The sad truth is you wanted to test the bomb as well as show to the Soviet Union that you have some big guns
Nonsense! Blowing up Fujiyama would have worked just fine to impress the Russians, even if they hadn't already known about the Manhattan Project. And the Bomb had already been tested, at Los Alamos.
The reason we blew up Hiroshima was two-fold - one was to find out how much damage would be done to a city, sure. Note that we did more damage to Tokyo when we firebombed it than we did to Hiroshima.
The second reason was that we only had two Bombs, with no chance of another before 1946. Wasting a Bomb on a volcano would have been silly, if the two Bombs had not, in fact, caused Japan to surrender.
And frankly, the Emperor of Japan chose to intervene and force his Government to surrender as a direct result of Hiroshima. With no Bomb, there's no reason to believe that the militarists in Government wouldn't have been willing to fight on until the Americans hit the Beaches on Honshu (the SECOND part of the invasion of Japan, not the first).
Note also that Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and several other cities) were specifically not bombed during the war, just in case we got the Bomb working and had to use it - we wanted to demonstrate a fully functional city's transformation to rubble with one Bomb, rather than just watching the rubble rearrange itself. This is from Hap Arnold's autobiography - apparently he had quite a time coming up with justifications for NOT bombing the cities on the list without spilling the beans about the Manhattan Project to people who weren't allowed to hear about that then.
So yeah... According to some of the major members of the US military and those who took part in the Manhattan project, the bombs were unneeded.
Interestingly, none of the people quoted would have had the responsibility for actually invading Japanese Home Islands - even Nimitz would have been largely out of the picture once the troops hit the beaches.
Any quotes from, say, MacArthur? The guy who would have actually done the invasion, if one had been done.
Hindsight is easy. Try looking at the situation with EXACTLY the information in hand when the decision was made, rather than all the extra information available in 1948...
Human nature in the western culture, you mean. IIRC American Indians, many African cultures, and even our old agricultural society were much respectful of the environment.
You've been believing that "noble savage in harmony with nature" claptrap again. Didn't happen then, isn't about to start. The Amerinds, for instance, were well on their way to exterminating the buffalo wothout our (enthusiastic) help, once they got hold of horses and could do it easily. This ignoring all the places and times they used fire to alter the local area, just like the Australian Abos did.
Pretty much the same in Africa - or did you think the Sahara happened because we discovered oil there?
Nearly all the firearms-specific versions of EBay, like gunbroker.com, are filled with offerings of used guns that basically say "Subject to prior sale. I'm putting up this web page but if someone comes in my shop and gives me money, you're out of luck. If I decide I don't like you, you're out of luck." This strikes me as quite unfair and unprofessional.
Considering the legalities wrapped around a firearms sale in the USA, this is not terribly surprising. Keep in mind that a sale directly to you from a seller in another State is unlawful - the actual sale has to be between two people with FFL's (Federal Firearms License), i.e. the seller and a firearms retailer near to the "buyer". Then the actual buyer purchases the firearm from the FFL holder who actually bought the gun.
In addition, of course, "straw man" purchases are unlawful, which places an obligation on the seller to evaluate the buyer prior to sale, to cover his own ass, if nothing else.
I, Robot the MOVIE was a moronic travesty of I, Robot the ASIMOV NOVEL.
It wasn't as bad as all that. the book dealt with unusual exceptions to the Three Laws, so did the Movie. Of course, the Movie managed to include the Zeroth Law. And, to a certain extent, the Humanoids.
Too bad they couldn't do the bit with the Robot Prophet, though;)
you are still protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which the US is a signatory
No. The UDHR is is a non-binding resolution of the UN. It was intended that the various governments around the world import its tenets into their own laws, but, so far as I know, the USA has always just muddled along with its own Bill of Rights.
Which, it should be noted, apply theoretically to everyone, everywhere. Though there are holes - even a US Citizen does not have a Right to buy a firearm outside his home state, for instance. Much less a non-citizen.
In other words if we ignore it now, it will sail on through next year because there will be no impetus to resist it.
In other words, wait until there's a reason to get excited before wasting time preparing to "resist it". When there's a companion bill in the Senate, and either bill gets to the floor, then it's time to resist it.
Committee is meaningless - you won't accomplish anything by protesting a bill in Committee. The Chairman of the Committee can kill any bill he wants to, and push any bill he wants badly enough through the Committee, so it's pointless to waste your time fighting it in Committee.
