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Advanced Surveillance Tech for Unmanned Drones Credited In Iraq
mathoda writes "Investigative reporter Bob Woodward states that America has developed secret capabilities 'to locate, target and kill key individuals in groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni insurgency and renegade Shia militias, or so-called special groups. The operations incorporated some of the most highly classified techniques and information in the US government.' The LA Times now reports, 'As part of an escalating offensive against extremist targets in Pakistan, the United States is deploying Predator aircraft equipped with sophisticated new surveillance systems that were instrumental in crippling the insurgency in Iraq, according to US military and intelligence officials.' Part of the capabilities appear to be that the unmanned flying drones can track targets even inside of buildings." Update by J : Bruce Schneier's readers have some thoughts.
Fetch me some flying robotic killing machines! I have some laser-equipped sharks to conquer!
Anyone who runs is a Taliban. Anyone standing still is a well-disciplined Taliban.
Women and children are easy to shoot. Just don't lead them so much.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
It's a cover-up! They have an Iraqi ninja clan on retainer.
getting closer and closer to a plot in a Terminator movie?
It would seem that hese are exactly the kinds of weapons that are needed to fight this new asymmetric war. Pretty amazing stuff. I wonder how much of this is propaganda and how much is real.
the end of violence
the US Government starts using this technology on its own people?
they easily forget we are the constituents (not the enemy).
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I too can see through walls, but I don't like to talk about it.
Investigative reporter Bob Woodward states that America has developed secret capabilities 'to locate, target and kill key individuals in groups such as non-partisans, For Freedom Fighters, the Free America insurgency and renegade Pro-True Democracy voters, or so-called special groups. The operations incorporated some of the most highly classified techniques and information in the US government.' The LA Times now reports, 'As part of an escalating offensive against extremist targets in the Fatherland, the United States is deploying Predator aircraft equipped with sophisticated new surveillance systems that were instrumental in crippling the insurgency in America, according to US military and intelligence officials.' Part of the capabilities appear to be that the unmanned flying drones can track targets even inside of buildings or voting booths.
Key bit from TFA:
Hmm, using heat signatures to detect persons within buildings is old hat. Any slashdotters care to comment on how one could, even theoretically, see within buildings and identify targets with any degree of precision?
Go somewhere random
but the "surge" and military tactics are only a small part of why violence has fallen in Iraq recently.
Monstar L
Real Genius I tell you
More reasons to spend tons of money on an unnecessary war.
I wonder if this technology will decrease or increase incidents like this:
Harrowing video film backs Afghan villagers' claims of carnage caused by US troops
"Villagers and the UN insist that 92 were killed, including as many as 60 children. Locals say that the US and Afghan troops who came into the village looking for a Taleban commander, with US air support, used excessive force... Local people say that US forces bombed preparations for a memorial ceremony for a tribal leader. Residential compounds were levelled by US attack helicopters, armed drones and a cannon-armed C130 Spectre gunship."
If you can track people in buildings, you'd think you'd be able to tell if they're children.
is the ability to hijack a conversation and send 2 distinct parties to different locations to meet their demise (or capture). Of course, that needs to be over a telecommunication AND you have to have control of it as well as the ability to decrypt it undetected. This approach fails, if the ppl live by each other or do not use telecommunication.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-FoXbjVI
for anyone who missed this gem...
This is the problem when the local population actively supports terrorism. If any of the supporters gets killed(or god forbid, children of a man hiding a terrorist in his house) we get to hear all the "The US forces are killing innocent people."
Yes, there are some deaths that could have been avoided, but those are the minority.
And before you guys flame me, I'm an Arab living in Israel, and I'm sick of hearing people here wail the same thing over and over again when an "innocent" person gets killed in Gaza.
the problem is that the enemy is using children. They surround themselves with their family and then when we hit they claim that it was all innocents. Simply put, in every hit that we have done in Pakistan, it has involved at least 1 top ranking A.Q. person. We would have preferred to not take out the family, but had little choice. And yes, the A.Q. is FULLY aware that they are being targeted in all places.
