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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.
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 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
That comment is so ironic that I really don't know what to say.
Where the Taliban live has absolutely nothing to do with grammar. It's more like geography and political science.
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.
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.
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
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
>And before you guys flame me, I'm an Arab living in Israel,...
From here you look like an Anonymous Coward.
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.
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.
The way it usually works in real life is
1 part better technology,
1 part better strategy,
2 parts better tactics,
3 parts better trained troops
2 part less foreign financial aid to the insurgents,
1 part insurgents getting scared shitless because they are getting killed left and right
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
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.
"Personally I was in favor of kicking Saddam out, however when in the first few days of the war the US disbanded ALL of Iraq's existing military and civil institutions, I knew they had stepped into quicksand."
What the hell WERE they thinking? New Orleans went to hell within days of Katrina. Remember the blackout riots in New York? What made them think an entire country could exist without a police force? GOD it still pisses me off to think about it. We could have been out by now with thousands of soldiers lives saved if they had been smarter about it. Fuck people like Saddam but that was the height of stupidity.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.