Rise of the Drones: Death & Destruction From America With Love. Warning Graphic.

We drove by the USAF base on a regular basis - and we didn't know a thing about what was happening inside the perimeters. From Africa to Asia and Middle East, the U.S government have, for years, been destroying many lives in the Middle East under the disguise of fighting terrorists, especially the murdering of children.

And the military action starts to happen hidden in plain sight on military bases IN America. By 2013 there were 66 drone bases on American soil. The U.S. has now deployed drones armed with lethal force in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya. Some 60 bases throughout the world are directly connected to the drone program–from Florida to Nevada in the U.S., from Ethiopia and Djibouti in Africa, to Qatar in the Middle East and the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean.
According to Turse, for the last three years, Xe Services, the company formerly known as Blackwater, has been in charge of arming the fleet of Predator drones at CIA clandestine sites in Pakistan and Afghanistan.


The current and future drone bases can be viewed at: http://batchgeo.com/map/?i=45a74c2619467dbe1a74d28b2bb8a741&q=&x=5&y=12http://batchgeo.com/map/?i=45a74c2619467dbe1a74d28b2bb8a741&q=&x=5&y=12

In February 2013 Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was speaking to the Rotary Club in Easley, S.C when he enthusiastically announced that the drone strikes had killed 4,700 people ( we do not know the actual count ) failing to specify that the majority of these deaths are innocents and children.

How can one justify such massacres let alone be enthusiastic? This is not only bad foreign policy, but cold blooded murder.

I doubt that any grief can equal the grief of a mother or father holding his/her dead child. I also doubt that any anger can be as justified as when a parents seeks out to punish the murderer of their child.

A Pew survey reported that 75% of Pakistanis consider us their enemy. How can they think any differently? A former adviser to General Petraeus stated, “Every one of these dead noncombatants represents an alienated family, a new desire for revenge, and more recruits for a militant movement.” Indeed, militant groups have rapidly been forming, such as Lashkar, which has been attacking U.S. troops across the border in Afghanistan. The sentiment goes beyond Pakistan. A spokesperson for Yemen, also under attack told a U.S. Senate committee, “What radicals had previously failed to achieve in my village, one drone strike accomplished in an instant: There is now an intense anger and growing hatred of America.”

The use of such unmanned aircraft in the area began under President George W Bush, but their use has more than doubled under the Obama administration. Although the US does not routinely speak publicly about operations involving drones, President Obama confirmed that they regularly strike suspects in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10713898

A soldier sets out to graduate at the top of his class. He succeeds, and he becomes a drone pilot working with a special unit of the United States Air Force in New Mexico. He kills dozens of people. But then, one day, he realizes that he can’t do it anymore.

For more than five years, Brandon Bryant worked in an oblong, windowless container about the size of a trailer, where the air-conditioning was kept at 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit) and, for security reasons, the door couldn’t be opened. Bryant and his coworkers sat in front of 14 computer monitors and four keyboards. When Bryant pressed a button in New Mexico, someone died on the other side of the world.

The container is filled with the humming of computers. It’s the brain of a drone, known as a cockpit in Air Force parlance. But the pilots in the container aren’t flying through the air. They’re just sitting at the controls.
Bryant was one of them, and he remembers one incident very clearly when a Predator drone was circling in a figure-eight pattern in the sky above Afghanistan, more than 10,000 kilometers (6,250 miles) away. There was a flat-roofed house made of mud, with a shed used to hold goats in the crosshairs, as Bryant recalls. When he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser. The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact.
“These moments are like in slow motion,” he says today. Images taken with an infrared camera attached to the drone appeared on his monitor, transmitted by satellite, with a two-to-five-second time delay.
With seven seconds left to go, there was no one to be seen on the ground. Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point. Then it was down to three seconds. Bryant felt as if he had to count each individual pixel on the monitor. Suddenly a child walked around the corner, he says.
Second zero was the moment in which Bryant’s digital world collided with the real one in a village between Baghlan and Mazar-e-Sharif.
Bryant saw a flash on the screen: the explosion. Parts of the building collapsed. The child had disappeared. Bryant had a sick feeling in his stomach.