The red-white-and-blue Yeeeeehaw!!! in the good-guys corner and
The towel-headed slimy-skinned Jeeeeeehad in the terrorist-douchebag corner
The good guys, with the backing of GOD !!, has a new tactic; we blow them up real good!! from the air, by the HAND OF GOD !! Now whose wishing GOD !! was on their side, hmmmm? These towel heads won't need enemas anymore!!!
Roswell tech at work!!!
"Part of the capabilities appear to be that the unmanned flying drones can track targets even inside of buildings." But not in Afganistan or Pakistan apparently.
I am sorely tempted to say... pictures or it didn't happen.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
If the person has any type of electronic device on them, they could profile that device or devices and the typical use of those devices; including voice prints and keystroke profiles, and anything else particular devices does and then track that person.
They could then ident. that persons "network" of contacts through both proximity and cell calls, and with traffic analysis find the key node of that "network" and destroy them.
http://www.hawknest.com/
Not people. bomb making materials
Last week I posted a made up story on Crooks & Liars where I stated that the surge was just a cover for the deployment of aerial drones that could detect bomb making materials through walls. Hmmm, maybe my fiction is actually fact.
As anyone succeeded seeing the associated video of the interview in linux? :(
With Ubuntu, Firefox and Adobe Flash 9 all I see is a black box
Enemy combatants are sprayed or otherwise marked (lots of ways to do this) with a marker known as a "perfume" or a "stain." This marker works on a very, very small scale. It contains little devices that convert microwave energy into DC power (rectennae).
This effectively gives the military an "electrical output" somewhere on your body that they can use to read your signal. What is being output? Why, your biological signature. So the military fly over you while emitting microwaves, or otherwise light you up. Then they get a positive read on a Mr. Sadiq Abbad from Pakistan...and what's he doing with these other characters? Etc.
> And before you guys flame me, I'm an Arab living in Israel, and I'm sick of hearing people here wail the same thing over and over again when an "innocent" person gets killed in Gaza.
Yes, because obviously the children who get killed were not innocent at all, the little bastards. After all, when you choose to be born in a warzone, you have only yourself to blame when you get shot.
Dude, you are insane.
I'm an Arab living in Israel, and I'm sick of hearing people here wail the same thing over and over again when an "innocent" person gets killed in Gaza.
If you think that most of the people dying in Gaza aren't innocent you are mistaken. The sad fact is that most of the people affected by the conflict are civilians and that Israel pursues its enemies with a complete disregard for innocent human life.
The assasination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin is only one of many examples. Instead of using a sniper they fired *hellfire missiles* into the crowd killing 9 *bystanders* and injuring even more.
Didn't McCain's Surge solve all of our problems over there? Why would we need any of this fancy technology?
From the LA Times article:
Military officials noted that Predators' effectiveness declines as the winter months approach. Bad weather, especially in the high altitudes of the Afghan and Pakistani mountains, means that many days Predators and other drones cannot fly.
So the spokescritters are tight-lipped about almost anything else concerning the Predator's capabilities, but casually mention that they don't work as well during the winter months, which just happen to be coming up?
>"unmanned flying drones can track targets even inside of buildings."
Very, very unlikely. If the drone is using passive sensors, it would have to be sensing some emanations from the buildings. Assuming the baddies are smart enough to not use cell-phones or WiFi, that leaves infrared. Adobe and brick are darn good insulators in the infrared.
If the drones are using active means, the baddies can use lo-tech sensors (the eyeball, Fuzzbuster radar detectors, binoculars) to spot them and act casual.
Maybe the writer meant that the drones have enough endurance to loiter in the area until they come back out into the open.
Fundamental thoughts constantly in the heads of those that "do" this technology are, "what if it gets captured/inspected/duplicated/used against us?" I believe that, as in the micro processor business, the "state of the art" you can purchase right now today is at least 3 if not more versions back from that the vendor actually has working, either ready to roll or happening bench models. IF so, I wonder what's "on the slab" right now that would REALLY scare/impress us tech admirers?? I say that as once we humans read of this stuff on /., I do
not believe the technology is anymore truly a secret or is worried about much. I feel it's as if Intel just released a new gen of chips!
