Slashdot Mirror
War: What Can Technology Do For Us?
Both the first Bush and the Clinton administrations, from Desert Storm to Kosovo, advanced the idea of conflict with little civilian loss and few casualties of our own. But thousands of American civilians are already dead in this conflict, greater civilian losses than in any war in U.S. history. Still, the military analysts, network pundits and Pentagon officials are going to great lengths to point out that Taliban and fundamentalist fighters are skilled and determined, that this conflict will be long and difficult, that our expectations should be kept realistic. And bin Laden is a surprisingly agile enemy. He not only grasps America's most vulnerable points, he understands "spinning," using video-imagery and satellite transmission to get his side of the story out. This is something Saddam never began to grasp.
But are our expectations realistic? Are we once again overrating our own technology, and underestimating less sophisticated cultures and populations? Most Americans have been prepared for years to place enormous faith in a range of new technologies that are supposed to make us the most powerful military force in world history. Sophisticated technologies devastated the Iraqi military in Desert Storm. While their results were more controversial in the Kosovo action, there remained little American loss of life. The bloody action in Somolia showed us yet again that technology is not effective if it can't be used for political or military reasons. And Panama and Grenada resembled police actions more than military conflicts.
In this new war, though, it seems clear that American forces will be involved in some sort of ground fighting on Afghanistan's murderous terrain, and that would mean a battle more reminiscent of Vietnam than Kuwait.
What can technology do for us? Can GPS targeting systems really place bombs that accurately? Can intelligence analysts in the U.S. instantly track raw data without leaving their offices? Can civilian populations really be protected? Can thermal imaging and satellite surveillance see into caves or track small units in mountainous terrains? Can government computers follow money around the world? Will our soldiers' tech-equipped vehicles, equipment and weapons give them an edge over the the Russians, who were chewed to bits in their conflict with Afghanistan guerrillas, but whose equipment was comparatively primitive? Have we actually developed a new mix of tech-supported human and machine warfare that is deadly, flexible and effective?
From reading the papers and watching the generals on TV, we see confidence from the military that the answers to most of these questions is yes. But the people reading this have a much better than average grasp of these tech issues. Do you agree? What can tech do for us -- or not do -- in this supposedly new era?
I think that regardless of how remote we can get from killing things with our machines, we need to keep the perspective that we're still killing people.
I think a lot of people miss that point when you watch it on television or a computer screen.
Last night on CNN a military official said (paraphrase) "We're running out of targets to hit."
The war in Afganistan isn't our big concern. Our greatest threat comes from within and is directed at our fundamental freedoms.
Sure, war may drive technological change, but do we really want to be benefitting from death and distruction? Especially when we have a peaceful alternative that has resulted in faster internet connection speeds, the acceptance of DVDs, and the spread of the internet itself?
Yes, I'm talking about porn. Wanting free, anonymous porn everywhere has resulted in widespread internet access, even if its dialup to a local number at unlimited rates (in the US). Wanting high-quality pirated porn movies has resulted in the spread of broadband. And for viewing porn in the privacy of your own home, nothing beats DVDs, especially since they won't wear away the tape if you pause and keep viewing the same few minutes of certain "adult" videos.
Sure, you can talk about war all you want, but porn will drive further technological changes. Voice recognition software is perfect for hands-free browsing and other computer usage. Interactive movies will be another idea driven by porn. And don't even ask about what fully interactive virtual reality would be good for.
As the Dead Kennedy's sang "Kinky sex makes the world go round!"
Here are some interesting charts showing how war and technology are blood brothers. As technology advances, we increase our ability to kill more people, at a faster rate.
Indeed, this idea applies even to non-war machines and technology that is not directly tied to war. For example, with the World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks, the killing was made possible using a regular old plane. However, the plane is a technology exemplar. The plane, in many ways, defines so much technology. The commercial planes were not meant for war or killing, yet they did kill many people.
As technology increases, we will see more death. However, the death will come from humans using and abusing technology. That is always the way it has been. Humans kill other humans. Technology just helps.
