Culture fans: These are not the knife missiles you were thinking about.
The topic of kinetic drone launched hellfire missiles seems highly problematic. Usage scenarios are when there'd just be too much collateral damage from explosive munitions, but where do you draw the line to something that would do vastly more damage than a sniper rifle hit?
I guess it could help protect local intelligence assets who might be armed with nothing but a cell phone.
(I have no real qualifications on this topic, but I do like to read about military ops. And Iain Banks).
If we were on a less civilised messaging board I would leave a comment noting the (non-)coincidence that your username is in fact remarkably appropriate for your comment.
Subbed. One of my favourite fictive ship name would be an Adams one: GSV Mostly Harmless.
Was great to see the replies, user names. :) Also the number of votes tells there's a large number of people who must really miss Banks (RIP). It's been a while so I will start re-reading the Culture series soon, chronologically this time. A number were lost paperbacks, but will just add them to my Kindle collection.
If you hadn't yet, I recommend picking up his book of poetry that was posthumously released along side his longtime friend Ken MacLeod's poems. A lot of it is Banks to the core, including the humor. My favorite is cynically titled "Love Poem":
FTR, "Culture" here refers to a terrific set of sci fi novels by Iain M Banks. They can be read in any order. "Player of Games" is probably my favorite.
It has been limited in use and will continue to be because it takes up valuable pylon space for a single use.
Unless the MQ-1 is being deployed for a specific assassination, it makes sense to equip it with the AP hellfire, so it can possibly take action against an unexpected target of opportunity while loitering. You're probably not going to fire one of these against a Toyota Hilux or APC.
Having served in the infantry in Afganistan you are dead wrong, and APC ot a technical ( heavy machine gun mounted on a pickup, traditionally a Toyota helix) a Helfire would definatly be fired at one.
The fact that the US military has no qualms with killing random innocent civilians - including children - in their strikes against (assumed) terrorists is maddening to me. I understand that there are people who cannot be stopped from harming others with non-violent means. But how does it justfy that extra random murdering that the US military performs? At which point does this become a war crime?
It's because the myth of freedom is used to sell America's own version of a religion which justifies acts of wholesale violence. Just like the Islamist use the myth of Islam to justify their violence. Either side is willing to kill civilians using violence to further its supposed ideological cause... which neither side actually serves. Each side claims that the civilians will benefit from establishing its religion. The civilians lose either way... see Iraq for an example of American freedom and Afghanistan for an example of Islam.
The other way to look at it is that enemy combatants have no problems using innocent civilians as human shields. If US decided it would not harm human shields, the world would find out, and US would never win another battle again.
Consider the US's famed "Double Tap" strikes, where they bomb a wedding ceremony, then come back around to bomb the paramedics that show up a few minutes later. Are those folks being used as human shields by the dastardly terrorists, or are we really just putting up a smoke-screen to defend the heinous actions of the US?
Drone strikes have killed as many people as the 9/11 hijackings. That put the USA government -- and the people who democratically control it, on par with Al Qaeda.
I think we should be really careful in telling apart real cases of civilians used as human shields from simple propaganda used against the enemies. Accusing the enemy of using human shields is very handy for at least two purposes: de-humanising them and justifying a high number of civilian casualties.
Also remember that in highly asymmetric warfare, clearly separating yourself from civilians effectively means hanging a target sign from your neck and asking to be killed. Those who have the most advanced technologies and weaponry at their disposal cannot be serious in asking that a poorly armed enemy fight on the same terms: a bit too cavalier when they have Kalashnikovs and you have semi-autonomous drones piloted from half the world away.
Please define human shield. Is it the family of the terrorist with whom he lives? Friends invited over to spend time with? Where is the difference between people being around coincidentally and people being kept around for protection?
To give just one prominent example: Hamas stores weapons in and fires rockets from hospitals, there's no "coincidentally" - these groups know exactly what they're doing.
I don't think there's a way to know for sure. I guess we could exchange links that described opposite points of view all day long, but we wouldn't reach any meaningful conclusions.
However I fail to understand why this human shield topic seems so unbelievable to some people. Terrorist-like groups such as Hamas constantly show a very explicit lack of respect for innocent lives (even for the lives of innocents who share their same culture), the most clear example being attacks directed exclusively towards civilians. You can say "similar" things about the US (and other governments), but certainly not the same thing.
