"Psychosis" is a real word with real meaning. It's frustrating when people use it as a slang word because that use stigmatises people with mental health problems.
It's possible that someone in a spree shooting has never had a psychotic episode and was not psychotic when they were shooting.
Psychotic episodes are not just caused by mental illness. They can be a symptom of other illnesses - Brain diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease; Brain tumors or cysts; HIV and other infections that affect the brain; Some types of epilepsy; or Stroke.
(It's a shame that 'psychotic' is similar to 'psychopathic'. And that most people have almost no understanding of either condition.)
> The same applies to drone warfare. It’s suddenly so much easier to pull the trigger, and you’re not putting any of your own people at risk. And so more people die.
The military kills people. We stopped caring whether those people were civilians during WWII. Our military kills people with a variety of weapons. Shock and awe didn't feel particularly targeted. The cluster bombs that kill and maim hundreds of people each year don't feel particularly targeted. Cluster bombs are currently illegal, but the US and Britain have been trying to get the ban over-turned.
I don't understand why drones, as a weapon of war, are getting so much attention at the moment compared to other weapons of war. Dead civilians are dead whether they're killed by drones or landmines or cluster bomblets or whatever.
I think if one is going to have a war or be at war, it's reasonable to use a method which tries to minimize 'friendly' casualties first and e'enemy' collateral damage second. Ie. does it reduce 'friendly' casualties? Does it reduce collateral deaths on the other side? I think the answer is yes to both.
I think drones reduce both and as such are a good thing, if one is going to be at war. Recall how in VN the VC suffered 2million casualties? Lots of that was due to collateral damage. Or in Afghanistan how the Russians decimated the enemy? That's traditional warfare.
The issue with remoteness and 'coldness' is an attempt to make this approach less palatable (appeal to some kind of war ethics?) on the other hand, if we were sending personnel on foot (a la vietnam) and people (soldiers) were dying by the dozen daily, people would feel aggrieved too (naturally).
Therefore I think what people should protest is 'war' not just a 'kind of war' because, to be honest, this new kind of war, if there needs to be one (and that's debatable of course), has its advantages over traditional (and that's becoming less traditional) warfare. It's less bloody and incurs less collateral damage is more targeted and effective.
So I think psychologically perhaps UAVs seem asymmetrical and unfair to a technological backward foe but realistically, they are at a huge disadvantage in traditional warfare anyway.
As weird as it sounds, I think UAVs are more effective and antiseptic than traditional warfare and thus 'better' as compared to boots on the ground.
They don't reduce "enemy collateral damage", though. In fact, the collateral fatalities from drone attacks are one of the highest at 98%, according to some estimates [1]. Compare this to estimated civillian casualty rate of 60% in WWII [2] and around 50% in Vietnam [3] (distorted figures because anyone in a "free-fire" zone is considered the enemy).
The intelligence for drone strikes are based on patterns, such as a party of men carrying guns or a group of unknown people plotting something. And so these strikes routinely -- and sometimes deliberately -- target wedding parties [4], funerals, and rescue workers [5], and children [6].
Add to this the psychological trauma of constantly living under the threat of drones [7], it is no wonder citizens of countries where these programs are carried out hold somewhat of a grudge against the US [8]. You can call it signature strike, or whatever you want, the fact is that bombs do not know the difference between combatants and women/children/civilians. They kill indiscriminately. So forgive me if I don't see the "advantage" of using drones over boots on the ground or see how they are "better".
In fact, the collateral fatalities from drone attacks are one of the highest at 98%, according to some estimates [1].
I think you're confused. The relevant paragraph in your link says the collateral damage -- both civilians and unknowns -- is 2% at the moment.
The civilian casualty rate has been dropping sharply
since 2008. The number of civilians, plus "unknowns,"
those individuals whose precise status could not be
determined from media reports, reported killed by drones
in Pakistan during Obama's tenure in office were 11% of
fatalities. So far in 2012 it is close to 2%. Under
President Bush it was 33%.
Conversely, the percentage of militants killed has been
rising over the life of the drone program. The number of
militants reported killed by drone strikes is 89% of the
fatalities under Obama compared to 67% under Bush.
I think that's fantastic news. A collateral damage rate of 2%, including unknowns "whose status could not be determined from media reports" is downright unprecedented in warfare.
The statistics, taken together, say they're using drones more in regular combat than they used to, and getting better at confirming that the kills are accurate. That's great news, isn't it?