Fight it when it starts to look likely to be a Floor fight. Which won't be till both House and Senate have a version of the bill to look at, and one or both of those versions is on the Floor of whichever Chamber.
However, if you must panic over a Bill in Committee, I suggest that you wait till it has at least a dozen sponsors - chances of the Bill moving at all without that many Congresscritters trying to get credit for it are close to nil.
The first transcontinental railroad was never a "railroad to nowhere". It was built twenty years after millions of people had already moved to the west coast of the United States.
I agree that the transcontinental railroad wasn't a "railroad to nowhere". But it wasn't built 20 years after "millions of people had already moved to the west coast of the United States.". Fewer than half a million people moved to the West Coast during the emigration period from about 1840-1860.
Keep in mind this bill is not passed into law (yet ??)
Not only not passed into law, not out of Committee. Barely into Committee, as it happens, since it was submitted just six days ago.
In other words, completely ignorable. It won't be an issue until next year, most likely, or never, quite possibly.
There isn't yet a companion Bill in the Senate, so it might as well have been submitted to/. as to the House Judiciary Committee for all that it's going to matter this year. And next year, people will be too busy playing at making the other Party look like the spawn of Satan to bother with it this side of 2009.
That's like saying Kansans are now an entire distinct people. (Granted they are a strange bunch.)
One must remember that before the American Civil War, citizens of the diverse States DID consider themselves a distinct people. Very few thought of themselves as "Americans" - they were "Virginians", or "Kentuckians", or "New Yorkers".
Fortunately for the USA, we got over the urge to hold grudges that long - usually a generation or two is enough for us. Unlike the inhabitants of the Middle East (ALL of the - Jews, Muslims, Christians), who behave as if a grudge is like fine wine - it just gets better the longer it's nursed.
Which channel is Fox News? I'll have to watch it someday. Alas, I've not watched TV news since before the first Gulf War, so the only thing I know about it is what I read on/. And I have sense enough not to believe most of what I read on/. about anything more controversial than "what's the best soda to drink?"
The arabs came up with a number of scienfitic advances under islam and until recently islam co-existed peacefully with other religions.
Well, no. Islam got its big start when the Prophet began to conquer pretty much everything he could reach. It continued in that vein till it met something that could stop it. It was rolled up and subsumed by various flavours of Mongol conquerors, which resulted in the destruction of that "enlghtened" Islam you seem to think existed from the beginning. Remember that Sharia Law applied from the very beginning of Islam.
However it seems to increasingly have been taken over by the stupid, the mentally deranged and the oppresive sadists who seem to want sharia law (otherwise known as hell on earth for anyone who values freedom, particularly women) for reasons personally I can't fathom other than they're so totally fixated on their Koran that they've lost touch with reality (mind you , doesn't that sum up most religious people).
A frequently made assumption by Americans and (some) Europeans is that "Freedom" is desired by virtually all people everywhere. History does not seem to support that contention, really. Sharia Law worked quite well for centuries in the Islamic world. In many ways, it still does. Personally, I'm none too fond of the parts of Sharia that reduce to Dress Codes, but then we must remember that Sumptuary Laws (AKA Dress Codes) existed in many societies throughout History, including most European countries during the Renaissance. Prostitutes must wear red shoes is not, after all, a Muslim idea.
The major players are israeli jews and palestinian muslims; the jews have been screwing with the palestinians for rather a long time and have gone so far as to build a wall and make all the palestinians stand in line to cross it (making them 2nd class citizens in their own country). In a very real sense, the (specific) jews did do it.
Which country would that be? Palestine? Never was such a country. Transjordan, perhaps? Invented by the British between the World Wars.
Sorry, the theory that the Palestinians lived in peace and harmony signing kumbaya in their very own country till the Ebhil Djooos invaded and drove them out is a fantasy.
As I recall the Geneva Convention is a promise that your country will not engage in certain things, period, and isn't conditional on whether the other side also does. Am I wrong?
You're wrong. From Article 2, Chapter 1, of the 1st Geneva Convention of 1949:
Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.
Note that you're bound to respect the Convention if your opponent is a signatory, OR if your opponent is not a signatory, but chooses to follow the Convention anyway.
Note further that most, if not all, of the instances of the USA violating the Geneva Convention in the current troubles are violations of the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Additional Protocols of the Convention, none of which the USA are signatory to (which means they're not bound by them).
Second, no, he actually believes that stuff is for the benefit of human kind.
You've really aroused my curiousity here. How do you KNOW that he really believes this stuff? Yeah, he says over and over that he really believes it, but he could, you know, be lying. So how do YOU know?
