very young children. Is this really any different from what happened in Connecticut? The only difference I can see is that it is being done by our government, making all Americans equally guilty of the murder of children. Isn't it time to demand our government stop this?

Are We Already At War With Iran ?

Some of you may be shocked at my title question. After all, hasn't the president done all that he can to avoid war with Iran? Hasn't he joined with the European countries to put economic pressure on Iran, in an effort to avoid attacking them? Well yes, he has done that -- but that may just be a cover for the much more aggressive actions this country has initiated.

We already know about the American rocket that killed civilians in Iran. According to the government, that rocket was meant to explode in Iraq and just went awry. And then there's the matter of the drones we have been sending over Iran. One of them was actually shot down by the Iranians, so we can't deny doing that anymore. Again, the official story is that they just got off course.

But there is another matter that is even more serious -- an intentional attack on Iranian property by the United States government. The attack tool is called "Stuxnet". It's a computer "worm" created by the United States (and Israel) to wreak havoc on the Iranian government's computers. It was first discovered when a screw-up in the program sent the worm around the world instead of just to Iran's computer system. And it's been going on for years now.

The cyber-attacks were started by the Bush administration, but President Obama made the decision to continue, and even increase, them after he took office. The attack was a unilateral one, and another example of the United State's policy of "preventative war" -- a Bush doctrine that seems to have been adopted by President Obama.

This brings up a valid question. Isn't an attack on another country's computer system an act of war? If another country were to attack our own government's computers, you can bet our government would consider it an act of war (just as surely as if they had attacked one of our ships or airplanes or military bases). And we would retaliate.

Ask yourself what the United States would do if Iran killed American citizens with a missile, sent drones over U.S. territory, or launched a cyber-attack on our nation's computer system? You know the answer. At the very least the U.S. would bomb the hell out of Iran, and it very well could lead to all-out war.

Too many Americans will deny it (because they believe the U.S. can do no wrong), but our government has already launched the first strikes against Iran. The only reason we are not already in a shooting war is that Iran is showing remarkable restraint (and good sense). Perhaps they know we are trying hard to prod them into responding, so we'll have an excuse to launch our bombers.

The Drone Attacks Should Be Stopped

There was a headline and story at msnbc.com World News today that bothered me quite a bit, and I'm convinced that more Americans should be bothered about it. It's not that it was an unusual event. In fact, it's far too common -- so common that most Americans will accept it without even thinking much about it. Here is the headline:

DRONE ATTACK KILLS SIX SUSPECTED MILITANTS IN PAKISTAN SCHOOL

It seems that either the military or the CIA decided that "suspected militants" were using part of a girl's high school in Miramshah (North Waziristan, Pakistan), so they fired missiles from a United States drone to kill them. There are several aspects to this that bother me a lot:

* Should we be firing missiles from a drone at any school? We know that missiles are not specific weapons and most of the time innocent civilians are killed -- and this time it is very likely that the "collateral damage" will be children. How many young high school age girls will never live to be adults because of this strike?

* The missiles fired at the school were meant to kill "suspected" militants. Should we really have the right to kill people because someone in our government "suspects" them of being an enemy? Isn't that a lot like carrying out the death penalty on someone because the police "suspects" them of criminal activity? In this country we require a jury to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of a person's guilt before any penalty is assessed or carried out. Why should it be any different before we kill people in another country, especially a country we are not at war with?

* Pakistan is supposed to be our friend, and they have asked us not to carry out drone attacks in their country. We wouldn't do this to most of our other friends, so why is it OK to kill "suspects" in Pakistan? Can you imagine the furor that would be caused if we did this in England, Germany, or Israel (or even Russia or China)? Aren't we just doing it to Pakistan because we know we can get away with it?

Sadly, I doubt if most Americans really care about this -- after all, they're just foreigners, and with our ethnocentric attitude no foreigner is very important. But we should care. This kind of thing is destroying this country's reputation around the world -- and it's killing innocent people. Do we really want to be thought of as a brutal and uncaring nation? That is the reputation we are creating.

The drone attacks should never be done outside of a war zone, and even then we need to be extra careful to make sure only enemy combatants are killed. "Collateral damage" is unacceptable.

Americans Hypocritical About Drones

The United States is currently skirting international law by violating the sovereign airspace of other countries without their permission. They are doing this with the use of drone aircraft. It is known that these drones are being used in Pakistan, Iraq, and Iran (we know they are in Iran because the Iranians shot one of them down). But that is not all. The State Department has said it is considering widening the use of drones to other countries.

But a new Rasmussen Poll shows that a majority of Americans don't see any problem with the U.S. government using drones in this illegal way. In fact only 9% of Americans oppose the use of drones to spy on and even kill "terrorists" in other countries, while 76% approve of this (although it is unclear how anyone can know if the people being spied on or killed are terrorists or innocent civilians). And 50% of the population thinks the president should have the authority to use drones over foreign countries without getting the approval of Congress.

This is American exceptionalism at its worst -- the idea that America should be allowed to do things that other countries shouldn't be allowed to do. I'll bet 100% of the people in this country would think it was wrong for another country to use drones over American airspace -- even if they claimed to be hunting for "terrorists".

But it gets even worse. A majority of Americans don't want drones used over the United States, even when it is being done by our own government. Last week the U.S. Congress passed legislation that would make it easier for law enforcement agencies in this country to use drone aircraft for surveillance only. But this same Rasmussen Poll shows that 52% of Americans oppose this legislation. Only 30% approve of it, while 17% are undecided.

So, while only 30% of Americans think it is proper to use drones in America for surveillance, about 76% think it is OK to use them in foreign countries -- even to kill people. That sounds like the height of hypocrisy to me. Frankly, we shouldn't do anything in another country that we wouldn't allow that country to do in the United States. After all, don't we claim to believe in fairness and justice? Shouldn't we practice what we preach?

U.S. Violates Iraqi Airspace With Drones

It seems like the United States still thinks it can do anything it wants in Iraq -- in spite of the fact that troops have been withdrawn and the occupation of that country has ended. Now the U.S. is flying surveillance drones over Iraq. Instead of the military or the CIA, the normal drone operators, these new drones over Iraq are being operated by the U.S. State Department.

The drones are supposedly being used "as a protective measure", but they are clearly a violation of Iraqi airspace and is being done without permission from Iraqi officials. The State Department says it is in the process of negotiating an agreement with Iraq to allow the flights, but Iraqi officials deny this. They say they have not been contacted at all about the drones being flown over their territory, and they don't like it at all. Adnan al-Asadi, the minister of the interior, says, "Our sky is our sky, not the U.S.A.'s sky."

Of course, that official is absolutely right. The United States should not be flying drones (or any other aircraft) over another country without permission from that country. Does anyone think the United States would allow another country to fly surveillance drones over the U.S.? Of course not!. The FBI would put a stop to it in a heartbeat, and the violators would either go to jail or be deported -- and might even be sent to Guantanamo as terrorists. And whatever we wouldn't allow a country to do over here, we should not be doing in another country.

The U.S. likes to brag about treating other countries with respect, but all too often our government acts like there are two sets of rules -- one for us and another for everyone else. It is this kind of lack of regard for the rights of others that makes us look like "ugly Americans" to the rest of the world. We need to stop this kind of behavior, and cease the drone flights immediately. We should exhibit the same kind of behavior we expect from other countries.