
Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins - anigbrowl
http://boingboing.net/2015/03/11/drones-and-the-rise-of-the-hig.html
======
bjelkeman-again
It is always intriguing that people in the West are so sheltered from the fact
that this has been going on for over a decade. And they then are, not
surprisingly, surprised that the people at the receiving end of this and those
that are from the area are very upset about it.

What if some other nation had been bombing remote villages in your country
whilst attempting to target "terrorists and extremists", but often killing
civilians because of misstakes and poor intelligence?

Nice timeline for doing your research:
[http://www.theguardian.com/Iraq/page/0,12438,793802,00.html](http://www.theguardian.com/Iraq/page/0,12438,793802,00.html)

Example of airstrikes killing civilians and accusations of poor intelligence
preparations being the cause:
[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jun/14/iraq.usa](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jun/14/iraq.usa)

~~~
karmacondon
The links you posted reference Iraq, which was not a very nice place over the
last decade. In many cases, a strong personality would emerge as a local
leader. He'll usually have access to several small arms and enough money to
feed and pay several dozen militia fighters. To legitimize his power he'll
coordinate attacks on US personnel, usually ambushes, and make deals with
people who have connections to global "terrorist and extremist" organizations
who can provide him with resources to pay for more weapons and manpower. This
hypothetical leader isn't beholden to the law and makes up the rules for the
people in the areas that he controls based on his interpretations of religious
teachings and personal views on justice and proper conduct. The government has
so many problems to deal with that they aren't in a position to oppose him or
restore any kind of rule of law to the people that live in his sphere of
influence. As his power increases, he becomes a more useful piece on a larger
chess board, controlled by leadership in Mosul, Yemen or Saudi Arabia.

To the US, the solution is clear: Kill that guy. The force of his personality
is what's holding his local power structure together, and if he's dead there's
a good chance that the whole thing will collapse. This will take a piece off
the board for a global opponent and give the national or regional government
one less problem to deal with. Given that he lives in a remote area that he
knows like the back of his hand, getting close to him would be difficult. But
if they can pay someone to tell them where he is at a specific time, all it
takes is one drone strike to solve a lot of problems for a lot of people.

It's not a perfect system. Sources will frequently give false locations in
order to kill their own enemies or settle personal scores. Sometimes the
intelligence is out of date by only a few hours, the target leaves a house and
innocent people move in to it behind him. Or the weapons just plain miss.

The question is, do you have a better plan? Because the guys at the Pentagon
would really like to hear it. Ceding large swaths of a country to random
strong men doesn't seem like a sustainable solution. It's not good for the
people in that country, it's not good for global security and it's not good
for business. Civilian casualties are always regrettable and make for
compelling headlines. But at some point, someone has to have an eye on the
bigger picture. If there's a better course of action, then it should be taken
immediately. Until then all the US government can do is to use the tools that
it has available to deal with the current situation.

~~~
Udik
Except that the US are the main cause for those bad guys being there in the
first pace, as they waged war (with justifications that later proved
worthless) against the dictator that was able to keep the area under control.

So, what the US should do now in Iraq? I have no idea. What should they do in
general and in the future? Stop messing with foreign countries, destabilizing
governments and waging wars with the silly idea of making the world a safer
and more peaceful place. It doesn't work.

~~~
melling
That's what we tend to do in fact. We support whatever dictator is in power
because it's better for business.

With Iraq we believed that they were still hoarding WMD's that they had from
the 1980's. As we now know, that turned out to not be the case, and they
actually did destroy them. Before the war, it was reported by most media
outlets that WMD's were still in Iraq. Then you had the UN weapons inspectors
who kept being thrown out of Iraq. If the weapons inspectors had been allowed
to remain and do their job, there wouldn't have been a second Iraq war.

~~~
astazangasta
Your narrative is broken. What actually happened was a bunch of ideologues
came to power, saw an opportunity to remake the middle east in aid of a "new
american century", then lied about wmds to convince the public there were
WMDs.