Personally I'd say, though, it's enough to have an army large enough to defend yourself. Defending is by its very nature more cost efficient than attacking.
This is a common belief, but not supported by the facts. Note, as an example, the late Middle Ages - during that period, an army capable of defending a country would have been FAR larger than any army actually used to attack said country. France has a long enough border that an Army capable of defending France would require at least hundreds of thousands of troops, yet was invaded repeatedly (and conquered or nearly so by several of them)by armies numbering less than ten thousand.
The USA has ~5000 miles of border (CONUS only. Alaska adds a couple thousand more miles). Actually defending that border would require a FAR larger Army than we have. Larger, in fact, than we have EVER had, even at the height of WW2.
Note also the defense of Germany against British bombing. The Luftwaffe was comparable in size with the RAF, and comparable in capability. Yet the Germans could not stop the British bombing, or even slow it down appreciably.
Remember also that the most expensive thing in the world is the SECOND-BEST military.
Sizable chunk? For every pilot there are 3-4 ground crew? Then there the many thousands behind them doing logistics, repair, configuration, air traffic control, fueling, arming, paperwork, training, etc.
Perhaps I should have been more specific - a sizable chunk of the decision makers in the Air Force is what I was referring to.
Nor was I suggesting it is less than inevitable. Personally, I consider it a great idea. Which is not to suggest that someone who gets paid to fly the F-15/16/22 (really fun to fly, from all I've read) might not oppose any idea that would prevent him from getting paid to do something really fun involving really expensive toys.
Actually, if you read my posts, you'd note that I never said that anyone has used the theory of "kill them, just in case they want to kill us". I said that you spend money on weapons so that if it comes to it, you can kill them, rather than them killing you.
On the other hand, if you'll look over history a little more, you'll find several examples of civilizations that tried to kill everyone else without provocation - the Germans during WW2 come to mind, as do the Mongols in the Middle East. In at least one case, the latter were paid by the head returned to their Khan (Timur the Lame, aka Tamerlane, as I recall) during the sacks of several cities - thus, everyone in the cities were killed.
If disabling a tank is as easy as you suggest, why isn't spraypaint used to blind regular tanks?
Mostly because the guys inside might get upset. Seriously, a good tanker doesn't spend his time buttoned up. The Germans discovered a long time ago that a tank whose commander kept his hatch open and himself exposed to fire was FAR more capable in combat than a tank whose commander hid inside the armour shell most of the time. The Israelis learned that lesson thoroughly, which is why they pretty much beat the living hell out of the Arab tankers in the various Arab-Israeli wars. And the USA has always used that doctrine.
In addition, of course, tanks don't usually patrol alone. They have these tough lads in combat armour with assault rifles with them - the infantry.
If tanks are travelling in a city without infantry, they're basically dead meat anyway. Stalingrad provides a wonderful example of this, by the by. And the Battle of Kursk an even better one - the Germans employed their Ferdinands in Kursk as the spearhead of the attack. Fredinands had immensely thick armour, and were basically invulnerable to anti-tank weapons of the day. So the Ferds advanced, and the Soviet anti-tank weapons bounced off harmlessly. Alas, they didn't bounce off the other tanks and infantry present. So the Ferds found themselves all alone out there. And the Soviet infantry walked up behind them (note that the Ferdinand was turretless), dropped satchel charges on them, and blew them all to hell.
So, if we were to just disarm ourselves and stop being mean to people, they'd never want to hurt us? I'm sure that the Belgians of 1913 would agree with you. I'm not so sure that the Belgians of 1919 would so agree.
Evidence of history pretty much entirely agrees with me, by the by. There hasn't been a successful civilization ever that managed to exist on the basis of "noone would want to hurt us, so we won't prepare to defend ourselves".
To quote a statesman from a couple millenia back - "If you would have peace, prepare for war".
he result is that soldiers often pick their own lives over the lives of those around them
Of course, the soldiers aren't being paid to protect the people around them. They're being paid to protect their nation and its citizens. In other words, those Marines you speak of are being paid the big bucks (what a laugh) to protect YOU. Not the Iraqis that happen to be standing around watching them get shot.
In what way is the Predator aircraft controversial?
To summarize - a sizable chunk of the Air Force considers them the devil incarnate. Specifically, the part of the Air Force that routinely gets paid to sit in the cockpit of aircraft and fly them at government expense. If, after all, the Predator concept is successful, there'll be less reason to pay men to sit in cockpits of really expensive, high-performance aircraft.
