What Happens In Vegas Happens In Afghanistan

theodp writes "After the morning commute from his Las Vegas apartment, Air Force captain Sam Nelson sits in a padded chair inside a low, tan building in Nevada, controlling a heavily armed drone aircraft soaring over Afghanistan, prepared to kill another human being 7,500 miles away if necessary. Welcome to the surreal world of drone pilots, who have a front-row seat on war from half a world away. 'On the drive out here, you get yourself ready to enter the compartment of your life that is flying combat,' explained retired Col. Chris Chambliss. 'And on the drive home, you get ready for that part of your life that's going to be the soccer game.' No wonder why the Air Force is interested in the Xbox LIVE crowd and the Army's opened a new arcade recruitment center!"

Comments

Fly-by-wireless-link for the win!

[LostCluster]

The risk to them: We kill them. If we ever get Bin Ladin in the sights of one of these things, it'll be well worth the investment.

The risk to us: We lose a drone. Pilot safe, and he can move on to another drone to keep going.

Sure, they can try to kill the pilot in Vegas... but that's a mainland murder and that's a whole lot easier to solve and capture them here. Furthermore, they've got to be here to do that.

So, net result is we're bringing the war to them using technology we have and they don't. Now our fighter planes don't need to have the fighter pilot on-board. They might own the ground in the war zone, but we own the air.

Re:Fly-by-wireless-link for the win!

[Threni]

I wonder if the pilots get to post messages online labeling the insurgent snipers `cowards` when they're taking a break from being `brave` pilots.

Re:Fly-by-wireless-link for the win!

[operator_error]

Don't forget incidental risks due to human error, namely the deaths of innocent civilians. Which is another way to lose the war.

Our track record is NOT perfect. Not by a longshot. In fact, it's a Big Problem.

Re:Fly-by-wireless-link for the win!

[wigaloo]

Sure, they can try to kill the pilot in Vegas... but that's a mainland murder and that's a whole lot easier to solve and capture them here.

So, let me get this straight. If a pilot kills them anonymously with drones from thousands of miles away that's war, but if they somehow get to Vegas and kill that drone pilot it's murder? Huh. My double-standard sense is tingling.

Re:Fly-by-wireless-link for the win!

[Krahar]

I think the key word in "that's a mainland murder" is mainland rather than murder. So the point the original poster was making was not that now it's suddenly more morally odious because it's a murder, it's that now it's something the US police can handle without too much trouble, whereas the same thing inside Afghanistan would be harder to deal with.

Re:Fly-by-wireless-link for the win!

[plantman-the-womb-st]

An honest observation labeled a flame. Karma be damned I'll add to it. Here is another similar comparison, the cowards in Afghanistan hide in caves, but never forget that the brave people that serve at NORAD are in a mountain, not a cave.

Re:Fly-by-wireless-link for the win!

[Cassius Corodes]

They are not cowards because they hide in caves, but because they actively seek to cause civilian deaths. Hiding in caves when you are being bombed is not cowardly - its is often a necessity in war, but taking up positions among civilians and using them as shields is cowardly and dishonourable.

Re:Fly-by-wireless-link for the win!

[MrNaz]

I suppose leaving their homes and lining up in fields would be more to your liking?

They don't hide amongst the population any more than you would be doing tgat if an invading army came to your country and city and started bombing it. You'd fight for your home, from your home. The idea that they are "hiding amongst civilians" is a load of BS. Their homes are amongst their neighbors. If you want to bomb them from afar you can't expect them to all go stand in a conveniently isolated and exposed place.

Now, if the invading showed up and demanded battle between two equally armed forces in a designated field of battle then that'd be fine. But as it stands, it's the Americans and other invaders that are the cowards for trying to bomb people in their sleep and then saying that those people should vacate their homes to make bombing them from the safety of an armchair on the other side of the planet more convenient.

Cowards indeed.

Re:Fly-by-wireless-link for the win!

[rtb61]

Collateral damage, hmm, do you even know that term. The greatest risk of all when murdering people by remote control, loss of humanity. It is so easy for them is it, whoops, just blew up a baby and it's mother, whoops, there goes a grandad, whoops, legless child, all so easy to walk away from the carnage with excuses of I was ordered to do it (exactly how do those victims now seek justice). Of course, but the other side is worse (number of casualties caused would tend to indicate this is a lie), of course you can always hide your shame behind faulty hardware, guess shots soon become it veered of course (you chose the hardware, you used the hardware, you are the murderer when your hardware fails).

