One of the drones delivered was for Mr. Robert Rast, and it is now on display at his home in Indiana (see picture above). Mr. Rast's son, Navy corpsman Benjamin Rast, was killed accidentally in a Reaper drone strike in Afghanistan in April 2011; that strike also killed Marine Staff Sergeant Jeremy Smith. Robert Rast has set the replica up in his front yard and sits with it, telling those who stop what happened to his son.
It is important to note that for all the vaunted accuracy and great care in killing enabled by the Reaper and Predator drones, Benjamin Rast and Jeremy Smith were killed because of misidentification by the drone "pilots" sitting at consols in the United States. Mr. Rast told me that he has seen the video tape of the combat scene in which his son was killed as viewed by the "eye" of the Reaper that killed his son, and there is no way that anyone could tell friend from foe in what the Reaper "saw".
As one person commented about this story on Facebook, "Drones have been hailed as being capable of surgical precision death to the target. They are considered the "no risk," "clean" war weapon ...AND they are being used on victims in countries the US is not at war with, on people who cannot be actually identified beyond doubt, and who are even US citizens."
End the drone killings! (What are you prepared to do?)
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