Drones.
 

Drones can't tell a spade from a gun. Drones don't have a conscience.

This woman has:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...es-us-military

Re: Drones.
 

and there was me thinking that drones had no intelligence, they did what they are told to do by a controller sitting in a control room with a cup of PowCaf next to him and an XBox control stick to play with.

and I suppose the fitting of hi-res cameras to throw them away is a good way of saving money

cannot see from her profile if she has actually been out there in the action, but she has spoken to a number of vets from UK & USA.
As she reports, if people let "the enemy" use their back yards, their schools and hospitals to set up fire situations they really cannot have any come back. Although when you are just as likely to be shot out of hand if you try remonstrating is another matter.

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I'm not really sure what point is being made here. Drones are bad - is there such a thing as a good weapon? Drones are indiscriminate - more so than aerial bombing or long range shelling? Drones have adverse effects upon the operators - don't all weapons?

The progress of warfare and weaponry has made the delivery point of killing force ever more remote from the deliverer - from hand to hand fighting to arrows, from long range gunnery to intercontinental ballistic missiles.

I don't see that drones are anything more than an extension of this process - and far less indiscriminate and devastating than some of the alternatives.

Re: Drones.
 

as I understood it drones were to be able to discriminate, allowing the "operator" to see the whites of their eyes and differentiate between the spade or AK47. Also take the fight directly into the "enemy camp" without the possibility of losing a costly flying machine and its highly trained and even more expensive pilot.

I suppose there are some who are wishing they had drones in Vietnam, but that wouldn't have done them much good. It is the mental state and philosophy of the "enemy" that needs to be taken into account. Why else did the vietcong live in underground tunnels for weeks on end ?? No Westerner would do such a thing.

One thing that hurts is the way she reports the attitude towards those who discuss thing openly and "for the record" rather than just getting pissed and trying to block out all the bad memories.
That is part of the reason there are so many ex-servicemen living rough and under the arches at London't major railway stations, including Charing Cross - a couple of hundred yards from MOD Main Building.
Most people think that such things were done and dusted after we changed from sail to dreadnoughts - they are wrong, it is as bad or worse.
:thumbdown:

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At least the drones are controlled by operatives who(technically) are bound by the Geneva Convention.

Right now the leading legal experts of the Western Nations are debating the legalities of using their flotilla of stockpiled killer robots in the theatre of war. The issue is if you drop killer robots into a war zone and they are programmed to kill the enemy regardless, what about surrendering enemy troops? Only the West could prevaricate on this. Other nations with slightly lower moral stances would just deploy. Bodes well doesn't it!

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It's normally a depressing subject, but here we have drones that save lives (and developed by a Madrid businessman)

http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/12/27/...66_731786.html

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I know this is dangerous territory, but isn't it true that the countries using drones are using them against much poorer countries who don't have them? We wouldn't use them against Russia or China now, would we, but seem to feel justified to use them in Afghanistan or the Sudan, where the enemy's weaponry can't hurt us or the drones we send to weed them out.

Someone posted the analogy between using bows and arrows against our enemies, but those enemies were able to send a few arrows back in our direction; as far as I know the Somalis don't have any drones.

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at some point you'll find mid-ranging countries like Iran, Mexico and North Korea able to deploy drones.
It's one reason why the UK should really negotiate about the Falklands with Argentina. At some point they will be able to storm the place and we'll have nothing to repel them with. ( I don't make the same argument with Gib -we're a lot closer and besides as soon as we leave the Yanks will take over)

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Well the thing is HBG we are not (at the moment) fighting any First world country, all our current wars are centred on the developing world.

Drones are just a cheap version of cruise missiles and I guess that is what we would use if we ever had it out with either Russia or China

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the latest range of drones are probably too new and hi-tec for the old Russia, but the holders of the old armouries don't really mind who they sell to so long as they get paid in US Dollars.
so drones will be along for anyone who has the money to buy them.

in the meantime we still have the old fashioned drone - a person with several kilos of high explosives strapped to his back and chest. Dogs have also been used.
makes indiscriminate bombing seem another level.
:(

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I was watching the news about the two human 'drones' in Volvograd earlier. I had to think about two recurring words in the news reports, Caliphate and Caucasus. I mastered Caliphate without Google but had to resort to a world map to refresh myself on the Caucasus.

You can follow that map all the way round to the Western Sahara and the word caliphate could still apply.

I am sensationalising for the sake of a debate, but not totally. It looks like Europe, or the EU to which we still belong, is almost encircled by the word Caliphate and all it implies.

Re: Drones.
 

Two words spring to mind, or make that three.
Appeasement, Absolute TOSH.

What is to negotiate?

Certainly not Sovereignty as has been made very clear and that is the only thing the Argies are after and what about the wishes of the population ?

