Science and technology
Babbage
Robots at war
Drones and democracy
Oct 1st 2010, 21:08 by B.G. | LOUISVILLE
AN AMERICAN general told Peter Singer once that insurgents most fear America's unmatched technology. Then, talking to a Lebanese newspaper editor as a drone circled overhead, he heard a different story: Americans and Israelis, the editor said, are cowards to send machines to fight for them. Much of the ethical conversation around America's unmanned aerial vehicle strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan has centered around unintended civilian casualties. This is certainly a worthy topic for conversation. But Mr Singer asked a different set of questions: how do drones change the nations that use them?
Mr Singer, the author of "Wired for War" and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a think tank, spoke this week at the IdeaFestival in Louisville. He made it clear, first, that drones are not merely an American phenomenon. More than 40 countries, he says, are building robotic combatants. No country can hold a first-mover advantage for long. For America, however, the consequences are not only strategic, but constitutional. A president who sends someone's son or daughter into battle has to justify it publicly, as does the congress responsible for appropriations and a declaration of war. But if no one has children in danger, is it a war?
In Pakistan, it is not. The Wall Street Journal reported today that America has dramatically increased the number of drone strikes in Pakistan this year. Though some of the drones have been borrowed from the military, the CIA flies the missions. The drones make it easier for America to maintain the fiction that it is not fighting a war in Pakistan, but employing technology in a covert action. According to Mr Singer, the CIA's civilian counsels—and not the military's judge advocates general—make legal decisions about the strikes. Officers don't have to write letters home to mothers; politicians don't have to justify human losses to voters.
Mr Singer told another story, though, of an officer in Iraq, so moved by the sacrifice of a bomb-disposal robot that he wrote a letter of condolence to its manufacturer. The robot had saved the lives of many of the officer's ordinance-disposal soldiers. It is hard to justify anyone's death by pointing out that democracy demands it. But death happens in an air strike; Mr Singer argues that so long as none of that death is American, America's democracy doesn't have to consider the consequences of its choice.
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Brookse wrote:Oct 2nd 2010 6:29 GMTI keep waiting for a US drone to take out a drug lord on Mexican soil.
If (and when) that happens, I don't expect the Mexican government to merely file a protest. My guess is that the dirt will definitely hit the fan.
A sovereign country is a sovereign country, whether it be Pakistan or anywhere else.
And, US voters really need to think through whether surgical strikes in other countries is really a good idea, whether you happen to be at war next door to it or not.
Because, anyone can build a drone...
migmigmigmig wrote:Oct 2nd 2010 6:49 GMTWell, a sovereign country is a sovereign country.
But I think Pakistan is talking out of both sides of its mouth as to whether the drone strikes are violating its sovereignty.
Mind you, I can't see any other option for the Pakistani government, but I doubt we're likely to see drone strikes without tacit permission.
So if you do see a drug lord go up in a cloud of semtex, you might hear similar vague notes of protest from the Mexican government, but you'd probably be also safe to bet that such noises are only for local consumption.
The CIA can be heavy handed, but they're hardly stupid.
bampbs wrote:Oct 2nd 2010 7:47 GMTTo hear charges of cowardice from fighters who hide themselves among women and children is disgusting.
Stephen Morris wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 12:00 GMTThe story of the officer in Iraq reminded me of this.
xxx hardcore wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 12:25 GMTSo just because Americans are not dying, drones are all right? Is that the moral reasoning that this country has come to? So, something is only wrong when Americans don't die? in my opinion, this is not much better than the thinking of nihilistic terrorists.
RockefellaRepub wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 3:09 GMTThe day the US and its nearly trillion dollar a year defense budget unveils some "terminator" type of drone may not be too far off... hunting insurgents on the ground day and night, it feels no pain, shows no mercy.
reason's_voice wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 5:21 GMTWar is much more complicated then a single strike. CIA had same thought process when they built afghan mujahidin to fight russians - no americans involved, outsourced war = clean war and look where the are now.
Drones kill people, and they kill more civilians then active combat because the decisions are made from a hieght of 10 KMs and decision makes is sitting 12000 KMs away. These civilians have relatives, who will turn in to vengeful terrorists... is it that hard to see that this is not so "clean" war?
