Air Force Planning New Drone Fleet For Pakistan

mattnyc99 writes "With tensions high on the border, a new commander in Afghanistan, and complaints of civilian deaths from robotic US strikes in Pakistan raising anti-American sentiment, the Air Force is sketching out concepts for new robotic hitmen, reports Esquire.com. Among the new drones (which are all very small) are the Suburb Warrior (loaded with four or five mini missiles for semi-urban environments), the Sniper targeting system ("that can lock on to multiple targets, allowing a single drone pilot to coordinate the attacks of a squadron of robots"), and a backup fleet of flying buggies that act as suicide-bomber snipers. From the article: 'Picking through the dozens of systems in this briefing, many of which will be flight-tested within five years, there's a clear set of goals: build smaller, even microscopic drones with smaller weapons that can hunt in swarms and engage targets in the close quarters of urban battlefields. And hunt as soon as possible.'"

Comments

Esquire the Magazine.

[arizwebfoot]

Esquire.com top 3 stories:
This one.
The greatest karaoke song of all time.
How the american man "really" spends his day.

Not sure that I would put all my magical beans into that lone basket.

loss of ressources

[dwarfenhoschi]

When i hear something like that i must always think about what cool stuff all those scientists could have made if they would have put there efforts into something usefull like Space travel or something...im sure we could have a freaking warp drive *g*

Re:loss of ressources

[MichaelSmith]

Civilian space development is just an excuse to do military development on the sly. Consider the Chinese manned space programme. Their Government wants the capability but not so they can plant a flag on the moon eventually.

Re:loss of ressources

[L3370]

Its also worth noting that war has driven technological advances much faster than any other single reason, so I wouldn't go as far to say science has been wasted on war. One example...Emergency room trauma techniques and equipment were perfected on the battlefield. millions of lives have been saved because of the millions that were killed or maimed in war. some of the coolest gadgets we use today came from the research done in finding ways to kill eachother.

Re:loss of ressources

[dwarfenhoschi]

ok maybe i did say it a bit wrong...i dont want to say that there is no development through this, i just think those things should be developed for civil uses and then for military uses (which will ahppen inevitably with pretty much every technology)

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[GodfatherofSoul]

The more "harmless" wars start to look, the easier it will be for politicians to convince the public to go to war. Look at how itchy a trigger finger our "all volunteer" army has given US Presidents. "What do I care? It's not MY kid."

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[Darkness404]

But losing robots isn't going to make a government quit, like losing so many human soldiers can.

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[giorgist]

So with no soldiers to kill, it will be who runs out of money or civilians or infrastructure ...

I agree it's better. Until now we were watching war on TV between mercenaries.
Now we will hear our little Johnny at school got blasted away war may not be a great spectator sport.

only a matter of time

[rastoboy29]

It's only a matter of time before anybody, anywhere in the world can be picked off by a robot without any warning.

It's modern technology, Bobby!

Re:only a matter of time

[radtea]

It's only a matter of time before anybody, anywhere in the world can be picked off by a robot without any warning.

Correct, and the vile idiots designing and deploying these systems for the United States should be asking themselves, "How will I feel when one of them kills an American president?"

Because they will. These are assassination machines, and the only thing that has kept assassination at bay as a first-line political tactic is the certainty that the assassin will die or get caught, and therefore be traceable back to their handlers.

The incredible thing, to me, is that we are still so far from a world of ubiquitous political assassination. The writing has been on the wall since the early '90's. And as is usual with these things, once the cycle of tactical violence has begun, it will be very, very difficult to stop. Even in cases where it is screamingly evident to absolutely anyone with two brain cells to rub together that more violence will never under any circumstances improve the situation, people on both sides keep doing it (I'm thinking of the Palestinian-Israeli situation, ON BOTH SIDES.)

So after the first presidential candidate dies, say around 2020, the urge to retaliate will be overwhelming. After that, it's tit-for-tat, all the way to hell.

It won't be the parties doing the killing, either. These things are, or should be, relatively cheap, and the programming is not that difficult. The only reason they are currently expensive is that it is the US government doing it. An "open source" killer robot drone would cost at most a few thousand bucks (use an off-the shelf 1/10th scale RC model as the basic platform).

How would you like to live in the world when any nutjob with a few thousand bucks to spare can assassinate anyone? Because that's the world you'll be living in, soon enough.

Re:only a matter of time

[Plunky]

Your moms basement is not a bunker!