Who knows maybe there are further benefits to be gained under the surrounding seas, especially with the use of ever improving technology.......which brings me to the second point.

"Storm the place" as in storming a fortress ???
I think times have changed a little since those days and almost all forms of modern combat are decided by superior technology rather than simple brute force and numbers.
If ever we get to the stage where countries like Argentina have the advantage over us in that respect, I think our only priority will be to turn out full attention to hanging on to our own little islands in the N.Atlantic.

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I've always wondered at the extreme hatred displayed by a large part of the Eastern world towards the US (the great Satan), but also towards the UK and the rest of Europe. You can't blame that hatred on the drones which are comparatively recent.

But they certainly don't help. It's hard to put myself into the mind of the millions of poor people living in those countries being droned on a regular basis, not as a pampered Westerner who has seldom gone short of anything. That I have worked hard is immaterial, those poor people scratching at a barren soil with their spades are working just as hard, if not much harder.

And then they hear the drones overhead, drones that can't tell whether they're working with their spades or holding a rifle. So they zap them anyway.

Those millions of poor people don't need any more encouragement to queue up for a rocket launcher and attack any target that reminds them of the people sending the drones. And they're angry enough to strap on a suicide belt to help their cause, as they've done in Volvograd. And in Moscow, Tel Aviv and Bagdad. And in London.

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Is that because you will be on the receiving end of the backlash ???

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well the Afghans proved the opposite against the Russians, giving a posting to Afghanistan as a worse alternative to Siberia.
And they have also done it against the US and the UK, although the latter has for decades really been the provider of "specialist" forces
But I expect the US regrets their making simple rocket systems readily available in the first conflict as they have also cropped up in the second - against them

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yes, it does give cause for thought as to why "we" in the Western World should be seen with such hatred.
but the drones are not targeted at the ordinary person, they are targeting the leaders of bands of armed bandits, who are also hated but have to be endured. And that is why the ordinary person gets mixed up in all this, because they cannot do anything about the bully boys with their AK47's who live round the corner and hide in their homes. Very much like in Northern Ireland.

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Very much so. I saw that the latest peace talks in Northern Ireland have just failed - again. Both sides want to retain their various sectarian celebrations, or commiserations, stretching back over the centuries.

Neither side used drones, but those Armalite sniper rifles with a range of well over a mile were forerunners, of sorts, of the modern drone, and both sides used them with devastating effect.

The big difference between such use and drones is that drones are only being used by one side.

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Note, I didn't say all, in view of such situations as Vietnam and Afghan.where vast areas of hostile terrain play a major part in the outcome, but by and large it does apply.

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I actually believe they are more discriminate than say an F-18. They fly at far slower speeds and can make more reasoned decisions real time.

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I think that what the populations of those countries against whom they are used object to is the cowardly nature of their use, much the same as the Napalm bombs in Vietnam.

I would guess that the outcome in those countries will eventually be the same as the outcome in Vietnam.

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Surely the outcome in Vietnam was decided by the Yanky populations unrest at the loss of lives of their own troops.

With drones this is not a problem.

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http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...es-us-military


Not gone mad, just felt the link needed to be posted again so that people actually read it....

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Exactly, drones don't expose troops to being shot or beheaded etc. They have been accurate at taking out a few terrorist leaders. have read where wedding parties in the desert have been wiped out but they would say they were weddings wouldn't they:rolleyes:

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I think it was more of American and world opinion turning against what was plainly an unjust war. US troops were using turning their rifles into peace pipes, Cassius Clay refused to join in, the Beatles sang peace songs and that picture of the badly burned Vietnamese girl captured the futility of it all.

Public opinion is still onside after 9/11, but the withdrawal from Afghanistan, especially if the Taliban sweep back into power, might change all that. And withdrawal from a few other places might mean that the locals no longer want to bomb us.

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Be nice if we were certain of that sentiment..
But in 2001 when the attacks were made in the US, the west were neither in Afghanistan nor in Iraq.
I don't think drone attacks, especially when made on nations we are not at war with, result in a positive outcome. But at the same time we do need ways of stopping the lunatic fringe. It's a tough balance.

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nice to see someone who feels the same as i do about these claims, especially when you can see the red cross has just been painted on the only wall left standing

but the more that real innocents get killed, discriminately or othewise, the more the local population will turn against the foreign aggressor. this then leads to more men (usually) joining the "freedom fighters" and more locals will give them help and succor.
but that has been the same the world over for centuries.

Re: Drones.
 

exactly who is the lunatic ??

and there should be no drone attacks on nations that we are not at war with.

some of the current problems are because of the need to meddle in foreign states back in the early 1900's and later, usually at the behest of commercial organisations (usually oil) - as we did in Iran for the company now known as BP.

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That's the problem. There are. Plenty.