There is a later paragraph that claims only 2% of drone strikes kill leaders. Maybe that's what you're thinking of?
Since it began in 2004, the drone campaign has killed 49
militant leaders whose deaths have been confirmed by at
least two credible news sources. While this represents a
significant blow to the militant chain of command, these
49 deaths account for only 2% of all drone-related
fatalities.
I don't see how that's relevant, though. Is it somehow illegitimate to use drones on regular soldiers if it's tactically advantageous?
All right, but isn't categorizing anyone who isn't "a militant leader confirmed dead by two news sources" as a civilian . . . a little over the top?
And anyway, disagreeing with the categorization of combatants is a separate question. They claim, at least, that they hit who they intended to hit 98% of the time. I still say that's pretty good!
This article says its 50 civilians killed for every targeted militant. I suppose you can try to play around with the words of what is and is not a militant, if that helps you sleep at night, but it shouldn't.
What it boils down to is this, we shouldn't even be over there. We're making it a lot easier for terrorist organizations to recruit new members, because we are doing all the pitching for them.
In this country where kids now get to be kids until they're 25, all first world problems, and you still have a bunch of angst filled teenagers who daydream about blowing up their schools with pipe bombs.. and they have absolutely no reason to feel like this other than hormones making them bat excrement crazy.
So imagine what goes through the hormone crazed teenagers mind in one of these countries who grew up without their parents because they we're killed by our military, and one day some guy offers them a chance to get back at the people who took everything from them. It's not a tough sale.. I mean look at how easy our military recruits people just barely out of high school, all they have to offer them is college money and they're ready to kill whoever their officer points to.
This just makes it all the more ridiculous and infuriating when someone is so nonchalant about innocent people getting killed, because it isn't even accomplishing the intended goal. What it does accomplish, is further justification for our military to start more wars to protect us from new generations of terrorists.
This article says its 50 civilians killed for every targeted militant.
If true, that's horrific, and I'll be the first to criticize it. But I'm going to need to see some methodology on that before I believe you.
In particular, given that the above link established that 2% of drone kills were on media-confirmed terrorist leaders, that means your article is claiming all the other kills, all 3000+, have been on innocent civilians.
I find that a rather unlikely level of incompetence.
> I find that a rather unlikely level of incompetence.
I believe government is the only place where that level of incompetence is common.
The problem with the 2% figure is that 2% of even 3,000 would only be 60 innocent people killed, but 160+ children have been killed.. so if someone is saying its only 2%, how do 5% of these deaths turn out to be children?
If our government would share their data with the organizations that did these investigations, maybe it would show they were wrong, but I doubt it.
We know the precise number of military causalities, we even know the precise number of police officers injured or killed, our government is meticulous about reporting on those, but try and find out how many U.S citizens are killed annually by police and you won't get anywhere.
If they won't accurately report how many of us are killed by police, what are the chances that they are keeping track of foreign civilian casualties any more accurately?
accountswu, I can't reply to you, as both comments are [dead]. I don't know if they've been downvoted to death or what, but that's why my reply is up here.
Would you support drone attacks to kill mass murderers that happen to reside in your neighborhood?
I think the level of collateral damage is too high for normal law enforcement. Police don't normally need to leave craters. ;)
If we were talking about warfare, though -- foreign spies, terrorists? Especially if my city/state were protecting them? Hell yes, bring it on.
You're a wolf in a Dove's clothing.
Ha! I'd never thought about the political connotations of the name until this moment--it means other things to me. It's not my intent to mislead; I'm nowhere close to dove territory, politically speaking.
Maybe you can tell. ;)
Can Obama kill you and then claim you are a militant leader?
That would be pretty difficult. It's not as though he operates with no oversight. Nor is it as though he doesn't have political opponents who would be all over that sort of scandal.
I believe government is the only place where that level of incompetence is common.
Ha! No. No, even clerks at the DMV get things right a whole lot more often than that. ;) And coming from drone operators and intelligence officers? That's completely unbelievable to me. Those guys are professionals.
Quite the opposite, I've seen plenty of footage of the systems in operation, and I find a collateral damage rate of 2% or lower completely believable. With a drone, you can be watching your target for tens of minutes, making sure he's really the guy you want.
The problem with the 2% figure is that 2% of even 3,000 would only be 60 innocent people killed, but 160+ children have been killed..
Well, it's 2% "so far in 2012". I think they said it was 11% over the life of the program, and that it's gotten much better over time. So even if the numbers are accurate, that still works out.