How to Download YouTube Videos
Upon encountering a snake in the Area of Operation (AO):
This war will be neither. I'll wage that small teams of highly trained commando's will be used instead of large forces like in 'nam. America can and will not be trapped in another situation like that.
Besides.. this time they are after a terrorist and it's hosts not an entire country. And of course... it will not be the US alone. Don't forget that allmost half the entire world is standing behind the US. Off course.. if it takes too long support will weaken with the day...
In the end nothing will have changed though. Bin Laden will just be replaced by someone smarter. Smarter because he knows what he can expect. More intelligent because he will probably use more sophisticated means, not nescesarily technologically sophisticated but sophisticated nonetheless.
All our technology in spite we will never be able to root out all terrorism. Whatever kind of goggles we use...
As usual, Katz incisive and thought provoking (NOT) analysis of the situation leaves one breathless...
What are laser-guided bombs, satellite guided missiles, penetrating sensor systems, stealth planes, etc?
Force Multipliers.
But anything times zero is still zero.
The core of this, and every other conflict, is the soldier. The core of any operation involving taking ground and holding it, or in denying that ground to an enemy, is the infantry. Poor, thankless, cold, and tired infantry. Some poor shmuck (possibly quite well educated nowadays) a long way from home, in a nasty situation, with some people out to kill him and maybe some friends he's trying to keep alive. And hoping he'll get out in one piece and hoping he'll have dry socks.
This isn't a _new_ kind of war. It's a very _old_ kind of war - what is going on in Afghanistan today is a conventional war - suppression of air defenses prior to ground action. This war (like many others back many millenia) will be fought by conventional and unconventional means.
Will technology make a difference? It'll help. Being able to see at night is a big plus. Having comms and fire support and airborne mobility are pretty big assets. But ultimately, it'll be skirmishers, light infantry and special operations forces that will go toe to toe with the terrorists in the hilly backcountry of Afghanistan. All the technology in the world won't change that reality.
And will the allied forces get their asses kicked? Maybe they'll take some hits (probably some boys will be dying... this is always the cost of fighting an implacable enemy such as the terrorists are...). But the allied military forces have learned a lot from the Russian experiences and they've learned a lot in conflicts around the world in the last 10 years (Kosovo, Sarajevo, Bosnia, The Gulf, etc.) about how new conflicts are fought, their horrors, and their risks.
Ultimately, they will prevail against a government that does not enjoy unified support from its people because it is corrupt and because it abuses its populace. But don't ever think they have prevailed because of some wazoo technology.
They will have prevailed because some farm boy from Iowa was willing to bust his ass training to be a Green Beret and because he's willing to lay that same ass on the line for what he believes in and to do what it takes, wherever in the world that may be, to get the job done and make the world a safer place for his fellow citizens. That farm boy's guts and training and sacrifice will be what carries the day, as always.
God Bless America (and I'm not even 'Merican!)
Tomb Raider
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
Our mighty technological superiority over Iraq was useful until we beat them down till we had no more targets large enough to justify using half million dollar missles on. At that point, you send in the ground troops, and incur casualties. Afghanistan is already at the point where ground troops are necessary, so our tech doesn't give that big of a percentage advantage. Look for 20 to 1 kill ratios (U.S. to Osama) when the fighting gets up close and personal, rather than the zero casualties we are used to.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
Here is how technology can really help. If we combine current e-book technology with high density storage like C-3D we can create a device that can store lots of books in a small space.
Make millions of them. Get every text possible stored onto the media. Drop them all over the middle east, but most importantly Pakistan and Afghanistan. It would probably be useful to dump them all over the "stan's".
There are a few logistical problems (like how to power them consistently), but a small device can be easily hidden. Libraries are more difficult to hide. An e-book and its media could be stuffed under a brick, behind a stove, in the rafters easily.
Saturate them with knowledge. Send the good with the bad.
Hey, if we are clever, we can even make the e-books play video. Then we can send really subversive stuff, like episodes of "Friends!," "Soap," "All in the Family," "Days of Our Lives," "The OJ Trial."
Bringing the perpetrators of this crime to justice is important, but educating the world is more important. In the long run, enabling education will help us more than destroying infrastructure.
TNT
Brad Tittle
God: "I don't leave footprints!"