Re:only a matter of time

[radtea]

When a politician puts his own personal life on the line when he decides to do something nasty to another nation and decides that it is worth risking his personal life, it is vastly more likely that the cause is 'just'.

You're not thinking this through. You're assuming we can have pretty much the same kind of social and political structures that we have now in a world where political assassination is pretty much consequence-free for the perpetrators.

Take a look at English society during the first generation of the War of the Roses to get an idea of what the future might look like: the primary tool of war at that time was political assassination, the leaders of both sides knew it, and they still fought for a cause that to modern eyes looks almost completely pointless.

Now imagine a world where it isn't just princes and presidents who have this technology, but triads and motorcycle gangs. Ask yourself, "What would Tony Soprano do?"

The landscape will change. "God made man, Colt made men equal" is a bit of an overstatement, but it's not a huge surprise that democratic forms of government grew up in the West at about the same time firearms were becoming widely available.

The technology of killing changes the social landscape, although how it does so depends on purely social factors as well. So don't assume the world of tomorrow will be "just like today, but with robotic assassination machines." The equilibrium will shift, and not necessarily for the better.

Re:only a matter of time

[Bat Country]

These are assassination machines, and the only thing that has kept assassination at bay as a first-line political tactic is the certainty that the assassin will die or get caught, and therefore be traceable back to their handlers.

Nonsense. What stops assassination from being a matter of global policy is a sort of tacit mutual consent to not do it. When you order the assassination of a world leader, you make yourself vulnerable to the same thing. It's the same thing which kept nuclear weapons out of every war since the first one they were used in - the realization that you don't want to live in a world (and probably can't) in which that sort of thing becomes the Right Way To Do Things.

World Leaders (tm) don't want to be assassinated by Other World Leaders, so they don't order assassinations. It's the same sort of gentleman's agreement that kept people from just ordering the sniping of generals behind enemy lines - at least until guerrilla warfare became fashionable. War is still very much fought like a sport - you have mutually agreed-upon rules which state what you don't do, and people who break the rules get put down very quickly because they lose the protections which keep them safe behind their battle lines. We may be seeing a real break in those "gentlemanly" rules of engagement (of which the Geneva Conventions are just a few) for the first time in 150 or so years (since the Americans pioneered the grand idea of not marching down the center of a field getting shot up.)

I'd also like to point out that if only 2 or 3 countries in the world have the technology to build these "assassination machines," the funding to mass-produce them, the expertise to employ them, and the vehicles to deliver them, then tracing a robotic assassin will be actually much easier than tracing a normal meatspace assassin who at least has the option of employing a cyanide capsule in order to erase their backtrail.

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[CosmicRabbit]

Besides robots don't have feelings. They don't ever testify about the horrors of war, refuse to commit atrocities when ordered to do so, or have to deal with PTSD afterward.

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[L3370]

its also about material resources, not just bodies. a war between robot armies will be won by the one that has the most access raw materials metal, oil, coal, T-1000 morphing goo... etc.

If the technology gets in wrong hands

[Anonymous Coward]

If bad guys get hand on this technology which seems likely because these flying creatures will be ubiquitous and in close contact then no one will be safe even presidents of countries .

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[snowraver1]

I think the idea is to have robots kill people... This is basically nuclear warfare without the fallout. Nukes have a couple of problems. They cause fallout, massive civilian deaths, mutations to future births, etc. They are great, however, because they can be used to kill & deal enormous amounts of damage from afar, with no soldiers on the ground.

Likewise with these drones and robots and what have you. The point, once again, is to make killing massive amounts of people as simple as pressing a button, with no soldiers on the ground. Sure, it's not as bad as nukes, but to me it seems like a technology that is as game changing and disruptive.

Setting ourselves up for failure?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of these UAVs still require input from a human operator in order to receive authorization to fire. What happens when we fight anyone with moderate technical capabilities? The first thing that I would do when up against a drone army is to break out the RF jammer or a moderately powered microwave dish effectively denying the UAV access to the battlefield.

Re:Setting ourselves up for failure?

[digitalchinky]

I hope you've got a lot of jammers and people willing to set them up, because that same UAV that just noticed it can't talk to HQ any longer has just slaved a human pilot in to the zone. He or she is ready to unleash a few HARM's on target to clear up any noisy patches.

Re:Setting ourselves up for failure?

[couchslug]

"The first thing that I would do when up against a drone army is to break out the RF jammer or a moderately powered microwave dish effectively denying the UAV access to the battlefield."

