,
7 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
When we think of drone killings we mostly think of the U.S., but the genie is out of the bottle. This article by @UmarFarooq_ reveals how Turkey built its own fleet of killer drones and is using them on its own citizens. Welcome to the second drone age. theintercept.com/2019/05/14/tur…
In the second drone age, "The use of drones to kill people has proliferated far beyond the United States." There's no stopping this trend. Turkey was unable to buy killer drones from the U.S. so it built its own. Its program was headed by a Turkish engineer who studied at MIT. 
From the article: "Turkey’s drones are a near constant presence in the skies in the country’s southeast. Nearly every day, a Turkish drone, usually a TB2, either fires on a target or provides the location of a target that is subsequently bombed by an F-16 or attack helicopter."
The drone war is being waged against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In response, the PKK is now deploying *its own* drones -- buying them off the shelf. The PKK launched a coordinated attack in the city of Sirnak last November.
This is a crucial fact of the second drone age -- it's not just Turkey, Israel, Iraq, Iran, China or Russia that has their own fleets of killer drones. It's also nonstate actors like the PKK and ISIS. Here's what @UmarFarooq_ wrote on ISIS and drones:
A strange thing -- killer drones are wildly popular in Turkey. It's reasonable to surmise that ISIS and the PKK like their drones, too. Everyone has a new, low-risk way to kill their enemy. Here's a picture of Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, signing a drone.
"The U.S. pioneered the technology and showed the world how it could be used. Others have watched and learned. Turkey won’t be the last country to manufacture its own drones, and its public will not be the last to see them as a source of pride." Read: theintercept.com/2019/05/14/tur…