One thing I really hope we learned first from Vietnam and second from the Russian attack on Afghanastan is that you cannot fight unconventional forces with conventional forces. The Afghans have a very well oiled guerilla force. The Soviets spent 6 years fruitlessly trying to fight an army that wasn't really there.
:).
It wasn't until 1986 when the soviets realized they needed to match their forces and began sending in Spetznatz (Special Forces) units instead of traditional forces. They were tremendously sucessful, and by some accounts pretty much had the war won. At that point Reagan stepped in and gave the Afghan forces American Technology, principally lots of Stinger missles. New weapons were enough to turn the tide of the war and the Soviets spent the next two years in a somewhat controlled retreat.
Be careful who you think your friends are, as our own Stinger missles are currently considered the biggest threat to the safety of American planes in Afghanastan.
Our targeted strikes are merely to knock out known defenses and to destabilize the infrastructure. The only way we can flush out their military will be with on the ground special forces.
The biggest thing that I fear is that the US will renig on their commitment to rebuild Afghanastan once we are done blowing it up. If we do not make the investment to rebuild Afghanastan to a stable and capable society, then we will merely be back where we began.
Remember that's how the Taliban came to power. Afghanastan was obliterated by the Soviets. It was an Anarchistic country dominated by local warlords, and ripe for a unifying force to take brutal control. Starving and desperate populations are the breeding ground for violent dictators: Witness numerous 20th Century european countries (names withheld to avoid invoking net flame degredation rules
Enjoy,
Chris
-- I need more coffee. It's Monday. There is no such thing as enough coffee on a Monday.
The media onslaught is just like the "number" movies '1984' or 'Fahrenheit 451'. The media brags about some high-tech onslaught against some evil external threat. You see very little diverse opinion in the media, and the people who have offered some have paid (e.g. Bill Maher). Ironically, Orwell and Bradbury predicted that a dictatorial state would be necessary to impose such a uniform view, whereas in the present case the "silo-vision" seems to be emerging from all levels- the viewers, the media providers and the government.
On the other hand, the beauty of the net is that I can see the analysis almost totally absent from US media by reading European and Asian web papers.
I may be picky but I think the Brits learned the same lesson before Soviet even existed...
When Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, we responded not by becoming independent from fossil fuels but by establishing a permanent military presence in Islamic holy lands. Even then we were warned by ibn Laden of the consequences of our actions. Even now he is saying that America will not be safe until we leave their holy lands. He has factually and impassionately stated both the problem and the only acceptable solution. He hasn't even the slightest fantasy of taking over America. He just wants us to leave them alone. Sounds simple to me. However, both Papa Bear Bush and Little Bear Bush are oilmen whose pockets are lined by the richest corporations. How many more Americans will these two gentlemen (a term I use loosely) sacrifice with their greed-driven ideologies?
I am disappointed in Little Bear Bush for lying to us once again. During his speech (9/11 or 9/12), he stated that we will use every tool at our disposal, including diplomacy. Time and again, the leaders of the Taleban have stated their desire to speak with us, which fits the dictionary definition of diplomacy. Time and again, Bush and company have rejected the Taleban's proposals. Bush's idea of diplomacy is apparently as screwy as his handle on compassion.
On a side note, we may be witnessing the beginning of an Anthrax outbreak. This is poetic, considering that most Americans are "following the flock" with meaningless flag-waving and spouting of rhetoric.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
Hahahahaha! I love seeing the naive getting called on their bullshit. While the death of UN aid workers is a tragedy, there is no such thing as a war without civilian casualties.
a tw a.htm
Before you start criticizing individual acts within a war, look at the big picture first. What would cost more? Action or inaction?
And for those of you who believe that Osama is a reasonable man, please go over to FAS.org and read this:
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-f
...you just go ahead and try reasoning with this asshole. Those are his words, read them well. He is not a resonable man, and his ideals are not compatible with the existance of any other type of civilization.
While we may loose some lives, and I don't intend to downplay the seriousness of this, it is probably not going to be militarily significant. That is, it won't change the real outcome.
The plain simple fact is that not only do we have vastly more and better equipment, but we also have vastly more and better trained people. Some of them will be lost, the the outcome is not in doubt.
