Drone Warfare

It is not enough for him to escalate the war in Afghanistan. He has taken state-sponsored assassinations to new, industrial levels.

George W Bush's way of dealing with "terrorists" was to hoover them up, submit them to torture and lock them up without trial in Guantanamo. Lawyers had a field day and it was a PR disaster.

Obama has used his lethal, robotic drones to take war out of US consciousness - pilots don't get killed as they play deadly computer games in the safety of Nevada. There they wipe out an entire village or a wedding party in mountainous Waziristan and issue a statement that they were Taliban or al-Qaida and no questions are asked.

Dead "terrorists" tell no tales and pose no PR problems.

Medea Benjamin's book is a study of every aspect of drone warfare, its industrial scale, politics, economics, and the moral and legal issues associated with its use.

Adding to that list, bribery and corruption is endemic as companies and corporations scramble for government contracts in a frantic and lucrative drone-eat-drone world.

Surveillance drones have been around for a while but as of 2011 the US, Israel and Britain are the only countries to have armed them with weapons.

Britain has embarked on a joint venture with Israel, the world leader in drone research and development. Other countries are watching with interest and the future consequences are unthinkable. Israel is selling drones to 42 countries, ostensibly for surveillance purposes and, according to the author, arming them would be easy.

There is considerable awareness and concern about the use and development of drones in Britain and Benjamin mentions the work of the Fellowship of Reconciliation in England and CND Cymru in Wales.

The Royal Aircraft Establishment at Aberporth in Wales is a testing site for them and the Fellowship of Reconciliation branch in Carmarthen and CND Cymru have held protests there recently. This book underlines the importance of those activists' efforts.

And it is a wake-up call to a public lulled into thinking that drones are good and that targeted killings are making us safer.