USA had its most peaceful time from 70s to 2000 when it beleived in all efforts to avoid war (albiet because of nuclear thret). USA can only return to peace by returning to negotiations and scaling down the war.
Killing more people has never won anyone friends.Maedros wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 6:32 GMTI'm dubious about whether this is so "new"
Bill Clinton had a taste for sending in the Tomahawks to wave the flag (Sudan, Afghanistan, Serbia, Iraq). This is just an extension of the same theory with better technology.
Neo Con wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 5:21 GMTCompare American drone strikes as cowardly to terrorists? who kill innocents (deliberately) and celebrate the killings is madness and also explains exactly why we have to drone them out if existence.
BurkeanPluralist wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 5:34 GMTWhat's braver? Risking your life fighting (and killing) for what you believe in? Or blowing people up by remote from thousands of miles away without any possibility of being harmed?
Being "right" doesn't make you brave. A cowardly act is a cowardly act even if we agree with what the coward is fighting for.
KevinSchnider wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 6:59 GMTI'm sure drone operations take much more bravery than meets the eye... someone is telling the machines where to look, and it's probably more than just a guy with a computer in Kansas.
In reality, I think the Taliban are just whining about their inability to find and kill invisible enemies that surround and infiltrate them.
Pen Name9774 wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 7:12 GMTThe cowardly argument is really bizarre. Advances in military technology also increase cowardice. From the fist to the club to the sword to the arrow to the musket... and now the drone.
The most militarily advanced society is also the most cowardly?
Pen Name9774 wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 7:12 GMTThe cowardly argument is really bizarre. Advances in military technology also increase cowardice. From the fist to the club to the sword to the arrow to the musket... and now the drone.
The most militarily advanced society is also the most cowardly?
Red Scare wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 8:08 GMTThe US military would love these guys to come fight them in Afghanistan without running back over the border after an attack. Unfortunately, their brave holy warriors hide behind women and children as quickly as possible after an attack.
As for civilian casualties, they've been quite low. http://www.longwarjournal.org/pakistan-strikes.php
The drone program is one of the smartest things the US has done in years.
Markit wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 8:19 GMTNowhere do I see a complaint that these "militants" where not in a country that America is at war with or that any of them had been found guilty in a court of law for any crimes punishable by death!
Oh I forgot the US government never lies, sorry don't know what I was thinking.
Hope no "militants" move in next door to me and my family!
Well-balanced intention wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 8:37 GMT@ bampbs
You wrote:
"To hear charges of cowardice from fighters who hide themselves among women and children is disgusting."
The words of cowardice were from a civilian newspaper editor. Or were you thinking about the CIA officials hiding among civilians in the US, while they are giving orders to those drones around the world?
Alejandro Guerrero wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 9:03 GMTI'm reading the comments to the article (keywords: cowardice and bravery, legal implications, camouflatted war), and this reminds to me to the XVIIth century discussion on the implications for honor and war of introducing long-range muskats and rifles versus keeping fighting with short-range swords and pikes. Yawn.
Ohio wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 9:11 GMTSo war is moral only if conducted with fists? Technology has been distancing ourselves from the killing for a long time. This is not new, just an extension on a phenomenon that started with the first time a human used a club to extend his reach. A killer is a killer no matter what tool he uses. That point was resolved a long time ago.
EconAlberta wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 10:40 GMTWhen Hezbollah has 20,000 rockets on Israel's northern border. These rockets have no capacity to distinguish where they will explode. When they are sent into cities, is this an act of bravery?
The distinguishing technological factor for drones is that they have the ability to linger for hours waiting for the right time to strike when civilian casualties may be minimized. This makes the drone operators cowards?
I am still trying to figure out what point the author is trying to make.
zmjh wrote:Oct 3rd 2010 11:26 GMTMr Singer argues that so long as none of that death is American, America's democracy doesn't have to consider the consequences of its choice.
..................................................................This is typical American logic!
America only pay attention to its own interests,never cares others ,even other people's lives.
So we can deduce that when Ameirca proclaims a country to be non-democratic,it means nothing about democratic,it only to make a mess in that country,so America can fish in troubled waters. Irak is such an example!
lunedì 4 ottobre 2010
La guerra dei droni
via economist.com
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