The CIA says it isn't that high, though, and I'm inclined to trust them on that. They do have cameras on the target when they take the shot and all. And I don't know about you, but it's a bit too paranoid for me to believe they're making figures up out of whole cloth.
Why not share the data with news organizations? The camera footage almost certainly contains classified information about system capabilities and tactics. From their perspective, keeping systems effective is 100000% more important than looking good in the media. Especially since you look bad in the media anyway, even if you give them all the data (just ask scientists).
try and find out how many U.S citizens are killed annually by police and you won't get anywhere.
>They don't reduce "enemy collateral damage", though. In fact...
Percentage may or may not be the best way to assess effectiveness (reduction in casualties). Another measure could be collateral, or even total casualties, per highly valued target. After all a strategy in war is to take out the leadership making engagement with grunts and or civilians less necessary.
>it's reasonable to use a method which tries to minimize 'friendly' casualties first and e'enemy' collateral damage second
That is a very broad statement. Would it apply to enemies using Chemical, Biological or Nuclear weapons?
> people (soldiers) were dying by the dozen daily
I don't think that you intend to, but it seems like you are counting only friendly casualties as people casualties.
> asymmetrical and unfair to a technological backward foe
Which would probably be all foes but one, if popular media is to be trusted with statistics. There is no country that spends asuch as US and that has been the case for a long long time I believe. So all foes are backward and hence a war, if the technology is the criteria of fairness, is going to be extremely unfair to them.
>Would it apply to enemies using Chemical, Biological or Nuclear weapons?
Not unless nuclear were reclassified as "reasonable". They also violate 'minimizing'.
>There is no country that spends asuch as US and that has been the case for a long long time I believe.
Yes but that's true irrespective of technology. I think UAVs allow for better targeting and hence smaller impact on civilians.
>I don't think that you intend to, but it seems like you are counting only friendly casualties as people casualties.
Unless we're discussing things theoretically, an entity waging war is beholden to its constituency, that translates into valuing ourselves over the other. None the less I meant in an overall sense so long as there isn't undue duress on the friendlies.
I think that the general fear is that war will turn into a 'video game' played by a bunch of people in a secure warehouse in middle America. This will remove the human aspect of what is going on at the other end of the controls, and we'll be less likely to get 'soldiers' doing things like questioning orders.
If the targets on your screen were real people, would you not take the situation seriously?
Or, let's put it another way. Bombers don't interface with targets personally; they're on the screen. Fighter pilots, too, for the most part. Artillery? Definitely. How about SAM operators? All they see is radar blips. Cruise missiles? ICBMs? People have to operate and launch those. How about an AWACS doing command and control? Their screens look like Starcraft with crappy graphics.
Do any of these people see themselves as gamers rather than soldiers? I don't know any who do.
The gravity of the situation comes from knowing that you're really involved in combat. Not from how good the graphics are.
The Milgram experiment [1] showed that people who perceived themselves to under the influence of an authority will hurt other people when told to do so. The idea that soldiers are immune to this effect is irrational; in reality, this influence is probably a factor in their training regimes.
Soldiers, at least in our military, are also trained to counter this effect: they take an oath to obey lawful orders, and they know they have a duty to disobey unlawful orders. In fact, the modern soldier knows that if he obeys an illegal order, he can be prosecuted for it.
This experiment hasn't been done, to my knowledge, but how do you think milgram would have gone if they had begun the experiment by explaining the difference between ethical and unethical orders, and telling people they could be prosecuted for following the unethical ones?
Most normal people haven't thought that through, and are unprepared to make that kind of decision. But soldiers have. Like a doctor professionally worries about malpractice, a soldier spends his entire career thinking that through.
I think it's present, but not a dominant factor. Depends on culture and training.
What Milgram measured was how inexperienced people react to a new ethical situation. If he had tested people who were familiar with the context--fellow scientists--I very much suspect the results would be different. That's true in many fields. You might be able to intimidate a junior engineer into including a substandard part in a safety-critical area, but a senior engineer will refuse. And then he'll quit. It's not that he has more character; he has more experience.
Soldiers have a lot of experience. If you order them to hurt people immorally, their reactions are more like the senior engineer than the junior one: measures of character, not measures of how quickly they can think about a new situation.
There have always been soldiers who said, at the eventual trial, that they were "just following orders". I think they're generally inexperienced, but I'm sure there are cowards who think that way at the end of a career, too. I'm sure the prevalence depends on culture and training, but that does show that the effect Milgram measured is present.
