Good Kill - American Sniper with Drones
- Thread starter Marter
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How does being a pilot automatically qualify you for flying drones? Is that realling something that the Air Force does?
Personally, reading this review made me a bit sad.
From what I'm reading, it seems like the movie is too focused on the effects of killing people on the people pushing the button rather then then...you know, the people who died?
I mean, it does sound interesting, but I think if you REALLY want to show the impact of drone warfare, you need to show the receiving end and the impact it has on their victims lives, like that one middle-eastern kid who said he was scared of clear skies because of random drone attacks.
From what I'm reading, it seems like the movie is too focused on the effects of killing people on the people pushing the button rather then then...you know, the people who died?
I mean, it does sound interesting, but I think if you REALLY want to show the impact of drone warfare, you need to show the receiving end and the impact it has on their victims lives, like that one middle-eastern kid who said he was scared of clear skies because of random drone attacks.
Well, I'd imagine that being able to fly a aircraft would give them the edge in the selection process, I'd imagine that controlling a drone would basically be on par with a training simulation for them.Bob_McMillan said:
Like Caramel said, Details were glossed over for the sake of running time so just assume that some of the processing occurred off screen.
and how incredibly different it is from being under constant threat of death by any other modern weapon, like mines or ICBM's or naval guns or those helicopters that can destroy tanks from miles away.Diabl1099 said:
Oh wait, Drone warfare has exactly the same impact as any other kind of WARFARE . Being the target of a vastly superior military sucks, this has been true since the middle ages. Drones bring no new horror to war beyond the same incremental increase in effectiveness that has been happening since metalworking was invented.
Meh, I've heard a bit about this one so I'll be skipping it. Basically it's being called a liberal indoctrination piece the same way "American Sniper" was being called the opposite by many people.
The way I see it is this, war sucks, that's the bottom line, that's why we avoid it. There is no way to make it so war does not suck. At the end of the day the only way for a war to truly end is for one side to achieve it's objectives and render the opposing side incapable of further resistance. In many cases this involves needing to break a people and their ideology. It runs contrary to liberal ethics but at the end of the day a military is simply an expression of the will of it's people, as long as the people remain unbowed they will continue to produce soldiers of one sort or another. When they cannot represent with actual armies, they do so with insurgents and gueriella warfare. As long as the basic ideas and way of life continue to exist unchecked it creates an endless state of warfare, and ensures nothing will ever truly be resolved. The idea of a "moral" or "antiseptic" war where only the militaries and actual fighters get hurt is ridiculous because by definition you cannot win a war that way.
Drones and other forms of high technology are intended to reduce the cost of war to ones own people. Basically to kill the other guy without losing your own people. Used properly they can also be used to break a people with less bloodshed because to be blunt an enemy you can potentially fight against is a lot less scary than one that will just kill you, your family, and everyone you know without you likely ever seeing what's coming or getting a chance to hide or resist. Indeed one of the big problems we got into so much crap is that the USA's engagement doctrine was one where if anyone messed with us we'd eradicate the entire culture of whomever was responsible with extreme predjudice. This is why we downsized the military and said we didn't need that many soldiers. The idea was that with our technology if something like 9/11 happened we'd simply light the entire Middle East on fire using non-WMD means like Daisy Cutters, Fuel Air Bombs, Neutron Bombs, etc... and pretty much kill hundreds of millions of people without them having any chance to resist. Given that power the idea was nobody would dare mess with us, and we didn't need to put boots on the ground. A lot of our problem right now is liberal moralists did not have the stomach for a proper war (read a slaughter) and thus sent in our reserves, tried to rebuild our conventional military, and then sent in people to try and "win the peace" rifle to rifle while foregoing our entire technological advantage. A lot of our debt caused by the current war pretty much comes from our lack of balls. The same applies to incursions on the US sphere of influence in recent years because our rivals were not concerned by Americans with rifles, but by our massive technological edge. Once we showed we would not use all of our technology and weapons even after having The Pentagon hit, people stopped fearing that technology.
