Word: droning
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Paging Peter Sellers. Suddenly, it seems, a whole lot of people have learned to stop worrying and love the drone. With the same deadly precision they claim for their weapons of choice, defenders of drones—also known as unmanned aerial vehicles—have been gleefully shooting down the arguments of any who dare criticize their tactics. “The future of how you use these unmanned systems or remotely piloted systems is really unlimited,” contends one lieutenant general, speaking for them...
...recent U.S. takeout of Taliban big cheese Baitullah Mehsud has predictably fired up these drone proponents, who see it as a clear-cut success story and a case for upping the number of UAVs. What’s more surprising, perhaps, is that the counterarguments have been so few and so thin. It’s the specifics, rather than the supremacy of the drone approach itself, that have come under attack. Pakistanis decry U.S. counterterrorist strikes in their country as a “violation of sovereignty” (apparently, contracting out assassination missions to third parties isn?...
...Indeed, all the recent uproar over Guantanamo prisons and black sites has obscured the fact that drone targets also don’t get court trials, judges, or hearings. (Until recently, the Obama administration used Blackwater—also responsible for Gitmo planning—to help organize its drone operations.) It’s hard to think of a more bizarre and troubling contradiction than shutting down the number of torture programs while stepping up the number of remote-control executions. Keeping our own boys safe is a laudable goal, but not if it comes at the cost...
...Comeuppance will arrive sooner or later, though. If our targets don’t turn the drones back on us—more than 40 countries are working right now to develop drone technology—the robots themselves may have their way. The Air Force just released its Unmanned Aircraft System Flight Plan, which estimates that autonomous aerial bots will replace all manned aircraft in the country by 2047. And in June, leading figures in the artificial intelligence community convened at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Monterey Bay to discuss the dangers of technologies like drones for humans. Sitting...
...officials, Pakistan has abandoned plans to mount a military offensive against the terrorist group responsible for a two-year campaign of suicide bombings across the country. Although the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been in disarray since an Aug. 5 missile strike from a CIA-operated drone killed its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani military has concluded that a ground attack on its strongholds in South Waziristan would be too difficult...