The only thing in doubt is our will to see this through. In the past we have not had the will. After the first few body bags, we run home with our tail between our legs. And that is partly why Sept 11 occured. There is no credible belief that we'll do really very much about it. We'll drop a few bombs, and then when the first few body bags arrive, we'll run home.
After the Sept 11 outrange, we may now have the will. And this, I believe, is Osama's miscalculation.
Another one is this. He may grasp how to use PR to spin his side. But it seems to me that each PR bit he has released has stired our side to even more anger. And we may be able to counter spin his own remarks in front of the Arab world. That remains to be seen.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I know, I know, it's just Katz rabble-rousing and I should lower my expectations, but what is the basis for this statement:
"Most Americans are convinced that technology -- GPS targeting systems, thermal imaging, new intelligence retrieval systems, pilotless drone reconnaisance aircraft, high-altitude bombers, special forces equipped with goggles than can see into caves -- will carry the day for us. Will it? What can technology really do for us in this new war?"
Everything I have read, viewed or heard in the media, every poll I have seen, and every live human I have spoken with in the weeks since September 11 supports precisely the opposite proposition - the general public DOES NOT BELIEVE that technology gives the US/Allies the advantage in this war; it will be won, if at all, by traditional human intelligence, gritty casualty-producing ground combat, determination, and patience. And I don't hear anyone underestimating the low-tech Afghan mujahedeen.
Where are the "most Americans" who believe this is a magic tech silver bullet war? I don't see or hear them anywhere.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
If you start reading the global press, you start to get the sense that perhaps a *lot* of the mid-East is not so happy with this attack on Afghanistan, and is, in fact, quite impressed with bin Laden's video monologue.
Nearest I can figure is that this "war" on the rubble of Afghanistan is going to just create an excuse for more terrorist attacks against US civilians.
Ol' Dubya has just initiated a tit-for-tat war of attrition. This is not going to be a good time to be an American citizen.
And, finally, an interesting bit of thought from Michael Moore:
"Orwell warned us about this one. Big Brother, in order to control the population, knew that it was necessary for the people to always believe they were in a state of siege, that the enemy was getting closer and closer, and that the war would take a very long time.
That is EXACTLY what George W. Bush said in his speech to Congress, and the reason he said it is because he and his buddies want us all in such a state of fear and panic that we would gladly give up the cherished freedoms that our fathers and those before them fought and died for. Who wouldn't submit to searches, restrictions of movement, and the rounding up of anyone who looks suspicious if it would prevent another September 11?
In order to get these laws passed that will strip us of our rights, they have been telling us that we are in a LONG and PROTRACTED war that has no end in sight."
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
/.
When we built all these fancy weapons, I thought they'd be used in a reasonably fair fight - that is, we'd send the tomahawks against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics when they delivered their promised global revolution.
I didn't write all that code so that we could use it to kick over some mud huts in a stone-age nation bent on recreating a 16th century theocracy.
Granted, our jingoistic, bloodthirsty, home-grown perpetrators of atrocities are going after people of similar moral virtue, so at least we aren't knocking off Lapps, Tuvans or Bushmen... but I'd still like to see a fair fight. Let Bush and all his hawk buddies go fight a ground war, like the one he dodged in Viet Nam. I'll be happier about funding that, especially if we can use all-volunteer armies and ban all weapons more sophisticated than a bow and arrow.
Why can't all these warmongering bastards sate their bloodlust without bringing my nice clean superweapons into their dirty little terrorist tit-for-tat?
--Charlie
The Sept 11 gang was in the US for a long time soaking up our vices, and one of them was even observed in a porn shop. Beer and tits didn't give them pause. In fact its likely that they had the same reaction most intolerant people do - they soaked up the porn, but later in the guilt phase it probably made them hate the US more for presenting them with the means to betray their faith.
One thing that seems to get glazed over an awful lot is that during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the rebel groups were being backed by the United States and others. In this war they are completely cut off from outside assistance. Nobody is dumb enough to do something like that right now and risk us making them an enemy.