Drones in particular were intended as a middle ground, the idea being that by sending in heavily armed remote units we could annihilate enemies with minimal risk, terrorize them by not giving them an enemy to fight, and of course cause less collateral damage than say having a few dozen bombers fly over and drop fuel air bombs on Baghdad and then daisy cutters on those fleeing the carnage, or neutron bombs on things like Oil Refineries (kill the people, save the infrastructure) to seize them outright. The idea of a Drone being that we could say kill a building or a convoy with no risk as opposed to say destroying the entire town, and we'd kill less people in absolute terms, while still breaking the will and minds of the people on the receiving end through the knowledge that we can and will erase anyone that we decide annoys us enough. Collateral damage to civilians is a good thing in war because of it's psychological impact, after all it makes one less likely to let a bunch of gun carriers hide out in town if they know there is a risk that the people of the town will die from a drone strike. Strictly speaking they might survive throwing out the guys with assault rifles and personal explosives especially with greater numbers, but they won't survive if inevitably the US shows up and decides to cut loose. The idea of psychological warfare is to make the enemy more afraid of you than they are of their own government, and to put survival before any kind of national pride or ideology. This is one of the reasons why I'm such a ruthless bastard in some of my posts, on the extreme end I feel a so called "war crime" can be a humanitarian act and in most cases is when conducted by a military. While unrelated to drones, in the big picture consider that if you send a group of psychopaths to take over a town, rape, torture, loot, etc... and make grotesque displays out of what's being done that would make extreme horror writers gag at the descriptions, you might ultimately spare the next ten towns that surrender or don't resist out of fear of what your going to do. The more people are afraid of what your willing to do, the less likely it becomes that your going to have to do it. What's more let's say due to truly psychotic sadism on part of the military you scare so many people that they flee the area, the towns and villages empty and everyone flees towards where their military is seeking protection and refuge. That's a great way to break a line and disrupt infrastructure since now that military has it's own cohesion threatened, either being demoralized by needing to slaughter their own people, or having their resources stretched trying to provide for the refugees. This is what "driving the enemy before you" is all about. What's more once you do that, and then defeat the opposing military the survivors are going to be so terrified and hopeless they will do whatever you say, and thus you need to kill less people. War sucks and is ugly, people forget it's a case where the biggest bastard wins, not the good guy, the tricks is to be more screwed up than the other guys BUT also remember it's "just" a war. This is why I feel that a lot of the push for moral wars is counter productive, and feel the idea of "War crimes" is sort of a joke, since in a real war there is no such things, done for the right reasons "War Crimes" can actually be fairly merciful, not to the people actually on the receiving end, but in the big picture. The trick though is to promote the knowledge with helplessness along with them, see, if your just mindlessly psychotic but don't have overwhelming force that's going to rally people worse, the point is when people fear what's coming and realize that they aren't going to be able to resist, and all say sending gueriellas is going to do is make it so the next group of guys get it 10x worse.
At any rate, to my way of thinking Drones are fairly "clean" we just need to stop moralizing about them and understand that even taking out dozens of targets in collateral damage is a good thing. You want the everyman to be afraid of the drones. We need to stop seeing that as being morally ambigious, and actually as fairly righteous in a time of conflict like this. Doing it for the hell of it is of course wrong, but in a war it's a way of making a strike both physical and psychological without doing as much damage as other methods would, and most importantly it's safe to our own people who should always be our own priority.
I don't expect many people to agree with me here, but that's how I think on warfare (as I've mentioned before). I actually prefer not to actually fight wars, but when the time comes and we need to represent our interests I believe in getting the job done, and morality isn't much of a concern. I think this is the attitude that should be reinforced by a responsible nation. Basically the way I see it is that if you want civilized relations with the USA, don't push things to the point where we want to send the military to represent our interests. The more scared people are of our military the less likely we have to use them... a point we forget, and a lack of fear has been deeply affecting our global standing and causing incursions into the territory of our allies as well as our sphere of influence.
At any rate I'm just rambling about the subject, and explaining why I'm not likely to ever watch this movie, as the review pretty much reinforces everything I've heard. The whole spin that it's "bad for our soldiers" apparently had some people I've heard talk about it claiming they vomited day glo since you know, running around someone else's back yard with a rifle where they can shoot you back is so much better for them. All war is traumatic, which is why we want to avoid it, and making examples out of people with Drones reduces the chances we have to keep doing it assuming we can prevent politics from hampering those activities too.
That said as "Evil Therumancer" I've been of the opinion for a while that dropping a few of our really big non-nuclear bombs might solve a lot of problems if we can keep the media under control. The way I see it is if we drop a half a dozen neutron bombs millions might die BUT the sheer horror of that example will probably ensure nobody wants to get involved in any conflicts where such a thing could happen for a long time to come. We can publically cry crocodile tears while making sure to not so subtly make it clear that diplomacy is a preference, but at the end of the day not our only way of backing our interests since we do have the nuts to use our technology when we have to. Basically kill a few (comparatively speaking) to save a lot which is key to a lot of my philosophy. To me if it brought about another 50 years of relative peace due to the fear caused by the example it would probably be worth it.... but as I said, not a popular point of view, especially hear. A lot of people do not seem to understand how doing really bad things can ever be the "good" thing to do in the big picture.