It might be compelling for /. visionaries to contribute their own tech ideas
for remote killing machines. SciFi from Simak, Silverberg or Herbert, wow,
from early Marvel Comics alone - Tony Stark, Bruce Banner?? SOME of those
devices might have actually worked. We become a bargain basement think tank.
More of a think "Mason Jar".
By the same logic, was it OK to fly planes into WTC?
If not, then why?
It seems, reasonably obvious from the description it's going to be some kind of receiver that uses waves other than visible light.
It could be an extra-sensitive FLIR type device, which allows picking up very very small thermal patterns, such as your footprints where you entered a building. Such tech could potentially even pick up a person's thermal signature through relatively thin ceiling materials... that would at least indicate how many people are inside, and where they all approximately are. You could track an individual from entry if he is the only one in that 10m/sq. area of building, or if everyone else but the target is largely stationary (eg. sleeping)... The new terrorist weapon of choice? Insulation.
I think this is the most straight-forward and obvious option. Despite spy fantasy novels, classified tech is very often based on the same things we civilians use, just improved in effectiveness by an order of magnitude, through spending ridiculous amounts of money to push the tech just a bit further along, and using impractically expensive (for civilians) designs and/or materials.
Alternatively, they could be doing this with something akin to radar, but at unusual frequencies that can apparently penetrate some common building materials.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
if they pursued their enimies with complete disregard for human life, you'd know it.
Air Force here- spent a lot of time around Predators and the equipment they are discussing. This article did not come as a surprise to me at all; in fact, I would say that this story was a non-story. Airborne weapons and avionics are designed to be modular and interchangeable. Outside of the actual flight computers, there is no reason that electronics like, for example, a laser targeting pod from an F-16 can't be mounted on an F-15. Heck, even the mounting hardware is the same.
This story is yet another "We're doing X, but IN SPAAAAACCE!!!" or "We're doing Y, but on WEEEEEEEED!!!".
This article could be about installing a Sony CD deck in a chevy. OMG!!!
I don't know what it is about the predator that gets /. stories up to 400-600 comments. Transformers was a movie. Robocop was a movie. These things are simply unmanned, remotely-piloted aircraft. They are slow and ungainly and prone to malfunction*. We've been using unmanned, remotely-piloted aircraft as drones since the early cold war. Your paranoia about the coming police state would be better spent on issues like voting machines and unconstitutional laws- you know, things that actually matter at this point. When the predators start coming for you, it will be because your elected officials passed laws to make it legal to hunt you down. Make your votes count this year.
*Need proof? here is a picture of one that decided to taxi off the runway and crash for reasons known only to it and the predator god: http://homepage.mac.com/hylic/vacation/index4.html
This was not uncommon during the time I spent there.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
War criminals.
The rules are pretty clear.
>I'm an Arab living in Israel
No you're not.
If killing children were America's goal, every child from Iraq to Afghanistan would be dead already.
A simpler explanation for the civilian deaths is the USA abhors it, and insurgents (or terrorists or freedom fighters or whatever you want to call them - I don't care) know it. Its avoidance of civilian deaths means that by living with civilians you ensure the US will be more reluctant to attack you and will take a very real propaganda hit every time it does.
Nobody with respect for innocent life would ever adopt this tactic, and "civilized" armies are forbidden from it for that and some other reasons. Not realizing this difference represents a major propaganda coup for insurgents.
It's almost hard to believe you meant that as a legitimate question, but I'll bite.
It has to do with intention and lack of reckless disregard. There were no legitimate non-civilian targets in the WTC. Even if there were, the attacks showed a complete disregard for the magnitude of civilian loss.
It's certainly true that the US and Israel have killed civilians without achieving legitimate military goals. But you can't say that they attack without regard to civilian casualties or that they don't try to learn from such mistakes.