No chance UAV designers would take THAT into consideration! :)

Re:Setting ourselves up for failure?

[PhxBlue]

The first thing that I would do when up against a drone army is to break out the RF jammer or a moderately powered microwave dish effectively denying the UAV access to the battlefield.

Which is why Air Force Space Command has spent money investing in Wideband Global SATCOM, Advanced Extremely High Frequency, etc. Spot beams, EHF and powerful transmitters make any signal to a UAV extremely difficult to jam.

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[badboy_tw2002]

I'd say the large numbers of civilians killed in conflict since WWII would disagree with you. There's been a lot of examples throughout history of making states capitulate by attacking civilian populations, but the axis & allied carpet bombing campaigns in Europe really put the idea in motion that civilians were responsible for the war making machine, so to kill the machine you need to take out the capability of making tanks, bullets, ball bearings, gas, etc. Once you go that far, why stop at the factories? Why not bomb the workers in the factories directly at their homes.

Having robots do the bombing doesn't change any of this, its just that one side has a lot less to lose.

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[tbischel]

The more "harmless" wars start to look, the easier it will be for politicians to convince the public to go to war.

One could argue that the opposite has been seen over the past century, as mobilization of antiwar sentiment happens earlier and earlier over the course of progressively less costly wars (in terms of American casualties). I would argue that the effects of mass media far out-trump an effective military when it comes to gaining popular support.

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[Korin43]

Or the other option is we could stop killing each other. Of course, then we'd have to think of something else to talk about on TV.

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[shutdown -p now]

Or the other option is we could stop killing each other.

Sure we could. But I don't trust you, so I'm gonna have to ask you to drop the gun first. Once you do that, I'll drop my own, too... I promise! Honest!

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[couchslug]

"Look at how itchy a trigger finger our "all volunteer" army has given US Presidents. "What do I care? It's not MY kid."

That statement ignores the many and frequent interventions, wars, and military actions before the advent of the Volunteer Force. Google ye some Smedley Butler for examples. :)

There isn't evidence that the politicians sending the military to war don't care about the troops, even if they mismanage them sometimes due to situational ignorance. The military itself during the pre-volunteer days often treated troops badly, and now that it must compete for recruits standards of living have _greatly_ improved.
Casualties are far more controversial than during the Cold War, and vast amounts have been invested in protecting troops. (Going into Iraq under-armored was provably and specifically the fault of the military, not the politicos. The Army refused to learn from Mogadishu years before.)

It's all fun and games until....

[Ozlanthos]

Almost all scientific break-throughs/developments go through a clearly observable cycle. 1. Theoretical, 2. Experimental 3. Prototypical, 4. Militaristic 5. Commercial 6. Entertainment. Granted that a very few developments skipped a step or two, but for the most part, the cycle holds true. Which makes me wonder....how long it will be until we can be watching drones "police" us on Cops????

-Oz

Re:It's all fun and games until....

[ring-eldest]

Coming this Fall on NBC....

You were there when we lured perverts into the spotlight with Chris Hansen... You were there when the "busts" went down. Now, join us as we team up with local law enforcement in an effort TO CATCH A PREDATOR DRONE!

BigLaunch42: Oh baby, you sound HOT.
Sparkleflames12: I am, honey.
BigLaunch42: Right out of the factory, you say?
Sparkleflames12: I'm so new my sparkles are still compartmentalized top-secret.
BigLaunch42: Is your operator at home?



Chris Hansen: Why don't you have a seat right over there.

Re:It's all fun and games until....

[i_b_don]

"Almost all"??? Bullshit.

Lets start listing breakthroughs and developments that aren't militarized first:

heart surgery, anigioplasty, television, cellular phones, CAT scans, chemotherapy, vaccinations, dental implants, hearing aids, digital photography, digital video recording, dark matter, DNA, plate techtonics, AIDS medicine, gene therapy, mapping the human genome, HIV testing, the remote control, insulin, kidney dialysis, plasma television, flat panel television, MRIâ(TM)s, pacemakers, photovoltaic cells, antidepressants, robots in production lines, scanning electron microscopes, smoke detectors, the birth control pill, performing organ transplants, UPC codes, and Viagra

In addition practically all modern electronics were not built with the military in mind nor were they initially used for military. This includes things like multi-million transistor processors, gigabit memory chips, high resolution flat panel displays, gigabit eithernet, etc. The military has a different set of requirements before it uses technology than corporations. They demand a higher level of stability and reliability than a commercial enterprise requires. As such a corporation is going to use the highest performance CPUâ(TM)s on their workstations and desktops while inside a nuclear sub theyâ(TM)re going to still be using Pentium IIâ(TM)s that have been thoroughly evaluated and proven to work.