One of the obvious reasons for this is that a terrorist group usually faces an extreme disadvantage when it comes to logistics and operational capabilities in general, specially against the US military.
Using civilian installations as human shield seems to be in line with the way terrorist groups usually fight back (using civilians lives as a mean to reach their goals).
I'm not saying that the fact that it's a plausible possibility makes it a reality.
It is a possibility (an unlikely one in my opinion) that a terrorist group decides to avoid killing civilians (refusing also to use this human shields) and tries to dominate the conflict spreading terror by any other means. And it's certainly a possibility that Israel created this hoax, too. I'm only saying it's not that strange seeing terrorist groups doing this kinds of things, without the need to create any fictional narration.
The US military does have qualms against it hence the article and constant strive for more precision. I ask you- what is the alternative? And don't give me the whole, "shouldn't be bombing in the first place" red herring.
They may not have a legal right to bomb. Depending on the details of the situation, I'm not sure where to draw the lines between warfare and war crimes. And I am not even considering the fact that some operations were conducted on foreign soil without consent from the local government - another can of worms.
And I will ask another question: why bombs? Why remote drones? Why is it impossible to use other means? The assassination of Osama bin Ladin was carried out by soldiers on the ground, after all.
War sucks what do you want me to tell you? I've been there and served in Afghanistan. I wish this enemy would stand away from civilians and identify themselves clearly.
Your call for identification and distance from civilians is telling. You would be in the right if the enemy was an organized militia. But these terrorists avoid military patterns of behavior/organization. So what is the proper classification? Criminals? If that is true, the US military would be judge, jury and executioner in one.
I wonder what the consequences would be for the U.S. of completely stopping all foreign military operations. It's probably a given that other big powers would step in to fill the vacuum. But other than oil what kind of resources would the U.S. lose access to? And how would that manifest in the economy / supply chains?
>And don't give me the whole, "shouldn't be bombing in the first place" red herring.
Why is that a red herring? There's a perfectly reasonable argument to be made that America's activities on the Af-Pak border have been wholly counter-productive. A drone strike might kill a terrorist, but the collateral damage creates an immense amount of hatred towards the US. If drone strikes are creating more terrorists than they're killing (an entirely plausible hypothesis) then the answer is probably to stop drone strikes and try something else.
This isn't some wishy-washy liberal argument from a clueless civilian - Gen. McChrystal makes pretty much the same case against drone strikes.
>> The fact that the US military has no qualms
>> with killing random innocent civilians -
>> including children - in their strikes
>> against (assumed) terrorists
That's bullshit. The US military cares a lot about not causing collateral damage. Wars could be much deadlier, fought much more quickly, and for much less money if it did not.
The US would rather have no collateral damage at all. Hence the expensive high precision weapons and all that. If you are suggesting that the US should not kill terrorists, that's not a realistic proposition.
Hm... why do you believe that not killing these people is not an option? Do you have first hand experience with them? I don't. All I have to go on are news stories and occasional annecdotes from people in the affected areas. That does not make a very complete picture. How successful would these people be without any intervention by the US?
The fact that the US military has no qualms with killing random innocent civilians
Factually untrue.
You can say the U.S. military doen't care nearly enough about it. Fine. Now we're in the realm of opinion. I'd probably agree.
But "no qualms?"
If you want to see a military power with literally "zero qualms" look at regimes like Assad in Syria, using indiscriminate chemical attacks in civilian areas. That is what "no qualms" looks like.
Or look at landmines.
Suicide bombers in civilian areas.
Large-yield nuclear weapons.
High-altitude carpet bombing runs.
Those are "no qualms" weapons.
Even a standard explosive drone-launched Hellfire missile is a weapon of extreme precision and minimal collateral damage compared to any other explosive weapons that have been used for the last hundred years or so.
It would be utter madness to spin Hellfire missile strikes as benevolent acts of kindness. They are acts of violence that sometimes hurt and kill innocents and thinking about that should make anybody with a conscience feel ill.
But as far as those sorts of things go, characterizing their use as "no qualms with killing random innocent civilians" is just untrue. They are remarkably focused compared to just about any other method of killing people from great distances that humans have managed to invent.
