There's a story in The New Yorker about a guy in Tennessee who has built a kind of recoilless shotgun that he has attached to robots and small remote-controlled helicopters. Here's the link (free registration to read the whole thing). It all seems like RoboCop to me, only creepier, what with the helicopter bit. Imagining Dick Cheney or Robert Mugabe or any random 13-year-old at the controls of a fleet of remote-controlled shotgun-toting helicopters is...unpleasant.
__________________
“What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things.”
As deadly as these things would be in the hands of some NRA nutcase (who no doubt would argue that he would be entitled, under the Second Amendment, to own one), they make far more sense to me than spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the F-22 Raptor, which was designed for a war with the Soviet Union, and on other cold war era weapons systems.
As deadly as these things would be in the hands of some NRA nutcase (who no doubt would argue that he would be entitled, under the Second Amendment, to own one), they make far more sense to me than spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the F-22 Raptor, which was designed for a war with the Soviet Union, and on other cold war era weapons systems.
Dick Cheney would never be even that close to danger, the chickenshit motherfucker.
The drones are fairly effective so far as killing goes. The opposite when it comes to political outcome, which is what war is about. The only thing that can possibly effect political outcome is "boots on the ground." Americans forget that too often, being almost entirely a civilian population. One of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reasons for opposing a war with Iran is exactly that. Sure, they could bomb the shit out of the place and kill many people and destroy a lot of buildings and stuff. But it can effect nothing "on the ground," much less control it. It was also one of their reasons for being unanimously opposed to the invasion of Iraq under Rumsfeld's reign. They understood that war, to have any purpose, is more than killing and destruction, and if it isn't, then it's pointless killing and destruction.
Incidentally, this surge business very often overlooks some key things: One, Rumsfeld was entirely opposed to it. Two, Bush refused to part with Rumsfeld until after it was no longer (domestically) politically acceptable to keep him. And even then, he stuck with Rumsfeld and Rumsfeld's opposition to the surge into his second term. Giving Bush or even his admin credit for the surge isn't exactly rational. Had it remained possible for Rumsfeld to stay, there would have been no surge. Within the Bush admin itself, the surge was a dissenting view.
I am neutral on the question because obviously if you have more military power in a place you can more easily control events. On the other hand, it was always a temporary measure and has therefore to end. If I were a guerrilla, my strategy, as always, would be to live to fight another day, on terms, time, terrain and tactics of my choosing, not my opponent's. I could wait a year or two or more, as necessary, knowing that a guerrilla to win, he has only not to lose. Not so with a conventional military force. If I were an Iraqi guerrilla, I'd limit myself to harassment actions until the American withdrawal was no longer possible to stop. Then I'd go all out with everything I had. I am assuming we will see something like that, once the American withdrawal is underway and that degree of power to control events is that much lessened.
Last edited by Gary Sisco; February-24th-2009 at 07:22 PM.
I heard Obama mentioning not funding "cold war" weapons systems last night in his speech to the joint session.
I said to my wife (who I think had fallen asleep by then) that many Democrats, including Sen. Patty Murphy, D-Boeing, wasn't going to like that since she is a big supporter of the F-22.
I am just curious who the supporters of the F-22 think we are going to use it against?
Anyone who knows anything about old Soviet weapons systems know that they are all pieces of shit.
Who else are we going to use it against? The Iranians?
We would be better off sending thousands of drones that cost a few thousand dollars a copy rather than a few $200 million a pop F-22s.
Last edited by rollhead; February-25th-2009 at 12:28 PM.
Linear Mode
