Welcome. This is James Corbett of the Corbett Report with your Sunday update from the Center for Research

on globalization at global research.CA on this 10th day of July 2011.

And now for the real news.

Unmanned aerial vehicles are once again grabbing headlines as the UK government was forced to admit last week that an

RAF drone killed four Afghan civilians and injured two others in an airstrike in Helmsland earlier this year.

Expressing deep regret over the incident, a defense ministry spokesman said,

an ISAF investigation was conducted to establish if any lessons could be learnt from the incident

or if errors in operational procedures could be identified.

The report noted that the UK Reaper's Crews' actions had been in accordance with procedures and UK rules of engagement.

The incident is likely to renew debate about the RAF's drone program operated from the U.S. Air Force's

Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. Just this March, the Ministry of Defense

released a study of the issue that looked at some of the troubling questions

that the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in warfare rays. It is essential that

before unmanned systems become ubiquitous if it is not already too late,

that we consider this issue and ensure that by removing some of the horror, or at least keeping it at a distance,

that we do not risk losing our controlling humanity and make war more likely.

The report then goes on to ask if the US drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen in fact

herald a new era of warfare, an era in which military intervention will be used simply

because it can be done without any risk whatsoever to the attacker.

The U.S. military and CIA under the leadership of Nobel Peace Laureate Barack Obama is currently using aerial drones to carry out attacks in six different countries, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, and now Somalia.

Last month, Washington admitted using drones to commit assassinations of Somalis, who it claims

have ties to Anwar al-Alaki, himself an American citizen who the Obama administration has attempted to assassinate without a trial.

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