The weapons inspectors were thrown out of Iraq because they were spying for
the CIA. They were desperately invited back by Iraq to try and stop the war,
to no avail, because WMDs were never the issue: war was.

~~~
melling
And the House and Senate just went along.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution)

Of course, the major news agencies colluded to deceive the American public
because they propagated the lie.

------
outworlder
I don't really think the drones are the problem.

The problems are:

\- Lack of intelligence. The drone may be hovering overhead, but you still
need local intel. Which is unrealiable

\- The weapons are not designed for the task. A hellfire missile is not the
right weapon to target a single individual. There will be collateral damage
unless the target is standing in a deserted area by himself. Also, while the
hellfire may be supersonic, the travel time is still significant and other
people may move next to the target

\- Armed drones are not really what's needed. Anarchic organizations are not
well suited for a decapitation strike. The next strong person will take the
leader's place. At most, you buy some time while there's a power struggle.
Also, killing religious leaders turns them into martyrs.

\- And last, but not least: who judged those people? Serial killers are taken
to the court, which then decides their fate. Deadly force is not automatically
authorized even for such dangerous individuals. Too dangerous to apprehend
those extremists? Well, I imagine such a wealthy nation can figure out ways
around it.

Then again, a drone is an expensive machine which keeps contractors happy. And
'lets kill that asshole' is an easier sell than investing in intelligence and
long term planning.

~~~
tomaskafka
Neither of your arguments is the problem.

The real problem is a system, where it only takes three mutually self-assured
groupthinkers, under stress, who have never seen a dead man, woman or child,
to push a button and kill.

It might seem like unhappy accidents, but under these circumstances they are
inevitable, and whoever set this system up should be judged and found guilty.

(The next level is that these systems grow this ugly exactly because there is
no specific person responsible for that. The guilt is spread out thinly such
that no one's moral sense is triggered. Exactly how the machinery of
concentration camps worked, everyone is doing their job and at the end of the
machine, people die).

I believe that only solution to this is to have a personal moral code, and if
your higher ups are ordering you to do something that you know isn't right, f
__k the orders. But the army know this, and attracts losers that can be
brainwashed so that belonging to army becomes their only way of life. Saying
no to order then means being expelled from whole your life. So they rather
press the button and kill twenty mothers in Afgnanistan.

~~~
Bahamut
Can't speak for other MOSs, but at least for infantry, infantry are exposed to
videos where people die during training - one video I remember seeing was from
the point of view from an insurgent, and it showed his comrades & him
launching an assault on some Marines, only to promptly run away from a hail of
gunfire. The person whose perspective is seen dies quickly.

I suspect that most training in the US military show such content, in order to
avoid sudden shock from experiencing the situation for the first time. The US
military trains as close to real scenarios as it can, so that the same
decision making happens during actual combat situations.

Contrary to what you might believe, the training often stresses to use sound
judgment - there are many accidental casualties in war, sometimes due to
miscommunication. One story that a Marine told me was that in Afghanistan,
while he was on watch at a vehicle checkpoint, a truck was speeding towards
his post - his battle buddy and him were signaling to the driver to slow
down/stop. The driver did not stop - they were forced to try to incapacitate
the vehicle, which ended up killing the driver. There were no explosives, but
you cannot know which vehicle has any - this is part of the fog of war.
Contrast that with two recent Navy Cross awards for two Marines who died in
the same situation in Iraq, except the vehicle was a suicide machine meant to
do significant damage to the base.

War is not black and white - in war, the only thing people care about is
helping get their buddies home safely. When it comes down to it, almost every
person made the choice to be ready to sacrifice if necessary to achieve this.
It is at least an honest choice when contrasted with those who have no
experience with such a world commenting without the proper perspective.

------
chinathrow
If you happen to work for one of the contractors in this program: I kindly ask
you to think about your goals and your ideals for humanity.

I used to work for a sub-contractor to the military-industrial complex. I quit
for ethical reasons. Never looked back.

Thank you.

~~~
iaskwhy
Thank you.

I'd like to have this subject discussed much more often than it is nowadays.
Military is on an extreme of the ethical-unethical scale but there are many
more cases which would deeply fall into the unethical side of the scale and
are not being talked about at all.

~~~
chinathrow
This. Like unethical research, unetically selling 0days to various gov/3letter
agencies etc. etc.

------
middleclick
And this is how you create more terrorists. When you see an innocent family
member being killed and you have nothing around you - no food, no education -
hate overpowers you and you hate the people who did this to people you loved.

~~~
sschueller
Armed drones is terrorism.

Imagine for a moment that drones were flying over the US and at anytime may
strike. You don't know where or when but you are in constant fear of an
attack.

Next time you go to an outdoor wedding take a moment and think about how that
would feel. Do you absolutely know that everyone attending is not a 'person if
interest' or even just related to one?

~~~
tomjen3
With that kind of argument all kind of warfare is terrorism, which means the
word terrorism is redundant and useless.

Fact is we are at war with some bad people and when we do so innocent people
are getting hurt - however we try really hard to minimize their numbers and
one of the ways we do that is using drones.

And if you feel bad about it think this way: we try to avoid killing
civilians, they use human shields.

