Ken Klippenstein: Cole Allen Hated the Democratic Party, Too

 Cole Allen Hated the Democratic Party, Too

Alleged shooter's views are more mainstream than you've been told

Ken Klippenstein April 28, 2026

Cole Tomas Allen

Politically sensitive stories like these are exactly why I went independent - but I can’t keep doing it without your support. Please become a paid subscriber 

Subscribed

Extremist. Radicalized. Leftist. Anti-Christian. Democrat.

To read the coverage of Cole Allen, the alleged White House Correspondents' Association dinner gunman, you'd think he was a poster boy for the administration's belief that the country is under siege from a left-wing insurgency (see: NSPM-7). The evidence, as you'll see, says otherwise — but everyone from the White House to major media outlets are sticking to the script regardless.

President Trump declared Allen “radicalized.” 

RNC Chairman Joe Gruters blamed a “radicalized left” for the incident, calling it “the inevitable result of a radicalized left that has normalized political violence.”

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said investigators were probing any connection Allen may have had to left-wing groups or were looking for accomplices and co-conspirators.

Even hyper-liberal MSNOW (formerly MSNBC) “Justice and Intelligence” correspondent Ken Dilanian parrots the administration line, claiming Allen is one of several attackers “on the far left fringes”: 

“So it really fits the pattern of what we’ve seen with Luigi Mangione, accused of killing the United Healthcare CEO, or Tyler Robinson, accused of killing Charlie Kirk — of these sorts of people on the far-left fringes who have become radicalized, who are living in a world of unreality, bombarded by conspiracy theories, who decide that they have to take violent action.”

But as I’ve written, Luigi Mangione, Tyler Robinson and now Cole Allen were neither far-left nor on any partisan fringe. Instead, they were united in a sense of frustration with failed institutions defined by inaction — and a determination to embody the opposite through shocking spectacles of action. What nobody in power wants to admit is that the belief that institutions have failed is as mainstream as Taylor Swift, not the fringe radicalism of '70s outfits like the Weather Underground that pundits keep invoking.

Allen, his social media posts reveal, was not singularly focused on Trump. He had plenty of contempt for Democratic leaders too — a contempt for both parties that, far from being fringe, actually puts squarely in the majority of American opinion. By early 2025, the Democratic Party had sunk to historic lows: 27% approval in NBC News polling and 29% at CNN — the lowest in CNN's polling since 1992. A Pew survey found 59% of Democrats disapproved of their own congressional leadership. That’s more than 25 million American voters, according to the latest numbers.

Hating the political establishment may once have made you a member of the radical fringe, but those days are long gone. Strange as it may seem, Allen is, politically speaking, a dime a dozen.

Consider his social media posts.

“If this is the extent to which Democratic leadership is willing to lead, it is time to form an actual third party,” Allen posted on Bluesky on January 21, 2025. 

It was one of numerous other similar posts in which Allen called for an alternative to the Democrat and Republican parties.

“At this point might be faster to replace it with a new party … call it the ‘Do Something’ party, idk,” he said in another post, one of countless hints at his frustration with political inaction.

“If this is the level of analysis coming out of the leaders of the dem party!!…might need an entirely new party tbh,” he said in another post.

“I swear the democrat party does not comprehend the concept of priorities…,” he wrote on February 13.

By March, he was calling for the ouster of the top-ranking Democrat in Congress, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

“Is there such a thing as a vote of no confidence for Senate minority leader?” he posted on March 13.

The day before, Allen was cracking jokes about Schumer’s uselessness.

“Schumer is acting like an rpg [role playing game] player who hoards every single potion, powerup, and consumable he comes across because ‘maybe I’ll need them later,’” he wrote on March 12.

“Schumer’s assignment was not turned in on time,” he cracked on April 8 — days before the attack.

To call Allen a foot soldier of the Democratic left requires ignoring much of what he posted online. It’s a convenient narrative — it casts political violence as a product of partisan extremism rather than what the polling actually suggests: a broad, bipartisan collapse of faith in American institutions and their leadership.

Politically sensitive stories like these are exactly why I went independent - but I need your help to keep doing them. Please become a paid subscriber.