You implement justice by upholding it not abandoning it. You can only ever capture terrorists, when you arrest them, when you try the in court, when you put up your evidence so that it can be challenged and proven. Murdering suspects in the field is just that, murder. Self defence whilst attempting to conduct arrests is the only excuse to open fire and then that fire must aimed directed and minimised, not a bomb or missile that sometimes targets the individual but always kills any innocent people in the near vicinity.

You can never abandon your human responsibility for the choices you make, when you choose to kill that is your burden, that is your act of evil which you will be forced to account for, failure to refuse to kill when it is not an act of self defence is cowardice.

Re:Fly-by-wireless-link for the win!

[mabhatter654]

You have a point. We publicly declare enemy snipers holding a street or planting IEDs in the path of armed soldiers to be cowards... yet we're actively working on technology to launch drones from ships at sea and control them from plain office buildings in the USA. How are drone pilots any DIFFERENT than snipers hiding in the bushes shooting at women and children, how many "lives" is the drone pilot allowed to take to save is MACHINE? Even enemy snipers are putting THEIR lives on the line for battle, our people go to lengths to avoid it.

Re:Fly-by-wireless-link for the win!

[wigaloo]

My double-standard sense is tingling.

The Geneva convention was set to clearly divide militaries from civilians. If there is a double-standard in there, is it that States agreed to follow these rules but not the rebels.

You can't be serious. There hasn't been a functioning government in Afghanistan for years. Who exactly did you expect to sign? The literacy rate in Afghanistan is 28%. How many of them do you think have even heard of Geneva?

If you are wearing a military uniform, using an aircraft with military marking, and target enemy militaries, you are doing war. If you disguise yourself as a civilian, you are a spy or a terrorist, and outside of the convention.

And that is very convenient for you to say, speaking from a position of strength. How did you expect the weak to fight back? Face to face? Would you do that against a vastly superior foe? Your position, or course, is just another example of a double standard. If we are ever going to end this ongoing cycle of war, we are going to have to come to grips with how we are viewed from around the world. Victory in this War on Terror requires winning hearts and minds, and that cannot happen if there is no sense of even-handedness or justice, regardless of what the Convention says. I in no way condone terrorism, but a lasting peace is going to require a much broader view of the problem than you are advocating.

Although completely unfair, your Afghani rebel is free to openly charge to Vegas in his non-existent plane, wearing his non-existent uniform to kill the remote pilot.

My Afghani rebel? Go fuck yourself.

But he cannot cowardly hide behind a disguise to kill. Maybe unfair to non-States, but those are the rules.

And what would you call piloting a flying killing machine by remote control from thousands of miles away? Heroic?

Re:Fly-by-wireless-link for the win!

[Angst Badger]

But he cannot cowardly hide behind a disguise to kill. Maybe unfair to non-States, but those are the rules.

Had we followed those rules in the 1770's, we'd still be British subjects. The rules of war are devised by powerful state actors to magnify their strengths, prohibit the exploitation of their weaknesses, and minimize their losses. A small state actor -- or a sub-state entity -- which finds itself at war with a powerful state isn't cowardly for refusing to follow rules designed to ensure its defeat; it's intelligent. We leave aside the question of whether it was very smart for the Taliban to allow al Qaeda to provoke a war with the United States. But once engaged in a fight with the United States, the various Afghan factions have three options: fight according to the rules of war and guarantee their defeat, surrender immediately, or fight dirty. And given that option three worked against a Soviet invasion next to which the current American incursion is a pinprick, it's not surprising that they've decided to try it again.

Once you come to accept that, you will see that you post was, maybe unwillingly, a troll.

Once you come to accept that, you're just a chauvinistic cheerleader for whatever imperial power you've chosen to identify with to compensate for your lack of self-esteem, making empty legalistic excuses for modern warfare, and trying desperately to divert attention away from what modern warfare actually is: an exercise in which the overwhelming majority of casualties are not among the combatants of either side, but rather civilian bystanders in whatever third world shooting gallery the arms industry has found an opportunity to drive sales of their products.

Re:Fly-by-wireless-link for the win!

[stinkytoe]

In WWII the US did intentionally slaughter a couple hundred thousand civilians in Dresden and Japan

And Berlin, Monte Cassino, Okinawa, Tokyo, etc...

I'm not going to justify these actions, they were horrendous. Nonetheless, they were all done for the purpose of ending the war.

Not the intended goal of the insurgents whom we are fighting, who are actively seeking out such conflict.

Re:Fly-by-wireless-link for the win!

