US Military Shoots Down CBP Drone, Which Certainly Instills Confidence In Its Offshore Murder Program
from the goons-with-tech-are-still-goons dept
Wow. Imagine if you could just make this shit up.
The U.S. military used a laser Thursday to shoot down a “seemingly threatening” drone flying near the U.S.-Mexico border. It turned out the drone belonged to Customs and Border Protection, lawmakers said.
It is to LOL. Not only did the military friendly fire a CBP drone into the dirt, it also caused a bit of disruption. The military is required to notify the FAA when it engages in any anti-drone “action” in US airspace.
So it did, which is how this came out. It would be great if it were an isolated incident, but apparently this is just the sort of thing we’re doing regularly in the El Paso area.
It was the second time in two weeks that a laser was fired in the area. The last time it was CBP that used the weapon and nothing was hit. That incident occurred near Fort Bliss and prompted the FAA to shut down air traffic at El Paso airport and the surrounding area. This time, the closure was smaller and commercial flights were not affected.
The Associated Press is being far too coy in this paragraph. First off, CBP did not coordinate with the FAA before firing the anti-drone laser, which resulted in a scramble to secure the airspace after the fact, leading to a shutdown that grounded flights and raised alarm.
The link in the paragraph doesn’t lead to the full story. Here’s what happened the last time the laser was fired at something that shouldn’t have been fired at:
The sudden closure of El Paso’s airspace Wednesday came sometime after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials used an anti-drone laser that was provided by the military to shoot down objects that were later identified as party balloons, four people familiar with the matter said.
I can only hope the Defense Department’s downing of a CBP drone was the result of determining the CBP itself couldn’t be trusted with the tech. If this isn’t the case, there’s a non-zero chance the CBP will shoot down its own drone at some point in the near future. I mean, it really doesn’t look like anyone is learning anything from these experiences.
But here’s what we can learn: tech is fallible. And given this chain of events, one has every right to demand more answers on the US military’s drone strike program targeting alleged drug traffickers in international waters. Even if you choose to ignore the legal issues, the logistics issues should be enough to keep you up at night. I mean, we’re only seeing what the administration chooses to share with us. What’s happening out there that we’re not seeing on DoD X timelines?
If drone-detecting lasers are being used to (1) shoot down friendly drones and (2) FAIL to shoot down party balloons, why should we believe the drones themselves are a better option when it comes to neutralizing threats? In both cases, humans are making mistakes, but their mistakes trigger tech that’s capable of killing people. Fuck around enough and there’s a chance someone with a federal paycheck is going to down an airliner.
It’s not really a matter of “if.” It’s a matter of when. This administration cranked up the proverbial heat, encouraging a shoot-first, sort-through-the-wreckage-later approach to pretty much everything. For the love of all that is unholy, it has rebranded the Defense Department as the Department of War. It’s all hair triggers and under-trained personnel. A national tragedy awaits, willed into being by an administration that considers collateral damage little more than viral content.
Filed Under: cbp, defense department, drone strikes, dumbfuckery, el paso, national security
Comments on “US Military Shoots Down CBP Drone, Which Certainly Instills Confidence In Its Offshore Murder Program”
I think if CBP accidentally shot Air Force One out of the air, I would laugh myself to death.
I question the safety of flying in the USA
This leads me to question the safety of anyone flying anywhere in the USA.
If they have lasers set up to shoot flying objects down, and they have provably shot down stuff “by accident” in the past, who would want to be on a plane flying anywhere near one of these installations?
I very much doubt there will be a publicly available list of the laser sites, so the only safe option is probably to just avoid getting on any aircraft flying through, near or over the United States.
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To be entirely rational, even if the Department of
DefenseWarArmed Stupidity rolled out a policy of intentionally shooting down a 777 full of passengers every month of the year air travel would still be an order of magnitude safer than driving in a car.That’s not saying I want them to shoot down passenger jets, or that it’s okay to risk shooting down passenger jets, but that as a matter of “relative” safety, flying (even in the US, even in 2026) is still just that safe.
Re: Re: takes you back, doesn't it ...
to when the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 in 1988 – armed with the latest up-to-date anti-air missiles, it managed to believe that a passenger jet was an armed fighterbomber and climbing to get above the conflict below was actually diving to attack. And with that one shot, the USS Vicennes told the USSR that they could safely disregard anything the US said about anti-ballistic missile defenses, because if the US military couldn’t tell the difference between a passenger jet climbing, and a fighterbomber diving, then it would be hopelessly lost at telling the difference between the start of a nuclear war, and the shuttle taking off from Cape Kennedy to launch satellites.
It reminds me of A Fish Called Wanda, where the American component thought that London Underground was a rebel group …
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A lot of that is because USAnians drive like shit. But it would still be true even if they didn’t.
Defend American like a MAN! Worrying about collateral damage is for pussies! Planning, waiting, and risk assessment are how the deep state let criminals get way!
Be a man! Woman, child, dog, bunny between you and saving America? Stop thinking and just react!
Biden is at it, again! Jeez, you would think his complete destruction of the US military would be fixed by now.
Or was it Obama?
On the Plus Side
On the plus side, the DoD/W seems intent on letting AI make autonomous decisions about what to shoot and when. So we won’t be able to blame such incidences on stupid humans any more… instead it will be due to the collective stupidity of the entire internet, as embodied in an LLM.
"It’s all hair triggers and under-trained personnel. A national tragedy awaits..."
Yes, I’d put money on it. But they literally could not care less. When their incompetence causes a mass-casualty event, they will find a way to blame it on Antifa. Or Iran. Or a transgender Iranian Antifa member. If they’re not lying they’re not talking. The question is not whether this regime is a danger to Americans. The question is what will ultimately stop them.
Iran Air has an interesting story to tell you.
They’re learning that there are no negative consequences for funneling money to their buddies who work in military lasers. Clearly we need to find the person responsible, fill their house with popcorn kernels, and hack the guidance system to aim at it. Has it really been four decades already?
Reminds me of something
In Afghanistan with Multiple nations and each had its own Sub groups Running around doing things.
There was this Strange communications Problem, Where Even for Each nation, Each groups was on Other channels.
And our Side was Shooting each other, and Downing Planes they could not Identify.
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and then there was a comment allegedly made by a captured German soldier in North Africa in the Second World War during the latter part of the Deutsche Afrika Korps’s defeat there – “When the Britishers bomb, the Germans put their heads down and cover their heads. When the Luftwaffe bombs, the Britishers put their heads down and cover their heads. When the Americans bomb, everybody puts their heads down and covers their heads.”
We are talking about a CBP drone here. Look at everything else they have been up to recently.
When military forces claim that a CBP drone was acting threatenly, I don’t have enough information to rule out the possibility that it was doing something stupid.
You have to remember that these are among the government actors who think fucking party balloons (and stars, and their own flares, and…) are alien spacecraft.
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I agree – fucking party balloons is going a bit far; but give him time, and soon that’s all The Donald and his regime will be good for. How their SOs will fume and rage in jealousy from the sidelines …!!!