Are the leaders in Washington DC totally out of their minds? In this age of hacking, stealing, subterfuge, terrorist plots, airplanes being shot down out of the skies... can anybody be truly confident that a U.S.-made military drone will not fall into the wrong hands?
If two of our own aircraft can be so easily diverted by evil interests so that their destinations are tragically altered in order to destroy (1) the World Trade Center and/or (2) The Pentagon, what makes anybody think that a simple unmanned aerial vehicle design (UAV), or drone as it's popularly called, is any less susceptible to equally nefarious and catastrophic plots once stolen by the enemies of our country?
I shudder to imagine the potential for mass destruction should this drone strategy play out as proposed. Just because one can sell a drone to a so-called "friendly country" doesn't mean that it will remain in those friendly hands forever -- nor does it mean that a country which is a "friend" today will still be a friend tomorrow!
I can cite many instances during my own times in the Revolutionary War, when our secret committees resorted to all sorts of back-room deals and underhanded diplomacy in order to assure that the weaponry purchased overseas (from France, for example) would, by a roundabout route, ultimately wind up changing hands through middlemen and arrive on our shores so that we could put them to use against our British oppressors.
In more recent history, I'm told, some of the weapons our U.S. government sold to "friendly" forces such as armed guerrillas in Latin American countries later were used against us -- killing the very same American forces who sold them the weapons to begin with!
"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it," as Edmund Burke, one of the wise sages of Britain during colonial times, is known for saying. (He was actually one of those in Parliament who was sympathetic to the American cause during the Revolution).
Do we want another 9-1-1 on our hands? Can we bear the guilt of plunging blindly and bloodily ahead in this foolhardy scheme while so many more rational, practical minds are warning against the consequences?
I would urge you to write, call, email, or visit your representatives in Washington IMMEDIATELY to nip this insane idea in the bud before it winds up hurting many more innocent people.
Your humble servant,
B.Franklin