Jet Jockeys and Drone Drivers; Cowardly Killers of the 21st Century

Somebody has to have the guts to say it don't you think?

We aren't making this up, it's the new F-35 'joint strike helmet' - looks more like a monster and acts like one too.

(SACRAMENTO, CA) - Do you think it ever occurs to fighter pilots that they are playing God with human lives?

I am sickened by those willing to kill people from afar. They're a bunch of cowards and killers in my book who never have to face their enemies like men.

We wonder why our pilots are beaten and tortured when their victims manage to shoot them down from time to time. What they do is unprecedented; they kill more people in a shorter window of time than anything less than an atomic or nuclear weapon.

I was reading an email earlier from a friend that talked about how wonderfully beautiful one weapon of war is:

Angel, is when the plane releases its decoy missiles, as is shown in several of the pictures, it creates an Angel shape in the smoke. Listen to the words of the pilot and the tower, and listen to the very end. This is beautiful. Support our Veterans!

No doubt my friend is a well intended person, but to find beauty in the weapons of war is akin to enjoying a lovely sunset that gains its appearance from being saturated with smog.

Of course the drone driver; the ones who didn't end up getting to fly real airplanes, that is the least respectable of all military aviators. Do you think they tell people they meet at parties that they are drone pilots? I have a Ben Franklin that says not one, ever. Their jobs are shameful and wrong and while some do not kill, most do or did or will.

I like the photo.. they have the pilot dress in a flight suit with his black strappy thing on just for effect, surely it is required to sit in that office chair and fly his drone right? Funny as hell, it must be a bunch of work to pacify the egos of these planeless 'pilot' killers.

Then there was Bernard Shaw in the 1991 Gulf War saying, "It's beautiful" as Iraqi people died in droves from US air assaults. The reporter was in shock and undoubtedly was just reacting, but still...

The common denominator is the military pilot.

Jet jockeys are only part of this story; will we ever forget the US Army Apache pilots killing the journalists in Baghdad- as released by Wikileaks?

Then there are bomber pilots. Those talented dudes who occasionally fly their B-52's right into the ground while showing off at air shows.

Israel's handiwork this week

Death delivered from above by pilots who do not know the persons they attack or lay waste to, that is what we are dealing with.

As long as the US and Israel and other nations continue to wage immoral wars for profit and to defeat religious enemies, the job occupation is a bad one, one of the worst in the whole world in fact.

Jet strikes- this is the work of paid cowards and if somehow there was a way to really truly distinguish combatant from non-combatant it would be better but that is not the case.

I have flown in every type of military aircraft that exists; even the F-16, and while the speed and precision and technology are easy to admire, the real mission is not. War should not be fought with jet fighters. One war in recent history, China's attack on Vietnam in the late 70's was fought without jet fighters.

So critics, surely you will lay into this one and I look forward to all of the stupid justifications of this immoral form of war. Have fun defending your terrorist jet fighter heroes. Just pray that a year from now there are no Chinese MiG's dropping bombs on American families and cities.

Try to be one who does not deserve that fate. That is the best advice anyone on this planet will ever give you.

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

Tim King has more than twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. Tim is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine who follows stories of Marines and Marine Veterans; he's covered British Royal Marines and in Iraq, Tim embedded with the same unit he served with in the 1980's.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from traditional mainstream news agencies like The Associated Press and Electronic Media Association; he also holds awards from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs; and was presented with a 'Good Neighbor Award' for his reporting, by the The Red Cross.

Tim's years as a Human Rights reporter have taken on many dimensions; he has rallied for a long list of cultures and populations and continues to every day, with a strong and direct concentration on the 2009 Genocide of Tamil Hindus and Christians in Sri Lanka. As a result of his long list of reports exposing war crimes against Tamil people, Tim was invited to be the keynote speaker at the FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) Conference in Baltimore, in July 2012. This is the largest annual gathering of North American Tamils; Tim addressed more than 3000 people and was presented with a traditional Sri Lanka ‘blessed garland’ and a shawl as per the tradition and custom of Tamil Nadu

In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.com since the new format designed by Matt Lintz was launched in December, 2005. Serving readers with news from all over the globe, Tim's life is literally encircled by the endless news flow published by Salem-News.com, where more than 100 writers contribute stories from 23+ countries and regions.

Tim specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide; and maintains that the label 'terrorist' is ill placed in many cases; specifically with the LTTE Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, where it was used as an excuse to slaughter people by the tens of thousands; and in Gaza, where a trapped population lives at the mercy of Israel's destructive military war crime grinder. At the center of all of this, Tim pays extremely close attention to the safety and welfare of journalists worldwide. You can write to Tim at this address: tim@salem-news.com. Visit Tim's Facebook page (facebook.com/TimKing.Reporter)