HBG

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

Domino

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.

jimenato

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.

Domino

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.

olivefarmer

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!

steviedeluxe

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

HBG

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.

steviedeluxe

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)

scrubbedexpat095

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

Domino

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.

HBG

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.

Dick Dasterdly

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.

HBG

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.

Fredbargate

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

Domino

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