Statement from the Shooter at the White House Correspondents Dinner

My immediate view on something like this is it is not a "crazed" rant from some psychotic individual. In fact, I am reluctant to judge any individual in this situation especially after reading this statement. After all, we don't refer to our troops that kill people abroad as "crazed", or cops that shoot unarmed people as "crazed" we say the troops are heroes and the cops defending their lives.

I will say this, just as the Luddites smashed machinery and in the early days of the US labor movement workers took to acts of violence, bombing and sabotage directed at the enemy's power, we have to accept in my view that in the absence of any social force, political party or workers movement we will see more of these individual acts of resistance to the savagery of the market and it's perpetrators. 

It is not the correct approach, it will not achieve our aims, the emancipation of the working class and society from capital. but we have to see it as the desperate act of a worker acting in anger and with no organized force that can resolve what is a real crisis facing working people today, in the US and throughout the world. Richard Mellor FFWP Admin

Cole Allen

 

Thanks to Liza May for sharing.

 

"Accused White House Correspondents’ Dinner gunman Cole Allen sent a sprawling, crazed manifesto to family members about 10 minutes before Saturday’s attack, sources told The Post.

The 1,052-word missive obtained by The Post Sunday morning — signed Cole ‘coldForce’ ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ Allen” — outlined his “rules of engagement” for the shooting and stated he believed it was his righteous duty to target administration officials."

 

Cole Allen’s manifesto in full:

 

"Hello everybody!

 

So I may have given a lot of people a surprise today. Let me start off by apologizing to everyone whose trust I abused.

I

 apologize to my parents for saying I had an interview without specifying it was for “Most Wanted.”

 

I apologize to my colleagues and students for saying I had a personal emergency (by the time anyone reads this, I probably most certainly DO need to go to the ER, but can hardly call that not a self-inflicted status.)

 

I apologize to all of the people I traveled next to, all the workers who handled my luggage, and all the other non-targeted people at the hotel who I put in danger simply by being near.

I apologize to everyone who was abused and/or murdered before this, to all those who suffered before I was able to attempt this, to all who may still suffer after, regardless of my success or failure.

 

I don’t expect forgiveness, but if I could have seen any other way to get this close, I would have taken it. Again, my sincere apologies.

 

On to why I did any of this:

 

I am a citizen of the United States of America.

 

What my representatives do reflects on me.

 

And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.

 

(Well, to be completely honest, I was no longer willing a long time ago, but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to do something about it.)

 

While I’m discussing this, I’ll also go over my expected rules of engagement (probably in a terrible format, but I’m not military so too bad.)

 

Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest.

 

Secret Service: they are targets only if necessary, and to be incapacitated non-lethally if possible 

(aka, I hope they’re wearing body armor because center mass with shotguns messes up people who *aren’t*

 

Hotel Security: not targets if at all possible (aka unless they shoot at me)

 

Capitol Police: same as Hotel Security

 

National Guard: same as Hotel Security

 

Hotel Employees: not targets at all

 

Guests: not targets at all

 

In order to minimize casualties I will also be using buckshot rather than slugs (less penetration through walls)

 

I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most people *chose* to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor, and are thus complicit) but I really hope it doesn’t come to that.

 

Rebuttals to objections:

 

Objection 1: As a Christian, you should turn the other cheek.

 

Rebuttal: Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial. I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration.

 

Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.

 

Objection 2: This is not a convenient time for you to do this.

 

Rebuttal: I need whoever thinks this way to take a couple minutes and realize that the world isn’t about them. Do you think that when I see someone raped or murdered or abused, I should walk on by because it would be “inconvenient” for people who aren’t the victim?

 

This was the best timing and chance of success I could come up with.

 

Objection 3: You didn’t get them all.

 

Rebuttal: Gotta start somewhere.

 

Objection 4: As a half-black, half-white person, you shouldn’t be the one doing this.

 

Rebuttal: I don’t see anyone else picking up the slack

 

Objection 5: Yield unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.

 

Rebuttal: The United States of America are ruled by the law, not by any one or several people. In so far as representatives and judges do not follow the law, no one is required to yield them anything so unlawfully ordered.