I'm not claiming that killing children is the US goal. Quite obviously it isn't.
I'm just wondering if not killing children is the US goal.
You can hide among children as a terrorist, sure. But you can also claim there's sure to be terrorists who hid among the civilians you just bombed. I would like to believe the US military doesn't, but they're not completely trustworthy.
How come the parent was moderated as troll and the GP was moderated +1???
I would have done it the other way: there are quite a few innocent bystanders which are killed by these intervention with missiles, so I find the army guys gloating about how easy it is to fire a missile quite disturbing; I can understand why he has this viewpoint, but this doesn't mean I have to agree with it..
Whoever is standing next to the third most insane blood drinking madman of the region couldn't be sanely called "innocent bystander".
I would accept "hostage" or "meat shield" instead.
if they pursued their enimies with complete disregard for human life, you'd know it.
Nice toughguy talk, but I think what the parent meant was disregard for innocent human life, in-so-far-as the Americans would continue to float their offensive capabilities.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Oh, Slashdot is last on the news...
The fusion cells are here, the definite answer to asymetric terrorism, the "blitzkrieg" of the 21st century.
Its been all over the net the last year (militaryphoto, strategypage, longwarjournal, sicherheitspolitik and others) and centers around a new geek approach about hunting the bad guys down: Small teams with lots of freedom to move and as many toys to play with as they like. And also more secrecy than anything ever before. Think of "Mission Impossible", the classic series from the seventies, just with hundreds of teams in operation.
I am pretty surprised that the geek world hasn't had fusion cells in their focus earlier, it is the ultimate geek military unit.
"Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
Color me skeptical. I don't think they can "see" targets within buildings. Maybe they are able to tag a target with something, and that enables them to track "within buildings" but I don't think they have a remote sensing capability that can image or otherwise identify specific targets within a building from the air without any previous tagging measures. I call FUD. It is propaganda wrapped with a little bit of truth (capability) that they magnify with a story in the news media.
Innocent people would be killed anyways. Well, unless they just let the target go so he can do whatever else is on his agenda which probably means more innocent deaths.
If you don't believe me, here are the options, take the terrorist out with a missile, put troops on the ground and cause a firefight, or let the terrorist go about his way doing terrorist things. Sure, you can blockade the house and starve him out, that will usually cause an attack from supporters. If you have ever been in or around a fire fight, the bullets don't automatically say "Hmm, I guess I missed, I'm not going to be dangerous any more". No, they hit innocent people, they ricochet into other building or people, fragments from grenades land on innocent people, buildings catch fire and it isn't good.
So pretty much, innocents will be killed. Changing who and how doesn't matter that much and while it is a travesty and a shame that innocents do get killed, killing or capturing a terrorist is likely the least amount of civilian deaths scenario around even when kids get caught in the middle.
Why isn't he? Are you attempting to imply that the Jews hate Arabs or something?
There are many Arabs living in Israel. There are Europeans and Japanese living there too. And guess what, there are Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, and all sorts of other religious people living there besides jews. Jews probably dominate the population but by no means are other restricted from the country.
I think even if you believe the US is indifferent to the morality of civilian deaths (which it may or may not be - you can make a fair argument either way), it is at least aware that each is a propaganda victory for its enemies.
Given that Iraq is a counter-insurgency operation, it would be wildly irrational for the US to do anything but strive to avoid civilian deaths simply on *pragmatic* grounds. Nevertheless, there have been a lot of civilian deaths, so to explain that you could argue that the world's foremost military is actually a wildly irrational organization incapable of grasping that it's helping its enemies. Or you can argue that insurgents have worked out a good way to avoid getting shot. Personally I'd employ Occam's razor at this point and go with the latter.
They're just perfecting the system there before they start using it on the US civilian population.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
blog
> "Bruce Schneier's readers have some thoughts."
s/thoughts/irritating wisecracks/g
It's a damn shame no one over there seems capable of a serious discussion. The comments are a waste of time (even moreso than here)!
... our predator chickens come home to roost.
Say hello to my little sig.