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The They in this case is an American army analyst who along with many others was employed to analyse the videos sent back from the drones recording the successes or otherwise of the drones missions.

It is her account in the Guardian article and it makes for extremely sad reading.

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Obviously there is no such thing as a perfect war where only intended targets and people are taken out and it's highly unlikely there ever will be, no matter how far modern technology advances.

However one thing that is certain is that Drone attacks are a big step forward in that they are far more discriminate than such methods as carpet bombing of huge areas taking out countless innocent citizens with the sole purpose of destroying one small target within the designated area.

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Is it later this year that Afganistan will be given back to the Taliban? I guess that drone attacks there will be stepped then but from what operating base?
M

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Interesting point that" there should be no drone attacks on nations we are not at war with" War declaration against terrorists is a difficult thing where national boundaries come into play.

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Were it only so simple.

Morally your comment may make sense, but unless we continue meddling with those who pose a threat and are planning to move against us, it won't be very long before they are meddling with us and causing mass destruction and death on our own streets.

We have little choice other than to trust our Govt and Military to meddle only where they believe it is essential for our own protection.

Re: Drones.
 

all terrorists are is dissidents of one sort or another, some call them freedom fighters, some opposition forces - there seem to be endless titles for these people.
we have the United Nations that should be used to mediate and jump on nations that openly as well as covertly provide a home and succor to such people.
Pakistan is a good case - bleating about Bin Laden, but are you telling me that no one knew he was in the house across the road from a police station??

when they are in other sovereign states they really should be left alone. it is when they come here and start that we should take action - and I don't mean ban them from the country to find they can't go "home" because they may be tortured. IIRC death by hanging is still on the statutes for treason and acts of war. Make a show trial of it, give the others a warning.

as to "trust" of our Govt/Military - the former cannot be trusted to do the decent thing by the latter when they break the rules. It is possible and usual for a military man to get longer in prison for shooting a potential terrorist who isn't than for a murderer who rampages the nations streets.
If any of us were put under the stress our military are put under I am sure there would be more breakdowns and "friendly fire" incidents (which the US seem at times to be most sanguine about.)

They are the ones making up the rules to suit the occasion. We may be lucky to find out some of what they have done in 100 years time, or never.

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Your post appears self contradictory to a certain degree and little doubt our own Govt will continue to be damned if they do and damned if they don't.

As for leaving Sovereign States alone, what's to be done when they are aware, as you believe yourself, that they are harbouring terrorists who are planning against us ???

Leave them alone to eventually get into our country as some no doubt will, and cause widespread death and destruction on our streets ???

For instance, would you still be saying they should have been left alone if they had successfully perpetrated atrocities in our home countries against your own loved ones ???

Re: Drones.
 

We need adequate anti-terrorism measures to protect us from the terrorists who want to kill us, no matter where we are. Withdrawing our troops from the terrorists home countries is no longer sufficient, they've smelt our blood on our own streets and they want more of it.

The 'new' terrorists are home grown British citizens trained in the conflict zones of Syria, the Sudan and elsewhere. Al Queada is what unites them, whether it's a base in Islamabad or Wakefield.

We're going to need more and more drones and more and more spooks to tell us where to send them.

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as you suggest - Damned if you do and Damned if you don't

but why go out there looking for trouble, why not improve the customs checks and stop the people from entering - and we have enough problems with our homegrown

just remember that when the Govt took positive action against the IRA who had bombed the UK by sending in the SAS the IRA called foul.

attacking people who are learning their "skills" in other countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan only upsets those countries, especially when innocents are killed by the big nasties from the US and UK. Makes for good publicity that indicates "we" are worse than the terrorists and started it all.

and what about the permissions of other countries the drones (some of which are operated from linconshire) for overfly on the way to their destination. If they should feel they are also being targetted then the permissions will be revoked.

IMO better to get your hands on them when they hit these shores and knock the shit out of them in such a way that they don't have an excuse for claiming £millions in compensation.

Isn't there an island off the north of Scotland that still has anthrax spores ??

Re: Drones.
 

Once again, were it ever so simple.

Relying on one last line of defence regardless of improvements would be extremely foolish.
All systems are fallible to some degree.
How do you expect them to recognize every single would-be terrorist ?

In any event there are other means for terrorists to enter the country than via the the standard customs controls.

The more lines of defence and protection, the better in my book.

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Watching the average US war movie the guy who gives up his life to blow up the bridge and it's defenders is a hero, The one who indiscriminately uses his Messersmidt to bomb the enemy is a coward. How times have changed....
M

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The battle is already lost unless "Drastic" steps are taken. If nothing important happens soon, In the west, one hundred years will see a radical change in religious belief and a face off with India and on a wider scale China.
Maybe the timescale is a little short at 5 generations so maybe it should be 10but this will happen...