[Paul Jakma]

Exactly how many years of this unwinnable guerilla war of attrition, how many dead Afghani children, how many dead US soldiers, /will/ it take for you change your mind?

Also, if america had the right to be extremely angry after 9/11 and had the right to act against its aggressors (i.e. Bin Laden and his followers, who are now not anywhere in Afghanistan), why do you think that, after many years and an even greater number of dead Afghani civilians, the Afghanis do not have the right to act against the occupying power which has caused a good number of those deaths?

Can you give your opinion and reasoning rather than inane, worthless sarcasm?

Face-to-face combat

[BSAtHome]

I think the people of the world including the leaders would think twice if they (that is, all leaders and followers) had to do this old-style with rocks and clubs. The readiness to kill is somewhat lower if you have to be involved face-to-face. It is highly problematic if you can kill as if it were a computer game. There is no better prevention than to have your own life on the edge. Yes, I do know there are people willing to do anything regardless the consequence, but I think there would be a net benefit for all if you had to kill face-on.

Re:Face-to-face combat

[MorderVonAllem]

Wouldn't it be great if wars could be fought just by the assholes who started them?

Re:Face-to-face combat

[girlintraining]

The readiness to kill is somewhat lower if you have to be involved face-to-face. It is highly problematic if you can kill as if it were a computer game.

Those people know what the hell they're doing. They're killing someone. You think the people that sat in nuclear silos at the height of the cold war didn't know what that red button would do? You think they didn't break out in cold sweats at night, hoping and praying the day would never come when they'd be ask to do their last duty for their country? It's disgraceful to think these people are calloused to the fact that they are killing people just because it happens on a computer screen instead of splattered across their chest. Don't think that just because they don't see their faces when they kill them, they won't wake up screaming at night and sobbing when they think nobody can hear them, praying to God or anyone else that'll listen to make the pain stop.

Every person you kill takes away a piece of your soul, and it doesn't matter whether it was with an button pushed or a trigger pulled. And that's how it should be. Trust me, the price of war is high enough. And it's not just them that hurt for it. They have families. The "enemy" have families. And they have friends. And communities. And prayer groups. We are all connected, and this world is a whole lot smaller than you think.

No technological advancement will ever take away the fact that a life lost makes the world a little less bright.

Re:Face-to-face combat

[c6gunner]

You think wars are just fought by people who want money? Not all of them. Some are fought because people are hungry.

So people who are hungry .... don't want money?

Wait, run that by me one more time?

Some are fought because people are desperate -- they're afraid their culture will disappear, their natural resources will be used up... And it's hard to be civil when your neighbor next door has giant refineries and everyone has a car, and an education, and wears clean clothes.

Yeah, nature's a cruel bitch. How do you think the human race evolved? How do you think we managed to achieve our current status?

Whether you like it or not, living systems thrive on competition. While I abhor suffering and would love to see everyone on the planet living in peace and prosperity, the fact of the matter is that not all systems are equal, and not all are good. Some beliefs deserve to be abandoned. Some societies deserve to die out. If your belief systems and your culture are unable to sustain you in the modern world, the answer isn't to go out and murder the civilian population of nations who are better off than you - the answer is to change. You don't improve your lot in life by pulling everyone else down to your level.

Those people aren't assholes. They're human beings.

That's like saying "these apples aren't green, they're apples".

Re:Face-to-face combat

[NeutronCowboy]

You've apparently missed the last 40 years of psychological studies that demonstrate what the factors are that reduce the psychological barriers to abusing another person. Reducing psychological barriers also reduces the psychological impact. One of those factors is how personal the abuse is.

Your argument might work for you, and that's great and all. You, however, are not the rest of the world.

Re:Face-to-face combat

[indiechild]

I suggest you read "On Killing" and "On Combat" by Dave Grossman. Distance from killing definitely makes killing less traumatic, and much more palatable or sometimes even desirable. These days, infantry training is designed to densensitise you enough that even pulling the trigger and seeing a man drop from your shots is not as traumatic as it once was.

And now you have killing from the comfort of a computer screen, from halfway around the world. This is no coincidence or accident -- the military wants it this way. This is ideal. Those pilots sleep soundly at night, they do not have tortured souls or consciences (and I would not necessarily suggest that they should, either).

I think these developments are deeply troubling.

Re:Face-to-face combat

[NeutronCowboy]

Really? You studied the psychological impact of someone cleaving the face of a thousand people, and compared it to the impact of launching a nuclear missile?