There were no legitimate non-civilian targets in the WTC.
If you follow the logic through, the argument boils down to the idea that it's OK to kill innocent people if you have a sufficiently good reason. In the USA, we claim that killing non-civilian targets is a good enough reason - but we just kind of assume that the underlying reason for killing non-civilian targets is good enough.
For example, in Iraq we assume that whatever it is we are trying to accomplish over there is good enough to justify killing non-civilians and that we can't easily kill non-civilians without killing innocent children so that's OK too.
Even if there were, the attacks showed a complete disregard for the magnitude of civilian loss.
The US war on Iraq has killed many orders of magnitude more civilians than 9/11.
It's certainly true that the US and Israel have killed civilians without achieving legitimate military goals.
We agree on that.
But you can't say that they attack without regard to civilian casualties or that they don't try to learn from such mistakes.
Not when it comes to the big picture.
Has the USA looked with horror at all the civilians killed in Iraq and declared that it will never again launch a war of aggression? Has Israel looked with horror on all the civilians killed by its efforts to set up a country that consists primarily of one particular ethnic group, and declared that the effort has failed and that it will henceforth welcome all ethnic groups equally?
The way I see it, there are simple-minded people in the USA and the Middle East who think that their particular lifestyle and beliefs are so wonderful (and those of everyone else are so horrible) that it's OK to kill innocent people in order to force other people to adopt the same lifestyle and beliefs.
Anecdotal list of things I know:
In a previous life, I helped locate cell phones when they dialed 911 (or for that matter, did anything while powered on).
One of the team "used" to work for the CIA.
One of the team (different one) was dragged off and tossed in jail for playing paintball with terrorists. He was, of course, melatonally challenged.
One month, it was all the rage to do a feasibility design for putting the equipment that was normally located at each cell tower, in airplanes. At the end of the month, all the heads were nodding up and down. Nothing else was ever heard.
About a year later, the company moved out of the rathole, into a new fancy palace with purpose made R&D and test labs.
No significant new customers were identified.
A couple of years later, and there is a large R&D center in another city now mentioned as being part of the company. They could be doing anything, for all I know. I hope they are helping find people who are having heart attacks. I fear they are aiming missiles at cell phones.
Trying to get a cell phone without significant identification is hard.
Moral of the story:
Be good, and appear good to your government (and know who your government is, nevermind the outdated maps),
- or -
leave the batteries out of your cell phone unless you are calling for help - and then take them back out quick. And replace your cell phone (and SIM if required) after every use.
Hopefully, AC forever :-)
Well, I would like a picture of the house Osama bin Laden is in.
And a picture of the same house with an OBL shaped infra-red blob and shadow.
And a cross-hair.
And pictures of the remains of the house after it was nuked from orbit.
High resolution please.
But seriously, I was only joking about the pictures.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
How many terrorists were in the Chinese embassy that we bombed ten years ago in Belgrade? How many Al Queda operatives were in the Al Jazeera office that we "accidentally" bombed in Iraq? How many Taliban fighters was Pat Tillman standing next to when he was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan? And why are you talking about Pakistan when the parent was talking about a bombing in Afghanistan?
Claiming that the military never fucks up and that "there's always one target" in the crowd is fantasy at best, and a flat out lie at worst.
>And before you guys flame me, I'm an Arab living in Israel,...
From here you look like an Anonymous Coward.
No, it's because
And before you guys flame me, I'm an Arab living in Israel, and I'm sick of hearing people here wail the same thing over and over again when an "innocent" person gets killed in Gaza.
is about as believable as a wingnut like yourself claiming that Jimmy Carter was your favorite president.
The United States routinely hits military and economic targets when it's bombing some country back into the stone age. What were the Pentagon and the WTC? Military and economic targets.
This is why we need to watch what we do (i.e. not torture people) because we don't get to have one standard for ourselves and a much higher one for everyone else.