There are plenty of injustices perpetrated by the U.S. military. We don't need to invent or exaggerate them. It doesn't help the cause of legitimate criticism.
> whereas a unit equipped with only explosive Hellfires would be forbidden from making strikes in, say, a very crowded city thoroughfare, the same environment might be open season for a team with the R9X.
Leads me to wonder what kind of psychological damage we will (and already do) inflict upon populations with targets in their midst. Can you imagine living in a scenario in which your community is regularly bombarded by explosives falling from the sky, let loose by a supposed enemy which you will probably never even see? Horrible.
I'm no US apologist and thankfully I've never been in such situations but civilians at risk of these might well be living in situations where they have some very nasty, oppressive people mixed in with them and being an even greater risk to them than such (supposedly) carefully used weapons.
In such cases they might feel grateful that the US is doing this. Might. Maybe. 'Terrorists' is such a useful word.
The point is, someone you don't know precisely about, neither their real motivations, neither its actual consistency, has the actual ability to kill anyone (more or less precisely) from a distance, as it decides, without fearing any other obstacle than its own will.
Like, an imperfect yet powerful god.
You don't know how to "please it" or "have mercy", but by very proxy methods that may not even apply consistently on the long term.
Frankly it may not be the point, or it may be exactly the point. I don't know as I've never lived in those situations, and I doubt you have.
I'm raising a possibility, not claiming a truth. You're denying that possibility apparently based on gut feel.
Both my point and yours are ultimately worth exactly nothing. What would be good is to have people there tell us how they feel. We need to hear their voices. They deserve to be heard but for some reason I don't recall ever hearing their opinion.
(Edit: jdietrich posted those opinions - reading now, thanks)
(Edit2: I'll leave this post rather than delete it, but consider it retracted; there's plenty in jdietrich's links to make me change my mind)
I mean, it's not the point, not to sound picky, because, the point is not to know whether the action is justified or not, people are better off or not.
It's because people under this rule have no power, no influence, almost no clue about it, because of the imbalance and the disconnect (of power, of knowledge, of capacity).
Such as would any creature under a powerful god, would gods exist.
But you at least expect gods to have some sort of perfection or status or narrative that could somehow justify their whereabouts.
But here, there's no god. Just imperfect, broken humans breaking other humans, imperfectly, often for the wrong, or no reason at all.
That will never make something right. That will certainly entice more hate and more evil.
That's why this kind of weapon should be banned by treaties as unconventional (which they are).
This is not war. This is ruthless domination, for better or for worse (more than often, worse).
> the point is not to know whether the action is justified or not, people are better off or not
Really? You don't think that whether people are better off matters?
Or fundamentally, whether a thing is justified or not matters?
Now I'm curious as to the basis of your morality. Could you explain how you would judge a thing to be right or not? (this sounds rather attacking, I'm not, just really interested).
I expect I've got wires crossed but I'd like to uncross them.
But the means to it matter as much, because they bring their own sets of consequences with them (and that is more than often ignored or overlooked, for "short term benefits").
The justification of an action is as much in the fruits, as in the roots. Both come hand in hand ultimately.
(edit to add the following:)
Then, as to judge/discern, I can't say I have a definite, certain receipt. I fear and keep away from those who say they do have one.
I don't mean to advertise the "basis of my morality". I'm not that good. I have a set of principles, that come mostly from my (Catholic, practicing) upbringing (but that don't match at all what most "Christians in the US" showcase, if that can give an idea) + an inner desire for peace, balance and truth (as hard and harsh it could be) that many take for naiveté, + an acute critical look for bullshit, I guess.
But that's not very telling, is it? :p
It's not terribly difficult to ask people in drone-affected areas how they feel about drone strikes. The universal answer is "constant fear, and a deep hatred towards whichever bastards are pressing the button".
61 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 119 ms ] threadThe topic of kinetic drone launched hellfire missiles seems highly problematic. Usage scenarios are when there'd just be too much collateral damage from explosive munitions, but where do you draw the line to something that would do vastly more damage than a sniper rifle hit?
I guess it could help protect local intelligence assets who might be armed with nothing but a cell phone.