“Did we just kill a kid?” he asked the man sitting next to him.
“Yeah, I guess that was a kid,” the pilot replied.
“Was that a kid?” they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.

Then, someone they didn’t know answered, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack. “No. That was a dog,” the person wrote.
They reviewed the scene on video. A dog on two legs?

The years of directing missiles by laser in so-called “terminal guidance” operations and watching their impact on the ground left him a broken man, he told the GQ magazine in the profile entitled “Confessions of a Drone Warrior.”

When he quit the air force in 2011 after six years’ service, he was presented with a list of achievements for his squadron’s missions that counted the number of enemies killed in action as 1,626.
“The number made me sick to my stomach,” he said.
  
Der Spiegel - http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-woes-of-an-american-drone-operator/5315869

Pakistani family of drone strike victim gives harrowing testimony to Congress 

Translator brought to tears by family's plea as Congress hears from civilian victims of alleged US drone strike for the first time

The family of a 67-year-old midwife from a remote village in North Waziristan told lawmakers on Tuesday about her death and the "CIA drone" they say was responsible. Their harrowing accounts marked the first time Congress had ever heard from civilian victims of an alleged US drone strike.
Rafiq ur Rehman, a Pakistani primary school teacher who appeared on Capitol Hill with his children, Zubair, 13, and Nabila, 9, described his mother, Momina Bibi, as the "string that held our family together". His two children, who were gathering okra with their grandmother the day she was killed, on 24 October 2012, were injured in the attack.
"Nobody has ever told me why my mother was targeted that day," Rehman said, through a translator. "Some media outlets reported that the attack was on a car, but there is no road alongside my mother’s house. Others reported that the attack was on a house. But the missiles hit a nearby field, not a house. All of them reported that three, four, five militants were killed."
Instead, he said, only one person was killed that day: "Not a militant but my mother."
"In urdu we have a saying: aik lari main pro kay rakhna. Literally translated, it means the string that holds the pearls together. That is what my mother was. She was the string that held our family together. Since her death, the string has been broken and life has not been the same. We feel alone and we feel lost."
An Amnesty International report, published last week, lists Bibi among 900 civilians they say have been killed by drone strikes, a far higher number than previously reported. The Amnesty report said the US may have committed war crimes and should stand trial for its actions.
The US has repeatedly claimed very few civilians have been killed by drones. It argues its campaign is conducted "consistent with all applicable domestic and international law". Unofficial reports, however, have suggested that hundreds have been killed in Pakistan alone, with up to 200 children killed.
In poignant testimony, Rehman's son, Zubair, described the day of the attack, the day before the Muslim holy day of Eid, as a "magical time filled with joy". He told lawmakers that the drone had appeared out of a bright blue sky, the colour of sky most beloved by his grandmother and himself, he said.
"As I helped my grandmother in the field, I could see and hear the drone hovering overhead, but I didn’t worry" he said. "Why would I worry? Neither my grandmother nor I were militants."
"When the drone fired the first time, the whole ground shook and black smoke rose up. The air smelled poisonous. We ran, but several minutes later the drone fired again. "
"People from the village came to our aid and took us to hospital. We spent the night in great agony in at the hospital and the next morning I was operated on. That is how we spent Eid."
Zubair said that fear over the drone attacks on his community have stopped children playing outside, and stopped them attending the few schools that exist. An expensive operation, needed to take the shrapnel out of his leg, was delayed and he was sent back to the village until his father could raise the money, he said.
