I would like to hear some of the reasons against the use of drones. I understand problems with killing of innocents and problems with war in general, but what difference does it make if someone is actually in the plane they are flying when they shoot a missle at something? Is it just a buzzword against the war on terror in general?
1/28/2013 10:18:01 AM
Its not simply taking the pilot out of the equation, its taking the pilot out and then using it situations where the use of a plane and pilot would not be justified and would be taken as an act of war. The problem with drones is that they are used for law enforcement actions and assasinations in foreign countries without any due process. If in a situation when military action is justified, I don't think anyone has a problem with drones as replacement for traditional jets.
1/28/2013 10:32:01 AM
http://www.brentroad.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=627980
1/28/2013 10:34:25 AM
1/28/2013 10:45:15 AM
Correct me if I'm wrong, and I'm sure someone will, but drones are really expensive, aren't they like more than a fighter jet? (just looked it up, a Reaper is 1/2 the cost of a Hornet, but they still cost like $30mil) Additionally aren't they way easier to shoot down than a fighter jet? It seems like they're really only effective against an enemy that has no air power, and extremely limited surface to air power.[Edited on January 28, 2013 at 11:29 AM. Reason : ]
1/28/2013 11:24:51 AM
1/28/2013 11:34:29 AM
You could realistically rig up a remote controlled drone with explosives in it good enough to fly a few hundred km and blow some random shit up for far far less though.I don't think the argument that we gave the tech to the terrorists works though. All the components to do this are available off the shelf and just about anybody good do it for relatively small potatoes for what these guys seem to be able to fund raise.
1/28/2013 11:37:37 AM
1/28/2013 11:46:53 AM
I get that, I'm just saying the startup cost for these things is so low, even if we hadn't used them, they (who they denotes varies) would have. You have to have a LOT of knowledge that's hard to come by, a LOT of fissile material that's damn near impossible to come by, and a LOT of engineering that's hard to come by to produce a nuclear weapon. This is a whole lot easier.
1/28/2013 12:40:47 PM
Since I tangentially work in this business, I'll go ahead and comment.From a policy perspective, the problem isn't drones persay but the regulations and policy (or the lack thereof) surrounding them. It's not really all that different from the days we used to rain Tomahawks down upon al-Qaeda in the 1990s, just a bit cheaper and faster on the trigger. Same with surveillance, it's no different than them mounting a camera to watch your house or using satellites to watch you. However, national policy and international law haven't caught up to regulate it properly, and that's where the conflicts arise.With regards specifically to Pakistan, two points. 1) These strikes are clearly being done with tacit support from the Pakistani government. If they really felt this was a violation of their sovereignty and wanted to stop it, they'd activate their integrated anti-aircraft network, scramble a few F-16s then clear the skies. 2) The Pakistan issue is a policy problem, not a technology one. The problem is not that the President is using drones but that the President thinks he has the right to drop bombs on another country to kill people he deems a threat. That is the discussion that needs to be had; the drones are a red herring.
1/28/2013 2:08:23 PM
1/28/2013 2:19:31 PM
^^
1/28/2013 2:49:14 PM
^^A terrorist group could build relatively crude UAVs and pack them full of explosives or maybe chem/bio, but I don't think there's any way in the foreseeable future that they develop anything even playing the same sport as a Pred/Reaper with Hellfire.
1/28/2013 2:53:18 PM
1/28/2013 3:19:30 PM
The Pred/Reaper with Hellfire is a precision instrument. In that case we're comparing them to the tool the military previously used for the job. Maybe that was a missile, maybe it was a bomber, I don't know, RedGuard wasn't specific on previous military tool the Predator replaced.But for terrorists, a drone would replace a suicide bomber. Did they use chem/bio weapons? I think they used explosives much more often. There is a limit to how much a pedestrian bomber can carry, which is much less than a car bomb obviously.A quadcopter would be fairly useless due to the weight of explosives, you'd really want a fixed-wing craft. Our military drones have payloads >1 Ton in cases. The minimum to inflict serious casualties would be much less than this.Exactly how much autonomy they'd need is an interesting point. Simple video transmission is still pretty burdensome, but maybe you'll be able to pull it off with a set of GPS, altimeter, accelerometers, and a location you've programmed in. Launch dozens at the same time and that can be a pretty intimidating picture. The idea of a "swam" implies coordination to me... and that's just completely irrelevant in this conversation. The more you have in the air the more difficult it is to respond and the more chaos you can create.
1/28/2013 3:19:42 PM
1/28/2013 3:29:39 PM
^What advantage then does the UAV have over a missle, or even mortars?
1/28/2013 3:30:10 PM
Persistent surveillance.