Re:Face-to-face combat

[Jeremi]

Here's what the OP claimed:

The readiness to kill is somewhat lower if you have to be involved face-to-face. ... which is not at all the same as claiming that there would be no emotional effect at all.

People problem.

[girlintraining]

I'm sure we'll hear lots about the technology, but when you're in the field, surrounded by your fellow soldiers, then blowing the shit out of a car full of people is a shared experience. You can rely on your friends and fellow soldiers to help you deal with the fact that you just helped end a bunch of lives. Yes, it was the right thing. Yes, it was you or them. But all the justifications aside there's an emotional price to be paid that every person who's been in combat or seen it, or similar.

Now we have guys sitting in rooms filled with computer screens blowing people up, and is there anyone there to talk to about it? Can they light a cigarette after, put a fist in the wall, and say "Goddamnit, I wish there'd been another way!" No. You're stuck in a sterile environment, air conditioned, quiet, and after blowing the fuck out of someone you can get up and go get yourself a soda from the vend, grab your coat, file some paperwork, and drive home.

Huge disclaimer -- I'm not in the military, I don't know what these guys to for stress relief, or to deal with the emotional consequences of what they're doing. But I do know the dangers of becoming emotionally numb to violence, and without advocating for or against what the military is doing, I want to ask -- what are we doing to help these soldiers deal with those issues? For that matter, is it even an issue? I don't really know. But I think it helps to look someone in the eye if you have to kill them. To know they were a real person. To remember what you've done -- even if it was the right thing to do, even if there was no other choice, it's a statement about the value of human life.

Re:People problem.

[ErikZ]

Talk to other people about it? You mean besides all the other remote drone pilots?

Or the next guy up your chain of command? Or your military councilor? Or your spouse? Or your priest/rabbi/whatever?

Hell, there's probably forum those guys hang out on.

If there's one thing that's lacking in the modern world, finding people to talk to isn't one of them.

Re:People problem.

[girlintraining]

If there's one thing that's lacking in the modern world, finding people to talk to isn't one of them.

And yet we sit in our homes watching TV that tells us the world is a big and scary place, and how many of us can truly say we know our neighbors? How many of us start conversations on the bus, or in the grocery line? Not many, and you know why? Because we're afraid they'll think we're a freak. Nobody talks to one another. Except online, where it's all nice and safe, where even if the guy has a gun and is crazy, the worst he can do is type in all caps.

Give me a break. Besides, how many guys do you know that are comfortable crying and saying "God, that was a hard thing to do." That ain't happening, not in today's society. They're too afraid they'll be thought of as gay, or weak, or less of a man for admitting that they had doubts about what they just did.

And then you know what? Then they come home to their wives, and daughters, and their friends... And they all expect him to be just like he was before he left. And he isn't. And often times those relationships shatter as a result, because he still can't say what happened. He wants to be the way he was before. But he won't be. Nobody could be. Once you've been touched by violence, it's with you for life.

And no... There aren't many people you can talk to about that, if you can even summon the courage to find your voice to begin with. Society doesn't want to hear it -- we don't want to look weak in front of our enemies, let alone our friends and family.

Re:People problem.

[DerekLyons]

Now we have guys sitting in rooms filled with computer screens blowing people up, and is there anyone there to talk to about it? Can they light a cigarette after, put a fist in the wall, and say "Goddamnit, I wish there'd been another way!" No. You're stuck in a sterile environment, air conditioned, quiet, and after blowing the fuck out of someone you can get up and go get yourself a soda from the vend, grab your coat, file some paperwork, and drive home.

You think they don't talk to other people in their unit? That they (the pilots) never interact with anyone else? You think they just 'blow people up' and head home for the day? You're living in a surreal dreamworld.
 
 

Huge disclaimer -- I'm not in the military, I don't know what these guys to for stress relief, or to deal with the emotional consequences of what they're doing. But I do know the dangers of becoming emotionally numb to violence, and without advocating for or against what the military is doing, I want to ask -- what are we doing to help these soldiers deal with those issues? For that matter, is it even an issue? I don't really know. But I think it helps to look someone in the eye if you have to kill them. To know they were a real person. To remember what you've done -- even if it was the right thing to do, even if there was no other choice, it's a statement about the value of human life.

 
When I was on a SSBN back the 80's and worked with nuclear weapons, we sure as hell talked among ourselves and with our contemporaries about what we were doing and it's on ourselves and on the world. Not just about the happy parts ("keeping the world safe through deterrence") but also about the consequences of flipping the switches and pushing the buttons and letting the birds fly. We were about as far from emotionally numb or depersonalizing our targets as you could get.
 