“Now I prefer cloudy days when the drones don’t fly. When the sky brightens and becomes blue, the drones return and so does the fear. Children don’t play so often now, and have stopped going to school. Education isn’t possible as long as the drones circle overhead.”
According to Zubair, the fundraising took months.
His sister, Nabila, told lawmakers that she had been gathering okra with her brother and grandmother when she saw a drone and "I heard the dum dum noise."
"Everything was dark and I couldn't see anything. I heard a scream. I think it was my grandmother but I couldn't see her.
"All I could think of was running."
Rehman told lawmakers that he is seeking answers to why his mother was targeted. The strike has affected his wider family, who no longer visit because they fear the drones might kill them too.
In testimony that caused the translator to stop and begin to weep, he said: "Congressman Grayson, as a teacher, my job is to educate. But how do I teach something like this? How do I explain what I myself do not understand? How can I in good faith reassure the children that the drone will not come back and kill them, too, if I do not understand why it killed my mother and injured my children?"
He said that his mother was not the first innocent victim of drone strike, but that "dozens of people in my own tribe that I know are merely ordinary tribesman had been killed". He said that numerous families in his community and the surrounding area had lost loved ones, including women and children over the years.
"They have suffered just like I have. I wish they had such an opportunity as well to come tell you their story. Until they can, I speak on their behalf as well. Drones are not the answer."
Rehman said that although the Pakistani government accepted his claim and confirmed details, it said it was not responsible and he has had no compensation to help with the medical treatment for his children.
Rehman said: "In the end I would just like to ask the American public to treat us as equals. Make sure that your government gives us the same status of a human with basic rights as they do to their own citizens. We do not kill our cattle the way US is killing humans in Waziristan with drones. This indiscriminate killing has to end and justice must be delivered to those who have suffered at the hands of unjust."
Asked what he would say to President Barack Obama, Rehman called on the Pakistani and US government to work together to achieve peace.
"I would say to President Obama if I had the opportunity to meet with him is: 'What happened to me and my family was wrong'. I would ask him to find an end, a peaceful end, to what is happening."
"I think that's something that the American government and the Pakistani government can work together to achieve."
Missing from the briefing on Tuesday was the account of Shahzad Akbar, an international critic of US drone policy and the family lawyer, who spearheaded the idea of bringing civilian victims of drone strikes to Congress and who was refused a visa for the third time. Reprieve, the British rights group which together with Brave New Foundation, helped the Rehman family travel to Washington, said he had 6,000 letters supporting his visit.
The hearing was attended by only five members of Congress, and Grayson said such low numbers of lawmakers at hearings were not unusual. Those attending were all Democrats: Rush Holt of New Jersey, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, John Conyers of Michigan, Rick Nolan of Minnesota, and Grayson, the Florida Democrat responsible for inviting the family to Washington and for holding the hearing.
Each of the lawmakers spoke about the drone programme to call for more transparency or greater oversight. Schakowsky said she agreed with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and their call for more transparency and debate about the targeted killing programme. Holt and Conyers called for a congressional investigation into drone strikes.
Grayson, a fierce critic of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan told the hearing: "Invading from the skies is no different from invading on the grounds. We should never accept that children and loved ones are acceptable collateral damage.” Was there any other human activity, he asked “where 10-30% of the dead are innocent?”
It began with a broadcast of Unmanned: America's Drone Wars, a film by Robert Greenwald of Brave New Foundation, which features the Rahman family.

