Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

boingboing.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 160 posts

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#121

Post by cmdkeen »

tomaskafka wrote: post #110
outworlder wrote: post #59

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…

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 gro…

But who was supposed to say no? The SF officer on the ground who did not have line of sight but was being told they had positive ID on military age males, weapons and no children? Or the helicopter pilots who were given a target, and who don't have the technology to provide any better or worse information?

The problem is that US Forces are almost permanently on a overkill strategy where the answer to this problem was using Hellfire missiles, in the same way as dropping artillery into Iraqi towns in the 2003 invasion.

Taliban dismounts from a SUV die quickly against helicopters, taking time to check the vehicles were hostile via an overflight or "warning shot" should be a valid tactic. But that is not for a specific flight commander to make.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#122

Post by jjoonathan »

josefresco wrote: post #93
littletimmy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a better plan: stay out of other countries.

Isolationism is not a winning strategy for any nation. Soon enough, the world comes to your doorstep.

There's a pretty huge difference between "not invading other countries on a whim" and "isolationism."

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#123

Post by knowaveragejoe »

dalke wrote: post #117
knowaveragejoe wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is the OP who has made a statement about innocence, and implied that it's meaningful to make a comparison. The Guardian article sets a baseline as otherwise we're just flapping jaws. Another baseline is to declare that all males of military age in a given zone are be definition enemy combatants. (Or that all people living in a city which contributes war materiel to the enemy are enemy combatants.) The Guardian say…

I think it's worth making the distinction among the people killed in addition to the target. These guys aren't just sitting alone in some hut, nor are they exclusively surrounded by innocent families. They're on top of a hierarchy of militants.

I say this worth knowing because even if we assume these were all 100% innocent civilians, this rate of collateral damage is far better than has ever been achieved in an armed conflict. That is not to justify this behavior or say it isn't shocking or disturbing, but it's statistical truth and it shouldn't be ignored.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#124

Post by Bahamut »

tomaskafka wrote: post #110
outworlder wrote: post #59

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…

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 gro…

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.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#125

Post by chinathrow »

DanBC wrote: post #82
outworlder wrote: post #59

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…

Previous killings used mass bombing (which obviously kill too many civilians) or cluster bombing (again, killing and maiming too many civilians, especially hen the bomblets were the same colour as food-aid air-dropped packages http://www.landmineclearance.org/page2.html http://www.rawa.org/cluster2.htm ) In that context drones feel like an easy sell to the public. "Targeted!" People opposed to drone use need to show…

"People opposed to drone use need to show how untargeted they actually are and how international law is probably being broken."

Are you kidding us? People opposed to drones do not need to show anything - except to state that flying drones over sovereign countries without being officialy at war with that country is not the way to do it. Targetet killings are not the way to do it either.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#126

Post by knowaveragejoe »

tomaskafka wrote: post #110
outworlder wrote: post #59

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…

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 gro…

> But the army know this, and attracts losers that can be brainwashed so that belonging to army becomes their only way of life.

This is only true of grunts. I think you would be surprised as to the level of intelligence present in the ranks of the military. Some of the most poignant writings on life, death, war and peace that I've ever read were written by either current or former members. Case in point(and I urge you to read the entirety with an open mind before making a judgement):

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/opinion/sunday/how-we-lear...

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#127

Post by cmdkeen »

chinathrow wrote: post #18

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.

In this program? Because that drone didn't fire a Hellfire, a human in a helicopter did. Hours were spent observing a suspicious target, far longer than would have happened in any previous conflict, and observed by people who are not "in country" and thus not under the same pressures.

Clearly the system isn't perfect, and there appears to be a major professionalism problem within the operators of the drone fleet. But removing drones from the equation in this scenario would have resulted in the AC130 spotting the convoy and making a determination based on less time and less imagery.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#128

Post by zimbu668 »

josefresco wrote: post #93
littletimmy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a better plan: stay out of other countries.

Isolationism is not a winning strategy for any nation. Soon enough, the world comes to your doorstep.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Switzerlan...

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#129

Post by tomjen3 »

sschueller wrote: post #65
middleclick wrote: post #12

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.

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?

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.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#130

Post by tomjen3 »

tomp wrote: post #98
happyscrappy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who are we to claim the people brutally murdered by the IS are - to the IS - "innocent"? If you believe the West and IS are morally equivalent then you may want to revisit your worldview.

There is little moral difference in my mind between ISIS armies and Western armies attacking and killing people.

The your worldview is so devoid from reality as to be useless.
Post reply on HN