I do have some evidence that it isn't dominant, though. Historically speaking, conquering armies have behaved in conquered countries pretty much as they pleased--sometimes very badly. But to get a soldier to kill his own countrymen, it has generally been necessary to threaten him or his family with death -- mere orders have not been enough. The soldier has a limit on what he'll do for authority, and he'll quit sooner than Milgram's subjects did.
It takes courage to make a high stakes moral decision correctly; I won't claim that everyone has it. I don't know what the rate is, and I expect it varies widely by culture and training. But I do think that in order to measure it, you need to test professionals. Extrapolating from amateurs isn't good enough. Perhaps a repeat Milgram would be a start: test all the same subjects again a week later, after they've had plenty of time to think about the experience.
Moreover, the Milgram behaviors were pretty much par for what young enlisted men do when left to their own devices on a good day. The senior NCOs know this and make sure they are not left to their own devices.
Not at all. I said that there are already soldiers in the situation where their targets are lights on a screen, and they already treat the situation with the appropriate gravity. I claimed that drones wouldn't change that.
Milgram proves too much. It should prove those soldiers callous as well, and they are not. Heck, it should prove any soldier callous, and they certainly are not. As I explained above, soldiers have training the subjects in milgram didn't.
The "soldiers questioning orders" usually refers to the grunts questioning the orders of the higher-ups. You seem to be referring to generals making high-level decisions far-removed from the battlefield.
> We stopped caring whether those people were civilians during WWII.
This is almost completely backwards. We only started caring at some point after WWII--the avoidance of civilian casualties is, for Western countries at least, one of the problems taken most seriously.
> "Psychosis" is a real word with real meaning. It's frustrating when people use it as a slang word because that use stigmatises people with mental health problems.
The media make a habit of hyperbolically using words to the point that their original meaning is destroyed - see "mayhem" for a good example.
> I don't understand why drones, as a weapon of war, are getting so much attention at the moment compared to other weapons of war. Dead civilians are dead whether they're killed by drones or landmines or cluster bomblets or whatever.
Guns were weapons of war (canons) before they were made portable and more people, including civilians, could get one. Likewise, club a radio controlled quadcopter with, say, an automatic rifle and you've got a home brew drone.
Since without a gun, such a home brew drone is mostly harmless (TM D.Adams), gun control would significantly reduce the risk of such home brew drones. So, yes, drones need to be included in the argument against guns.
The military kills people. We stopped caring whether those people were civilians during WWII.
Uh, one might regret that civilian deaths were ignored during one or another time period (and they've been ignored many times). But putting it as "we've gotten away with this killing, now we have carte blanche, forever" is rather objectionable.
A balanced view of the overall toll of war is nice but we shouldn't dismiss one concern simply with the excuse that it doesn't mention another.
Another reason people object to drones is that they are weapon of, uh, terror, in the sense that having flying, killing machines around terrifies far more people than are actually kiled by the drone (the use of aircraft to inspire terror has always been part of its military use btw).
Edit: Also, the talk of "friends" and "enemies" is glib and doesn't reflect the situation is Afghanistan. It is a counter-insurgency war where most of the population is civilians that are neither "friendly" nor "unfriendly" off-the-bat. But keep your drones in the air long enough and it seem like you will find a hostile civilian population.
An easy way to spot a bullshit article with more concern for their agenda than truth is implying a comparison between numbers that can't be compared.
"Meanwhile, only 2 percent of the victims of the American drone war — a body count that now far exceeds the number who died in the World Trade Center — were “high-level militants” and hundreds upon hundreds were civilians."
Aside from quibbling with using "victims" to refer to "high-level militants", I would expect similar numbers from any military operation ever. How's this sound "only 2% of the victims of the american invasion of Iwo Jima were field-grade Japanese officers"?
Then we see the switch to comparing percentages to raw numbers. American's likely killed significantly more civilians in European bombing campaigns than we did in Hiroshima, but anyone with a shred of moral judgment can differentiate between civilians killed due to proximity to military targets (European bombing) vs. what we would call today state terrorism -- the intent to kill large numbers of civilians at Hiroshima to demonstrate our power.
So what percent of those killed in the drone strikes are civilians? To what extent does the military weigh the risk of killing civilians when evaluating potential missions? Is any of this unique to drone strikes?
I can't come to any conclusion but that this was just a generic collection of musings to generate outrage. It has nothing to do with Connecticut. It has nothing valuable to say about the ethics of drones. It's just troll baiting.