 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/29/pakistan-family-drone-victim-testimony-congress

CIA Drone Strikes In Pakistan 2004-2013
Total US strikes: 362
Obama strikes: 310
Total reported killed: 2,629-3,461
Civilians reported killed: 475-891
Children reported killed: 176
Total reported injured: 1,267-1,431

US Covert Action In Yemen 2002-2913 

Total confirmed US operations (all): 54-64 

Total confirmed US drone strikes: 42-52 

Possible extra US operations: 135-157

Possible extra US drone strikes: 77-93
Total reported killed (all): 374-1,112
Total civilians killed (all): 72-177
Children killed (all): 27-37

US Covert Action In Somalia 2007-2013
Total US strikes: 10-23
Total US drone strikes: 3-9
Total reported killed: 58-170
Civilians reported killed: 11-57
Children reported killed: 1-3

Partial List of Children Killed

PAKISTAN

Name | Age | Gender
Noor Aziz | 8 | male
Abdul Wasit | 17 | male
Noor Syed | 8 | male
Wajid Noor | 9 | male
Syed Wali Shah | 7 | male
Ayeesha | 3 | female
Qari Alamzeb | 14| male
Shoaib | 8 | male
Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male
Tariq Aziz | 16 | male
Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male
Maezol Khan | 8 | female
Nasir Khan | male
Naeem Khan | male
Naeemullah | male
Mohammad Tahir | 16 | male
Azizul Wahab | 15 | male
Fazal Wahab | 16 | male
Ziauddin | 16 | male
Mohammad Yunus | 16 | male
Fazal Hakim | 19 | male
Ilyas | 13 | male
Sohail | 7 | male
Asadullah | 9 | male
khalilullah | 9 | male
Noor Mohammad | 8 | male
Khalid | 12 | male
Saifullah | 9 | male
Mashooq Jan | 15 | male
Nawab | 17 | male
Sultanat Khan | 16 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 13 | male
Noor Mohammad | 15 | male
Mohammad Yaas Khan | 16 | male
Qari Alamzeb | 14 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 17 | male
Abdullah | 18 | male
Ikramullah Zada | 17 | male
Inayatur Rehman | 16 | male
Shahbuddin | 15 | male
Yahya Khan | 16 |male
Rahatullah |17 | male
Mohammad Salim | 11 | male
Shahjehan | 15 | male
Gul Sher Khan | 15 | male
Bakht Muneer | 14 | male
Numair | 14 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Taseel Khan | 18 | male
Zaheeruddin | 16 | male
Qari Ishaq | 19 | male
Jamshed Khan | 14 | male
Alam Nabi | 11 | male
Qari Abdul Karim | 19 | male
Rahmatullah | 14 | male
Abdus Samad | 17 | male
Siraj | 16 | male
Saeedullah | 17 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Salman | 12 | male
Fazal Wahab | 18 | male
Baacha Rahman | 13 | male
Wali-ur-Rahman | 17 | male
Iftikhar | 17 | male
Inayatullah | 15 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Adnan | 16 | male
Najibullah | 13 | male
Naeemullah | 17 | male
Hizbullah | 10 | male
Kitab Gul | 12 | male
Wilayat Khan | 11 | male
Zabihullah | 16 | male
Shehzad Gul | 11 | male
Shabir | 15 | male
Qari Sharifullah | 17 | male
Shafiullah | 16 | male
Nimatullah | 14 | male
Shakirullah | 16 | male
Talha | 8 | male
YEMEN
Afrah Ali Mohammed Nasser | 9 | female
Zayda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 7 | female
Hoda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 5 | female
Sheikha Ali Mohammed Nasser | 4 | female
Ibrahim Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 13 | male
Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 9 | male
Salma Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | female
Fatima Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 3 | female
Khadije Ali Mokbel Louqye | 1 | female
Hanaa Ali Mokbel Louqye | 6 | female
Mohammed Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | male
Jawass Mokbel Salem Louqye | 15 | female
Maryam Hussein Abdullah Awad | 2 | female
Shafiq Hussein Abdullah Awad | 1 | female
Sheikha Nasser Mahdi Ahmad Bouh | 3 | female
Maha Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 12 | male
Soumaya Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 9 | female
Shafika Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 4 | female
Shafiq Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 2 | male
Mabrook Mouqbal Al Qadari | 13 | male
Daolah Nasser 10 years | 10 | female
AbedalGhani Mohammed Mabkhout | 12 | male
Abdel- Rahman Anwar al Awlaki | 16 | male
Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki | 17 | male
Nasser Salim | 19

The United States motto is, "In God We Trust." We need to change that because it would be hard to justify such a hypocritical motto if we continue to do Satan's bidding.  We have met the enemy - and he is us!

Hindsight Is 20/20

About a year ago I came across a video that I half watched while distracted, and thought no more of it. I normally save video's of interest and this one was downloaded on my computer, filed away, forgotten.

During the past year I have read about the arms build up,  watched the Russian version of our State of the Union address to their nation pertaining to the arms build up. I watched Australia sign treaty.. and we all watched Anglo-US presence intensify.

Yesterday I decided to watch it again, for no other reason than to verify if I wanted to keep it or save it.

Of course, we have now experienced all of the above combined with the "trigger happy" US reaction to Libya and the Arab Spring uprising. More ominously, to Syria.
 