If you think military personnel are just automatons without feelings or an awareness of what they are doing, again you're living in a surreal dreamworld.
 
Even today, twenty five years since I last sat a live console, when I meet someone online from Russia it still strikes me sometimes that I could have been the instrument of their death. (Or, if they are young enough, of their never even existing.)

Additional risk to us:

[xmark]

We start to treat killing the enemy the way we treat killing chickens at the Perdue packing plant.

At the most fundamental level, war is still human beings killing other human beings...usually human beings who've never met. One of the damping feed-backs in the war loop is the ugliness and brutality of it. That loop needs more, not fewer, negative feed-backs. Further depersonalization and sterilization of war may incentivize the decision to engage in it.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[LostCluster]

That's called fighting the last war... when we thought that hijackers wanted to go somewhere, we let them into the cockpit. When the new hijackers got the idea that they could take over the plane and hit a target, we ended up with a small number of people able to cause a large number of people, and they didn't care about guilt or punishment because they were fine with the idea of dying in the crash.

The rules of war have changed... the enemy isn't a state, it's a force of people loyal to a cult that believes a corrupted religion. There's no way to blockade them, there's no way to disable their tech because they don't use much. We have to change our response or else they'll find the weakness in the current way of doing things.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[Philip K Dickhead]

Pity the plight of the poor killers!

Can't you see that this "article" is a military PsyOp? The intention is for you to identify with and commiserate over the tremendous difficulty faced by those who kill others, by pushing a button.

This all looks different when seen from the perspective offered from the bottom of an Afghan mass-grave.

That lying, satanic son-of-a-bitch got a prize in Oslo, for smearing his dead, vampire face with the blood and entrails of Afghan babies.

Enjoy your hell, America.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[lawpoop]

The rules of war have changed... the enemy isn't a state, it's a force of people loyal to a cult that believes a corrupted religion.

That's not war, that's a crime ( just like Aum Shinrikyo ) , and when we start thinking it's a war, and treating it as such, we begin to turn society into a militarized police state. Welcome to 1984.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[martin-boundary]

I have very little respect for bombers and pilots who kill enemies while sipping Mountain Dew from the comfort of their chair and air conditioning. That's not anything to be proud of.

I respect more the lowly grunt, who actually fights for his life during combat, even though he has better armor, better equipment, and better medical facilities than the irregular forces against him.

Cowards should not be held up as heroes.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything is a psy-op.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[peragrin]

And when crime goes unpunished because the cult has control of significant money and land areas what is the proper response? Send an arrest warrant? What happens when the law in that country allows him to go unpunished?

There are really very few international laws.

So what can you do to punish those responsible for cross border crime? Do you know what happens when a naval frigate captures somali pirates right now? They ask them a couple of questions, feed them and release them safely to shore. Why because it is okay to commit piracy in Somali.

When there is no law only lawlessness remains. in the borders between countries it is without law.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[wronskyMan]

Why? At the risk of quoting John Wayne, war isn't about giving your life for your country - it's about making the other bastard give his life for his.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[girlintraining]

That's not war, that's a crime ( just like Aum Shinrikyo ) , and when we start thinking it's a war, and treating it as such, we begin to turn society into a militarized police state. Welcome to 1984.

War is where one group of people try to kill another group of people. Those groups just happen to be fighting for countries today instead of churches. And no, it's not 1984. We're still burying the bodies, and you can still go to the graves, and those that survive will still tell their stories. When we've lost the vocabulary to say "We were wrong," then 1984 will be here.

It's 2010, and we kill people, and we know we kill people, and a lot of us think there's another way to do this. And as long as you can still hear that voice, even if you don't listen, we're still okay.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[im_thatoneguy]

The best line from a TV show on the subject in the last 10 years I think is from Battlestar Gallactica.

"There's a reason we separate military and the police: one fights the enemy of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people."

This is why I always was nervous about the "war on terror". If it's a war then it's a civil war since extremists are also American citizens. The US Military an incredible effective fighting force. It's too easy in a 'global war on terror' for its sights to be turned onto itself. After all the US despite all the 'exceptionalism' is part of the globe. If terrorism knows no borders then that includes our own.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[Dalambertian]

The Somalis see their "pirates" as the only force securing their waters right now, and I don't blame them. Europe has been overfishing their waters and polluting their shores with toxic waste for years. Where was the justice of international law then?

Re:Additional risk to us:

[veganboyjosh]

But what constitutes fairness? In every major battle or war the US has been involved in, the definition of what's fair has changed. What was unethical last time around, but common practice for the enemy and as a result helped their cause to the tune of Americans dying, is now standard operating procedure.