I'm guessing most. From the sensor grids along the Ho Chi Minh trail to the Sargent York gun, our military has a long and embarrassing history of promoting assorted, "can't tell you because that's a secret" crap, most of which turns out to be a combination of defense contractor welfare and those contractors acting out the fantasies of tech-illiterate military and political decisionmakers. (See SDI, aka "Star Wars".)
And remember the source here. Whatever he was in 1972, Woodward has been the asshole buddy of the Bush administration for a very long time now, who, whatever his attempts to make himself look good now may be, played a key role in sabotaging the career of CIA agent Valerie Plame to back Bush administration policy. Not to mention having helped the Reagan administration use Casey as cover for many of their most egregious crimes. Frankly, anybody getting repeated positive endorsements from folks like Peggy Noonan isn't somebody whose word I'm going to trust.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
The "terrorists" were using "human shields".
Despite the fact that such tactics NEVER seem to stop us. You would think that the "terrorists" would learn, wouldn't you?
They certainly seem capable of learning in ever other situation.
No, the "human shields" line is a lie. It's something they can repeat to themselves and others to justify the killing of innocents.
Without ever acknowledging that it is the killing of innocents that turns people into "terrorists".
So you admit that there have been lots of civilian deaths.
Ummm, did you somehow miss your own statement about "a lot of civilian deaths"?
It doesn't seem like it is "a good way to avoid getting shot" when we are shooting them and anyone near them.
Seeing as how that would require that the "insurgents" be both dead (lots of civilian deaths) and alive (good way to avoid getting shot) I think you should really review what "Occam's razor" is.
MOD PARENT INSIGHTFUL!
Website Hosting
The CIA and Pentagon already had Binladen in the sights of armed US attack drones in Afghanistan in 1998 at least once, but each argued the other (and the other's budget) was responsible for actually firing and killing him. The distraction of a blue dress waving in Congress drowned out the story, but it's still true 10 years later.
Just like Binladen is still at large 7 years later. 7 years after his attacks killed 3000 Americans, and plunged the country into this endless nightmare of failure catastrophe.
Most of which has been cranked up to the max by invading and occupying Iraq instead of capturing or killing Binladen and a few thousand of his henchmen in the Qaeda network. The past 7 years we've spent HUNDREDS OF $BILLIONS that we'll never get back in Iraq, the wrong war. And now we're hearing we've got killer drones in Iraq? Who the F cares?
Where the hell is Binladen already, goddamn it? Every one of you who wears a flag pin like a crucifix, who claims to pray for the soldiers and the country, who would trade even an inch of precious liberty for some of this fake security: where the hell is Binladen, and why the hell don't you care?
--
make install -not war
Why are we reading about it? does the media not think that perhaps the Al Queda has some operative that reads OUR news? ...
If you are afraid that the government is going to send drones to kill you, you can:
1. Get the government to stop using killer drones. Good luck with that!
2. Change the government. A proposition that is actually far simpler than you may think, now that we have collaborative web technologies. The project that is making it happen is called Metagovernment.
Erie is one of the Great lakes, a canal, and a city in Pennsylvania, a tribe of Indians, and many other things. But not what you mean.
I think the word you are looking for is "eerie." Slight difference, but somewhat important. Like the difference between "as" and "ass."
P.S. But who knew that there is, in fact, an Eerie, Indiana?
I find it far more believable then Jimmy carter. I like that comparison though.
I personally know an Arab living in Israel so it doesn't seem odd to me. Maybe it is to you because he calls himself an Arab, or something else, but it seems totally plausible to me.
I just this morning listened to Woodward's interview on Fresh Air and he talked specifically about this in a very vague, shadowy manner. Basically his point was that although the surge is credited with improving security, the gains are in large part due to some double-super secret new method we have of killing large amounts of people quietly, precisely and from afar. It seriously sounded as if the we had developed a death ray or something. It was creeeepy.
Good to know it's only sort of a death ray.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Asymmetrical war is ugly. The entire point of such a war is to use civilians as terrain. The guy with all the guns wants you fighting out in the open, while the guy with the smaller weaker force wants to dodge among civilian such that using your power results in needless casualties that simple further their cause.
