"Drones killing civilians is an accident; people thought there was a military target there. Sometimes mistakes happen, and innocent people die, but the intent is to target military forces and largely that is what happens."

According to whom, the government that won't officially acknowledge the program exists?

It is perfectly fine to strip away the rights of a person if they are nuts in a way that is a danger to the physical safety of other human beings.

FTFY

Bah, ignore me. I misread; only the section on MDMA references a Scientology article. That part was still bullshit, though.

Anybody else notice that a good chunk of that article's references are articles by a Scientology front group?

Cynical describes the arms dealers. You're just being a realist.

For what, impersonating a corporation?

I feel like this should be a new verse.

Global thermonuclear ad hominem, anyone?

Our nuclear weapons program, as a start. Then the entirety of USSOCOM. Our aircraft carriers. Most of our submarines. All currently-planned weapons development programs. I would definitely cancel the JSF program. Any soldiers who would be put out of a job by this could take over jobs currently under contract, such as base security, cleaning services, food prep, etc.

Fully half of military officers graded O6 or higher could be let go. Every single civilian defense agency under the DoD should have its entire contract staff fired immediately and be reorganized to make do with civilian personnel. Any roles that cannot be filled with the civilian workforce should be examined and eliminated, if possible.

I could go on. There is literally too much waste to even account for, which is why DoD hasn't even attempted an internal audit in a long time.

Yeah, I'm not a fan our police state either, but the DoJ, flawed as they are, are the ones who *actually* prevent terrorism, and would be sorely missed. If you're looking for some useless, dangerous bureaucrats to defund start with the DIA, NSA, and CIA. Those folks create more terrorism than they thwart.

Buffer zone? That's good. For any German readers out there: that translates to Lebensraum.

If by "diplomatic consequences" you mean being forced to withdraw from Iraq, and starting riots in Egypt and Tunisia (Arab Spring happen that long ago we've already forgotten?), then yes it had some effect.

If it weren't for Manning's revelations, we'd still have troops in Iraq, and the Arab Spring might have been a lot smaller than it turned out to be. If that isn't significant, I don't know what is.

I know chemistry isn't everybody's thing, but being able to produce hydrocarbons from renewable sources is *huge*. We don't just use them for energy, they're important for manufacturing everything from fertilizer to ipads. One of the un- talked about dangers of the end of cheap oil is that we will no longer be able to use hydrocarbons for manufacturing. Nuclear power is useless if you can't afford to insulate the power cabling to get that energy to where it's needed.

They wanted a secular democracy, and had it. Then we took it away from them, and the only folks left who were willing and able to fight for self-determination were Islamist extremists. It's not the government they deserve -- it's the only option the CIA left them. And now because of us once again (Stuxnet/Flame), the Islamists have a pretext to restrict internet freedoms even further in that country. Way to go, guys.

"we should have faith..." that the justice system works? And your signature talks about Orwell being an optimist. I'm positively flummoxed. Look here if you'd like some information about those "low numbers" of innocents: http://www.innocenceproject.org/