Why did the American Civil war soldiers line up and fire at each other? Because to hide behind trees, bushes, and hills would be unethical.

Guerilla style acts of sabotage by Viet Cong soldiers were seen as not fighting fair, until we realized how effective they can be.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[c6gunner]

AFAIK almost every Mid-East country from which terrorists come has very specific historical gripes with US foreign policy.

When Cuban citizens start flying airliners into American buildings, I'll start taking that argument seriously. Until then, as far as I'm concerned you're just creating excuses for a bunch of theistic fascists.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[Dalambertian]

When they fight dirty, they're called terrorists. When we do it, we're called heroes.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[martin-boundary]

That's retarded. By that logic you should have "very little respect" for programmers, engineers, and pretty much anyone else who works in an office environment.

That's daft. Programmers, engineers and pretty much anyone else who works in an office environment don't kill people.

Come to think of it, there was a related example in WWII. Some German office workers killed Jews by filling in forms. I guess you respect those people.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[scdeimos]

War is about greed. War is governments killing people, both people of their enemies and their own, instead of being reasonable and sorting out their differences.

If government officials themselves had to go into armed conflict with each other when negotiations failed (instead of sending in their armies or assassins), how many disagreements do you think would get resolved over a conference table?

Re:Additional risk to us:

[kill-1]

Terrorism isn't an act of war. Never was, never will be.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[WCguru42]

Funny you should quote John Wayne, since he normally portrays values of
fairness.
It's not about dying for your country, it's about fighting fairly while still doing everything to win.

All I'm saying is those who don't fight fair should not also expect to be *respected* for their efforts.

War is ugly, war is violent, war is best avoided and war is definitely not fair. An unfair war where the enemy is demoralized to the point of surrender in the first month is better than a fair war that lasts for a decade. There is a difference between being unfair and being barbaric. Now, you could argue that desensitizing war leads to increased barbarism but fairness is not something that should be debated in war. Fairness is for sport fighting (ie. no hitting below the belt in boxing), not for life and death fighting.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[LostCluster]

We are not at war with all Muslims, but a particular corruption of that religion that believes all non-believers (including Muslims who don't share in their corrupt version) must be killed.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[misexistentialist]

The Germans used similar logic in both world wars, which sidesteps the issue of whether winning the war is that important. And it neglects what happens when you face a capable opponent and both of you trade knock-down punches of increasing ferocity. Put yourself in the place of an Afghan who had an innocent relative killed by a remote-controlled robot: becoming a suicide bomber somehow becomes quite reasonable.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[hey!]

The philosopher John Rawls proposes that we consider a set of rules as if we were about to take part in a game. The twist is that we don't know which side we are going to play, in this case side the insurgent sunning himself on his rooftop with his wife and children inside, or the drone pilot who is about to blow them to kingdom come. This is sometimes called "the veil of ignorance".

If you are willing to play under these rules without knowing which part you will be assigned then *you* consider these rules fair.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[SvnLyrBrto]

Bingo!

The US has screwed over any of a dozen countries in Latin America a hundred times worse than we ever even thought of screwing with the middle east. And we were doing it a hundred years before anyone, save bible scholars, bothered to take notice that the ME was even there. In fact, as I sit here typing this, I'm on land that used to belong to Mexico. And it's considerably nicer than any you'd find in that part of the world too.

Sure, it's simplistic to say things like : "They hate us for our freedom.". But there's a more fundamental incompatibility than just our awful foreign policy.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[Anonymous Coward]

NO, not "insightful". Why doesn't Slashdot have an "ignorant, talking out of your ass" mod?

Why did the American Civil war soldiers line up and fire at each other? Because to hide behind trees, bushes, and hills would be unethical.

Unrifled, Civil War-era infantry muskets were terribly inaccurate--a non spin-stabilized projectile tends to wobble a lot in flight. But a massed volley of dozens of individual bullets, fired by a coordinated line of soldiers in parallel, was pretty lethal, much like shotgun pellets.

Before that, during the American Revolution, some American forces used highly-accurate rifles, not muskets. These forces often lay in ambush, fired from cover, and rarely (if ever) lined up to fire massed volleys like regular infantry.

The difference in tactics had nothing to do with ethics, it was brute practicality related to infantry weapon choices. Rifled barrels fired more accurate shots, but in the muzzle-loading era, the twisting barrels took much longer to reload. Unrifled muskets weren't as accurate, but you could reload quickly, and by firing in massed volleys, the accuracy issue was rendered mostly moot.