Another thing to note is that the Soviets had very different goals when they went into Afghanistan. They wanted to take over the country. The US is interested in eliminating a threat, which means taking out terrorists and those who sponsored them. We want to get in and get out as fast as possible, and ideally want some other group to come to power in afghanistan who doesn't hate us quite so much. We are trying to play various internal afghanistan factions against eachother, and making a point of not being a common enemy for them to unite against.
To analyze this war against the backdrop of Soviet Afghanistan or Vietnam seems to belittle the truely different nature of this conflict. This doesn't mean it will be easy, and certainly with some policy mistakes we could turn it into such a conflict. But the goals here and the enviornment under which we are attempting to achieve them is very different from these historical precedents.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
along with the precision-bomb photos, and satellite shots
I guess the illusion of "surgical strikes" can now be put into the dustbin.
The US airforce just blew up the United Nations building, close to Kabul in afghanistan.
But strangely, I can't find a word about it on US websites ??
The closest is This article but it doesn't mention a word about that the people were in the UN building outside Kabul.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
In practiced Pentagonese, Rumsfeld deftly avoided answering the question of whether the use of tactical nuclear weapons could be ruled out.
Though large "theater" thermonuclear devices -- doomsday bombs -- don't fit the Bush administration's war on terrorism, smaller tactical nukes do not seem out of the question in the current mindset of the Defense Department.
The most likely candidate is a tactical micro-nuke called the B61-11, an earth-penetrating nuclear device known as the "bunker buster." The B61-11 was designed to destroy underground military facilities such as command bunkers, ballistic missile silos and facilities for producing and storing weapons. However, it could be used against the warren of tunnels and caves carved under the Afghan mountains that are often cited as a potential refuge for the U.S. government's prime suspect, Osama bin Laden. The B61-11's unique earth-penetrating characteristics and wide range of yields allow it to threaten deeply situated and otherwise indestructible underground targets from the air.
The 1,200-pound B61-11 replaces the 8,900-pound, nine-megaton B53 device, a bomb initially designated as an earth-penetrating weapon. The B53 is deliverable only by enormous and vulnerable B-52 bombers. By contrast, the relatively diminutive B61-11 can be delivered by the stealthier B-2 bomber, or even by conventional fighters such as the F-16.
The B61-11 is designed to burrow through layers of concrete by way of a "shock-coupling effect." The design directs the force of the B61-11's explosive energy downward, destroying everything buried beneath it to a depth of several hundred meters, according to a story in the March 2, 1997 issue of Defense News.
The B53, on the other hand, with a force equal to 9 million tons of TNT, penetrates the earth simply by creating a massive crater, rather than the more precise downward blow of the B61-11.
The B61-11 is the most recent nuclear device added to the U.S. nuclear arsenal since 1989. It was developed and deployed secretly, according to a story from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The U.S. military sneaked it past test and development treaties, as well as public and congressional debate, by defining the B61-11 as an adaptation of a pre-treaty technology rather than a new development. Depending on the yield of the bomb, the B61-11 can produce explosions ranging from 300 tons of TNT to more than 300,000 tons. This is significantly less than the B53, but still far larger than even the greatest conventional non-nuclear device in U.S. stockpiles. And it is several times more powerful than the atomic weapons dropped on Japan in 1945.
Studies by the Natural Resource Defense Council estimate that more than 150 B61-11s are currently in the U.S. arsenals, scattered among NATO aircraft carriers and planes on bases in Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Turkey, Belgium, Netherlands and Greece. Many B61-11s were withdrawn from Europe during the '90s and are now stored at Kirtland and Nellis Air Force bases in the United States.
According to a desk release from the U.S. Air Force's Public Affairs office, tests of the earth-penetrating capabilities of the B61-11 were completed on March 17, 1998, in frozen tundra at the Stuart Creek Impact Area, 35 miles southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska. Two unarmed B61-11s were dropped to test their ground-penetration capability. The tests were designed to measure the nuclear bomb casing's penetration into frozen soil and the survivability of the weapon's internal components.