(I have no real qualifications on this topic, but I do like to read about military ops. And Iain Banks).
Bummer
Was great to see the replies, user names. :) Also the number of votes tells there's a large number of people who must really miss Banks (RIP). It's been a while so I will start re-reading the Culture series soon, chronologically this time. A number were lost paperbacks, but will just add them to my Kindle collection.
Serene,
In a world full of troubles.
i.e. doing nothing about it.
Though I'm not sure the US having access to those would make me feel any better :)
Unless the MQ-1 is being deployed for a specific assassination, it makes sense to equip it with the AP hellfire, so it can possibly take action against an unexpected target of opportunity while loitering. You're probably not going to fire one of these against a Toyota Hilux or APC.
(I can't find a link. =( )
The missile goes through the driver's side roof and wedges out the passenger side floor.
The pickup was driven at variable speeds and it was just a crazy accurate as a standard hellfire.
So it doesn't make sense to send the MQ out with the blades unless you're sure you're after a single target.
Edit: disregard. Video posted below looks like it's pretty effective.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-24557333
Also remember that in highly asymmetric warfare, clearly separating yourself from civilians effectively means hanging a target sign from your neck and asking to be killed. Those who have the most advanced technologies and weaponry at their disposal cannot be serious in asking that a poorly armed enemy fight on the same terms: a bit too cavalier when they have Kalashnikovs and you have semi-autonomous drones piloted from half the world away.
War is horrible it’s taking life in the hope you’ll save more.
I wonder what kind of person pushes false narratives dehumanizing a people who have been oppressed by a brutal occupation for decades.
However I fail to understand why this human shield topic seems so unbelievable to some people. Terrorist-like groups such as Hamas constantly show a very explicit lack of respect for innocent lives (even for the lives of innocents who share their same culture), the most clear example being attacks directed exclusively towards civilians. You can say "similar" things about the US (and other governments), but certainly not the same thing.
One of the obvious reasons for this is that a terrorist group usually faces an extreme disadvantage when it comes to logistics and operational capabilities in general, specially against the US military. Using civilian installations as human shield seems to be in line with the way terrorist groups usually fight back (using civilians lives as a mean to reach their goals).
I'm not saying that the fact that it's a plausible possibility makes it a reality. It is a possibility (an unlikely one in my opinion) that a terrorist group decides to avoid killing civilians (refusing also to use this human shields) and tries to dominate the conflict spreading terror by any other means. And it's certainly a possibility that Israel created this hoax, too. I'm only saying it's not that strange seeing terrorist groups doing this kinds of things, without the need to create any fictional narration.
It's not about winning battles, It's about killing the enemy troops before a battle could even occur.
And I will ask another question: why bombs? Why remote drones? Why is it impossible to use other means? The assassination of Osama bin Ladin was carried out by soldiers on the ground, after all.
And we followed up by blowing up the target's funeral figuring the bereaved where fellow operatives.
Quite a way to win hearts and minds...
1. Stop selling weapons to terrorists for decades.
2. Stop toppling democratically elective governments and propping up dictators.
3. Stop killing children with vaccination programs.
4. Stand away from drones and identify yourselves and go onsite to find militants.
5. Stand away from civilians and don't run the financial operation of your global hegemony through downtown office towers.
6. Stop kidnapping and torturing innocent people at black sites.
7. Stop killing for a President who openly advocates killing family members of the enemy.
I suppose, we could count the deaths to see who has the better part of the asymmetry.
Why is that a red herring? There's a perfectly reasonable argument to be made that America's activities on the Af-Pak border have been wholly counter-productive. A drone strike might kill a terrorist, but the collateral damage creates an immense amount of hatred towards the US. If drone strikes are creating more terrorists than they're killing (an entirely plausible hypothesis) then the answer is probably to stop drone strikes and try something else.
This isn't some wishy-washy liberal argument from a clueless civilian - Gen. McChrystal makes pretty much the same case against drone strikes.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-mcchrysta...
You can say the U.S. military doen't care nearly enough about it. Fine. Now we're in the realm of opinion. I'd probably agree.
But "no qualms?"
If you want to see a military power with literally "zero qualms" look at regimes like Assad in Syria, using indiscriminate chemical attacks in civilian areas. That is what "no qualms" looks like.
