U.S. has been waging war since 1945 constantly, one country after another, one region to another. Drone attacks in Pakistan were started, firstly to finish off Osama bin Laden and also to kill terrorists of Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Laden is now dead, but the relief is not yet to be seen. The drone attacks continue killing civilians, animals and destroying the environment, costing billions of dollars and irrecoverable damage.
The diplomatic relations between Pakistan and the U.S. have seen high and low tides, mostly a kind of mistrust that comes with unpredictability of another’s moves and strategies. Despite the fact that for a common man, for the people of both these countries, war is nothing much a political means to achieve ends that might not be in their favour, defence budgets in the name of security of the people and nation continue to rise.
A newly released report about a contract says that the U.S. Navy will use Linux as their foundation for drone fleet of MQ-8B Firescouts and all of this will cost about $34 million. Although these monetary figures are to be taken with a conservative eye, as hardly they represent the real cost that is spent on the ground. According to the defence professionals:
“The no-compete contract between the Navy and Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems is to complete Linux transition on the tactical control system software for vertical take-off unmanned air vehicle ground control stations.”
However, the real reason behind this switch to Linux has not been revealed. What is most unfortunate in all of this is that war-profiteering of the war-mongers who earn nothing much than material wealth taking innocent human blood on their hands, but it does not prick their hearts!