~~~
outworlder
> however we try really hard to minimize their numbers and one of the ways we
> do that is using drones.

Nope. That's how you minimize US casualties.

Which I suppose is an improvement compared to dumb bombs dropped by fighter
jets, which could be shot down and the pilots captured.

------
memossy
The more degrees of separation there are between the order to kill and
killing, the easier killing becomes.

This can cause all sorts of effects, including a fear of the sky itself, as
can be see by the comments of this 13 year old who shortly after became the
third member of his family to be killed by a drone in Yemen:
[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/10/drones-dream-
ye...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/10/drones-dream-yemeni-
teenager-mohammed-tuaiman-death-cia-strike)

It is also notable that the weapons used by predator drones when not just
recon (as in the boingboing article) are hellfire missiles, burning innocents
as well as targets.

It has been shown that "cutting the head off the snake"/killing leaders of
these groups just doesn't work - ultimately since 2001 we have spent $1.6tr,
killed thousands of civilians and the number of jihadists has gone from 1,000
to 100,000, with groups increasingly effective.

While an immediate threat/node is removed, the environment these attacks
create leads to a multiplier effect on new nodes unless one is prepared to go
for full on repression and savagery, in which case you are mirroring the
enemy.

Finally the mass consumerisation of drone technology means it is only a matter
of time before smaller versions are used against us, something that will cause
huge levels of regulation on booming drone startups and likely wiping out of
equity for many in the coming years.

~~~
shostack
But think of the opportunities for the drone counter-measures industry that
hasn't been born yet.

In all seriousness, drones are tools. If you put hellfire's on them, they
become quite deadly tools. However the root of the problem is not the tool, it
is the people who decide to deploy the tool and the mechanisms in place that
enable them to do so.

Focusing on "drone assassinations" detracts from the main storyline of
"assassinations." The "drone" angle is just that, an angle.

------
newman8r
I have been talking about this a lot with my friends. The question I raise is:
when is the first private drone murder going to happen in the US and what will
the implications be? There was a great ted talk on this
[http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_suarez_the_kill_decision_sho...](http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_suarez_the_kill_decision_shouldn_t_belong_to_a_robot?language=en)

It's really not even something that's technically difficult. I am just
thankful the best minds in the US tend to have plenty of healthy outlets for
creativity but the situation in developing nations is not so ideal.

~~~
jessaustin
_...when is the first private drone murder going to happen in the US..._

Can we really assume it hasn't happened already? Of course we can imagine some
users of killerdeathdrones that would be proud of themselves and would want to
make it clear that no person is truly safe. Other purposes would be predicated
on secrecy and uncertainty. At least until they work most of the bugs out, the
first drone murderers will probably stay quiet about it.

~~~
newman8r
true, maybe it has already happened. I guess we probably wouldn't really know
until one messed up.

------
gldalmaso
When all you have is a weapon everything looks like a target.

US are being irresponsible pricks playing with guns and technology that is
obviously not well suited for this kind of threat assessment.

Also $5,000 per family? Really? Even after admitting the error? The U.S.
Special Forces, Military, CIA or whatever are that low on budget (hardly) or
simply do not give a flying fuck?

~~~
bluedino
On the other hand, in theatre, a false positive is better than the alternative
for mission success. Just like anti-virus software. You're better off flagging
calc.exe as a virus than letting a 'maybe' through.

~~~
algorias
We're talking about human lives here. You can't restore from backup when you
make a mistake. My god, what arrogance.

------
kordless
Can we seriously stop using 'drone' for both remote controlled multi-million
dollar military grade weapons and quad-copter plastic toys that cost $20? It's
fucking stupid.

