The use of predator drones to kill terrorists and insurgents.

www.washingtonpost.com...

they seem to be the perfect weapons to kill terrorists while not endangering the pilots and to minimize any evidence that Americans kill the terrorists, and to show they cant hide.

Originally posted by deltaboy and to minimize any evidence that Americans kill the terrorists

Why would you want to minimize that?

As I recall, the CIA started out with weaponized versions of these, and the military, strangely enough, wasn't permited to mount weapons on them.

Originally posted by Nygdan

Originally posted by deltaboy and to minimize any evidence that Americans kill the terrorists

Why would you want to minimize that?

As I recall, the CIA started out with weaponized versions of these, and the military, strangely enough, wasn't permited to mount weapons on them.

well gee who u think would get the blame, the Americans or Musharriff who has been almost assasinated twice? remember people thought it was a car bomb or that the bomb in the car exploded prematurely. sadly politicians and other anonymous people like to brag about it.

A worrying trend. Removes the human factor leaving no room for error (then again with your airforce...).

It'll be fine until one goes 'robocop' and - shock horror - kills an American.

Is life that cheap to you?

Originally posted by Nygdan

Originally posted by deltaboy and to minimize any evidence that Americans kill the terrorists

Why would you want to minimize that?

As I recall, the CIA started out with weaponized versions of these, and the military, strangely enough, wasn't permited to mount weapons on them.

interesting..

Now that I think about it the CIA has permission to do pretty much anything. And honestly, I don't think they really have much regard for what they have permission to do. Whether or not they're allowed, they'll do it.

the drill goes something like this...
CIA pulls some stunt somewhere in the world
if the press never finds out, then mission accomplished
if the press does find out, the gov't creates a loophole that made it "ok" for them to do whatever they did.

I've always wondered how small of an object can be detected on radar...

[edit on 17-5-2005 by benign]

If you think about it ("you" being the rhetorical, general reader), robotic weapons are a good thing.

Lets say you are a soldier, being shot at. You can expose yourself to precisely kill the enemy and only the firing enemy, or lob an explosive in their general direction.

But a motorized remote controlled gun, its going to have an entirely different set of rules of engagement for it, because its not a person, and a person's life isn't being protected by its actions. True, it has to accomplish its mission and kill the enemy, but its actions and responses can be more restricted. SO a robot patrolling a demonstration on the streets of Sadr city isn't goingto fire into the crowd when its shot at, for example.

It has no compassion and can't really differentiate between targets.


Let's say Cuba gets a hold of one and decides to fly it to Florida and kill Posada with it? Is that, in your mind, acceptable? To use these as assassination tools?

Or is it only for US use?


jako

No anybody can use them, but if the Cuba would be stupid enough to use one against America it deserves what it gets. Everything has a consequence.

Who gets to use these? It’s quite simple:

You only need to meet two criteria to use drones in an offensive way, or any piece of hardware for that matter:

#1 The ability to procure the hardware. Either by direct development or by purchasing it.

#2 The ability to absorb the repercussions from its use.

The USA meets both of these criteria. Actually, only a small handful of countries meet this criteria. If Cuba gets one, that’s fair enough. But can Cuba meet criteria number 2? I think Cuba knows the answer to that question and that’s why they don’t do such things.

My point here is this: Countries do what they are capable of. The USA is in a position do "get away" with a great deal. So it does just that. But don’t think for one moment that any other country in the world doesn’t and wouldn’t do the same. If Brazil for example was a superpower tomorrow and had access to the latest military hardware and heavy influence all over the globe, you think they wouldn’t use this power to better themselves and their interests? Of course they would. ANY nation would.

So you can hate the USA and its practices all you want. Some of those practices may be terrible, but the very country that you call home would do, or does the same thing, just on other scales. Period.