I suddenly starting hearing with fresher ears and seeing with clearer vision.

I ask watchers to listen carefully to the language and terms used.

My sincere forewarning:  This video was produced by Lyndon  LaRouche who certainly has a questionable history.  But his involvement and knowledge of foreign affairs and international politics cannot be disputed.  I have spent 4 years closely watching the Middle East, Russia and China, and because of that the contents of this video hit's home.

From Wikipedia:

Iqbal Qazwini wrote in the Arabic-language daily Asharq Al-Awsat in 2003 that LaRouche was one of the first to predict the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1988 and German unification. He said LaRouche had urged the West to pursue a policy of economic cooperation similar to the Marshall Plan for the advancement of the economy of the socialist countries. According to Qazwini, recent years have seen a proliferation of LaRouche's ideas in China and South Asia. Qazwini referred to him as the spiritual father of the revival of the new Silk Road or Eurasian Landbridge, which aims to link the continents through a network of ground transportation.
In April 2005, Tang Yong of the People's Daily of China covered LaRouche's record of economic forecasting, and his warning that the present financial and currency system was already unsalvageable, thus it must be radically restructured, not just merely reformed. Later that year, the paper published an eight-part interview with LaRouche, covering his economic forecasts, his battles with the American media, and his assessment of the neoconservatives. The interviewer wrote that LaRouche was "quite famous in mainland China today," and seemed to be better known overseas than in America.

It's my hope that readers will research and form their own conclusions, to ensure that they do not get blindsided, with much more than 30 lashes.

Dear Citizen,

That time has come, where our allegiances must now fall upon the future of our nation, and not along political party lines.

LaRouchePAC is calling for patriots to end party politics now. Ensuring Obama is not our next president, by constitutional means, is the basis of a new, true non-partisan leadership of the nation.

We must hold Obama accountable for his violations of national and international law, with the aim of removing him from office: the only way to end his desire for war with China and Russia. Don’t wait for Obama to prove that he is capable of launching World War 3.

By now we hope you've already seen our new feature video, Unsurvivable, where we clearly outline the consequences and outcomes of a nuclear armed World War 3.

But, what we need most importantly is the support of powerful people and institutions, and to reach a larger audience.

A victory for all humanity, is won by the courage of a few.

Thank you,
LaRouchePAC.com Editorial Team

For more information go to: http://larouchepac.com/node/23841

The British Are Not Coming!

There once was a country called Britain,
Run by corrupt politicians,
The people said "What?"
"Let's be rid of the lot!"
And rose up in revolution.

In August 2013 we watched an historic event, one that most Americans may have missed or failed to see the significance of.

President Obama wanted to take military action against the Syrian government, and Prime Minister Cameron agreed. But the British public, those who pay the wages of the elected officials in Parliament, had a totally different idea.

Already much older and wiser after Iraq and Afghanistan they, by a unanimous informal poll .. said, "No thank you." And everyone knew that they meant it.

The British Parliament & The House Of Lords debated.. the Church of England become involved. 

What was missed in all the newspapers and editorials on "this side of the pond"  was that, the British people had spoken.  With a 200 year history of allowing their government to invade other nations against the will of the people.. the citizens said, "enough."

There was political wrangling a plenty after the vote. The war horses felt betrayed, one cabinet member said  "We might as well turn all our embassies into car showrooms.” There was suggestions that the British had turned isolationist.  

But Conservative backbencher Douglas Carswell summed it up perfectly when he said:  "These figures show that the wisdom of the British people is superior to that of the Whitehall elite."

In times when we often wonder if the elected officials ever hear our voices, or would ever represent those who voted for them, the British people showed us how Democratic process works when the people stand up and say, "No, thank you!"

Perhaps practicing saying "no" is a valuable lesson in today's world.  
 

 

In the Lords Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is speaking now. He says he has some experience in the region, "partly from this role that I have". International law is based on the Christian theory of just war, he says. He says he agrees that there is just as much risk in inaction as in action. But there are intermediate steps between being in barracks and opening fire. Just war theory says you should only go to war when all alternatives have been tried, because at that point the consequences are out of your hands. Military intervention would be "deeply unjust" if it diminished the prospects of peace and reconciliation in Syria. (Speaking in the Lords, he implied strongly that it would have this effect.)