~~~
Symbiote
We use 'plane' for all kinds, from toy to passenger to freight to fighter.
Perhaps 'fighter drone' or 'armed drone' would be better.

~~~
sosborn
Drone also implies autonomy.

------
hcarvalhoalves
Since the drone was undetected, they could've have informed the ground patrol
of the convoy heading their direction, kept the choppers in the air, followed
the convoy, and acted as soon the supposed terrorists engaged. If the convoy
really headed the patrol direction, they would even have intel from the
ground.

The problem is that you have here a military force doing the equivalent of
police work. They are on war mode, shoot first ask later, be on the "safe"
side, which is incompatible with how you're supposed to work when you have
civilians everywhere.

If civilian casualties mattered as much to high command as troop casualties
(and it should, not only for humanitarian reasons, but also political), the
decision making would be different. The US has one of the best military in the
world, they have the technology and the means to avoid collateral damage, what
they lack is a change in culture if they're going to act as a peace force.

------
lazyjones
I was a bit disappointed not to find any thoughts about the proliferation of
smaller, affordable drones and their potential uses in assassinating people
(by criminals) in the article. It's not hard to imagine this happening sooner
or later and it's scary to think about even smaller (insect-size) and more
autonomous (no RC operator nearby) gadgets and their potential effectiveness.

How many years till a robotic fly can release a drop of poison in your mouth
while you're sleeping? 30-40?

~~~
socialist_coder
I was also disappointed the article was not about personal drones being
modified to kill. It's going to happen, sooner rather than later.

~~~
bbradley406
Having seen a video[1] of a drone armed with a paintball pistol (and its
precision), I would say that it will be much sooner than expected. Despite the
fact that I'll probably be put on a watch-list for saying this, it would be
the perfect crime. There would be no weapon left at the scene (provided the
drone returns to its base), as well as no DNA samples. Anyone who could rig
and pilot such a drone would probably be smart enough to leave minimal
evidence related to motives, purchases, etc.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jplh7uatr-E&t=138](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jplh7uatr-E&t=138)

------
littletimmy
There is unfortunately no way out of this mess. Every war makes new combatants
to kill, and every war enriches the military-industrial complex. Now there are
new enemies to kill, and new lobbying to justify killing. This creates more
enemies, and enriches the defense industry further. And so on and on it goes.

This country is fucked.

------
grey-area
This is being done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia and
probably other countries too - the U.S. is at war and no-one seems to have
approved it or noticed. Personally I think it's terrible strategically as well
as morally, and most of the regimes being backed by the policy are dubious at
best. This will not end well.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/dronestream/tweets](https://mobile.twitter.com/dronestream/tweets)

------
ccvannorman
In the article: "Bizarrely, the technology was less efficient than the
Taliban’s."

From BB comments: "Actually people are shocked because this isn't what war has
always looked like. Never has so little personal risk on the part of the
invaders been accepted for the privilege of killing people in another
country."

------
tokenizerrr
Daniel Suarez has a nice, fictional, book about a world where drones are used
for targeted autonomous assassinations.

[http://thedaemon.com/killdecisionsynopsis.html](http://thedaemon.com/killdecisionsynopsis.html)

~~~
wj
Jon Evans (writer at Techcrunch) also wrote a novel with a similar plot (it
was a sequel of a previous book called Invisible Armies that dealt with
hackers) which you can download for free:

[http://www.feedbooks.com/userbook/24466/swarm](http://www.feedbooks.com/userbook/24466/swarm)

I enjoyed both Swarm and Kill Decision.

------
Fiahil
> _Families of the dead ultimately received $5,000 each, plus one goat._

What the hell am I reading?

~~~
gnu8
I was looking for the prison sentences for the war criminals who committed the
murders, but obviously there were none. Every character in that story belongs
in a cage.

------
m_alexgr
Disgusting, cowardly and counter productive.

------
dreamweapon
_Families of the dead ultimately received $5,000 each, plus one goat._

Unit cost of the MQ-1 Predator: $4.03M

Program cost, as of 2011: $2.38B

------
Spoom
It's not long until US wars are fought entirely by remote.

------
GizaDog
Yes government Drones are a problem! They can kill anyone.

------
forthelasttime
More drone bashing, despite the fact drones are less likely to hit innocent
people than manned aircraft, because drones can study a target for extended
periods of time, where manned jets have just seconds.

Edit: from the amount I've been down voted, I'm guess you'd be perfectly happy
if a manned jet killed innocent people.

If you continue drone bashing, you might succeed in making them use drones
less frequently or even stop their use completely, but this will not stop
wars. Instead they will use manned aircraft and manned helicopters to do the
job, and they kill MORE innocent people than drones.

So please, stop and use your brains for 5 miliseconds before down voting. If
you have problems with civilians dying in wars, you have a problem with wars,
not a problem with drones. Getting rid of drones will increase the numbers of
civilians dying.

~~~
UserRights
Send doctors, schools and money and not drones and people around the planet
will love, not hate you. Very simple to understand.

~~~
blackbagboys
Or they'll chop off their heads on camera, but hey, same difference.