Guerilla style acts of sabotage by Viet Cong soldiers were seen as not fighting fair, until we realized how effective they can be.

More horse shit. While the US military certainly found the VC's tactics frustrating, nobody complained about the ethics of sabotage, or the ambushes, or any other guerilla battlefield tactics. Hell, those tactics were standard training for US Army Rangers *during the Vietnam War*, which they exported to the local native tribes that we trained.

There were complaints about the ethics of the North Vietnamese forces, sure. But mostly those were about political, not military tactics: Among other things, the US accused the VC of executing lots of civilians in order to politically intimidate the local, village-level leadership, in order to secure their cooperation. Had nothing to do with guerilla combat, whatsoever.

In summary? Don't believe everything you read on Slashdot, ladies!

Re:Additional risk to us:

[kevinNCSU]

Yes, because everyone knows the middle ages when kings and princes were expected to lead their kingdom's troops to battle were the most peaceful in all history.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[TubeSteak]

When Cuban citizens start flying airliners into American buildings, I'll start taking that argument seriously. Until then, as far as I'm concerned you're just creating excuses for a bunch of theistic fascists.

That's a stupid argument and you're a stupid person for making it.
Why? Because the Middle East isn't Latin America.
Different people, different culture, different values.

The mere fact that you're trying to respond with such an argument shows you aren't even close to being able to intelligently discuss the region or the religion. "Theistic fascists" doesn't even begin to explain why (for example) Iraq turned into a clusterfuck of opposition to the US. Hell, it doesn't even explain why 9/11 happened in the first place (hint: try reading what the terrorists stated as their motivation).

Re:Additional risk to us:

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

I'm sure someone said the same thing when pilots started bombing from aircraft flying 30,000 feet above, when artillerymen started fireing shells from 20 miles behind the lines, and when archers started shooting arrows instead of wading in and hacking with swords.
Actually, such brilliant things were said after the invention of the cross bow and the machine gun. And let us not forget the war to end all wars. Peace lasted, what two decades?

Re:Additional risk to us:

[vertinox]

At the most fundamental level, war is still human beings killing other human beings...usually human beings who've never met. One of the damping feed-backs in the war loop is the ugliness and brutality of it.

This is a lie repeated over and over again.

Had your statement been true. WWI would have ended in 6 months.

And the Germans and Soviets would have called it a true in 1942 at Stalingrad.

Truth is... Humans can be made to murder each other under the worst possible circumstances possible.

I remember reading a few German, Russian, and American soldier memoirs and the explicitly state that after about a year on the front line, you stop thinking about the dead bodies or who you are killing after a while.

Truth is humans can be a lot worse than machines when it comes to reprisal murders. Germans did it. Russians did it. Americans did it. (in vietnam a lot. Thats where the term Frag came from when a friendly soldier went beserk and threw a grenade at his own troops or civilians)

Take the soldier out of the battlefield and he'll be less likely to murder someone at random simply because he has stress issues.

Re:Additional risk to us:

[Jeremi]

This is a lie repeated over and over again. Had your statement been true. WWI would have ended in 6 months.

All he said was that the ugliness of war is a damping effect, he didn't give any figures as to its strength relative to other factors. Where do you get 6 months from? It could just as easily be speculated that without the damping effect, WWI would have lasted 30 years.

Truth is... Humans can be made to murder each other under the worst possible circumstances possible.

Right, but the key is that they have to be made to do so. Left to their own devices, they won't (at least, not on a WWI-scale). That's the damping effect the GP was referring to.

Re:So you wanna join the Air Force and Fly?

[MillionthMonkey]

It's only one instance of a larger trend of robots replacing humans in situations where frankly humans don't belong (flying at Mach 3, going into space, landing on Mars, disarming bombs, etc.). Robotic solutions are becoming easier to implement than all this fiddling with oxygen and pressure suits and life support. People are already using robots to play fetch with their dogs and soon the dogs themselves will be robots as well.

What's worse?

[rolfwind]

Soldiers that come home shell shocked, traumatized for the rest of their lives but on the other side some becoming writers or what not and sharing the horrors of war with the general public.

Or soldiers largely untouched, but treating their experience like it was a video they watched on digg or a video game, completely detached from the inhumanity of it all - heck, during their lunch break, they may go to Walmart to get a game that will be more exciting to play after work. Even a current fighter pilot faces death, if somewhat distanced to what his weapons do on the ground.

Re:What's worse?