Here are some more extracts from George Galloway's speech earlier. I've taken the quotes from the Press Association. (By Galloway standards, it was relatively low-octane, but it was still one of the highlights of the debate.) The Syrian rebels definitely had sarin gas because they were caught with it by the Turkish government as referred to by the former government minister opposite [David Davis - see 6.37pm]. The truth is this - the Syrian rebels have got plenty of access to sarin. It's not rocket science - a group of Shinto-obscurantists in Japan, living on Mount Fuji, poisoned the Tokyo underground with sarin gas less than 20 years ago. You don't have to be Einstein to have your hands on sarin gas or the means to distribute it ... Only 11% of the public, according to the Daily Telegraph this morning, support Britain becoming involved in a war in Syria. Can ever a British government have imagined sending its men and women to war with the support of just 11% in public opinion? First, that there is no compelling evidence, to use the leader of the opposition's words, that the Assad regime is responsible for this crime yet. Not that they are not bad enough to do it. Everybody knows they are bad enough to do it. The question is, are they mad enough to do it? To launch a chemical weapons attack in Damascus on the very day that a United Nations chemical weapons inspection team arrives in Damascus must be a new definition of madness. And of course if he is that mad, how mad is he going to be once we've launched a blizzard of Tomahawk cruise missiles upon his country?

Now the military..

In the Lords Lord Dannatt, the former head of the army (and at one time an adviser to David Cameron) has said that servicemen and women should not be forced to fight a campaign without public support. It's been very interesting this week what has been happening in our country. The drums of war were banging very loudly two or three days ago. The people didn't like it. The dialogue, the debate has changed. In the House of Commons the debate has been considering a different motion to the one that was probably intended. Looking for more time, looking for a second debate, looking for second vote. The drum beat has got quieter and that's really, really important. And why I say it's really important is because the people who have to carry out the military actions that we might or might not require are the soldiers, sailors and airmen of our armed forces. And they are not some kind of elite that are kept in a box that are just wheeled out when needed. They are citizens like you and me. And they are citizens who absolutely have to know that what they are being asked to do is what the country wants them to do, what the country believes is right. We don't govern by consensus but we are a democracy, and the people have a very important voice in this and I'm delighted that the drumbeat and the drums have become more muffled. And as far as intervention in Syria is concerned I do not support intervention in any shape or form at this time. Circumstances might change.

What a HUGE victory for democratic process that day was..

Twitter was going wild

JamesLyons @MirrorJames Rolled over by Ed M and defeated anyway. Cameron's taunts of 'weak, weak, weak' against Lab leader must be ringing in his ears. 4:34 PM - 29 Aug 2013

James Forsyth @JGForsyth Cameron accepts defeat, it's all off. Huge humiliation for the PM. No10 expected to win this vote

Daniel Hannan ✔ @DanHannanMEP Dignified, decent, democratic response by the PM. A truly stunning shift in power from executive to legislature.

Mark D'Arcy @DArcyTiP Wow! Parliament has taken war powers. No PM can now launch military action without MPs consent. V big constitutional moment.

Paul Goodman @PaulGoodmanCH 1) With some 30 Labour MPs absent, it was Tory ones that sunk Cameron this evening. Wounding blow to his authority. 2) Breach with America finally comes when a Conservative Prime Minister is in Downing Street - and one on good terms with President. 3) Big implications for British foreign policy: is it now in effect isolationist?

James Forsyth @JGForsyth Result today a huge embarrassment to Cameron. Up until this vote, he’d had a very good summer. Politics is now turned upside down 4:37 PM - 29 Aug 2013

Owen Jones @OwenJones84 Worth pointing out how historic this is. British has been subservient to US foreign policy since Suez in 1956. A big moment. 4:38 PM - 29 Aug 2013

Philip Cowley @philipjcowley Not seen division lists, but that gvt rebellion must be bigger than the one that brought down Chamberlain in 1940.

The British were OUT. The people had spoken!