 

I would also like to extend my appreciation to a great many people since I will not be likely to be able to talk with them again (unless the Secret Service is *astoundingly* incompetent.)

 

Thank you to my family, both personal and church, for your love over these 31 years.

 

Thank you to my friends, for your companionship over many years.

 

Thank you to my colleagues over many jobs, for your positivity and professionalism.

 

Thank you to my students for your enthusiasm and love of learning.

 

Thank you to the many acquaintances I’ve met, in person and online, for short interactions and long-term relationships, for your perspectives and inspiration.

 

Thank you all for everything.

 

Sincerely,

Cole “coldForce” “Friendly Federal Assassin” Allen

 

PS: Ok now that all the sappy stuff is done, what the hell is the Secret Service doing? Sorry, gonna rant a bit here and drop the formal tone.

 

Like, I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo.

 

What I got (who knows, maybe they’re pranking me!) is nothing.

 

No damn security.

 

Not in transport.

 

Not in the hotel.

Not in the event.

 

Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance.

 

I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat.

 

The security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before.

 

Like, this level of incompetence is insane, and I very sincerely hope it’s corrected by the time this country gets actually competent leadership again.

 

Like, if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed shit.

Actually insane.

 

Oh and if anyone is curious is how doing something like feels: it’s awful. I want to throw up; I want to cry for all the things I wanted to do and never will, for all the people whose trust this betrays; I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done.

Can’t really recommend it! Stay in school, kids." 

Narrative Advantage : On The White House Correspondents Dinner

Reprinted from Michael Jochum on Substack

I am not fond of conspiracy theories but conspiracies do exist. Like the author, I am perplexed as to what really happened here; I would not be surprised at anything these days. And I think that the author does capture the general mood in US society at the moment. And in a way, it's a mood that is a reflection of Trump's decade long effort to undermine the public trust and all the institutions of bourgeois society; the universities, the mass media, the courts, the political establishment and bourgeois democracy itself. Long before Trump, the general population here had very little faith in the political system, the body politic and the two capitalist parties that dominate it. There's a bit of a feeling that we can't trust anyone. And that makes people vulnerable.

Narrative Advantage 

 

Michael Jochum on Substack

April 26, 2026

What the fuck just happened? That’s not a rhetorical question anymore, it’s the only honest one left standing in a country that now processes crisis the way it processes reality television: loud, confusing, half-explained, and immediately repackaged for maximum narrative advantage. Here’s what we know so far: a 31-year-old “lone wolf,” a teacher from Tarzana by way of Torrance, educated, not exactly the cartoon villain profile, somehow navigates one of the most heavily secured environments in Washington and gets close enough, with multiple weapons, to trigger chaos inside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Shots are reported. A Secret Service officer is hit but saved by a vest. Hundreds of people dive under tables. Agents sprint through aisles. A mentalist, Oz Pearlman, finds himself face-to-face with Trump on the floor, both men bracing for something they can’t yet see, because in that moment it didn’t even feel like a shooting, it felt like something about to explode. Confusion first, then noise, then fear. 

 

That’s the sequence. Not clarity. Not control. Confusion. And somehow, in the middle of all that, we’re supposed to accept that a guy with weapons just… ran past a checkpoint at an event guarded by the United States Secret Service. Just like that. No friction. No system catching it before it becomes a national incident. You don’t need a conspiracy theory to say that’s insane, you just need to have ever walked through a metal detector in your life and noticed that they usually catch the obvious stuff.

 

And then, because this is where the whole thing tips from alarming to absurd, within hours the narrative bends. Not toward accountability, not toward “how the hell did this happen,” but toward branding. Toward optics. Toward the President of the United States jumping on social media to explain that this is exactly why he needs his “big, beautiful, secure ballroom,” as if the takeaway from a security failure isn’t to fix the security but to build a monument to ego on the grounds of the White House. You can’t make this up. Shots fired, chaos in a ballroom, and the first instinct is real estate marketing. That’s not leadership, that’s a pitch deck. That’s a man who, even in a moment of national instability, is thinking about camera angles, ratings, and square footage. “How does it look on TV?” might as well be carved into the Resolute Desk at this point, because everything, everything, feeds the spectacle.

 

Meanwhile, the rest of the country keeps burning in slow motion. War tensions escalating with no coherent endgame. An economy squeezing working people while corporations quietly post record profits. ICE raids ripping through communities like a traveling storm system. Federal institutions hollowed out, expertise replaced with loyalty tests and cable-news cosplay. Billions of taxpayer dollars moving in ways that feel less like governance and more like a shell game. And always, always, Epstein. The name that refuses to die, the questions that never get answered, the silence that gets louder every time someone tries to pivot away from it. Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, like a drumbeat under everything, steady and unresolved. But sure, let’s talk about the ballroom. Let’s talk about the “perfectly timed” crisis that suddenly dominates the headlines while everything else slips into the background.

 

And here’s the part that should scare people, not because it proves anything but because it reveals everything: the reaction. Not just yours, not just mine, millions of people immediately asking whether it was staged, botched, manipulated, or conveniently timed. Not because they’ve got smoking-gun evidence, but because trust is gone. Completely gone. As one observer put it, maybe it was real, maybe it wasn’t, but the fact that so many Americans instinctively believe it could be theater is the real story. That’s the damage. Because when trust evaporates, every crisis looks like a con, every “breaking news” moment feels like another act in a long, dangerous performance, and even genuine fear gets filtered through suspicion. That’s what happens when a government treats reality like content, you don’t just lose credibility, you lose the ability to be believed even when something real happens.

 

So what the fuck just happened? Maybe it was a catastrophic security failure. Maybe it was incompetence layered on top of arrogance. Maybe it was exactly what it looks like: a system so degraded, so distracted, so obsessed with optics that it can’t even secure its own stage. But what’s undeniable is this, within hours, it became part of the show. Folded into the narrative. Weaponized, monetized, spun. Another episode in the United States of Guntopia, where “just as the founders intended” has become a grotesque punchline to a country that can’t tell the difference between governance and performance anymore. Shots fired, people scrambling, and the President thinking about his ballroom. If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about where we are, nothing will.

 

-Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition.

Upgrade to paid

China's Competitive Edge is What Drives US Claims of Theft, and Aggression. It's Just Capitalism Working

Navdeep Singh

Trump Amplifies Savage Racism, Denounces India and China as:

"Hellholes” Full of  “Gangsters with Laptops” Bent on Destroying America.

 

US President Donald Trump has reposted American political commentator and radio host Michael Savage's podcast, where he referred to India, China and other nations as "hell-holes". In his racist rant calling for changes in the United States' birthright citizenship law, Savage alleged that people from the two Asian nations come to the US to "drop a baby in the ninth month", and the law turns them into "instant" US citizens.

 

The Republican president also shared the transcript and video of Savage's podcast ‘Savage Nation', where he slammed the US Supreme Court's arguments on birthright citizenship.

 

The radio host attacked the idea of automatic citizenship for children born in the US to non-citizens, calling for a national referendum instead of leaving it to the courts.

 

"A baby here becomes an instant citizen, and then they bring in their entire family from China, or India, or some other hell-hole on the planet," he wrote in the letter.

The letter also describes Indian and Chinese immigrants as "gangsters with laptops" who have "stepped on our flag".

 

"They've done more damage to this nation than all the mafia families put together. In my unhumble opinion. Gangsters with laptops. They've robbed us blind, treated us like second-class citizens, let the third world triumph, stepped on our flag, et cetera," he wrote.

 

Savage claimed he "used to be a great supporter of Indians in India" until, according to him, he realised the prospect of  "white men" getting jobs at a high-tech company in California is 'nil'.

 

Meanwhile, this is insane. Chinese engineers have single-handedly revolutionized the RV industry in the span of five years making American RVs into pure overpriced, 100% junk.

 

Facts For Working People Blog: An Appeal to Readers

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

4-23-26

The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money. Marx

 

 

The so called free press, some 90% of our news comes from these ten corporations: source

 

Comrades, sisters and brothers,

 

My blog Facts for Working People seems to have a respectable audience. Last month it had 94,000 visits and as of today, 4-21-26 61,000 visits. In September last year it had 147,000, a record. Someone is reading it. I used to pay FB to get a wider audience or to direct a commentary at a specific area but that has become increasingly more complicated. 