How hard can it be to build miniature (footprint of wheelchair), remote-controlled tanks with a bunch of cameras all around it, lethal and nonlethal armaments, and a big booming microphone so it can bark orders?
The really lovely thing about an RC airplane with a camera is that it's pretty hard to spray paint over the camera. Not so hard with, say, an RC tank rumbling through the street. And you cannot, after all, justify firing a claymore at a guy standing there with a spray can in his hand during a sweep of a nominally hostile area. So someone WILL spray paint the cameras, sooner or later. Hell, I'd be doing it on the first day one of these appeared, if I lived there. Even if I wasn't a rebel/jihadist/militant/whatever-they're-called-to day. I'd do it just for the fun of watching a platoon of men come down to clean "Ami go home!" off the side of their neat little techno-toy.
RC tanks with paint over their cameras are pretty much completely worthless.
Why the fuck do we have to spend so much money on killing each other?
In the big picture, we spend so much money killing each other because NOT killing each other requires bilateral agreement, which is sometimes hard to acquire - You may decide not to kill me, but your decision does not force me to decide not to kill you. Or vice versa.
Thus, the lowest common denominator is that we must assume that someone, somewhere, might want to kill us. So we spend money so that we are able to kill him with the least risk to ourselves. Just in case. Because if he NEVER, EVER wants to kill us, then we've just wasted a little money. But NOT spending that money if he ever DOES decide to kill us means that we die.
And I think most of us can agree that it's better to lose money than lives.
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Nonsense! Blowing up Fujiyama would have worked just fine to impress the Russians, even if they hadn't already known about the Manhattan Project. And the Bomb had already been tested, at Los Alamos.
The reason we blew up Hiroshima was two-fold - one was to find out how much damage would be done to a city, sure. Note that we did more damage to Tokyo when we firebombed it than we did to Hiroshima.
The second reason was that we only had two Bombs, with no chance of another before 1946. Wasting a Bomb on a volcano would have been silly, if the two Bombs had not, in fact, caused Japan to surrender.
And frankly, the Emperor of Japan chose to intervene and force his Government to surrender as a direct result of Hiroshima. With no Bomb, there's no reason to believe that the militarists in Government wouldn't have been willing to fight on until the Americans hit the Beaches on Honshu (the SECOND part of the invasion of Japan, not the first).
Note also that Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and several other cities) were specifically not bombed during the war, just in case we got the Bomb working and had to use it - we wanted to demonstrate a fully functional city's transformation to rubble with one Bomb, rather than just watching the rubble rearrange itself. This is from Hap Arnold's autobiography - apparently he had quite a time coming up with justifications for NOT bombing the cities on the list without spilling the beans about the Manhattan Project to people who weren't allowed to hear about that then.
Interestingly, none of the people quoted would have had the responsibility for actually invading Japanese Home Islands - even Nimitz would have been largely out of the picture once the troops hit the beaches.
Any quotes from, say, MacArthur? The guy who would have actually done the invasion, if one had been done.
Hindsight is easy. Try looking at the situation with EXACTLY the information in hand when the decision was made, rather than all the extra information available in 1948...
You've been believing that "noble savage in harmony with nature" claptrap again. Didn't happen then, isn't about to start. The Amerinds, for instance, were well on their way to exterminating the buffalo wothout our (enthusiastic) help, once they got hold of horses and could do it easily. This ignoring all the places and times they used fire to alter the local area, just like the Australian Abos did.
Pretty much the same in Africa - or did you think the Sahara happened because we discovered oil there?
Considering the legalities wrapped around a firearms sale in the USA, this is not terribly surprising. Keep in mind that a sale directly to you from a seller in another State is unlawful - the actual sale has to be between two people with FFL's (Federal Firearms License), i.e. the seller and a firearms retailer near to the "buyer". Then the actual buyer purchases the firearm from the FFL holder who actually bought the gun.
In addition, of course, "straw man" purchases are unlawful, which places an obligation on the seller to evaluate the buyer prior to sale, to cover his own ass, if nothing else.
It wasn't as bad as all that. the book dealt with unusual exceptions to the Three Laws, so did the Movie. Of course, the Movie managed to include the Zeroth Law. And, to a certain extent, the Humanoids.
Too bad they couldn't do the bit with the Robot Prophet, though ;)
No. The UDHR is is a non-binding resolution of the UN. It was intended that the various governments around the world import its tenets into their own laws, but, so far as I know, the USA has always just muddled along with its own Bill of Rights.
