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Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

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Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#51

Post by melling »

Udik wrote: post #30
karmacondon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "terro…

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 sill…

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.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#52

Post by pjc50 »

bluedino wrote: post #35
gldalmaso wrote: post #22

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?

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.

Is this what "mission success" looks like?

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#53

Post by knowaveragejoe »

lazyjones wrote: post #28
chroma wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it sounds compelling, such thought processes rarely drive Al Qaeda members or ISIS fighters. If you actually ask them, they say they are driven by their religion.[1] Obviously, airstrikes make it easier for them to hate us, but even if we did nothing but build schools and hospitals, they would try to kill us. This is evidenced by the fact that they behead aid workers and journalists from countries like France a…

Wow, I didn't expect to find such shameless propaganda on HN. Every single sentence is factually wrong and insulting to readers' intelligence here. If it's not obvious to someone: just read some actual interviews with radical muslims, purported reasoning by Bin Laden etc. - their reasons are always political, the US is targeted specifically because of all the death and destruction it has brought to the Middle East. J…

It's actually a mixture of both. Some extremists(particularly ISIS) firmly believe they are in they end times and are carrying out what they think scripture dictates, others are involved for the reasons you stated.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#54

Post by outworlder »

socialist_coder wrote: post #29
lazyjones wrote: post #9

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 ca…

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

They already are deadly. Those spinning blades can do a lot of damage to a person. Just check drone forums.

All instances that I could find were accidents. So far.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#55

Post by knowaveragejoe »

lucio wrote: post #26
lazyjones wrote: post #9

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 ca…

This is slightly unsettling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUSMpCckEbY

It's also an advertisement for a Call of Duty game.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#57

Post by knowaveragejoe »

dalke wrote: post #13
forthelasttime wrote: post #3

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 e…

In one report, "Attempts to kill 41 men [using drones] resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,147 people, as of 24 November [2014]." http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-... . 25 innocent deaths for each enemy kill? Is that really enough to justify "less likely" as a defense for drones? In any case, as hizz pointed out, this specific report is about an attack where the information was gathere…

This article is somewhat unclear as it makes no distinction as to how many of those killed were militants. It's portrayed simply as either high value targets or "unknown", implied as civilians.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#58

Post by pjc50 »

karmacondon wrote: post #21
bjelkeman-again wrote: post #2

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 ki…

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 "terro…

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 is true. But what happens next? A collapsed power structure is not a nice place to live. Someone has to deal with crime, resources, arbitration, and taking out the rubbish (qv http://www.luton-dunstable.co.uk/Luton-ISIS-recruit-Abu-Aziz... ). So another person steps up to fill that role. Unsurprisingly, he has to deal with the power structure of the region that he finds around him, so he makes deals; and he has to deal with bandits, so he makes a militia. Until he makes his way to the top of the US kill list, perhaps by phoning the wrong person.

"Local warlord" is a position, not a person. The replacement for warlordism is an accountable rights-respecting impartial justice system. Nothing less will do. You can't deal with injustice by committing more injustice. You can't eradicate violence with more violence. This isn't a Clint Eastwood movie, you can't just ride in, shoot some designated bad guys, and ride out again with everything fixed.

Also, would the US rather have an anti-US warlord who deals fairly with his own people or a pro-US one who is corrupt? The treatment of Latin America shows quite clearly that they'd prefer the latter.

Unfortunately as soon as you say, "So let's apply justice to the middle east", you trip face-first over the Palestinian question.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#59

Post by 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.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#60

Post by blackbagboys »

UserRights wrote: post #5
forthelasttime wrote: post #3

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 e…

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

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