I want to believe, but I don’t
May 2, 2021 5:49 AM Subscribe
Adversary Drones Are Spying On The U.S. And The Pentagon Acts Like They're UFOs. The U.S. military seems aloof to the fact that it's being toyed with by a terrestrial adversary and key capabilities may be compromised as a result.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Double. This needs to go in the original thread -- travelingthyme
The United States has nearly always been more interested in Security Theater than we have been interested in Security.
20 years ago, we made the Patriot Act law, and codified the idea that making things appear safe was more important than actually making them safe.
Between backscatter X-Ray machines in airports, risking your health to be surveilled, only to find out that the TSA regularly misses weapons and bombs being snuck through, and the fact that we ramped up the drone war, creating a permanent class of "terrorists," otherwise known as people who are sick as living fuck of the US's horseshit and killing innocent people from the skies. Entire generations of people who have nothing but desire to fuck up America because America fucked up their life and killed their family.
I mean, it was 10 years ago that the Iranians brought down a Lockheed Martin Sentinel drone not by blowing it up, but by hacking it as it was flying. They took control and landed the device.
The Stuxnet virus never actually stopped Iranian nuclear progress, just slowed it down, and it opened up a pandora's box where those kind of tactics can and will be used against the United States.
The real issue with the United States that no one wants to talk about is ALWAYS tied to income inequality. What we have is effectively a bunch of increasingly out-of-touch class of Federal workers who only seem to exist to keep the system going exactly as it is. You have a bunch of people with "experience" but the decisions that they make certainly make me question their experience or whether they actually know what the fuck they're doing.
At times, it's questionable how much of it is purposeful misinformation and how much of it is they are truly that fucking stupid that they believe the horseshit dribbling out of the awful holes in their face. (See Colin Powell supporting invading Iraq and the lies he spouted to support it. Was he really lying or did he believe it because deep down he's a fucking moron?)
Honestly, with a lot of the people in charge, I'm betting on the latter. I mean, Trump somehow managed to run the country (into the ground) for four fucking years, and he's not paying for his crimes, so it seems to me like the people in charge can fuck up endlessly with no consequences, there's no incentive for them to change the system or take anything more seriously. Probably because they ate up all that propaganda about "American Exceptionalism" or something.
I mean, the SolarWinds hack should also be massive evidence that our leaders are out to lunch, and because none of this stuff is affecting them directly, they're more than happy to let it keep happening. I mean, look at the number of politicians with either Dual citizenship, or at least ownership of a "getaway" property in another country. I don't know about the upper echelons of the military, but I have a hard time believing it's much different with the top brass. A bunch of rich, out-of-touch twerps who are probably all like "Well this is how we've always done it and it has worked, so we're not changing tack now," while packing their bug-out bag to get to their tropical getaway.
On preview, yes, this article reeks of pro-military, pro-surveillance attitude. I agree our security is a mess, but I honestly think we need to disengage our digital security and our communications security from the machines of war. Those need to be secured for reasons other than just war.
Anyway, I don't see it changing anytime soon, for the reasons I outlined. When there is no accountability at the top, you won't actually see changes at the bottom. The US is just asking to become an unincorporated foreign territory, without even a single bomb dropped or a war.
UFOs are the absolute least of the US's worries. Got way bigger problems than that to solve, and solving the big issues like income inequality or allowing idiot asshats to run the world because they were a C student at Yale go a long way in solving the very problems discussed in the article (military ignoring serious breaches of security).
posted by deadaluspark at 8:26 AM on May 2, 2021 [8 favorites]
20 years ago, we made the Patriot Act law, and codified the idea that making things appear safe was more important than actually making them safe.
Between backscatter X-Ray machines in airports, risking your health to be surveilled, only to find out that the TSA regularly misses weapons and bombs being snuck through, and the fact that we ramped up the drone war, creating a permanent class of "terrorists," otherwise known as people who are sick as living fuck of the US's horseshit and killing innocent people from the skies. Entire generations of people who have nothing but desire to fuck up America because America fucked up their life and killed their family.
I mean, it was 10 years ago that the Iranians brought down a Lockheed Martin Sentinel drone not by blowing it up, but by hacking it as it was flying. They took control and landed the device.
The Stuxnet virus never actually stopped Iranian nuclear progress, just slowed it down, and it opened up a pandora's box where those kind of tactics can and will be used against the United States.
The real issue with the United States that no one wants to talk about is ALWAYS tied to income inequality. What we have is effectively a bunch of increasingly out-of-touch class of Federal workers who only seem to exist to keep the system going exactly as it is. You have a bunch of people with "experience" but the decisions that they make certainly make me question their experience or whether they actually know what the fuck they're doing.
At times, it's questionable how much of it is purposeful misinformation and how much of it is they are truly that fucking stupid that they believe the horseshit dribbling out of the awful holes in their face. (See Colin Powell supporting invading Iraq and the lies he spouted to support it. Was he really lying or did he believe it because deep down he's a fucking moron?)