The US would like nothing more than for insurgents to leave homes and families and go find a nice cave or tent to live in. You can drop MOABs on caves and tens, carpet bomb the area, and send in a squad of marines with orders to shoot anything that isn't a marine. It isn't an accident that civilians tend to die when insurgents die. It is part of their strategy to counter the fact that if you US knew that an insurgent was somewhere in a quarter mile radius of some place, they could merrily exterminate all life in the area. Toss some civilians into the radius, and now it means that they need find which house you are in AND when you drop a bomb it needs to be just big enough to do the job. If the bomb is too big, you whack more civilians than you are already going to kill.
It sucks, but if the US had a magical wand that made insurgents drop dead and all the civilians walk away unharmed, they would use it. They don't have it, and so the best they can do is give up fighting anyone willing to use civilians as cover or just accept that innocents are going to die and try desperately to keep the numbers down. Even if the US had no great moral compunctions about whacking civilians, it is counter productive to their goals. Each dead civilian is an insurgent victory.
The beauty of it all is Americans think all children are innocent, and the terror groups think all children are pawns for them to use.
our new preditor overloards.
This is why we need to watch what we do (i.e. not torture people) because we don't get to have one standard for ourselves and a much higher one for everyone else.
I agree with this part. The Bush administration, in condoning torture and promoting the idea that we can preemptively strike enemies has greatly weakened our ability to take the high ground. But I don't think even the worst of the Bush administration is remotely comparable to the WTC attacks.
F'ing hilarious ... better than the Team America version.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Actually it does.
So by "safest" you mean "killed".
That's a usage of "safe" that I was previously unfamiliar with.
Read your remark about "a black eye in the press".
By your "logic", that means that ...
Well, those are your words.
But that's what happens when you start believing in fantasies such as "human shields". Try to stick to the facts and basic logic in the future.
I didn't think I made that clear when I stated what I did - I was mod'ed 'Flamebait' twice so I think there's been a misunderstanding - I really hope so.
Ok, obviously we're pretty much all talking out of our asses here, but it is fun.
/. - so, why couldn't we be doing this?)
What about a real world "DVR" type of setup? Could you keep an entire city (Baghdad) under constant watch?
I'm trying to think this totally through, but I'd say it's probably very possible. It would take a monstrous amount of storage and throughput which would be difficult to manage and acquire, but not impossible for government and it would require a constant set of eyes in the sky. Surveillance satellites could do a lot, but perhaps not all, so you'd need roving bands of predators to fill in the gaps. I could see throughput from satellites being an issue, so predators may have to record, land and do a physical dump of recordings.
This way, when a suicide bombing occurs, you could rewind, see where they came from, see who spoke to them and find and capture/kill them, and hopefully find that person's boss, etc, etc.
Even if you couldn't see inside the buildings, you could track people going in and out... Yeah, the theory is out there, but realistically - what would make this impossible to do and be at least somewhat effective - even if you couldn't blanket an entire city, just the naughty bits?
(I'm sure someone won't be shy to point out if I've missed something here, and that's why I like
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Because caring about children is propaganda too!
I've gone online and looked again and while he did a lot of questionable stuff, such as his attempts to discredit the investigation, he didn't go public with the information he was fed about Plame.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Again nvm Bin Laden, he too was propaganda :-)
They saved his death pictures for when they run out of hellfires, soldiers and money. Don't worry, you'll get to see them in the end.
Mistakes are made as well. Canadian soldiers in particular seem to be at risk when US jets are bombing things.
Part of the cost of war is innocent lives. That reality has to be taken into account when you're deciding whether starting or continuing a war is worth it.
So what? I want to see him captured or killed already. Especially if that only happens at "the end", because then that's "the end". And even if he's just propaganda, it's now essential that the US win that propaganda war, too.
--
make install -not war
"This is the problem when the local population actively supports terrorism."
Yea, like the VC...
