#Drones Are #Flying, #Despite #US #Shutdown As the #UnitedStates #government #ground to a #halt on #Tuesday, there were #plenty of #sardonic #comments #from #bloggers and# journalists in #parts of the #world #where the #American #military #footprint is #large. Writing on #Twitter, the #Pakistani #columnist #CyrilAlmeida #suggested that the #top #question for #militants in the country’s #NorthWaziristan# Agency would be, “Are drones #still #operating?” Are drones still operating after US shutdown? Or is that part of #essential #services? Top questions in NWA today. — cyril almeida (@cyalm) 1 Oct 13 While the Central Intelligence Agency’s campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal belt is covert — and there have been hints that some attacks there attributed to the Americans might have been carried out by Pakistan’s own military — there is no doubt that drones operated by the Air Force, at least, will continue to fly. As my colleagues Michael Schmidt, Thom Shanker and Andrew Siddons reported, while about 400,000 civilian employees of the Defense Department face unpaid leave, Pentagon contingency plans will keep more than 1.3 million active military personnel on duty, although they will probably not receive their paychecks until the shutdown ends. “Those of you in uniform will remain on your normal duty status,” President Obama confirmed in a prerecorded video message to members of the armed forces, released as the shutdown took effect. “The threats to our national security have not changed, and we need you to be ready for any contingency,” Mr. Obama explained. “Ongoing military operations — like our efforts in Afghanistan — will continue.” Reports on furloughs at Air National Guard bases in Syracuse and Springfield, Ohio, where technicians operate Reaper and Predator drones, confirmed to reporters that those active-duty personnel are considered essential and will remain at work. One casualty of the furloughs however, will be the Twitter feed NASA runs to alert earthlings to potentially catastrophic asteroid strikes. In the event of government shutdown, we will not be posting or responding from this account. We sincerely hope to resume tweets soon. — Asteroid Watch (@AsteroidWatch) 1 Oct 13 thelede.blogs.nytimes/2013/10/01/drones-are-flying-despite-u-s-shutdown/?smid=tw-thelede&seid=auto&_r=0
Posted on: Tue, 01 Oct 2013 22:12:55 +0000