Commerce drives way more R&D development in this day and age than does the military. There are lots of exceptions because the military has a different set of requirements and therefore they research different things, but the time when the military drives "almost all scientific break-throughs" is long dead. The military still drives some scientific development, but itâ(TM)s a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the scientific community.

d

Re:It's all fun and games until....

[Ruie]

You have many bad examples.

First of all, there is a difference between a final product and the original discovery. For example, plasma televisions are a product.

Secondly, during early days of semiconductor industry almost all US output was bought up by the military - to the degree that first consumer transistor radios were made by Japanese who were prohibited from having their own military. CCDs and digital cameras were widely used in satellite imaging - Hubble had at least two military twins that were pointing down to look at Soviet Union. Robots and automation dates centuries back when most consumers could not afford its products (for examples take a look at screw machines or Leonardo's sketches).

Thirdly, commercial companies did a lot of R&D when there was a military consumer tasked with opposing Soviet Union. After the latter collapsed most companies quickly downsized or got rid of their labs - this includes AT&T, Xerox, GM, GE, HP and others I don't recall. As of now, corporate labs employ a small fraction of scientists they once had.

The sad fact is that so far the societies as a whole have never pursued the scientific frontier unless threatened by outside force, preferring instead to concentrate on improving quality of life, socialization between themselves and redistribution of wealth. The "good" news is that with the rest of the world coming into the modern age the competition for resources will only increase along with tensions between nations and, if we are lucky, will confine itself to pursuit of science and technology.

The biggest issue of the 21st century...

[Paul Fernhout]

The biggest issue of the 21st century is post-scarcity technology wielded by people still preoccupied with fighting over perceived scarcity.

Nuclear power, biotech, AI, robotics, nanotech, the internet, and social bureaucracy -- each of these technologies could make the earth a paradise if developed for humane ends.

Albert Einstein said: "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."

The same is true for robotics, biotech, and the rest. Even smart networked watches. :-)

Re:The biggest issue of the 21st century...

[geekoid]

And he was wrong.
Sorry, but we use Atomic power fro a lot more peaceful ends then harmful.
We know how terrible they are, and as such strive for diplomacy.
Ironic, if countries without nuclear weapons would stop trying to build nuclear weapon, eventually they would go away.

Re:The biggest issue of the 21st century...

[religious freak]

The biggest issue of the 21st century is post-scarcity technology wielded by people still preoccupied with fighting over perceived scarcity.

Some things may not be scarce with the advancement of technology, but I would say it would certainly take a pretty big leap in technology to make the land between Israel and Palistine "non-scarce" (for example).

Re:The biggest issue of the 21st century...

[Paul Fernhout]

If we use atomic power for more peaceful ends than harmful (like in medicine, or for structural analysis with x-rays), it is precisely because of aspects of the collective human heart that Einstein referred to. A lot of people out there are trying. But it might have been hard to imagine that in the 1940s. Examples are in this book:
"Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement In the World Came Into Being and Why No One Saw it Coming"
    http://www.blessedunrest.com/
"Paul Hawken has spent over a decade researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice.
From billion-dollar nonprofits to single-person dot.causes, these groups collectively comprise the largest movement on earth, a movement that has no name, leader, or location, and that has gone largely ignored by politicians and the media. Like nature itself, it is organizing from the bottom up, in every city, town, and culture. and is emerging to be an extraordinary and creative expression of people's needs worldwide."

Slashdot itself is an example of this phenomenon; in the Slashdot case, rather than using computers to target and kill supposed "enemies" using flying robots, post-scarcity computer technology is being used to support dialogue creating a learning community which is empowering people to make life-affirming changes in the world, to make more of the world into friends. The best way to get rid of an "enemy" is to become friends.

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[ceoyoyo]

It's a continuation of the changes that began with the first mechanized warfare, and robotic warfare is indeed worse than what we have now.