Which, it should be noted, apply theoretically to everyone, everywhere. Though there are holes - even a US Citizen does not have a Right to buy a firearm outside his home state, for instance. Much less a non-citizen.
In other words, wait until there's a reason to get excited before wasting time preparing to "resist it". When there's a companion bill in the Senate, and either bill gets to the floor, then it's time to resist it.
Committee is meaningless - you won't accomplish anything by protesting a bill in Committee. The Chairman of the Committee can kill any bill he wants to, and push any bill he wants badly enough through the Committee, so it's pointless to waste your time fighting it in Committee.
Fight it when it starts to look likely to be a Floor fight. Which won't be till both House and Senate have a version of the bill to look at, and one or both of those versions is on the Floor of whichever Chamber.
However, if you must panic over a Bill in Committee, I suggest that you wait till it has at least a dozen sponsors - chances of the Bill moving at all without that many Congresscritters trying to get credit for it are close to nil.
I agree that the transcontinental railroad wasn't a "railroad to nowhere". But it wasn't built 20 years after "millions of people had already moved to the west coast of the United States.". Fewer than half a million people moved to the West Coast during the emigration period from about 1840-1860.
Not only not passed into law, not out of Committee. Barely into Committee, as it happens, since it was submitted just six days ago.
In other words, completely ignorable. It won't be an issue until next year, most likely, or never, quite possibly.
There isn't yet a companion Bill in the Senate, so it might as well have been submitted to /. as to the House Judiciary Committee for all that it's going to matter this year. And next year, people will be too busy playing at making the other Party look like the spawn of Satan to bother with it this side of 2009.
One must remember that before the American Civil War, citizens of the diverse States DID consider themselves a distinct people. Very few thought of themselves as "Americans" - they were "Virginians", or "Kentuckians", or "New Yorkers".
Fortunately for the USA, we got over the urge to hold grudges that long - usually a generation or two is enough for us. Unlike the inhabitants of the Middle East (ALL of the - Jews, Muslims, Christians), who behave as if a grudge is like fine wine - it just gets better the longer it's nursed.
Which channel is Fox News? I'll have to watch it someday. Alas, I've not watched TV news since before the first Gulf War, so the only thing I know about it is what I read on /. And I have sense enough not to believe most of what I read on /. about anything more controversial than "what's the best soda to drink?"
Well, no. Islam got its big start when the Prophet began to conquer pretty much everything he could reach. It continued in that vein till it met something that could stop it. It was rolled up and subsumed by various flavours of Mongol conquerors, which resulted in the destruction of that "enlghtened" Islam you seem to think existed from the beginning. Remember that Sharia Law applied from the very beginning of Islam.
A frequently made assumption by Americans and (some) Europeans is that "Freedom" is desired by virtually all people everywhere. History does not seem to support that contention, really. Sharia Law worked quite well for centuries in the Islamic world. In many ways, it still does. Personally, I'm none too fond of the parts of Sharia that reduce to Dress Codes, but then we must remember that Sumptuary Laws (AKA Dress Codes) existed in many societies throughout History, including most European countries during the Renaissance. Prostitutes must wear red shoes is not, after all, a Muslim idea.
Which country would that be? Palestine? Never was such a country. Transjordan, perhaps? Invented by the British between the World Wars.
Sorry, the theory that the Palestinians lived in peace and harmony signing kumbaya in their very own country till the Ebhil Djooos invaded and drove them out is a fantasy.
You're wrong. From Article 2, Chapter 1, of the 1st Geneva Convention of 1949:
Note that you're bound to respect the Convention if your opponent is a signatory, OR if your opponent is not a signatory, but chooses to follow the Convention anyway.
Note further that most, if not all, of the instances of the USA violating the Geneva Convention in the current troubles are violations of the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Additional Protocols of the Convention, none of which the USA are signatory to (which means they're not bound by them).
You've really aroused my curiousity here. How do you KNOW that he really believes this stuff? Yeah, he says over and over that he really believes it, but he could, you know, be lying. So how do YOU know?
Well, actually it was the person I was responding to who said that. TO quote: "remote-controlled tanks with a bunch of cameras all around it"....
This is a common belief, but not supported by the facts. Note, as an example, the late Middle Ages - during that period, an army capable of defending a country would have been FAR larger than any army actually used to attack said country. France has a long enough border that an Army capable of defending France would require at least hundreds of thousands of troops, yet was invaded repeatedly (and conquered or nearly so by several of them)by armies numbering less than ten thousand.