Just a minor nitpick, but a lot of the (European Bombing) was deliberately at civilian targets, with up to 600,000 civilian deaths. The second world war started with an agreement to try to avoid civilian targets, but that stopped in 1940. Later developments included incendiary bombs and "firestorms".
I feel like the article is mostly empty scaremongering. Drones are inevitable, you can't stop technology marching forward. They may not be a bad thing, however. More drone warfare means fewer soldiers involved in conflict and fewer deaths. I think a lot of the handwringing over drones is just because it's OMG ROBOTS, rather than considering that these deaths would have happened anyway but would have also caused casualties and psychological damage to the troops that would have been in their place.
Drone operators work with less intel than boots on the ground, and have less ability to precisely target, so it's pretty much a given that there will be more civilian casualties, not less.
If drones didn't make it easier to kill, they wouldn't be used on such a massive scale (the US military now trains more drone operators than fighter pilots).
All weapons make it easier to kill. We have been on a steady march forward as far as the efficiency of killing goes. We have guns, bombs, etc. . . And the same arguments were made about planes, I'm sure. The pilots are too detached from what's happening on the ground, etc. . . However, the order to kill is going to happen regardless and drones are better than carpet bombing, let alone the Shock and Awe crap that we were doing in Iraq.
War is horrid. It's the worst thing we do as humans, but I can't see how drones really make it worse. Are they used to kill the wrong people sometimes? Yes. Are there civilian casualties? Yes. But that happens with all warfare. And as we've gotten more efficient at killing we've been doing less of it. Wars have become less brutal over time, not more and I don't see that trend changing.
War has become less brutal and more efficient, but it's very foolish to say that as a result, there are going to be fewer deaths. WW2 was more deadly than WW1, and if you look at the weapons we have available today, I don't know how anyone can think that WW3 is going to be _less_ deadly.
"I don't know what kind of weapons will be used in the third world war, assuming there will be a third world war. But I can tell you what the fourth world war will be fought with -- stone clubs."
The order to kill and the actual number of deaths resulting are a factor of how big the gun is and how easy to point. I'm sure airplanes did in fact cause an increase in civilian casualties. Better weapons mean more civilian deaths.
Also, i don't see were you get this notion that wars get less brutal. Is the rwandan genocide of a fifth of a country less brutal? Is the iraqi total of over 100.000 civilian casualties less brutal?
Improvements in effectiveness reduce deaths, too. For example, suppose you want to destroy a country's air-defense system. Which is the costlier way--in terms of loss of life--to do it: a conventional air engagement, shooting fighters and pilots in the air, and attacking missile defenses directly with bombers (and losing some)? Or evading defenses with a stealth bomber?
Better weapons enable you to do what you want to do. When what you want to do is eliminate leaders or destroy infrastructure, that's a good thing, from a humane perspective.
The criticism of drones isn't of the technology, but the attitude of those operating them. The article mentions that it doesn't put the operator's own people at risk, and is trying to point out that this creates a detachment from the consequences. Before, taking out a target required people on the ground in some capacity, actually carrying out the mission or just identifying the target. Drones undoubtably save the lives of troops on a per-engagement basis, but now that there isn't that risk, and without some process or oversight, it's becoming too easy to just pull the trigger and destroy some pixels on a screen.
I think it's actually the other way around. The stress of combat, the instinct to self-preservation, close contact with the horrors of war, and the loss of comrades likely makes troops on the ground more, not less, likely to commit atrocities or act callously towards civilians. Drone strikes are also easier to supervise and review.
I won't speak to the balance, as I have no idea what it is, never the less, I would tend to think that not being in immediate danger would allow for tracking and confirmation, whereas in conventional warfare, one might have acted a lot more on "gut feeling" (ie. that form running across the street is acting suspiciously and indeed seems threatening, it's either me or them.
Simpsons called it: "The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots."
Drones are only the beginning. The US military leads the World in developing military 'bots. The problem with having such an excessive military as ours is that the civilian leaders use to commit more and more stupid acts. With robotic weapons, so far fewer body bags returning to Dover, what will our "leaders" do then?
Well, it works both ways. When the US can fight a war with few or no casualties, it gets harder to fight a war of attrition against it - which was explicitly part of Al-Qaida's strategy, and not by coincidence, this was the strategy leveraged against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Also, I think this point in time is similar to the period when the US had the nuclear bomb until the Soviets and others had it too. Right now it gives the US an edge that's disconcerting, but on a longer horizon, every military will have these capabilities.