A team excavated the two unexploded dummy bombs and took careful measurements of their angles and depth of penetration into the soil, which were 6 and 10 feet, according to the Air Force. The shells were sent back to Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico for full analysis of how the simulated internal components fared in the impact. The B6-11's casing didn't rupture in any of the tests, including drops through concrete from 40,000 feet. All bomb casings were recovered 100 percent intact, according to the release.
Any debate inside the corridors of power about using tactical nukes will be heightened by the intelligence buzz surrounding bin Laden's possible ownership of Russian nuclear "suitcase" bombs purchased from Chechen mafia. Those weapons are said to be hidden in deep caves and fortified tunnels in remote regions of Afghanistan. Following the Sept. 11 attacks, the discussion of ways to eradicate this potential nuclear threat -- while simultaneously destroying bin Laden and his teams --- may have led to talk about tactical weapons that can destroy even heavily fortified underground shelters.
It is obvious that the US and UK have already deployed special forces on the ground and soon will be sending a lot more.
Guerilla tactics are pretty much the only way to take out guerillas. The Soviets proved that controlling the cities and highways with a lot of heavy armor just makes you a static target.
So, don't expect this to be bloodless for the US/UK. All this government rhetoric about how this will be a hard effort means "we're gonna take casualties."
The US ground troops will have far more technological assistance than the Taliban: GPS, helicopters, night vision, personal radios, satellite imagery, powerful individual weapons, artillery and air strikes on call. But the Taliban are on their home turf, and they are ready to die for the cause.
Probably the closest comparisons to prior conflicts can be made with the Indian Wars. During these conflicts between the US settlers and the Native Americans it is difficult to separate out the civilian casualties since much of the fighting was done by militias, etc. It should be possible to estimate civilians casualties for both sides in the Indian Wars by only counting women and children, and I would guess that the totals would be more than 6,000.
Of course the fact still remains that the number of civilian casualties that we've inflicted were much higher than those inflicted on us in the major wars of the 20th century. This is mostly a result of the fact that those wars weren't fought on American soil, but it bears consideration when trying to put the current conflict into historical context.
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
You know, If I were US intelligence I'd be watching the Kabul Al Jazeera office, personel, and visitors with everything we've got. It seems to me the easiest way to find bin Laden is to wait for him to send a message and then follow the courier(s)/mail trail/evidence analysis straight back to him.
The thing no one seems to mention is that every system has strengths and weaknesses, including the shadowy al quaeda. They may go to great lengths to keep their actions secret, but by the same token their communications are slow, infrequent, physical in nature, and (most importantly) difficult to authenticate, and even more difficult to organize. An opening in the network, restrained tracking and mapping of the network, and a tightly coordinated disinformation campaign could tear it completely apart. And that's just for starters.
One thing I noticed from the bin Laden video - he's just like Saddam Hussein or any other would-be dictator, using war to expand and consolidate his influence with himself on top. He's doing a credible job, although I think the media is overly-surprised at his control of spin - this is a man whose main purpose is recruitment. But the bigger he gets, the harder he'll fall, and his inaccessibility will ultimately be his undoing because he'll have no way to defend himself. He can easily be trapped and caught and/or badly discredited, with no way to defend himself, and in the process all the followers he's developed can be humiliated and shamed.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
But thousands of American civilians are already dead in this conflict, greater civilian losses than in any war in U.S. history.
First we'll assume you mean U.S. civilians, as millions were killed in WWII, which is certainly still in the recollection of most Americans. Going a bit further back, but again certainly within U.S. history, there was the civil war. Do you honestly believe that there were not more civilians killed in that war?
Now on to your question. There is no doubt that our technology will benifit us. Do our GPS targetting systems work, certainly. Are our satellites as good as we think they are for battlefield intelligence? You betcha. Have our soldiers been better prepared both mentally and physically? Absolutley. Can the Taliban win this war? No chance.
But it isn't technology that gives us the real advantage. We had technology on our side in Vietnam. We didn't win. Sure, it wasn't nearly at the level we have now, and we didn't have the experience using what we had in real situations, but we simply were more powerful. But we didn't win. Why didn't we win? During Vietnam we were a divided nation. We had defeated the Viet Cong in South Vietnam by 1968. But the north saw our division here in America, and counted on us to give in to internal pressures. To make a long story short, we did.
