TOKYO MASTER BANNER

MINISTRY OF TOKYO
US-ANGLO CAPITALISMEU-NATO IMPERIALISM
Illegitimate Transfer of Inalienable European Rights via Convention(s) & Supranational Bodies
Establishment of Sovereignty-Usurping Supranational Body Dictatorships
Enduring Program of DEMOGRAPHICS WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of European Displacement, Dismemberment, Dispossession, & Dissolution
No wars or conditions abroad (& no domestic or global economic pretexts) justify government policy facilitating the invasion of ancestral European homelands, the rape of European women, the destruction of European societies, & the genocide of Europeans.
U.S. RULING OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR TO SALVAGE HEGEMONY
[LINK | Article]

*U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR*

Who's preaching world democracy, democracy, democracy? —Who wants to make free people free?
[info from Craig Murray video appearance, follows]  US-Anglo Alliance DELIBERATELY STOKING ANTI-RUSSIAN FEELING & RAMPING UP TENSION BETWEEN EASTERN EUROPE & RUSSIA.  British military/government feeding media PROPAGANDA.  Media choosing to PUBLISH government PROPAGANDA.  US naval aggression against Russia:  Baltic Sea — US naval aggression against China:  South China Sea.  Continued NATO pressure on Russia:  US missile systems moving into Eastern Europe.     [info from John Pilger interview follows]  War Hawk:  Hillary Clinton — embodiment of seamless aggressive American imperialist post-WWII system.  USA in frenzy of preparation for a conflict.  Greatest US-led build-up of forces since WWII gathered in Eastern Europe and in Baltic states.  US expansion & military preparation HAS NOT BEEN REPORTED IN THE WEST.  Since US paid for & controlled US coup, UKRAINE has become an American preserve and CIA Theme Park, on Russia's borderland, through which Germans invaded in the 1940s, costing 27 million Russian lives.  Imagine equivalent occurring on US borders in Canada or Mexico.  US military preparations against RUSSIA and against CHINA have NOT been reported by MEDIA.  US has sent guided missile ships to diputed zone in South China Sea.  DANGER OF US PRE-EMPTIVE NUCLEAR STRIKES.  China is on HIGH NUCLEAR ALERT.  US spy plane intercepted by Chinese fighter jets.  Public is primed to accept so-called 'aggressive' moves by China, when these are in fact defensive moves:  US 400 major bases encircling China; Okinawa has 32 American military installations; Japan has 130 American military bases in all.  WARNING PENTAGON MILITARY THINKING DOMINATES WASHINGTON. ⟴  

April 16, 2015

Stand by for: Killer Robots



Killer robots must be banned, warns Amnesty International

By WMNDavidWells  |  Posted: April 16, 2015
DRONE-POLICE-1

Not a ‘killer robot’ – but a surveillance drone being tested by Merseyside Police in 2007
Killer robots must be banned before their “insidious creep into policing puts lives at risk and “poses a serious threat to human rights”, Amnesty International has said as it launched a new briefing in Geneva.

Amnesty said that governments must ban any further development of killer robots as there is a “likelihood that they will be used in police operations” in an address to the UN’s Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).

The organisation is calling for a pre-emptive ban on the development, stockpiling, transfer, deployment and use of fully autonomous weapons systems (AWS or killer robots), including drones.

The call comes months after a report highlighted how police in Wiltshire, Merseyside, Staffordshire, Essex, and the West Midlands have already acquired or used drones for surveillance and other operations.

That report, published last year by the University of Birmingham Policy Commission, in research led by Sir David Omand, a former director at the Government’s listening post at GCHQ, warned that authorities must look at governing how and when drones can be used.

Last year, the Royal Navy also launched its first-ever squadron comprised entirely of unmanned aircraft in Cornwall.

The new squadron, based at RNAS Culdrose in Helston, is also responsible for trialling the next generation of pilotless aircraft.

The pilotless drones of 700X Naval Air Squadron act as 'eyes in the sky' on reconnaissance missions and and counter-piracy patrols.

The fleet includes three high tech Boeing Insitu ScanEagle devices, which are launched from aircraft carriers with a giant catapult.

Each plane can spend up to 18 hours in the air beaming back live footage of targets to a three-man Royal Navy operating team.

The drones have previously been used to locate mines in the Gulf but will now be assigned to Lieutenant Commander Alan Rogers, whose new squadron is one of the Navy's smallest in terms of human personnel.

Amnesty today said that precursors to fully autonomous weapons – including drones and other unmanned weapons systems which are currently operated by humans –are already used to commit violations and present serious challenges to ensuring accountability.

But, the organisation said, rapid advances in technology could mean the next generation of robotic weapons would be able to select and attack targets, potentially killing or injuring people, without effective human control – a chilling prospect which carries a new set of concerns.