Extermination of at least some part of the civilian populace is absolutely essential for attaining our goals in Afghanistan. George Orwell supports this argument in his essay "As I Please":
The other thing that needs dealing with is the parrot cry "killing women and children." I
pointed out before, but evidently it needs repeating, that it is probably somewhat better
to kill a cross-section of the population than to kill only the young men. If the figures published by the Germans are true, and we have really killed 1,200,000 civilians in our
raids, that loss of life has probably harmed the German race somewhat less than corresponding loss on the Russian front or in Africa and Italy.
Any nation at war will do its best to protect its children, and the number of children killed in raids probably does not correspond to their percentage of the general population. Women cannot be protected to the same extent, but the outcry against killing women, if you accept killing at all, is sheer sentimentality.
Indeed, any Afghan child raised in wartime is a potential enemy sympathizer, and in the interest of speedy resolution to this already protracted conflict, it would be prudent to put a significant to death.
Extermination of at least some part of the civilian populace is absolutely essential for attaining our goals in Afghanistan. George Orwell supports this argument in his essay "As I Please":
The other thing that needs dealing with is the parrot cry "killing women and children." I
pointed out before, but evidently it needs repeating, that it is probably somewhat better
to kill a cross-section of the population than to kill only the young men. If the figures published by the Germans are true, and we have really killed 1,200,000 civilians in our
raids, that loss of life has probably harmed the German race somewhat less than corresponding loss on the Russian front or in Africa and Italy.
Any nation at war will do its best to protect its children, and the number of children killed in raids probably does not correspond to their percentage of the general population. Women cannot be protected to the same extent, but the outcry against killing women, if you accept killing at all, is sheer sentimentality.
Indeed, any Afghan child raised in wartime is a potential enemy sympathizer, and in the interest of speedy resolution to this already protracted conflict, it would be prudent to put a significant number children to death.
>But you can't say that they attack without regard to civilian casualties or that they don't try to learn from such mistakes Sabra and Shatila, the "Iron Fist" in Lebanon, collective punishment in the occupied territories: What has Israel done to "learn from these mistakes"? Their behavior is the same in 2008 Gaza as 1982 Lebanon. How many times have the Americans blown up the innocent or just plain had the wrong target in Iraq? Or in Panama (they missed their military target they had hours to accurately target (it was a military installation that had been in the same building for years) and blew the hell out of the adjacent neighborhood which the US later promised to rebuild but never did). And they just did it again in Pakistan. And all they do is dispute the numbers of killed. "We don't do body counts." - General Tommy Franks, US Central Command
How long before someone hijacks one of these UAVs?
We would have preferred to not take out the family, but had little choice
You have a choice. Just get out of Afganistan and Iraq. Just stop killing people abroad.
Isn't this Microsoft, SCO or any other evil overlord betatesting their software in Irak before developing their VIP software for others?
Like ..
(1) Create alpha software
(2) Test in Irak
(3) Test results
(4) Profit
Oh, bother, this topic is about weapons ..
still, somewhere in comedy; I think the resemblance is here! Hey look! A pink bunny!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
If killing children were America's goal, every child from Iraq to Afghanistan would be dead already.
no, you've got it wrong. if killing children were america's goal, every terrorist from iraq to afghanistan would be dead already.
I'm not quite sure I understand. Colour me unimpressed with this patriotic ego tripping.
Back on topic, either these drones are pumping out an imperial fuck ton of RADAR energy to get a paint on the largely water based bipedal elements inside, or it's plain old propaganda. My vote is on the latter given the dimensions of the aircraft itself and its power plant. 115 HP Rotax engine. Yeah right.
This is twitching the bullshit needle.
Time to go after Bin what's his name.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Straight out of the Robert Sheckley story "Watchbird", part six of the "Masters of Science Fiction" TV mini-series.
Be afraid. Be damend scared.
--
ONE HAPPY WORLD
It saves our troops' live
Not stupidly sending them aound in "War as a solution for everything" campains, in the first place, would also save their lives...
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Let me guess--you're an engineer for a multi-national arms contractor?
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
foot soldier, an engineer would have put it 4 parts technology.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds