wow an american that actually know his stuff, that is amaizing most of them where perplexed when i mention the shit american did in central/south america, and the middle eastFox12 said:
What's the issue with drones? (UAVs, not bees)
- Thread starter ReadyAmyFire
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Eeeeeyup. I said it.Griffolion said:
True, but when someone says the word "terrorist", what nationality/race do you most commonly associate with that term? Wish I could find the source for this, I just remember hearing it on the news. But a guy at the NSA was asked about the issue of profiling people when he was making the case about profiling people of middle eastern dissent moreso than other nationalities. He admitted that no, not all terrorists are middle eastern, however it would be silly to act like they're not the most common offenders. As the numbers show, middle eastern people are the most likely to be associated with terrorism - not the only ones to be associated with it, just the most likely. To say we shouldn't be profiling them despite those numbers just so we don't come off looking like racists is naïve. Like I said, I've got no source on that quote, so take it for what you will. Beyond that, I try to refrain from getting dragged into discussions like this, so I'm gonna go ahead and call it quits here.
So to you or anyone else that might want to respond to the above comment: don't expect a response in return. Again, take that however you'd like and have a pleasant day.
War has always been about seizing advantages, ruining your enemies ability your ability to fight, and prevent as many losses as possible. Quick wars were on side utterly eradicates the other side is actually is better for both nations. Quick wars mean less of the economy is destroyed, there is less injury and suffering, and finally less people die. Making a fair war is to create a LONG war.FireAza said:
"There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare."
-Sun Tzu
Besides, if we all agree war is the only means to resolve a situation, we must go out and kill for some goal, why should we send our own people to die? Yes, the blurry infared images are hard to really think of as human for the operator, but otherwise that person would be required to go out and personally try to kill them. They will have less reservations about killing the blips on the screen, but the operator will not have to live with the deaths they caused haunting them for the rest of their lives, if they don't die themselves.
News to me, I thought we were pretty happy go lucky with the whole drone thing. I can see where a fully automated and infinite army is scary, but it's what we're building towards, and it is saving [our] lives. So, good job on the drones and can't wait to see what comes next.
The problem I've seen more of is when the same drones are turned on the US. The ones that fly overhead of cities and communities surveying the american populace and that I have a problem with. The fact that they're doing it and the implications thereof(like not being able to trust your own people?) is more unsettling than the idea of having a mechanical army.
The problem I've seen more of is when the same drones are turned on the US. The ones that fly overhead of cities and communities surveying the american populace and that I have a problem with. The fact that they're doing it and the implications thereof(like not being able to trust your own people?) is more unsettling than the idea of having a mechanical army.
Theres a lot to consider.ReadyAmyFire said:
first up , and this i know is an odd concept that woolly thinking liberals keep banging on about but some peace loving hippies actually believe murdering people is wrong!
any change in the capabilities of a nation is an escalation, someone builds an anti missile system that can shoot down our cruise missiles, well whats wrong with that? its purely defensive it just ups their safety. well yes but what is our response going to be? were going to make better missiles or invent a new form of delivery aren't we? there's no way we can sit there at a disadvantage.
So what do UAV's do to the equation. well the American military has one problem, its owned by a republic so public opinion matters, and it matters alot, this weakness cost them Korea , Vietnam and the first and arguably second Iraq war, in addition it changes the way America fights, it cant cut loose with full chemical bio and nuclear capabilities because it has to answer to the populace. UAV's can be deployed in far greater numbers. it takes much less time to train someone to pilot these things than it does a modern aircraft. so its a massive escalation and it removes the public backlash of seeing those boxes coming back draped in flags. IE it removes the cost that matters to a theater of war and makes hostile actions less costly which lowers the bar and that's never a good thing.
Realistically how long is it till the interface is changed or removed full automation may not be something that's actually desirable let alone practical , but if it can fly itself and the controller simply designates targets via satellite imaging or whatever which will be a massive further escalation of ability that will need to be countered.
Then you have issues of use and control. if America wants to bomb somewhere right now you have to go to the military a body that has strict rules of engagement, is open to public review and is answerable for its actions. add UAV's to the mix and any TLA (Three letter agency , FBI, NSA, CIA etc) can utilize these tools
the list of targets the Air force is wanting and willing to bomb with these devices in the open is quite probably a lot different than the list the CIA thinks it can get away with in the name of freedom under total secrecy.
Succinct and informative post, thank you. Others have touched on the surveillance aspect, which I can understand, especially if the US government is using them on US citizens, but you seem to touch on the protestations I originally saw which seems to be around the use of UAVs as weapons delivery platforms in a conflict zone.zumbledum said:
With regard to what you say about removing the cost in terms of human lives, is the UCAV any different to an artillery shell, torpedo, cruise missile, or to stretch the metaphor, a crossbow bolt in this respect? Trying to achieve your military aims with as little risk to your own people as possible seems like a worthwhile thing to do.
With regard to target designation, I don't think what you've described is a new thing, Iran Air 655 was targeted and fired upon merely as a dot on a radar screen if I remember correctly? And doesn't the military already try to diffuse responsibility for killing by employing more crew-served weapons?
You last paragraph is the one I find the most interesting, and it's something other posters have brought up, regarding the fact that UCAV's are employed by the CIA, outside of the rules and doctrines the military is bound to and even worse may not even be answerable for it's actions?
Sorry if that's a little long winded with a great many questions, this is something I've recently become very interested in and frankly a little shocked at my level of ignorance towards.
Yeah, I can see that...RJ 17 said:
I most commonly think of a group like the IRA. But I must be in the minority. Still, making an ad populum argument by saying that it's okay to just say "X goes over to insert middle eastern country here and become a terrorist", and then justifying it by saying "well most people associate terrorists with middle eastern people" is a bit of a cop-out. You could have easily just have made that comment a non-regional comment, thus avoiding the whole thing.RJ 17 said:True, but when someone says the word "terrorist", what nationality/race do you most commonly associate with that term? Wish I could find the source for this, I just remember hearing it on the news. But a guy at the NSA was asked about the issue of profiling people when he was making the case about profiling people of middle eastern dissent moreso than other nationalities. He admitted that no, not all terrorists are middle eastern, however it would be silly to act like they're not the most common offenders. As the numbers show, middle eastern people are the most likely to be associated with terrorism - not the only ones to be associated with it, just the most likely. To say we shouldn't be profiling them despite those numbers just so we don't come off looking like racists is naïve. Like I said, I've got no source on that quote, so take it for what you will. Beyond that, I try to refrain from getting dragged into discussions like this, so I'm gonna go ahead and call it quits here.
So to you or anyone else that might want to respond to the above comment: don't expect a response in return. Again, take that however you'd like and have a pleasant day.
ReadyAmyFire said:
Yeah, engineering itself is ethically neutral - it's the application that makes the difference.
If you don't want to build weapons, then go into a career building civilian/surveillance models. It's a booming market. In fairness to drones, for every model of armed drone there are 20 that aren't - even in military applications the majority are for recon and surveillance.
Even the first Predator models were surveillance drones with Hellfire missiles bolted to the sides.
Ultimately it isn't the drones themselves that are unethical though (any more than the LCD screens they're video feeds are displayed on, or the chairs the operators sit in).
It's the current Western policies governing their use which is utterly morally bankrupt.
In answer to previous questions - yes the CIA is civilian; the drones are seconded to them specifically to bypass the Geneva Conventions and various 'laws of war', and to avoid the US having to actually declare war before bombing.
In fact, the CIA gets most of the horrible jobs because they can bypass various international treaties and constitutional 'difficulties' by virtue of being civilian.
That's why the CIA's Special Activities Division [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Activities_Division] gets a lot of the sedition/espionage/false flag/assassination side of things, which military outfits like the SEALs or Force Recon, or whatever, cannot legally do.
I refuse to feel bad about my allies having the upper hand in an armed conflict. Would I rather those I am not allied with have that technology? Of course not.
Every revolution in warfare has been brought about by one side introducing a weapon or tactic that allows them to strike at the enemy with little fear of retaliation. First it was the spear, then it was the bow, then it was the shield, then it was trained dogs, then it was armour, then it was the horse, then it was the pike and formations, then it was the fort, then it was siege equipment, then it was the longbow, then it was the matchlock, then the cannon, then rifling, then scopes, then bolt action, then repeaters, then automatics, then trench warfare, then artillery, then armoured vehicles, then bombers, then fighters, then submarines, then rockets, then jet fighters, then smart bombs, then drones.
Every invention has been about either putting the wielders spear point further from the wielder and closer to the enemy or introducing a barrier between the enemy's spear point and the wielder's person. The next evolution here will likely be a form of cyber warfare to identify where the drone pilots or command centers are located so their own drones can strike there. What will happen after that? Perhaps EMP devices... who knows?
This is how warfare evolves, it always had and it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. As long as a human is still pulling the trigger then I am fine with it, no matter how far away from the tip of his spear he happens to be. When the trigger is being pulled by something OTHER than a human then - and only then - have we got a serious problem.
Every revolution in warfare has been brought about by one side introducing a weapon or tactic that allows them to strike at the enemy with little fear of retaliation. First it was the spear, then it was the bow, then it was the shield, then it was trained dogs, then it was armour, then it was the horse, then it was the pike and formations, then it was the fort, then it was siege equipment, then it was the longbow, then it was the matchlock, then the cannon, then rifling, then scopes, then bolt action, then repeaters, then automatics, then trench warfare, then artillery, then armoured vehicles, then bombers, then fighters, then submarines, then rockets, then jet fighters, then smart bombs, then drones.
Every invention has been about either putting the wielders spear point further from the wielder and closer to the enemy or introducing a barrier between the enemy's spear point and the wielder's person. The next evolution here will likely be a form of cyber warfare to identify where the drone pilots or command centers are located so their own drones can strike there. What will happen after that? Perhaps EMP devices... who knows?
This is how warfare evolves, it always had and it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. As long as a human is still pulling the trigger then I am fine with it, no matter how far away from the tip of his spear he happens to be. When the trigger is being pulled by something OTHER than a human then - and only then - have we got a serious problem.
I'm a bit baffled it took all the way to the bottom of the page to actually mention the large proportion of civilians killed with seemingly no political backlash by drones.Esotera said:
This point right here is why people are protesting, because drones are being used as consequence-less killing machines, and have ended up generating disturbingly frequent reports of cases where civilians have been caught in the crossfire of their strikes and killed, and then these leaks come out: http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/05/18781930-exclusive-cia-didnt-always-know-who-it-was-killing-in-drone-strikes-classified-documents-show?lite
It's not so much the idea of having autonomous killing machines (although some people are worried about that) It's the fact that no one has any idea how many people have been killed by the relentless drone strikes in the Middle East, and what percentage was valid military/invalid civilian targets, yet they continue to be not only used but their use is increasing at a startlingly fast rate.
Indeed its exactly like that , and thats a problem on the basic human level we call it the arms race, each war is far more destructive than the last because both sides do this, but the relevant point to this debate that i admit i didn't make overly clear is the affect of escalation and threat, seeing dead Americans come home in box's is the big limiting factor, if America gains the ability to wage war remotely and remove the cost of American lives it makes it much more practical and therefore likely that America will act in a hostile manner, and even if that's not true every other nation has to consider this increased threat and respond. basically by upping the ante other nations will feel pressured into also increasing their military abilities to counter the increased American Threat, the worrying thing is clearly no one can compete financially or technologically so the only option will be increased nuclear chemical and biological vectors.ReadyAmyFire said:
Indeed it was. but a number of things had to fail badly for that to happen , the traffic controllers, radar ops and the fighter pilots all dropped the ball that day, now imagine how more likely mistakes like that are more likely to happen when the entire process is being run by one guy in a bunker controlling who knows how many drones and their being a mass number of this uav controllers. Making war and destruction a remote and safe thing to inflict is just lowering the bar and making it more likely to happen. If america had this tech up and running 10-15 years ago would we already have seen them used against Syria, Iran and who knows who else?ReadyAmyFire said:
The Bay of Pigs. (attempted invasion of Cuba)ReadyAmyFire said:
Operation Northwoods (planned mass false flag terrorist attacks on the American nation using plane hijacks bombs and mass shootings all to be framed to lay blame on Cuba to allow america to invade. bit too close to what happened on sep 11 if you ask me)
They funded Saddam Hussein Ba'ath party coup in Iraq, they had a hand in putting Gaddafi in power
both done to turn the region away from pro communist regimes to more American friendly , the irony of that can not be lost on anyone.