Honestly, with a lot of the people in charge, I'm betting on the latter. I mean, Trump somehow managed to run the country (into the ground) for four fucking years, and he's not paying for his crimes, so it seems to me like the people in charge can fuck up endlessly with no consequences, there's no incentive for them to change the system or take anything more seriously. Probably because they ate up all that propaganda about "American Exceptionalism" or something.
I mean, the SolarWinds hack should also be massive evidence that our leaders are out to lunch, and because none of this stuff is affecting them directly, they're more than happy to let it keep happening. I mean, look at the number of politicians with either Dual citizenship, or at least ownership of a "getaway" property in another country. I don't know about the upper echelons of the military, but I have a hard time believing it's much different with the top brass. A bunch of rich, out-of-touch twerps who are probably all like "Well this is how we've always done it and it has worked, so we're not changing tack now," while packing their bug-out bag to get to their tropical getaway.
On preview, yes, this article reeks of pro-military, pro-surveillance attitude. I agree our security is a mess, but I honestly think we need to disengage our digital security and our communications security from the machines of war. Those need to be secured for reasons other than just war.
Anyway, I don't see it changing anytime soon, for the reasons I outlined. When there is no accountability at the top, you won't actually see changes at the bottom. The US is just asking to become an unincorporated foreign territory, without even a single bomb dropped or a war.
UFOs are the absolute least of the US's worries. Got way bigger problems than that to solve, and solving the big issues like income inequality or allowing idiot asshats to run the world because they were a C student at Yale go a long way in solving the very problems discussed in the article (military ignoring serious breaches of security).
posted by deadaluspark at 8:26 AM on May 2, 2021 [8 favorites]
This source also links to itself far more than elsewhere. Suspect indeed.
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:29 AM on May 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:29 AM on May 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
fpp is a breathless first-person op-ed/analysis piece, is all. interesting idea but I can't give it any seriousness. reminds me of the time well known author made an assertion about wuhan lab stuff. speculative, without evidence.
super insightful, deadaluspark.
my experience as an IT contractor in national security roles is: at least 70% of the DOD is a middle class jobs program, nothing more.
it's just at this point, it's so enculturated that (most) politicians, generals, contractors, and the US public can't even see it. not cause it's hidden, because its everywhere.
Oblivious fish, not knowing we live in putrid water.
posted by j_curiouser at 8:43 AM on May 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
super insightful, deadaluspark.
my experience as an IT contractor in national security roles is: at least 70% of the DOD is a middle class jobs program, nothing more.
it's just at this point, it's so enculturated that (most) politicians, generals, contractors, and the US public can't even see it. not cause it's hidden, because its everywhere.
Oblivious fish, not knowing we live in putrid water.
posted by j_curiouser at 8:43 AM on May 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
Adversary Drones Are Spying On The U.S. And The Pentagon Acts Like They're UFOs
Are they:
posted by zamboni at 8:44 AM on May 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
Are they:
- unidentified?
- flying?
- objects?
posted by zamboni at 8:44 AM on May 2, 2021 [4 favorites]
zamboni,
That's fair, but have you ever been to America?
Because I gaurantee you, despite that being the literal meaning of the acronym, and it literally fitting in this regard, over here it means ALIENS (from outer space).
We probably stopped calling immigrants without papers "illegal aliens" not because its a cruel and crass way to describe them, but because most Americans are too fucking stupid to not think you're talking about "aliens from outer space." (Of course the official line is because we wanted to be nicer, but I think it's because everyone knows that most Americans don't know that "alien" used to just mean someone from a foreign country.)
posted by deadaluspark at 8:49 AM on May 2, 2021
That's fair, but have you ever been to America?
Because I gaurantee you, despite that being the literal meaning of the acronym, and it literally fitting in this regard, over here it means ALIENS (from outer space).
We probably stopped calling immigrants without papers "illegal aliens" not because its a cruel and crass way to describe them, but because most Americans are too fucking stupid to not think you're talking about "aliens from outer space." (Of course the official line is because we wanted to be nicer, but I think it's because everyone knows that most Americans don't know that "alien" used to just mean someone from a foreign country.)
posted by deadaluspark at 8:49 AM on May 2, 2021
Assuming there are drones and balloons and such, and the US military is being reticent about acknowledging their existence and/or saying they don't know what they are, wouldn't "US military flying objects that they don't want to publicly acknowledge" be a simpler explanation, per Occam's Razor, than "foreign adversary repeatedly scouting deep within US territory over many years that the US military is unaware of", even assuming a fair amount of incompetence in the US military?
posted by eviemath at 8:51 AM on May 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 8:51 AM on May 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
[Obsolete("Use AlienSpaceship")]
public class Ufo {...}
posted by j_curiouser at 9:20 AM on May 2, 2021
public class Ufo {...}
posted by j_curiouser at 9:20 AM on May 2, 2021
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posted by infini at 8:14 AM on May 2, 2021 [4 favorites]