[ErikZ]

It doesn't matter.

It's like saying "What's worse? Being shot at with a bullet or having a limb sliced off with a sword?"

We're switching to bullets anyway.

Re:What's worse?

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, I am a UAV pilot. No, you're dead wrong. All of you motherfuckers have no clue. Hunting people is not very different at 20 yds then at 2000 miles. And no, I do it because I don't want my two little girls to be property. That is the cost of loosing.

Re:What's worse?

[lordmetroid]

Seriously, the people the us army terrorize have no means to even transport their armies to the shores of America. Your daughter being property, yeah, right, only in propaganda and your brainwashed fantasies.

Re:What's worse?

[Draek]

All of you motherfuckers have no clue. Hunting people is not very different at 20 yds then at 2000 miles.

So you've done both, then?

And no, I do it because I don't want my two little girls to be property. That is the cost of loosing.

First off, it's "losing". And secondly, if you really believe that's the "cost of losing" you're a moron of the highest order.

How many motherfuckers are there in the US army who still can't grasp the fact that *they* are the invading power in this war? you're there, you can answer me can't you?

count on more "terrorism"

[thenextstevejobs]

not looking forward to the further freedoms I'll lose as an american when the agents of these militias start killing these pilots, and probably some others in the attempt to, on US soil.

im confident the overzealous US government will use this as an excuse to 'protect me' by further tracking my identity and tabs on my life.

point is: keep these pilots who are killing people the fuck away from urban american areas, or we're all going to be targets. and in case you say 'we already are', i don't see any reason to make it worse.

damn mythical 'war' is getting to negatively impact my life more and more, and i'll happily vote for, pay money to, or pledge allegiance to whatever i can to not be involved with the warmongering that this country has been engaged in. pretty confident our behavior in iraq and afghanistan has not generally enhanced the safety for much of anybody, compared to the consequences...

overall, this is a step in the wrong direction.

Re:MURDER BY REMOTE CONTROL

[KarlIsNotMyName]

9/11/01 turned out as only yet another excuse as to why we still roam the world and kill people for resources.

9/11/01 was significant from similar events only in that it happened in the USA. Only in that it was *our* civilians that got slaughtered. The west have done worse many times, and many times after 9/11/01.

The only way to prevent war is to fight the reasons for them. Starting more wars only starts more wars.

Re:MURDER BY REMOTE CONTROL

[Anonymous Coward]

then assembled and killed thousands in an attack nobody had thought of defending against yet.

Are you sure?

Re:New law for automated killing:

[Internalist]

I've got no problem with killing an animal in a fair fight[...]

You strap on antlers and go head-to-head with rutting stags often? Hunting ain't exactly a fair fight...not even bow hunting, really.

Re:New law for automated killing:

[gujo-odori]

One should always avoid a fair fight. The object of a fight is to win, not to make it fair. Next, I expect you to tell me that in a boxing match, the one who is considered a strong boxer should have to fight with one arm tied, or under the influence of a CNS depressant, or with weights on the upper arms to cause slower punching, in the interest of fairness?

Uh-uh. If you have to fight somebody, you make it as unfair as possible in your favor. If somebody pulls a knife and demands your wallet, pulling a gun would be a good move. Pulling a knife yourself would not be a good move.

If it's a war, you bring the biggest, best-equipped army you can, get the best battlefield intelligence you can, and fight from the most advantageous terrain you can and with the best air support you can bring.

Next, you'll want us to not use medicine when we're sick because it's not fair to the bacteria?

About eating stuff I've killed and gutted myself? Check.

Wanna see something that really makes you not want to eat meat that you didn't kill yourself? Tour a slaughterhouse.

Re:And this is why we're scared of Americans...

[stdarg]

I guess you connected the Bush thing with the poster's quote about John Wayne. John Wayne also did WWII movies, and the quote came from real-life General Patton, but anyway...

What's so bad about framing complicated situations in terms of something like cowboy films (that many people have seen, unlike actual war)? Most political leaders eventually fall back on some kind of ideology. Why are cowboys not a good one? I'm not a cowboy movie fan, but from what I know they represent toughness, some kind of honor (the good cowboy doesn't draw first in a duel), respect for women, and cowboys are generally the kind of person to use violence as a last resort (but are very good at using said violence when it the time comes).

I know it's kind of laughable, but so is any ideology when you use derisive language and oversimplify it. You can frame communism or anything else in a way that makes it sound very stupid. (You don't sound like a cynical realist since you're talking about moral and ethical guidance in war, so I'm ignoring that possibility.)