Or look at landmines.
Suicide bombers in civilian areas.
Large-yield nuclear weapons.
High-altitude carpet bombing runs.
Those are "no qualms" weapons.
Even a standard explosive drone-launched Hellfire missile is a weapon of extreme precision and minimal collateral damage compared to any other explosive weapons that have been used for the last hundred years or so.
It would be utter madness to spin Hellfire missile strikes as benevolent acts of kindness. They are acts of violence that sometimes hurt and kill innocents and thinking about that should make anybody with a conscience feel ill.
But as far as those sorts of things go, characterizing their use as "no qualms with killing random innocent civilians" is just untrue. They are remarkably focused compared to just about any other method of killing people from great distances that humans have managed to invent.
There are plenty of injustices perpetrated by the U.S. military. We don't need to invent or exaggerate them. It doesn't help the cause of legitimate criticism.
Set up a spread-spectrum mesh network in the hostile living space, and use passive facial, gait, voice or behavior recognition to ID the human target.
The drones would be expendable single shot killers. Hard to see and numerous.
If the territory is controlled, then the China method of automated surveillance and round-up of targets is apparently working.
I, for one, see a future without much "collateral damage" but its not necessarily a good future.
Leads me to wonder what kind of psychological damage we will (and already do) inflict upon populations with targets in their midst. Can you imagine living in a scenario in which your community is regularly bombarded by explosives falling from the sky, let loose by a supposed enemy which you will probably never even see? Horrible.
In such cases they might feel grateful that the US is doing this. Might. Maybe. 'Terrorists' is such a useful word.
The point is, someone you don't know precisely about, neither their real motivations, neither its actual consistency, has the actual ability to kill anyone (more or less precisely) from a distance, as it decides, without fearing any other obstacle than its own will.
Like, an imperfect yet powerful god.
You don't know how to "please it" or "have mercy", but by very proxy methods that may not even apply consistently on the long term.
An enemy that isn't showing its face and explaining itself well will likely create more adversity.
I'm raising a possibility, not claiming a truth. You're denying that possibility apparently based on gut feel.
Both my point and yours are ultimately worth exactly nothing. What would be good is to have people there tell us how they feel. We need to hear their voices. They deserve to be heard but for some reason I don't recall ever hearing their opinion.
(Edit: jdietrich posted those opinions - reading now, thanks)
(Edit2: I'll leave this post rather than delete it, but consider it retracted; there's plenty in jdietrich's links to make me change my mind)
It's because people under this rule have no power, no influence, almost no clue about it, because of the imbalance and the disconnect (of power, of knowledge, of capacity).
Such as would any creature under a powerful god, would gods exist. But you at least expect gods to have some sort of perfection or status or narrative that could somehow justify their whereabouts.
But here, there's no god. Just imperfect, broken humans breaking other humans, imperfectly, often for the wrong, or no reason at all.
That will never make something right. That will certainly entice more hate and more evil.
That's why this kind of weapon should be banned by treaties as unconventional (which they are).
This is not war. This is ruthless domination, for better or for worse (more than often, worse).
Really? You don't think that whether people are better off matters?
Or fundamentally, whether a thing is justified or not matters?
Now I'm curious as to the basis of your morality. Could you explain how you would judge a thing to be right or not? (this sounds rather attacking, I'm not, just really interested).
I expect I've got wires crossed but I'd like to uncross them.
But the means to it matter as much, because they bring their own sets of consequences with them (and that is more than often ignored or overlooked, for "short term benefits").
The justification of an action is as much in the fruits, as in the roots. Both come hand in hand ultimately.
(edit to add the following:)
Then, as to judge/discern, I can't say I have a definite, certain receipt. I fear and keep away from those who say they do have one.
I don't mean to advertise the "basis of my morality". I'm not that good. I have a set of principles, that come mostly from my (Catholic, practicing) upbringing (but that don't match at all what most "Christians in the US" showcase, if that can give an idea) + an inner desire for peace, balance and truth (as hard and harsh it could be) that many take for naiveté, + an acute critical look for bullshit, I guess. But that's not very telling, is it? :p
https://www.channel4.com/news/drone-attacks-traumatising-a-g...
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/09/ev...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-mcchrysta...