When soldiers fought one-on-one the only way to pacify your enemy was to kill, capture or otherwise eliminate his soldiers. When we started fighting wars with machines, industrial power and the civilians that were responsible for it became more important. You could still win by killing or capturing the other guy's soldiers, but now you could also win by depriving them of the machines they needed to fight effectively. That means taking out factories or convincing the civilians that work in them that they don't want to be at war anymore. When we fight with only machines, no men involved, the only option will be to destroy the civilian's will or ability to fight.

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[EdIII]

they will do so without any hesitation, because machines do not hesitate.

Unless they run on Microsoft :)

This stuff...

[Anachragnome]

This stuff needs to be treated like nuclear weapons in terms of international condemnation. It is much harder to determine if a rogue country is trying to build such technology and is therefore MORE dangerous then nuclear weapons.

Drone weaponry, especially the microscopic crap they are dreaming about (but seriously working on), are just as dangerous as biological weaponry. Borders will mean nothing to the people that have this capability.

I don't care if it IS us that will have this technology. It needs to be stopped before we have ourselves another Cold-War, or worse, a real war.

I don't trust ANYONE with this tech.

Re:This stuff...

[lennier]

So then his drones will fight the government drones, and the TV newsdrones will be recording it, and then the SWAT drones will turn up, and then the blogger drones, and before you know it some smart-alec kid's wearing an EVA-01 suit and that's when things get *really* out of hand.

We have the same thig in the U.S.

[Motard]

Just last weekend I went to the American Modelers Association's Futaba Extreme Flight Championships. It was basically figure skating for R/C aircraft done to music.

The fixed wing aircraft were impressive for the things they could do that their bigger piloted cousins could never do (such as nose-up hovering). But the real eye openers were the helicopters.

The small R/C helicopters in those experienced fifteen-year-old hands could pretty much do anything you could think of: Instant transitions between vertical directions like they had vertically opposed rockets, instant recoveries from uncontrolled flight, rolls, twists, hovering while the fuselage was vertical, limited upside-down flight, etc.

One of my first thoughts was "Wow, you're not going to hit that with an RPG." I'm not sure about the range of their radios, or if such control could be extended beyond line of sight, but the thought of such controlled (and relatively low tech) chaos unleashed on a battlefield could gave me the willies.

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[geekoid]

Yes, but this means dewer men and women getting hurt and killed.

War has improved dramatically since WWII
Fewer deaths, more precision, fewer ancillary casualties.

It's not greate, but is is a lot better.
  Ever notice how it's gotten 'easier' yet there aren't any world wars?

Not to down play the efforts of the men an women in are armed forces, but it sure take a lot fewer of them to do the job.

Re:Talk about Warmongering

[Anonymous Coward]

You think weapons have changed anything? You're fucking retarded. Why does England have such a problem with knife violence. Weapons don't cause violence, encourage violence, or really do anything except change the shape of the wound. People cause violence.

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[selven]

I think moral judgements should be done objectively, by people strategically thinking about how to minimize damage, not by people in the heat of the moment who refuse to shoot at a civilian but are perfectly fine with interrupting their food supply and killing hundreds of people that way.

to stop killing each other

[circletimessquare]

all you have to do is:

1. stop people believing in something
2. stop people from having passions in their beliefs

war and love are permanent aspects of mankind, two sides of a coin. you can't have one without the other. both are immutable unavoidable implications of having passion in something. we will never stop waging war, or love, as long as we exist as a species

Re:to stop killing each other

[ArcherB]

1. stop people believing in something

The only thing you have to stop people from believing in is their right to impose their beliefs on others. Whether it be Islamists trying to convert the world into a Sharia state, or the U.S. trying to 'help' foreign countries be democratic, no good comes of meddling in others' affairs. Sadly it's one of the most basic human endeavours.

OK, but what do you do if a tyrannical government is forcing its "beliefs" on a powerless populace that doesn't want them? Do you stand by and watch innocent men, women and children be forced into state sponsored slavery and/or get slaughtered by the thousands or millions? Do you turn your head when genocide takes place even though you have the power to stop it?

Most wars are not started by one state wanting to force its way of life on the population of another state. Most wars happen for resources and liberation. So when you say no good comes of meddling in others' affairs, I'll ask you to tell that to a holocaust survivor, or Rwandan refugee. Sometimes, war is not only necessary, but a good thing. Yes, war is hell, but sometimes it's better than the alternative.

Re:to stop killing each other

[ArcherB]

The Kuwaitis love us!

Of course they do - they slant drill into Iraq, Saddam bitchslaps them, and we go roll over him after telling him we wouldn't.