 

I do not monetize the blog or its Facebook page. I am held to that by the old adage, “He who pays the piper calls the tune”. Unfortunately, a significant percentage of the blog traffic comes through Facebook.

 

According to Statista, total US ad spending was estimated at $455.93 billion by the end of 2025, and is expected to rise this year. Primary advertisers like Google, Amazon, drug companies, the health industry and others determine the content of the so-called news we get on television and in the print media. The coverage of Israel’s genocide and the present illegal war on Iran is an example, how strikes are reported for example.

 

I like The Andy Griffiths show here in the US, but it’s an old show and they know that seniors are watching it. So the viewer is bombarded with ads about ailments, some real and some concocted in the boardrooms of drug companies, that affect seniors and the advertiser has the drug you need; if you don’t think so, just ask your doctor.

 

I recall when the English singer Petula Clark had a show in the US and one segment had her doing a song with Harry Belafonte. She touched his arm or there was some physical contact and the Chrysler representative tried to stop it being aired; it might offend the southern viewer. Chrysler paid for the episodes through advertising. That shows us the root of racism and its society and its ruling class. There were no ads on our TV at that time and I thought it so strange a car company could do that.

 

I do not write for the blog like I used to as I always wanted it to be very much a working people’s platform and I think the readers are overwhelmingly working class and our allies. Among the middle class and academia. I initially hoped working people would send stories about life and work which hasn’t occurred; it’s just that working class people especially the blue collar sector in which I spent my working life, are not so familiar with writing in this way and some just don’t feel confident not only about writing publicly but also about defending what they write.

 

And while I would identify myself as a revolutionary socialist I do not have a sectarian approach to this and any contribution that is at least socially conscious, not racist or sexist can be published. The bottom line is does it advance the interests of working class people, does it help strengthen our class consciousness and working class unity.

 

But for numerous reasons I cannot write as much as I used to, not that I am skilled at writing but I did keep it going when it was getting maybe 100 visits a week.

 

I now publish pieces by writers whose work I think is important to the working class, or the class struggle in general, quite a few I subscribe to and others I would get off Facebook. I always have checked with the author’s initially even though they are in the public domain.

 

I subscribe to a number of sources, individual and institutional like the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and until recently Foreign Affairs and the Financial Times. I would like to subscribe to the FT print edition but it is just too expensive, and it’s fairly costly for a digital subscription.

 

I also have Zoom that is used for meetings of some of the folks that are around the Blog or support it and I just paid $170 to renew that.

 

I am not broke but if you appreciate the political commentaries that I post to Facts For Working Peopleblog that I share on its Facebook Page at: http://www.facebook.com/FactsForWorkingPeople   or my Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/richard.mellor.58/  I would greatly appreciate some help financially. 

 

I spend a good 6 -8 hours a day, sometimes more if I can and while I realize I benefit from it as it’s my only political outlet these days, if you are reading this and you are a regular reader of the blog can you afford to donate some funds to help? There is a donate button on the blog and it is easy to use although it is rarely used otherwise I wouldn’t be appealing here. 

 

If a few people donated a small amount that would be helpful. Of course, I have had dreams of having some professional help me with design for the blog and building a You Tube channel that can be linked to it but I’ve given up on that. The blog and its FB page is fine.

 

Thanks for any help you can be in this regard.

 

Richard Mellor

 

 

Ken Klippenstein: Death by A.I.

Death by A.I.

New "Autonomous Warfare Center" will automate targeted killings

Ken Klippenstein 4-22-26

U.S. Air Force Air Commando 

Subscribed

The U.S. military’s secretive Special Operations Command plans to establish its first-ever center for AI-driven missions like targeted assassinations.

Autonomous warfare is all the rage at the Pentagon, where computers and artificial intelligence process intelligence data, select targets and then transmit kill orders to a waiting robot, or a “loitering” missile or airplane.

The new “Special Operations Autonomous Warfare Center” is referenced in the $1.5 trillion Department of War budget request to Congress this week.