“The second round of talks in Geneva this week are a clear sign that governments are waking up to the wide range of serious concerns posed by killer robots, whose development and deployment in the near future seem all but inevitable if we don’t act now,” said Rasha Abdul Rahim, Campaigner on Arms Control, Security Trade & Human Rights at Amnesty International, who is currently at the CCW talks in Geneva.

“The legal, ethical, and moral quandaries of using these systems in warfare are rightly beginning to receive the attention they deserve. But what’s still being widely overlooked is the likelihood that they will also be used in police operations, and it is urgent that this is addressed now.

Relying solely on machines to maintain law and order is not just a hypothetical scenario explored in countless sci-fi films. It is a chilling idea which may actually be realized if current developments are left unchecked. Now is the time for states to ban killer robots both on the battlefield and in policing, before we reach the point of no return.”

Amnesty International’s new briefing, Autonomous Weapons Systems: Five key human rights issues for consideration, focuses on the implications of police use of killer robots in law enforcement.

It argues that police use of robotic weapons would be fundamentally incompatible with international human rights law, resulting in unlawful killings, excessive use of force causing injuries, and undermining the right to human dignity.

Unlike highly trained law enforcement officers, robots could not by themselves peacefully diffuse confrontations, distinguish between lawful and unlawful orders, make decisions about graduated response with a view to minimising harm, or be held accountable for mistakes or malfunctions that result in death or serious injuries, Amnesty said.

Fully autonomous weapons without some level of human oversight have not yet been deployed, but rapid advances in technology are bringing them closer to reality, the organisation suggested.

Amnesty’s address suggested there is just a “small leap” from products that are already on the market to fully fledged killer robots. It said companies in the UK, USA, Jordan, Israel, Spain and elsewhere are already developing “less lethal” robotic weapons for policing that are remotely operated or which fire automatically when touched.

These include unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, and ground vehicles that can apparently shoot electric-shock darts, tear gas and other less-lethal projectiles, resulting in the risk of death or serious injuries.

One example is the ShadowHawk drone being developed by US-based Vanguard Defense Industries. The ShadowHawk is designed to carry out operations similar to those of a surveillance helicopter, but it can also be weaponised.

A media report hailed these capabilities when a Texas Sheriff’s office purchased one in 2011: “Although its initial role will be limited to surveillance, the ShadowHawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, previously used against suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and East Africa, has the ability to tase suspects from above as well as carrying 12-gauge shotguns and grenade launchers”.

Amnesty International believes that in policing operations, autonomous weapons systems would not be able to properly assess complex policing situations and comply with relevant standards.

“Under international standards, police may use force only when strictly necessary and to the extent required for the performance of their duty. They prohibit the use of firearms except in defence against an imminent threat of death or serious injury. It’s very difficult to imagine a machine substituting for human judgment, which is critically important to decisions on the use of potentially lethal force,” said Rasha Abdul Rahim.

Amnesty International and its partners on the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots are calling for a global pre-emptive ban on the development, transfer, deployment and use of autonomous weapons systems, for either armed conflict or law enforcement.

In the absence of such a prohibition, Amnesty said that states must publicly support and implement a call by the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions to impose a moratorium on the development, transfer, deployment and use of such systems.

The organisation said that, in the meantime, “it is imperative that due consideration be given to the human rights implications of autonomous weapons systems”.

http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Killer-robots-banned-warns-Amnesty-International/story-26342813-detail/story.html
COMMENT

Thought this was an interesting article.  Militarised police is already an issue in USA and it looks like UK is heading that way.

Check out what the Texas police have got!  Bet the Chicago PD's envious.

Killer robots don't sound too good to me, so I'm all for stopping development etc.

But Amnesty International sounds like it's another tool in the imperialist arsenal: 

SYRIA: “Human Rights” Warriors for Empire

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have chosen the side of Empire in the Washington-backed belligerency

http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-human-rights-warriors-for-empire/29422
EXTRACT
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are swigging the ale with their fellow buccaneers. These “human rights” warriors, headquartered in the bellies of empires past and present, their chests shiny with medals of propagandistic service to superpower aggression in Libya, contribute “left” legitimacy to the imperial project. London-based Amnesty International held a global “day of action” to rail against Syria for “crimes against humanity” and to accuse Russia and China of using their Security Council vetoes to “betray” the Syrian people – echoing the war hysteria out of Washington, Paris, London and ... Riyadh and Doha. New York-based Human Rights Watch denounced Moscow and Beijing’s actions as “incendiary” – as if it were not the empire and its allies who were setting the Middle East and Africa on fire, arming and financing jihadis – including hundreds of veteran Libyan Salafists now operating in Syria.  

So the Amnesty International call for a moratorium or ban on autonomous weapons systems (killer robots), would just be what:  performance?





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