John Mahoney

His previous columns are archived HERE.

JOHN MAHONEY

All watched over by machines of loving grace

I am feeling ever so much secure living next to the brave old homeland since I learned that the US Government plans to watch over us with unmanned spy drones.

That's the word. Unarmed (they say) Predator-style drones flitting and hovering over the Canadian border, looking for terrorists, drug runners, unauthorized economic migrants, and other bad guys.

And not just our border. The Mexican border, too. And the coast line. And the pipelines and nuke plants and what-all.

Says US Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican who wants the Canadian-US border beefed up: "I saw it with my own eyes. It can work."

Late last summer, Tough-talking Tom watched the US Border Patrol apprehend dopers with 100 pounds of marijuana they were smuggling into Idaho from Canada.

Tough-talking Tom said they were going to sell the dope and send the money "back to Muslim groups in Canada, and the money is used to finance terrorist activities all over the world."

The unarmed ground-controlled drones carry high-resolution cameras and sensing devices. Some can climb to more than 65,000 feet, others can hover in place, new models can stay aloft for weeks.

When armed, they can put a live one in the other end of your pie hole with deadly accuracy. Of course, the government would never, ever arm a drone used for domestic spying. Of course not…

I'm not sure which homeland security initiative makes me feel safer:

• The RATS program (Real Americans for Total Security). Actually, it's the rat out your suspicious neighbor TIPSter program and it seems to be sputtering out, like a dying sparkler on the Fourth of July.

• Authorizing US forces to enforce quarantine measures in the case of suspected germ warfare, which smells like martial law to me.

• Spy drones over the friendliest border in the word.

All watched over by machines of loving grace
A poem by Richard Brautigan.