they trained and funded the Taliban , They were brave freedom fighters, fighting off the yolk of the evil soviet aggressor at the time, noticing a pattern here?
They fund and support a feudal government and help put down pro democracy rallies in Saudi Arabia. see America is all for democracy so long as there not going to vote in an Islamic regime. or one that wont sell tehm oil and let them build airbases anyway.
I mention these notable highlights to show the kind of thing these so called people get up to as it is, and to illustrate the clear and present moral danger of letting these guys get their hands on drone tech. the whole point i guess is you cant simply think of the times and places this tech should be used you have to consider all the motives and goals of all the people that can and will get their hands on it.
np at all its an interesting topic and a good debateReadyAmyFire said:
Drone pilots are also getting the same amount of PTSD that regular pilots get from combat since they are stuck in a weird loop where they wake up and see their kids off to school and have to kill people during their day and then return to see their kids again. This creates some psychological confusion and potential damage since they are not fully envolped in either world. If they were deployed and doing this, it'd be easier since they wake up and end the day in a combat zone, but to wake up as a civilian, be an airman, and then be a civilian again once they leave just leads to a lost of difficulty.
If I had to make some AFI (Air Force Instruction, the rules that the USAF goes by), I'd make it to
1) Drones may not be armed unless in an already established combat engagement.
2) Drones may be used for surveillance but at no time may they violate the first AFI.
Basically meaning if they're going out to watch people, they cannot have weapons armed. If they are watching people and even if the people are obviously planting bombs, they cannot fire. They may only fire during engagement where troops are currently under attack and request air support. Once the engagement ends and the troops are fine, the drone is required to de-arm anything left over. It cannot be used as an offensive weapon or a preemptive weapon, only defensive or surveillance basically.
If I had to make some AFI (Air Force Instruction, the rules that the USAF goes by), I'd make it to
1) Drones may not be armed unless in an already established combat engagement.
2) Drones may be used for surveillance but at no time may they violate the first AFI.
Basically meaning if they're going out to watch people, they cannot have weapons armed. If they are watching people and even if the people are obviously planting bombs, they cannot fire. They may only fire during engagement where troops are currently under attack and request air support. Once the engagement ends and the troops are fine, the drone is required to de-arm anything left over. It cannot be used as an offensive weapon or a preemptive weapon, only defensive or surveillance basically.
Do your drones fire missiles that can be authorised through non-standard channels to be legally used on American citizens?ReadyAmyFire said:
Have your drones been used to kill American citizens, including ones we have now admitted were likely innocent and NOT the intended target?
I blame the educational system, which has become a bit of a cheer leader for the government. None of my teachers ever taught any of this in school, and most people don't learn about it until college, if they learn about it at all. It's not unusual I suppose, seeing as most Japanese schools won't teach about Nanking. There's a strong difference between the American people and the American government, but it's difficult to criticize the one without people thinking your criticizing the other. This is unfortunate, because we're simply repeating our mistakes.sonofliber said:
Wait, what? Breakfast cooked by the wife in the morning, clock in, kill some people, come home, hug the kid, throw a tennis ball for the dog... remember that is exactly what you saw some guy thousands of miles away doing before you destroyed the building next to him.Devil said:
Jeez, who thought it would be a good idea to allow such a quick transition between combat zone and civilian life?! Barracks were invented for a reason and it isn't just to be accommodation for troops.
Its naturally the next step. And its coming pretty quickly just google taranis and see what it can do. Its only a prototype at the minute but its getting therethaluikhain said: