As The
Drone Flies... Monday, September 26. 2011 From: Nader.org
The fast developing predator drone technology, officially called
unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs, is becoming so dominant and so
beyond any restraining framework of law or ethics, that its use by
the U.S. government around the world may invite a horrific blowback.
First some background. The Pentagon has about 7,000 aerial drones.
Ten years ago there were less than 50. According to the website longwarjournal.com,
they have destroyed about 1900 insurgents in Pakistan's tribal regions.
How these fighters are so clearly distinguished from civilians in those
mountain areas is not clear.
Nor is it clear how or from whom the government gets
such "precise" information
about the guerilla leaders' whereabouts night and day. The drones are
beyond any counterattack--flying often at 50,000 feet. But the Air
Force has recognized that a third of the Predators have crashed by
themselves.
Compared to mass transit, housing, energy technology,
infection control, food and drug safety, the innovation in the world
of drones is incredible.
Coming soon are hummingbird sized drones, submersible drones and software
driven autonomous UAVs. The Washington Post described these inventions
as "aircraft [that] would hunt, identify and fire at [the] enemy--all
on its own." It is called "lethal autonomy" in the trade.
Military ethicists and legal experts inside and outside the government
are debating how far UAVs can go and still stay within what one imaginative
booster, Ronald C. Arkin, called international humanitarian law and
the rules of engagement. Concerns over restraint can already be considered
academic. Drones are going anywhere their governors want them to go
already--Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and countries in North Africa
to name a few known jurisdictions.
Last year a worried group of robotic specialists, philosophers and
human rights activists formed the International Committee for Robot
Arms Control (ICRAC) (http://www.icrac.co.uk/). They fear that such
instruments may make wars more likely by the strong against the weak
because there will be fewer human casualties by those waging robotic
war. But proliferation is now a fact. Forty countries are reported
to be working on drone technology or acquiring it. Some experts at
the founding conference of ICRAC forshadowed hostile states or terrorist
organizations hacking into robotic systems to redirect them.
ICRAC wants an international treaty against machines of lethal autonomy
along the lines of the ones banning land mines and cluster bombs. The
trouble is that the United States, unlike over one hundred signatory
nations, does not belong to either the land mines treaty or the more
recent anti-cluster bomb treaty. Historically, the U.S. has been a
major manufacturer and deployer of both. Don't count on the Obama White
House to take the lead anytime soon.
Columnist David Ignatius wrote that "A world
where drones are constantly buzzing overhead--waiting to zap those
deemed threats under
a cloaked and controversial process--isks being, even more, a world
of lawlessness and chaos."
Consider how terrifying it must be to the populations, especially
the children, living under the threat of drones that can attack through
clouds and dark skies. UAVs are hardly visible but sometimes audible
through their frightful whining sound. Polls show Pakistanis overwhelmingly
believe most of the drone-driven fatalities are civilians.
US Air Force Colonel Matt Martin has written a book
titled Predator. He was a remote operator sitting in the control
room in Nellis Air
Force Base in Nevada watching "suspects" transversing a mountain
ridge in Afghanistan eight thousand miles away. In a review of Martin's
book, Christian Cary writes "The eerie acuity of vision afforded
by the Predator's multiple high-powered video cameras enables him to
watch as the objects of his interest light up cigarettes, go to the
bathroom, or engage in amorous adventures with animals on the other
side of the world, never suspecting that they are under observation
as they do."
For most of a decade the asymmetrical warfare between the most modern,
military force in world history and Iraqi and Afghani fighters has
left the latter with little conventional aerial or land-based weaponry
other than rifles, rocket propelled grenades, roadside IEDs and suicide
belted youths.
People who see invaders occupying their land with military domination
that is beyond reach will resort to ever more desperate counterattacks,
however primitive in nature. When the time comes that robotic weapons
of physics cannot be counteracted at all with these simple handmade
weapons because the occupier's arsenals are remote, deadly and without
the need for soldiers, what will be the blowback?
Already, people like retired Admiral Dennis Blair, former director
of National Intelligence under President Obama is saying, according
to POLITICO, that the Administration should curtail U.S.-led drone
strikes on suspected terrorists in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia because
the missiles fired from unmanned aircraft are fueling anti-American
sentiment and undercutting reform efforts in those countries.
While scores of physicists and engineers are working on refining further
advances in UAVs, thousands of others are staying silent. In prior
years, their counterparts spoke out against the nuclear arms race or
exposed the unworkability of long-range missile defense. They need
to re-engage. Because the next blowback may soon move into chemical
and biological resistance against invaders. Suicide belts may contain
pathogens--bacterial and viral--and chemical agents deposited in food
and water supplies.
Professions are supposed to operate within an ethical
code and exercise independent judgment. Doctors have a duty to prevent
harm. Biologists
and chemists should urge their colleagues in physics to take a greater
role as to where their knowhow is leading this tormented world of ours
before the blowback spills over into even more lethally indefensible
chemical and biological attacks.
The fast developing predator drone technology, officially called unmanned
aerial vehicles or UAVs, is becoming so dominant and so beyond any restraining
framework of law or ethics, that its use by the U.S. government around
the world may invite a horrific blowback.
First some background. The Pentagon has about 7,000 aerial drones.
Ten years ago there were less than 50. According to the website longwarjournal.com,
they have destroyed about 1900 insurgents in Pakistan's tribal regions.
How these fighters are so clearly distinguished from civilians in
those mountain areas is not clear.
Nor is it clear how or from whom the government gets
such "precise" information
about the guerilla leaders' whereabouts night and day. The drones
are beyond any counterattack--flying often at 50,000 feet. But
the Air Force has recognized that a third of the Predators have crashed
by themselves.
Compared to mass transit, housing, energy technology,
infection control, food and drug safety, the innovation in the world
of drones
is incredible. Coming soon are hummingbird sized drones, submersible
drones and software driven autonomous UAVs. The Washington Post
described these inventions as "aircraft [that] would hunt, identify and
fire at [the] enemy--all on its own." It is called "lethal
autonomy" in the trade.
Military ethicists and legal experts inside and outside the government
are debating how far UAVs can go and still stay within what one imaginative
booster, Ronald C. Arkin, called international humanitarian law and
the rules of engagement. Concerns over restraint can already be considered
academic. Drones are going anywhere their governors want them to
go already--Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and countries in North Africa
to name a few known jurisdictions.
Last year a worried group of robotic specialists, philosophers and
human rights activists formed the International Committee for Robot
Arms Control (ICRAC) (http://www.icrac.co.uk/). They fear that such
instruments may make wars more likely by the strong against the weak
because there will be fewer human casualties by those waging robotic
war. But proliferation is now a fact. Forty countries are reported
to be working on drone technology or acquiring it. Some experts at
the founding conference of ICRAC forshadowed hostile states or terrorist
organizations hacking into robotic systems to redirect them.
ICRAC wants an international treaty against machines of lethal autonomy
along the lines of the ones banning land mines and cluster bombs.
The trouble is that the United States, unlike over one hundred signatory
nations, does not belong to either the land mines treaty or the more
recent anti-cluster bomb treaty. Historically, the U.S. has been
a major manufacturer and deployer of both. Don't count on the Obama
White House to take the lead anytime soon.
Columnist David Ignatius wrote that "A world
where drones are constantly buzzing overhead--waiting to zap those
deemed threats
under a cloaked and controversial process--isks being, even more,
a world of lawlessness and chaos."
Consider how terrifying it must be to the populations, especially
the children, living under the threat of drones that can attack through
clouds and dark skies. UAVs are hardly visible but sometimes audible
through their frightful whining sound. Polls show Pakistanis overwhelmingly
believe most of the drone-driven fatalities are civilians.
US Air Force Colonel Matt Martin has written a book
titled Predator. He was a remote operator sitting in the control
room in Nellis Air
Force Base in Nevada watching "suspects" transversing a
mountain ridge in Afghanistan eight thousand miles away. In a review
of Martin's book, Christian Cary writes "The eerie acuity
of vision afforded by the Predator's multiple high-powered video
cameras
enables him to watch as the objects of his interest light up
cigarettes, go to the bathroom, or engage in amorous adventures
with animals
on the other side of the world, never suspecting that they are
under observation as they do."
For most of a decade the asymmetrical warfare between the most modern,
military force in world history and Iraqi and Afghani fighters has
left the latter with little conventional aerial or land-based weaponry
other than rifles, rocket propelled grenades, roadside IEDs and suicide
belted youths.
People who see invaders occupying their land with military domination
that is beyond reach will resort to ever more desperate counterattacks,
however primitive in nature. When the time comes that robotic weapons
of physics cannot be counteracted at all with these simple handmade
weapons because the occupier's arsenals are remote, deadly and without
the need for soldiers, what will be the blowback?
Already, people like retired Admiral Dennis Blair, former director
of National Intelligence under President Obama is saying, according
to POLITICO, that the Administration should curtail U.S.-led drone
strikes on suspected terrorists in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia because
the missiles fired from unmanned aircraft are fueling anti-American
sentiment and undercutting reform efforts in those countries.
While scores of physicists and engineers are working on refining
further advances in UAVs, thousands of others are staying silent.
In prior years, their counterparts spoke out against the nuclear
arms race or exposed the unworkability of long-range missile defense.
They need to re-engage. Because the next blowback may soon move into
chemical and biological resistance against invaders. Suicide belts
may contain pathogens--bacterial and viral--and chemical agents deposited
in food and water supplies.
Professions are supposed to operate within an ethical code and exercise
independent judgment. Doctors have a duty to prevent harm. Biologists
and chemists should urge their colleagues in physics to take a greater
role as to where their knowhow is leading this tormented world of
ours before the blowback spills over into even more lethally indefensible
chemical and biological attacks.