Another problem is that we, in other countries, don't think of America as the pinnacle of democracy or progress, don't think your causes as just, nor we believe you have any moral or other right to play global cop or to have access to cheap oil.
And yet, a large part of the US public and lots of its leaders, thinks those things about the US, and gives its blessing to foreign intervention.
Add to that that we also (what a shocker) value our lives and our cultures, and don't consider ourselves inferior barbarians to be "civilised" or "invaded", and you can understand our problem with drones.
In fact, some of us, view the US as the barbarians, burning villages 15.000 away from their country or throwing chemicals that kill and harm hundreds of thousands of people (Agent Orange), throwing nuclear bombs at civilians, doing medical tests on unsuspecting people ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiment ), invading sovereign countries with BS pretexts, keeping at "beyond law" prison, pushing for mass surveillance, ACTA and such. Heck, you even have segregated buses until 50 years ago. Even today, 70% of the prison population is non whites, while at the same time you have the highest incarceration rate on earth ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcerat... ). Heck, you guys still have the death penalty!
A country like that PLUS drones? The stuff that nightmares are made of...
The U.S. was founded by hypocrites who didn't want to be enslaved to a regime, so they killed off the natives, and enslaved people of color then called it freedom.
Hypocritical idealism from the U.S. should probably be expected. Though at times the U.S. was probably the least evil option.
You really have this backwards. The slaughter of Aboriginal Americans was done under the flags of multiple European Empires, long before independence was even a catchphrase in the colonies.
If we want to play the historical blame game, both Europe and the USA need to STFU. Along with every other country on Earth, each of whom have a litany of abuses and atrocities they won't own up to.
No, I do not have it backwards. The persecution of the Native Americans and Africans continued well after U.S. became a nation. Just because abuses started before the U.S. was founded, doesn't excuse the hypocritical foundation the U.S. was built off of.
No doubt that other European countries have their own bloody histories. However, the ease with which history is glossed over, and propaganda is spread regarding the supposedly democratic freedoms the U.S. ushered in, seems predominantly a U.S. issue.
Hypocracy implies no desire to change. The US did, eventually, deliver on its promises. That says to me that the ideals were aspirational, not hypocritical.
>Hypocracy implies no desire to change. The US did, eventually, deliver on its promises. That says to me that the ideals were aspirational, not hypocritical.
Did it though? Or was it just forced to change some things due to mass protests or because it found other ways to get the same conveniences?
I mean, who needs slave labor when you can have an industrial revolution, factories and tractors? That doesn't mean that the old slaves are not equal -- you then have Jim Crow laws, segregation, 70% of prisoners being non-white and other methods of control.
Plus have you talked with native americans, say, in the South Dacota? They have some interesting things to say about the country "delivering on its promises".
If I may add something to my original comment: it, of course, wasn't meant to show that US people are bad in general. I just wanted to take apart a country that praises itself as kind of the pinnacle of civilisation, to show that it isn't so.
The same could be said for any country -- though the US, by it's sheer power and constant warfare over its interests and for its economic benefit, plus it's bizarro half progressive/half medieval internal landscape is one of the more dangerous examples.
That said, most of Europe has similar atrocities in it's past and/or present -- and some other countries too (e.g. Japan and their occupation of Manchuria).
Now, civil wars and intra-country badness one can understand, even wars with neighbouring countries over some dispute. But what is especially dangerous and hideous is when countries exploit or invade peoples and countries that have never done any harm to them.
Kind of like the British Empire ruling over India, or France over "Indochina". Or the african-american slavery. And what's more dangerous is being hypocritical about it, in the "yes, but we built them an infrastructure", or "yes, but we brought democracy to them" sense.
And one last thing that's extremely dangerous is to thing that those things are "of the past", and now "we have progressed above them". Not so. For example, segregation might be in the past, but 70% of prisoners being non-whites still holds. The massacre of the native indians is in the past, but that doesn't mean that they have their lands back now. Or for Europe: colonisation might be past, but that doesn't mean that old colonial powers don't interfere constantly in their old colonies, pushing specific politics and politicians. An example: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/inside-france...
You can buy remote control aircraft that can carry up to 10kg weight. We make custom built octocopters for carrying a RED EPIC digital cinema camera, large lens, gyro and a hefty bunch of batteries (check http://londonhelicam.co.uk).
Right now, drones larger than Parrot AR Drone are fairly complex pieces of technology, which will hopefully help to keep them away from crazy people. But I admit it's scary to think what they could be used for once they become a commodity.
