Modern warfare: drones attack public connection to battlefields far away

According to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, insurgent forces in Iraq are using a $26 software program to compromise U.S. Predator unmanned flying drones.

The insurgents are using programs like SkyGrabber, which captures live feeds from the drone’s cameras, allowing them to see what is getting beamed back to U.S. forces. U.S. officials are saying that there isn’t any evidence that insurgents were able to take control of the drones, but the intercepted imagery could give an advantage “by removing the element of surprise” from certain missions.

U.S. military forces have thousands of these drones in service, some of which are capable of carrying out missile strikes. Robotic technology has advanced greatly since the first primitive unmanned recon vehicles (basically glorified remote-controlled airplanes with cameras) used during the first Gulf War. Now, Predator drones can linger silently over a target for hours or days at a time, controlled by U.S. Air Force handlers half a world away.

The abilities these drones possess create new ethical issues. Jane Mayer, author of a New Yorker Magazine article called “The Predator War,” raised a good point during an NPR interview this fall.

“If we can’t feel the impact of the people that we’re killing and we can’t see them, and none of our own people (are) at risk, does this somehow make it easier to just be in a perpetual state of war because there’s no seeming cost to us? ... My sense is that (with) this kind of technology, there’s going to be no turning back.”

P.W. Singer, author of “Wired for War,” put it another way.

“This is leading some of the first generation of soldiers working with robots to worry that war waged by remote control will come to seem too easy, too tempting. More than a century ago, Gen. Robert E. Lee famously observed: ‘It is good that we find war so horrible, or else we would become fond of it.’ He didn’t contemplate a time when a pilot could ‘go to war’ by commuting to work each morning in his Toyota to a cubicle where he could shoot missiles at an enemy thousands of miles away and then make it home in time for his kid’s soccer practice.”

If the American populace knows that U.S. troops will be sent in harm’s way, they ask troubling questions – like ‘why are we doing this?’ With robots, there are no such questions, because robots aren’t people. They aren’t citizen soldiers whose parents and spouses raise holy hell when a loved one doesn’t come back from the battlefield. The impact of a loss of a drone doesn’t dent approval ratings or political capital.

I was watching an interesting documentary the other night called “Why We Fight.” It states the opinion that real opposition to the Vietnam War at home started in earnest when the lottery system made it so that middle and upper class children faced the real risk of being drafted. The armed forces responded, in the wake of Vietnam, with an “all-volunteer force.”. While this may, as some have argued, created a better military, it also had the effect of removing the commonality of military service from American life.

In the decades since, it seems that the military has become more and more of a detached entity from the lives of the average American, who may know few people in the service. Removing this connection has, in my opinion, removed some of the human cost from recent military decisions. Dead soldiers still come home at Dover Air Force Base, sure – but public outcry over their deaths is muted.

Robots will only carry this detachment to another level. Removing the human element from a military operation will negate questions regarding said operations. After all, who cares if we lose a drone? It’s just a robot. Now, if that same mission were being carried out by a human pilot, and that pilot were shot down and taken prisoner, the resulting firestorm of criticism would be damaging. Removing the human removes this risk – and gives those in power a freer hand for performing consequence-free operations.

Remember this, though – those robots perform missions against human beings. They may be our enemies, but their deaths are very real. Sept. 11 may have come as a shock to Americans, but not to those in other countries who’d seen our cruise missiles destroy targets in Iraq or Sudan during the 1990s. We’ve been at war for a long time – and will continue to be ignorant of this war so long as the costs are hidden from us.

In the wake of 9/11, many of us asked, “Why do they hate us?” It seemed a logical question, but only in the insulated bubble that most Americans had been living in. Our leaders take great pains to assure us that each new operation will be bloodless, that we will indeed “be greeted as liberators.”

Robots taking more and more of the work load, combined with the public’s increasing apathy towards years-long operations so long as the body counts are low, will likely only result in us re-asking the same question when another tragedy happens.

I've become one of "those guys" at McDonalds

As my daughter tottered through the dimly lit maze of plastic tunnels and absorbent floor material that made up the McDonald’s PlayPlace, I realized that I’d become “that guy.”

I’m “that guy” who chews his food like cud and keeps an eye on the child whose motion seems less guided as it is compelled by forces she doesn’t understand. I’m “that guy” who utters slowly progressing warnings when his daughter is grabbing on to another child: “Evvvveeeeeyyy? Evvvvey?? No. Let that kid goooo. I meaaaannn it.” I’m “that guy” whose Friday night wardrobe has devolved into a sweatshirt and “comfy jeans” – you know, the “relaxed fit” ones your previous self would have never admitted to owning?