Special Operations Forces refers to commando units like Navy SEAL Team, Army Green Berets, Marine “Raiders” and others who support “unconventional” warfare, and since 9/11, targeted killing. SEAL Team 6 and Delta Force of the Army are two of the most infamous of the secret units, and have been central to capture and decapitation operations like those in Venezuela and Iran.

One can say a lot of things about the rapid and chaotic adoption of artificial intelligence in the American military. But in this context, the term “autonomous warfare” is a euphemism for automated killing. (Autonomous intrinsically means acting independently, governing internally, or operating without external control.)

An unusually frank description of the role AI will play in the future comes from former Joint Special Operations Command chief Gen. Stanley McChrystal (ret.), who compared AI to “infant Hercules,” invoking the Greek god’s own role as a killer even in infancy.

McChrystal says:

“And like the infant Hercules who strangled two snakes sent by Hera to kill him in his crib, AI will grow to be strong — and a part of almost everything we do going forward.”

What McChrystal doesn’t mention is what happened when Hercules grew up. He spent his life carrying out killings on the orders of Eurystheus — a weak, cowardly king who hid in a jar and never had to understand anything. Hercules’s overwhelming power substituted for strategy.

In the most famous of his myths, Hercules fought the Hydra, a monster that grew two heads for every one he cut off. He was strong enough to keep swinging, but sheer power alone only multiplied the problem. He had to change his approach entirely to win. It’s a useful parable for a military that has spent two decades perfecting decapitation strikes only to watch the threats multiply.

Welcome to the era of CombatGPT. The Pentagon has since 2022 used AI in quarterly exercises for “target detection” involving personnel from all six military service branches. The computers pull together the ocean of information pieces that are collected every day — every minute — and extract the most important, according to the AI program, aggregating and geolocating the blips and dots into a potential target.

During the most recent Iran War, Middle East commander Adm. Brad Cooper felt it necessary to give assurances that the use of AI still includes a “human-in-the-loop” to make decisions. “Humans will always make final decisions on what to shoot and what not to shoot, and when to shoot,” he said. That statement, of course, contradicts the very idea of “autonomous.”

Cooper’s assurance echoes a long line of similar promises. The Air Force said the same thing about drones before the unmanned kill chain was compressed to the point where the “decision” became a rubber stamp. The pattern is consistent: a new capability is introduced with human-in-the-loop safeguards, the speed and scale of operations make those safeguards a bottleneck, and the bottleneck becomes the “Agree to terms” button on your computer most people click without thinking.

(Note that the FY 2027 budget request also zeroes out funding for Pentagon work in civilian harm “mitigation,” eliminating the element that might also be able to “autonomously” warn of direct civilian casualties and damage.)

Screenshot from the Pentagon’s FY27 budget request showing empty space for “civilian harm" mitigation"

The budget document doesn’t say what the Autonomous Warfare Center’s initial budget will be, but it doesn’t need to be large. The infrastructure already exists. Two decades of decapitation strikes have produced the targeting architecture, the intelligence pipelines, the kill chains. What AI does is remove the last friction — the human time spent correlating down to attacking a target.

Much of what the Special Operations Autonomous Warfare Center will be working with is already there. Both in Ukraine and in Iran, the military sees its challenge as dealing with “swarms” of low-cost enemy weapons, from one-way attack drones to relatively rudimentary ballistic missiles.

The Miami-based Southern Command, which is responsible for the shooting part of the drug war, has also established its own autonomous command to automate the tracking and killing of drug shipments where the speedboats and mini-submarines serve as the low-cost targets.

Nobody in Congress has so far asked about the creation of “autonomous” killing commands. The budget line item will likely pass without a hearing, buried in a special operations (and mostly classified) budget that receives less oversight than virtually any other part of the Pentagon. By the time the public learns what the Autonomous Warfare Center actually does, it will have been doing it for years.

McChrystal is right that AI will be “a part of almost everything we do going forward.” What he left out — what the myth he invoked actually teaches — is that the strongest weapon in the world is only as good as the mind wielding it. Hercules eventually learned that.

Will the Pentagon?

Subscribe for news that wasn’t written by AI

Subscribed