This is a very serious charge. Whether it's with drones, artillery, rifles, or bare hands doesn't matter. If they have solid evidence of the military intentionally (or recklessly) targeting civilian first-responders, I'd think they should be looking to have charges filed against the individuals responsible.
You are correct that they should charged if they were to target a civilian, but you are neglecting the definition of “all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.”.
Once that male first responder is in the US-determined strike zone (ie, his country of birth) he is a combatant -- and hence an justified target ---until proven otherwise, which can only be after he is dead. By this definition, there is legally no such thing as a living male adult civilian first responder.
Sadly, the US doesn't even deny that they make follow-up strikes: 'We don’t discuss classified programs or comment on alleged strikes.' Anyway, who else would attempt to aid a wounded combatant (male funeral goer) other than another combatant (grieving male relative)?
A fascinating parallel field is the development of EMP weapons - and they're no longer science fiction as Boeing recently detonated the first "successful EMP bomb" (1) w/the help of the military.
A well placed EMP could literally knock out a Drone operator's electronics (even if the operator is deep in a bunker (2)), or target a drone itself.
Drones really needs to be studied badly in terms of how they are going to change the future of warfare, especially as more and more new countries gets access to them.
If I was a secret service coordinator, I would be shacking in my boots when I think about how to protect the president when any enemy, whether they are a country, a terrorist group, or just a lone nutjob (and how do you even identify a lone nut job? The norwegian police pretty much admitted that they couldn't, after the debacle with the loser who shot up a kid camp), can make or adapt a drone and fly it from far away?
The president is safe now, because very few people are completely unconcerned with their own lives, but with drones we may never know who was really responsible for the attack.
Drones even have the potential to be more dangerous to political groups than nukes, because nukes are so difficult to make that the only entities who could make them are the large, advanced, countries that have too much to lose if they were ever used. Drones are much easier, especially as all it really takes to make a lethal killing machine from a standard drone is to strap a rocket launcher on one.
And yes, private people can buy drones (http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/select-site) for surprisingly little money (less than all but the cheapest computers) -- true they can't carry any load at present, but that is almost guaranteed to change in the future since drones have plenty of business usages, in industries such construction and transportation (and possible in the service industry, if the tacocopter takes of).
And if there is one thing a terrorist could get their hands on with relative ease it is rockets and even if they somehow can't you can properly do pretty decent damage just putting an AK47 on it.
There is a final, perhaps more sinister issue with drones -- unlike nukes you don't have much, if any, idea of where they came from; and if you don't know where they came form, how do you make sure that the enemy knows that you will retaliate? And if they don't know that, what is to stop them from using the nukes on you? Heck isn't it better, all things considered, that you attack first?
One of my hobbies is FPV flying with RC planes and quads, so I can comment on "consumer grade" drones.
The ARDrone is completely a toy. It has a range of about 20m before the video cuts out and the quad flies away by itself, crashing into a building or just falling out of the sky.
That said, you can make a long distance plane complete with video, gps and autopilot for $1000 - $2000. Depending on setup, flight time is between 15 minutes and an hour, with effective ranges up to 20km.
HOWEVER, very few people are capable of pulling off long distance FPV. Hell, most people fail at short distance FPV. The gear is hard, radio interference is a huge bitch (especially if you are near any urban area) and frankly, it's hard to fly a little plane made out of foam. They get knocked around by wind gusts really easily.
Any rotor platform (tris, quads, etc) are limited in range to 1-2km max, simply because you can't strap enough batteries onto the thing for longer range. Flight times are 15-30 minutes with current technology
Obviously, technology is going to continue to advance. And if the project is bankrolled by a government, all bets are off. But lone terrorists are going to have a hard time pulling off a drone attack. You can simply triangulate their signal (both the radio control and the video feed, which also usually includes a GPS downlink) and know exactly where they are transmitting from. Interfering with a drone is as simple as jamming the radio spectrum they are using...most drones (planes or quads) have about 10seconds before they crash into the ground when uncontrolled.
Lastly, carrying gear is really hard for any rotor platform. Max payload right now is a couple of kilos, usually a DSLR on a gimbal. These have to be lifted by octocopter setups (8 rotors) which absolutely kills battery efficiency. You get 15 minutes flighttime max, and the thing sounds like a swarm of killer bees.
I doubt terrorist-made drones will be remote controlled for exactly the reasons you just described; the skill level required is just too high. I'd expect them to work more like cruise missiles, a hand grenade strapped to a fixed-wing plane with a crude GPS-based autopilot that simply flies straight at the target. They might miss their targets more often than not, but that's not a big problem if your primary goal is to cause terror and mayhem.