1/28/2013 3:31:37 PM
1/28/2013 3:44:15 PM
1/28/2013 5:42:51 PM
1/28/2013 6:23:45 PM
thread was over after this:
1/29/2013 1:44:28 AM
The biggest problem I see is whenever you lessen the human cost of war, you can expect a lot more war.Isn't it in Brave New World, where they fight wars without killing each other, and so they go to war over the most inane disagreements.[Edited on January 29, 2013 at 8:03 AM. Reason : ?]
1/29/2013 8:00:10 AM
1/29/2013 9:22:12 AM
When did we start digging this law enforcement as an excuse for war hole? Noriega and Panama surprised a lot of people because of how illegal the whole thing was, but was it the first? Contras before that? All the way back to the Barbary coast?
1/29/2013 9:33:49 AM
1/29/2013 10:35:03 AM
He was saying "Tomahawk diplomacy", not talking about actual diplomacy. That was the point of his response.
1/29/2013 10:52:27 AM
Nothing wrong with drones as long as:1) Obama is using them.2) Brown people are eating it.You can pretend its more complicated than that, but dont hurt yourself.
1/29/2013 11:40:08 AM
^As much as that is a troll post it is true. It seems he gets too much of a pass from the left on drones. As for drones overall domestically I fear another move towards a police state with their use over cities for surveillance. It hasn't been cleared yet but eventually it will probably happen.
1/29/2013 1:32:02 PM
1/29/2013 8:50:17 PM
1/30/2013 12:41:37 AM
1/30/2013 10:02:53 AM
"Tomohawk Diplomacy" is a phrase that he didn't invent that is used for a specific thing. The use of it was appropriate (unless I misunderstood their point). He's not "referencing an actual diplomatic process", he's just using a name for something that you didn't know.Next time google first?
1/30/2013 10:06:38 AM
The phrase "Tomahawk diplomacy" refers to using the threat of cruise-missle strikes to influence the behavior of dictators. I don't need google to remember it being plastered all over the news in the late 90s, typically in reference to threatening Milosevic or Saddam Hussein into complying with UN resolutions. It doesn't necessarily mean any missiles were fired.There's no diplomatic goal in drone strikes. It's just "war" or "shooting bad guys".
1/30/2013 12:44:49 PM
Is this like when Clinton leveled an Aspirin factory?
1/30/2013 12:49:54 PM
1/30/2013 1:43:22 PM
US drone policy:http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdfhttp://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/04/16843014-exclusive-justice-department-memo-reveals-legal-case-for-drone-strikes-on-americans?lite&preview=true
2/5/2013 1:56:26 AM
2/6/2013 11:54:16 PM
2/7/2013 5:33:53 PM
We know Dick Cheney has no problem with drones. Must be fine then.
2/13/2013 9:33:42 AM
the FAA aint down with the people using drones for commercial usehttp://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2013/03/14/faa-grounds-local-aerial-photo-business/
3/15/2013 11:44:16 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/world/asia/origins-of-cias-not-so-secret-drone-war-in-pakistan.htmlGood article on this issue.
4/8/2013 9:54:21 AM
The other issue, which isn't widely discussed (see above link), is that foreign countries secretly permit the US to conduct drone strikes on their own soil (Pakistan, Yemen). They have the political option to decry the use of drones in public, while acquiescing to their use in private. In the case of Yemen (as revealed by Wikileaks), they also get to claim the strikes as victories for their own militaries.In the case of Pakistan, note that only a small minority of targets are actually aligned with al-Qaeda. The remainder are often associated with the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which Pakistan has an interest in curbing. After failed land campaigns on their frontier, the Pakistani government seems to prefer US drone strikes.In Yemen, AQAP is a terrorist organization which both the US and the Yemeni government want to keep a lid on.
4/12/2013 8:58:34 AM
Again--The Pakistani government gave the US permission to launch drone strikes on its own soil, despite their public protests.Source...former President Musharraf:http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/11/world/asia/pakistan-musharraf-drones/index.html
4/14/2013 5:51:09 PM
4/14/2013 6:14:22 PM
Holy shit, Maverick's posting.
4/14/2013 7:05:11 PM
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-children-killed-by-americas-drones-crimes-against-humanity-committed-by-barack-h-obama/5320570
4/18/2013 8:51:17 PM
I had remembered this link from some previous threadhttp://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/dronesIt's actually kind of hilarious when I see new stories like thishttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/9977570/Air-strike-kills-11-children-in-Afghanistan.htmlSo if we believe "official" sources, at most 5 civilians died last year due to drone strikes. But yet in some random weekend we'll kill 11 kids. Real credible numbers there.
4/24/2013 12:25:42 PM
4/24/2013 12:56:53 PM
They got all them teeth and no toothbrush.
4/24/2013 4:22:53 PM