Today there's no such division. The overwhelming majority of people in this country believe this is something that needs to be done. Sure there are some people who disagree, but they certainly aren't the majority. Our nation is united. The other nations of the world are also standing behind us. If we continue to stand united, we will win this war, just as we've won all other wars that we've stood through united.
When all is said and done, some may say that technology won the war. But the real reasons will have had nothing to do with technology.
Thanks for saying this. Half the time I watch the news, my roommate wonders why the hell I blurt out a "Shut the fuck UP!" every hour or so. (Side note - not all reporters are idiots; mad props to one reporter who, when questioned as to his whereabouts by his anchorman, replied with "Y'know, I think they said it was OK to tell you where I am, but I'm going to err on the side of caution for now. I'll tell you tomorrow.")
To Slashdotters reading this - you can help.
Do not post reports of military activity in your area. If you see lots of planes taking off from an airbase, or lots of planes landing, or lots of trucks moving about, or anything that might indicate our future plans, keep your mouth shut about it for a day or so before telling folks what you saw. Don't post names of people you know are on duty or being called up. Don't post unit numbers.
Exceptions can be made for breaking news, such as yesterday's intercept over Chicago, where our forces wouldn't be jeopardized. But I'm sure that anyone, with a moment's thought, can see the difference between "Holy shit, sonic booms over Chicago!" and "I wonder where all those planes and ships are going?"
Loose lips sink ships.
Here's a link that works:
Osama bin Laden: Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders
He is doing what he can to make violence seem reasonable. But it isn't.
Bush's education improvements were
airports, which were unlikely to be used in this
conflict, anyway, and which the US & UK will now
have to pay Afghanistan to rebuild, once the war
is over. See Sun Tzu's excellent paper on warfare
on why this is an incredibly stupid tactic.
The "minimal loss of life" has included UN
volunteer workers, when those carefully guided
missiles slammed into a UN-sponsored facility.
IIRC, this is not the first time "smart bombs"
have been fired by less-than-smart humans. The US
really should update its maps. I'm sure the
Chinese would help pay for some. Iraq and Libya
would probably chip in some cash, too, given the
number of civilians killed by "stray" missiles,
fired in anger by US pilots, in both countries.
The first problem is that the military are
unbelievably dumb. Giving them "smart" technology
doesn't make them any smarter. (Laptops and the
UK's MOD don't mix. Well, they do, and then they
seperate, with said laptops carrying information
MOD officials damn well aught to know better
should not be put on unsecure machines.)
The second problem is that even the "smart"
technology is far from "smart". The guidance
systems (camera-based, laser-guided, GPS, etc) are
all prone to error, and there seems to be very
little in the way of verification done. (If there
were, we wouldn't get stray missiles! The system
would be able to detect there was a problem, and
correct it.)
The third problem is that this kind of war
depersonalises it. Death and destruction at the
push of a button, with no understanding or
compassion. Reminds me a lot of Davros, from the
television series "Doctor Who", or the Cybermen.
In both cases, fictional descriptions of what
happens when you destroy the "human element", and
replace it with passionless machinary. How, then,
should we challange those things which -are- evil?
Again, the good Doctor answered this, in the story
"Evil of the Daleks" - cooperation, caring and
compassion are more powerful than brute-force and
power-plays.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I don't care what the US has done in the past, it has never targeted innocent people.
Not True. The most extreme counterexamples come from WW2, when US high command decided to start fire bombing residential neighborhoods in Tokyo and other Japanese cities. In this regard, the use of nuclear weapons was only a change in scale, not in policy. Other examples come from Germany WW2, Vietnam and Korea.
That (publicly known) US military policy doesn't involve targetting civilans doesn't mean it hasn't happened in the past, or can't happen again. I like the US, and I'm glad that technological advances allow for more accurate munitions. I just hope the people in charge can identify legitimate targets with equal accuracy.
Brainwashing is nothing new and can be really effective in the current war...
In fact, the US is already doing this in the name of "humanitarian aid" and "food dropping".
What I don't understand, is why they haven't dropped booklets in ARABICS as well.