While I always knew I would be a father someday, I never knew what this actually meant. I never thought that I would ever have to fight for time to iron a shirt. I never thought that my ears could train themselves to recognize the particular frequency of my child’s cry and be able to pick it out of a crowd. I never EVER gave any thought to the idea that I’d ever be one of the anonymous balding fathers whose benevolence contributes to make the carefree experience of childhood possible.

It struck me there that my own happy childhood was no accident. It was created and nurtured not only through my parents, but also through the other adults involved in my young life. Now 30 years old, I have moved from taking advantage of this protective cocoon to doing my best to create one for my own offspring. It’s a powerful feeling – and one I am just beginning to understand.

That was my Friday night. I’ve determined that life is divided into distinct modes of operation. In this case, it’s “pursuit” and “maintenance.” Friday nights used to be spent in pursuit of a significant other. Now, those nights are spent maintaining and developing what that significant other and I have created, be it a massive pile of laundry or giving my daughter a trip through a Play Place.

I used to work at this same McDonald’s location when I was 16, sweeping floors and mopping up accidents of the last decade’s children. At the time, I cursed the parents who let their kids made ketchup messes, let them run around with sticky hands, and just seemed so detached from the experience, like they were so stone on Valium that they could care less. Now, I realize that these parents were probably exhausted and, like me many days now, craving a minute or two of what passes for tranquility.

I also realize now the awesome marketing firepower that McDonald’s aims at children and parents. For children, it promises a cheap toy, the luxury of fast food, and a trip to a wonderful place to play. For adults, it offers a trip to relive those same times, all while being able to eat a meal in relative peace as their children run through a plastic maze of diminished responsibility. For every minute my daughter spends in a plastic tube, that’s one more minute that I can eat my French fries and stare blankly into space.

Laws and Those They Don't Apply To

I know sports players are treated differently from regular folks, but this is ridiculous.
In the past two weeks, two Minnesota Vikings (Adrian Peterson and Bernard Berrian) were both pulled over after being clocked at speeds well over 100 mph (Peterson: 109 mph in a 55-mph zone; Berrian: 104 mph in a 60-mph zone). Both were let go with tickets – but if my reading of Minnesota state law is correct, they should have gotten far worse.
According to Section 171.17 "REVOCATION" of Minnesota statute, "The department shall immediately revoke the license of a driver upon receiving a record of the driver's conviction of ... violation of an applicable speed limit by a person driving in excess of 100 miles per hour. The person's license must be revoked for six months for a violation of this clause, or for a longer minimum period of time applicable under section 169A.53, 169A.54, or 171.174." In other words, having exceeded this speed limit, both of these men should have lost their licenses. If it had been you or me, that's probably what would have happened, and I would be writing you from my new home in the garage.
But that didn't happen. If anything, Berrian and Peterson got off with tickets, which don't add to much given the fact that Peterson has a salary of $2.8 million and Berrian has a $13.7 million salary. I'm sure the speeding tickets, which would have seriously dinged yours-truly's budget for the month, will probably end up being a drop in the bucket of a never ending sport-cash waterfall.
Had I gotten pulled over, I would have lost my license and likely been thrown into the back of a squad car. I wouldn't, as Berrian and Peterson did, have gotten a ticket. And I sure as hell wouldn't have one of the troopers, as he hands me said ticket, wish me luck against Chicago. No, I wouldn't have gotten any of this. Why? Because I am no one. I don't throw a ball, I don't get paid millions for it, and I'm certainly not connected to the image of the state. No. I'm jail fodder for sure.
What bothers me so much about both of these instances is that these men acted like they were above the law, which, seeing as how they've been let off easy, seems exactly correct. It's a great message to send to people: I can drive 60 miles over the speed limit on the same public roads you and your children travel on because I am famous. And if I were to hit you? Well, I'll probably get out of that somehow, too.
These sorry incidents are symptomatic of the sports-worship that I think misplaces our priorities as a culture.
To use an old argument, the people who teach our kids get paid squat, but thoroughbred athletes like Peterson and Berrian are paid millions to play a childhood game that's been inflated and distorted beyond any sort of playground fantasy. This is nothing new – the Romans had well-paid gladiators who were no doubt spoiled by success – but I would like to think that the vast gulf between the salaries of those who contribute to society and those who suit up on Sundays would close someday. I guess it won't.
The world can really be divided into two categories: those who can get away with driving 109 mph and those who can't. Where do you fall into this scheme of things?