Oh, I have heard about them. But there aren't that many people who are interested in blowing themselves up, and it is all but impossible to get any of them near the president (or any other highvalue target, but the president is probably the most difficult target that people actually want to get) - drones? Not so much.
The airspace around the President is heavily regulated, wherever (s)he goes. A drone big enough to be a threat would be noticed in an otherwise empty sky.
Plus, there's no possible downside to just shooting down a drone and asking questions later. You might feel silly about shooting down a tacocopter when you find out all it had was tacos, but you won't kill anyone.
This is the real problem with drones. America is the richest country in the world. Therefore, it's in our interest to make war as expensive as possible, since we are well positioned to win a costly war. On the other hand, drones are cheap and getting cheaper. It's suicidal for us to invest our resources in lowering the cost of entry to war, and yet we do so blithely. When we are attacked by cheap $100,000 or $10,000 drones, who will we blame for not keeping the cost of a cruise missile up in the millions besides ourselves?
"Worse yet, the way things are going, it’s only a matter of time until alpha insurgencies like Hezbollah and the Zetas have their own fleets of armed or kamikaze drones."
And who will make and sell them those drones? Probably the same companies that are selling them to the US Army today. The way things are going right now, I envision warfare in the future being much like in the Terminator Salvation movie. The only difference is that the "machines" might not be self-aware (although they could be automatic), but they will be controlled by other humans. But in places where the war will actually happen, all you'll see is a battle between machines and men being slaughtered by them.
Also, drones aren't nuclear science. Any number can play. the Iranians may or may not be making useful drones now ( http://theaviationist.com/2012/01/30/iran-a1/ ), to give some idea.
I'd guess that the enabling parts that didn't exist 20 years ago are today found in mass-market cellphones, so controlling the technology as if it was big uranium-enriching plants is not going to happen.
From Wikipedia (Al Qassam rockets): "The cost of the materials used for manufacturing each Qassam is up to $800 or €500"
I'm sure the cost of building a drone with decent carrying capacity will come within that range pretty soon. Hell, with the average Qassam's precision, does it even matter if it costs 4x if your hit rate increases?
Steal a tacocopter and stick a granade under it -- that should enable you to take out the target (and leave a pretty decent mystery for the local authorities to solve. How do you prove who flew the plane? Who fixed the handgranade?).
I don't think it's that simple. For starters, there's probably a very short list of people who own tacocopters, let alone people who own grenades.
If it becomes a problem, I can think of countermeasures -- register the things, ban them in public spaces/require flight plans, detect and triangulate the control signal. Heck, you could just look around; with a low tech system like that, whoever's flying the thing needs line of sight to it in order to identify the target. It's noisy and slow and I'd expect not nearly as effective as stealing a car and doing a drive-by shooting.
But more than that, I'd be very surprised if that sort of thing becomes a problem. Normal people aren't murderers. Think about all the poisons, explosives, and highly kinetic pieces of equipment normal people have access to right now.
Getting a grenade is pretty easy, and I meant stealing the tacopter to get around the flightplan issue you can order him the taco using a stolen credit card, the intercept it using a butterfly net.
"Psychosis" is a real word with real meaning. It's frustrating when people use it as a slang word because that use stigmatises people with mental health problems.
It's possible that someone in a spree shooting has never had a psychotic episode and was not psychotic when they were shooting.
(https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001553.htm)
Psychotic episodes are not just caused by mental illness. They can be a symptom of other illnesses - Brain diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease; Brain tumors or cysts; HIV and other infections that affect the brain; Some types of epilepsy; or Stroke.
(It's a shame that 'psychotic' is similar to 'psychopathic'. And that most people have almost no understanding of either condition.)
> The same applies to drone warfare. It’s suddenly so much easier to pull the trigger, and you’re not putting any of your own people at risk. And so more people die.
The military kills people. We stopped caring whether those people were civilians during WWII. Our military kills people with a variety of weapons. Shock and awe didn't feel particularly targeted. The cluster bombs that kill and maim hundreds of people each year don't feel particularly targeted. Cluster bombs are currently illegal, but the US and Britain have been trying to get the ban over-turned.
I don't understand why drones, as a weapon of war, are getting so much attention at the moment compared to other weapons of war. Dead civilians are dead whether they're killed by drones or landmines or cluster bomblets or whatever.