Printing in English on the food packs is as stupid a move as you can make. With their literacy level how are they going to understand English?
Not really accurate.
Many weapons systems in the hands of NATO, US, and Russia are systems that our enemies can't get or don't have.
An example - Soviet fighters.
All the aircraft the Soviets and now Russians export are Export models with toned down sensors and weapons systems.
Same goes for the export versions of American fighters, missiles and sensor equipment.
American M-1 tanks, while in service with Egypt and Kuwait, have not ended up in the hands of the Taliban. Same goes for the F-16s and F-15s, Tornados in the hands of Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman or Indonesia.
Even "client" states like Iraq we unable to get the latest versions of Soviet T-72 or BMPs, instead having to buy knock-off T-84s from Yugoslavia and Chinese APCs. Not because of the price, but because the Soviets would not sell them the best gear. The T-62s and 72s Iraq had were the second or third best models the Soviets had, not the front-line models in East Germany.
Arms races are not new. The idea behind an arms race dates back to the first invention of weapons (other than a rock or stick) by man. The point is to inflict damage upon an enemy or the enemy society to the point that the enemy will no longer oppose your society in whatever venture you are currently at odds over. Where the "race" comes in, is to achive those goals with a lower cost in whatever your society holds dear, in this case it's material loses and life of your citizens.
One thing it looks like many people forget about is technology's role in the new world of Predictive Intelligence, something that only exists in it's infancy now, but has vast potential for this new kind of war.
A few years ago, I was working at a dot-com on some really fascinating "intelligent" software. It would pull out abstract information from unrelated data and form n-dimensional "clouds" where related entities would become grouped toegther. It would then proceede to "find faces" in the clouds. In other words, it would try to extrapolate out new information based on what information it was given, no matter how much or how little.
It was a simply amazing tool for data analysis, for pulling out the relevant information from a sea of data, for making educated guesses that actually give you results... But like all dot-coms, we frittered our money away and now I don't know if more than three people in the world even have copies of this once multi-million dollar software.
My point is, if we as a no-nothing dot-com can come up with a really fantastic data mining/information extrapolation engine (of course, we used it solely for short-sighted evil-marketing purposes, thus our demise), then the government could certianly be able to build a system fifty times as complex, and use it for vastly more important purposes than correlating CDs with clothing purchases.
The next step for military technology isn't going to be the next biggest bomb or the pair of night-vision goggles that will let you do macramé in a cave during a new moon. Instead the next advance will be predictive and learning software that can make "good guesses" as to when and where the enemy will strike next. It will be able to profile everyone in the world based on thier credit-card purchases corelated with thier taste in web-sites, thier shoe size, and how many hours of bowling they watch a year, and be able to spot the "sleeper" terrorists with a 99.982% degree of accuracy. It will be able to analyse battlefield data and predict troop movement, ambushes, and caculate the plan of action that would lead to the biggest victory with the smallest loss of life.
Don't get me wrong, though, high-tech gadgetry will play a role in the war, of course, but to delude ourselves into thinking that all we need is Rambo and night vision will just lead us straight back into Vietnam, or if you're a Russian, Afganistan...
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
With this as a benchmark, 40,000 Taliban/Al Qaeda troops can be defeated by conventional direct ground troup assualt with approximately 4800 US troops lost. The goal of all the technology is to reduce that 4800 number. It will do this dramatically. The ways technology will help us are:
- Precision bombing of air defenses to establish complete airspace dominance enabling rapid strike helicopter based special operations
- Satelite, drone, and "webcam" style recon to identify tactical targets and track troop and operative movements
- Precision heavy munitions: large 5,000 "bunker buster" bombs
- Precision tactical light munitions: smaller payloads such as precision mortar used tactically against troops
- "Painting" targets for aerial bombing by ground based forces allows attack without giving up position
- Night vision gives a decisive tactical superiority in guerilla fighting
- Communication monitoring, jamming, and even psych ops style transmitting & disinformation
In the end, it WILL still come down to special forces breaking down doors suddenly and killing at close range. Techology will assure that this is done against weaker immobilized opponents, that it comes rapidly with less warning, and that it occurs under conditions highly favorable to our troops.