Congress Spanks CBP UAV Program

Congress has trimmed funding for the deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for border patrol duties until someone can explain what caused a Predator UAV to crash a few hundred feet from a home near Rio Rico, AZ, last month.

AVWeb: Predator Border Patrol Accident Worries Congress

:: You know how I feel about using UAVs over U.S. soil. This is yet another reason why our manned aircraft are the better choice to get the job done.

Comments

[Oilygarch]

There are still ooodles of safety issues to be ironed out and also FAA rules about where they are allowed to fly and also what safeguarding mechanisms must be accorded to ensure we don't end up with a runaway, OK, flyaway plane, plus a flyway plane that crosses the border and hits something important in our neighbor's back yard, like, say, their swimming pool. That might be construed by our good peaceful neighbor to be an act of aggression.

And in this day and age nations friendly to the US are far and few in between, it is probably best not to upset those that still remain friendly to us, specially if they are at our border.

This should probably serve to perk up the ears of the Coasties for under their Deepwater Program, at least two types of UAVs are planned: SUAV & VUAV.

Another potential issue is that of having Civilians spy on Civilians. I can understand, and speaking of neighbors, having some form of mutual neighborhood watch, especially while we are still on friendly terms. I also understand that old adage that goes tall fences make good neighbors. But our current knee-jerk reaction to closing the barn door after Osama and all his friends are already done crossed our borders in the droves while posing as benign strawberry pickers from Mexico all the while we snoozed and looked elsewhere, literally! And now that we close the barn door more than 5 years later, yes more than FIVE YEARS LATER, we decide to do so along with an electric fence, cattle-prodders, bull-dogs, armored sentinels, and sky-cams? Ooooo K.

We don't plan to inadvertently turn Mexico into a Venezuela do we?

& to think that onceuponatime Fox & Bush were bosom buddies which is how Bush got his one and only intro to foreign policy while acting as governor of Texas. How things have changed since then!! But so has the world.

Now, in the event the UAV investigation shows that it was shot down by Virgilio el Coyote or Wiley Coyote or by someone indirectly working for the infamous drug-lord, Mamón Escobar, or even by enemas of the State such as Al Qaeda, perhaps UAVs, despite their exorbitant expense in comparison to CAP planes and the red-tape and other aeronautical areas that need ironing out, may be the way to go. Why?

Although the cost of having a CAP plane fly overhead is a pittance, human life has no cost for it is priceless! And in this case it would be civilian human lives involved.

So, as we think domestically, the Agencies & Services would need to ponder something: "To what extent Proxy Forces". Let no-one call them mercenaries for CAP folks are volunteers! Well, at least, the vast majority of these good folks are. Yes, the employment of proxy forces for such matters, it has been done in the past for certain campaigns; but, how long has it been since it been done with and through our own citizenship?

Interesting how the cookie crumbles. It might just be too dry. Just throw in a bar of butter. That'll fix it! In fact, it's amazing how a bar of butter can go a long, long way!!

Just my 2cents. OK, make that 3. ;-)