That is one of the bullshit excuses Saddam used to invade Kuwait. Of course, you believe it because a guy that rapes the wives of the political opposition and sends the video to her kids has so much credibility. But I'll let it stand because I was talking about the people who live in Kuwait. This doesn't just mean the sheiks in their Rolls, but the Bangladeshi workers, the Bedouins, the jewelry store owners, the guy selling pots, pans and prayer rugs and so on. These guys didn't (supposedly) "slant drill" into Iraq. They went to work everyday trying to feed their families.

Oh, and your bullshit excuse aside, you didn't mention Germany, Japan, Italy and the rest of the places I mentioned. Or was Germany justified because they were framed for sinking the Lusitania?

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[qbzzt]

They don't ever testify about the horrors of war, refuse to commit atrocities when ordered to do so, or have to deal with PTSD afterward.

Except these aren't robots - they're remote controlled. The controllers do see the horrors of war and can get PTSD even though their lives were not at risk. And ordering these remote controlled UAVs to commit atrocities seems like a way to make sure the court martial finds you guilty - their sensor input can probably be recorded for evidence.

Killing massive amounts of people

[qbzzt]

The point, once again, is to make killing massive amounts of people as simple as pressing a button, with no soldiers on the ground

Did you read the article? The point of this technology is to kill targeted people with as little collateral damage (= dead innocents) as possible. To quote the article:

Instead of dropping Hellfires or a 500-pound bomb on an insurgent hideout, one or more Suburb Warriors could fire a volley of mini-missiles at confirmed targets, without vaporizing the wedding reception next door.

Re:Why we need less military

[fractoid]

They use guerrilla warfare, which is notoriously ineffective, because it's the best they can do.

It's what the who now? Guerrilla warfare is a P.R. and resource-denial strategy rather than an invasion strategy. That doesn't change the fact that it's incredibly effective, which is why the behemoth that is the U.S. military can't 'beat' a bunch of scruffy extremists hiding in schools and hospitals. The problem with guerrilla warfare is a moral one - in order to engage in it you need to be willing to get a lot of innocent people killed.

Smartship

[wasted]

they will do so without any hesitation, because machines do not hesitate.

Unless they run on Microsoft :)

I don't believe it.How the fuck does Microsoft bashing fit here?

Because it is believed that a Microsoft-based machine will likely have an error/crash, thus causing hesitation, such as happened with the USS Yorktown for a couple of hours.

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[Hecatonchires]

And they'll be conditioned in the same way a counter-strike player is to being teabagged after they die. They'll yell at the screen and have another caffeinated beverage. At the end of their shift, they'll walk out jostling shoulders, cracking their knuckles and necks, and joking about who's on the leaderboard. Hell, by the time its fully up and running, live modding of the video stream will be advanced enough to put a red halo around the bad guys feet (like in an RTS), a green around your side, and blue around allies. Maybe yellow around the french ^_-

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[h4rm0ny]

Yep. It's even easier to dehumanize your enemy when they exist only on a computer screen. And dehumanizing your enemy is what it's all about. They're not "people", they're "terrorists" or whatever word you've conditioned people to use as a substitute for thought. The article says around 650 people have been assassinated in Pakistan by US forces so far. No trials, no declaration of warfare, not even a tactical need to seize a position. Just US drones flying into another country and shooting people who are inconvenient. Disgusting.

Re:Why we need less military

[Philip_the_physicist]

In the Peninsular War, the Spanish guerrileros were so effective that there were many areas where the French wouldn't send anything smaller than a battalion. It was this which massively weakened the French army, by making their entire supply chain unstable. Whilst the partisans didn't win the war alone, they were as important as the Anglo-Portuguese army, especially in the earlier years of the war.

there are a number of reasons why the usa invaded

[circletimessquare]

but you cherry pick the reasons that support your tired cynicism

you have a prejudice, and you pick the reasons that support your prejudice, and you don't bother to examine alternate reasons, equally valid, and possibly arrive at alternate conclusions about what truly motivates nations and people in a dominant fashion

you are a propaganda victim. propaganda never lies. it merely traffics in half-truths: small bits and pieces of the overall puzzle, examined in isolation, to arrive at conclusions that are out of whack, but supported by "the truth"

you need to develop a wider perspective, consider deeper avenues of the context of situations you depend upon to support your mentality and opinions, and grow in intellectual honesty

but right now you are just a tired crackpot hack