The USA has ~5000 miles of border (CONUS only. Alaska adds a couple thousand more miles). Actually defending that border would require a FAR larger Army than we have. Larger, in fact, than we have EVER had, even at the height of WW2.
Note also the defense of Germany against British bombing. The Luftwaffe was comparable in size with the RAF, and comparable in capability. Yet the Germans could not stop the British bombing, or even slow it down appreciably.
Remember also that the most expensive thing in the world is the SECOND-BEST military.
Perhaps I should have been more specific - a sizable chunk of the decision makers in the Air Force is what I was referring to.
Nor was I suggesting it is less than inevitable. Personally, I consider it a great idea. Which is not to suggest that someone who gets paid to fly the F-15/16/22 (really fun to fly, from all I've read) might not oppose any idea that would prevent him from getting paid to do something really fun involving really expensive toys.
On the other hand, if you'll look over history a little more, you'll find several examples of civilizations that tried to kill everyone else without provocation - the Germans during WW2 come to mind, as do the Mongols in the Middle East. In at least one case, the latter were paid by the head returned to their Khan (Timur the Lame, aka Tamerlane, as I recall) during the sacks of several cities - thus, everyone in the cities were killed.
Mostly because the guys inside might get upset. Seriously, a good tanker doesn't spend his time buttoned up. The Germans discovered a long time ago that a tank whose commander kept his hatch open and himself exposed to fire was FAR more capable in combat than a tank whose commander hid inside the armour shell most of the time. The Israelis learned that lesson thoroughly, which is why they pretty much beat the living hell out of the Arab tankers in the various Arab-Israeli wars. And the USA has always used that doctrine.
In addition, of course, tanks don't usually patrol alone. They have these tough lads in combat armour with assault rifles with them - the infantry.
If tanks are travelling in a city without infantry, they're basically dead meat anyway. Stalingrad provides a wonderful example of this, by the by. And the Battle of Kursk an even better one - the Germans employed their Ferdinands in Kursk as the spearhead of the attack. Fredinands had immensely thick armour, and were basically invulnerable to anti-tank weapons of the day. So the Ferds advanced, and the Soviet anti-tank weapons bounced off harmlessly. Alas, they didn't bounce off the other tanks and infantry present. So the Ferds found themselves all alone out there. And the Soviet infantry walked up behind them (note that the Ferdinand was turretless), dropped satchel charges on them, and blew them all to hell.
Evidence of history pretty much entirely agrees with me, by the by. There hasn't been a successful civilization ever that managed to exist on the basis of "noone would want to hurt us, so we won't prepare to defend ourselves".
To quote a statesman from a couple millenia back - "If you would have peace, prepare for war".
Of course, the soldiers aren't being paid to protect the people around them. They're being paid to protect their nation and its citizens. In other words, those Marines you speak of are being paid the big bucks (what a laugh) to protect YOU. Not the Iraqis that happen to be standing around watching them get shot.
To summarize - a sizable chunk of the Air Force considers them the devil incarnate. Specifically, the part of the Air Force that routinely gets paid to sit in the cockpit of aircraft and fly them at government expense. If, after all, the Predator concept is successful, there'll be less reason to pay men to sit in cockpits of really expensive, high-performance aircraft.
The really lovely thing about an RC airplane with a camera is that it's pretty hard to spray paint over the camera. Not so hard with, say, an RC tank rumbling through the street. And you cannot, after all, justify firing a claymore at a guy standing there with a spray can in his hand during a sweep of a nominally hostile area. So someone WILL spray paint the cameras, sooner or later. Hell, I'd be doing it on the first day one of these appeared, if I lived there. Even if I wasn't a rebel/jihadist/militant/whatever-they're-called-to day. I'd do it just for the fun of watching a platoon of men come down to clean "Ami go home!" off the side of their neat little techno-toy.
RC tanks with paint over their cameras are pretty much completely worthless.
In the big picture, we spend so much money killing each other because NOT killing each other requires bilateral agreement, which is sometimes hard to acquire - You may decide not to kill me, but your decision does not force me to decide not to kill you. Or vice versa.
Thus, the lowest common denominator is that we must assume that someone, somewhere, might want to kill us. So we spend money so that we are able to kill him with the least risk to ourselves. Just in case. Because if he NEVER, EVER wants to kill us, then we've just wasted a little money. But NOT spending that money if he ever DOES decide to kill us means that we die.
And I think most of us can agree that it's better to lose money than lives.