The way I see it is this, war sucks, that's the bottom line, that's why we avoid it. There is no way to make it so war does not suck. At the end of the day the only way for a war to truly end is for one side to achieve it's objectives and render the opposing side incapable of further resistance. In many cases this involves needing to break a people and their ideology. It runs contrary to liberal ethics but at the end of the day a military is simply an expression of the will of it's people, as long as the people remain unbowed they will continue to produce soldiers of one sort or another. When they cannot represent with actual armies, they do so with insurgents and gueriella warfare. As long as the basic ideas and way of life continue to exist unchecked it creates an endless state of warfare, and ensures nothing will ever truly be resolved. The idea of a "moral" or "antiseptic" war where only the militaries and actual fighters get hurt is ridiculous because by definition you cannot win a war that way.
Drones and other forms of high technology are intended to reduce the cost of war to ones own people. Basically to kill the other guy without losing your own people. Used properly they can also be used to break a people with less bloodshed because to be blunt an enemy you can potentially fight against is a lot less scary than one that will just kill you, your family, and everyone you know without you likely ever seeing what's coming or getting a chance to hide or resist. Indeed one of the big problems we got into so much crap is that the USA's engagement doctrine was one where if anyone messed with us we'd eradicate the entire culture of whomever was responsible with extreme predjudice. This is why we downsized the military and said we didn't need that many soldiers. The idea was that with our technology if something like 9/11 happened we'd simply light the entire Middle East on fire using non-WMD means like Daisy Cutters, Fuel Air Bombs, Neutron Bombs, etc... and pretty much kill hundreds of millions of people without them having any chance to resist. Given that power the idea was nobody would dare mess with us, and we didn't need to put boots on the ground. A lot of our problem right now is liberal moralists did not have the stomach for a proper war (read a slaughter) and thus sent in our reserves, tried to rebuild our conventional military, and then sent in people to try and "win the peace" rifle to rifle while foregoing our entire technological advantage. A lot of our debt caused by the current war pretty much comes from our lack of balls. The same applies to incursions on the US sphere of influence in recent years because our rivals were not concerned by Americans with rifles, but by our massive technological edge. Once we showed we would not use all of our technology and weapons even after having The Pentagon hit, people stopped fearing that technology.
Drones in particular were intended as a middle ground, the idea being that by sending in heavily armed remote units we could annihilate enemies with minimal risk, terrorize them by not giving them an enemy to fight, and of course cause less collateral damage than say having a few dozen bombers fly over and drop fuel air bombs on Baghdad and then daisy cutters on those fleeing the carnage, or neutron bombs on things like Oil Refineries (kill the people, save the infrastructure) to seize them outright. The idea of a Drone being that we could say kill a building or a convoy with no risk as opposed to say destroying the entire town, and we'd kill less people in absolute terms, while still breaking the will and minds of the people on the receiving end through the knowledge that we can and will erase anyone that we decide annoys us enough. Collateral damage to civilians is a good thing in war because of it's psychological impact, after all it makes one less likely to let a bunch of gun carriers hide out in town if they know there is a risk that the people of the town will die from a drone strike. Strictly speaking they might survive throwing out the guys with assault rifles and personal explosives especially with greater numbers, but they won't survive if inevitably the US shows up and decides to cut loose. The idea of psychological warfare is to make the enemy more afraid of you than they are of their own government, and to put survival before any kind of national pride or ideology. This is one of the reasons why I'm such a ruthless bastard in some of my posts, on the extreme end I feel a so called "war crime" can be a humanitarian act and in most cases is when conducted by a military. While unrelated to drones, in the big picture consider that if you send a group of psychopaths to take over a town, rape, torture, loot, etc... and make grotesque displays out of what's being done that would make extreme horror writers gag at the descriptions, you might ultimately spare the next ten towns that surrender or don't resist out of fear of what your going to do. The more people are afraid of what your willing to do, the less likely it becomes that your going to have to do it. What's more let's say due to truly psychotic sadism on part of the military you scare so many people that they flee the area, the towns and villages empty and everyone flees towards where their military is seeking protection and refuge. That's a great way to break a line and disrupt infrastructure since now that military has it's own cohesion threatened, either being demoralized by needing to slaughter their own people, or having their resources stretched trying to provide for the refugees. This is what "driving the enemy before you" is all about. What's more once you do that, and then defeat the opposing military the survivors are going to be so terrified and hopeless they will do whatever you say, and thus you need to kill less people. War sucks and is ugly, people forget it's a case where the biggest bastard wins, not the good guy, the tricks is to be more screwed up than the other guys BUT also remember it's "just" a war. This is why I feel that a lot of the push for moral wars is counter productive, and feel the idea of "War crimes" is sort of a joke, since in a real war there is no such things, done for the right reasons "War Crimes" can actually be fairly merciful, not to the people actually on the receiving end, but in the big picture. The trick though is to promote the knowledge with helplessness along with them, see, if your just mindlessly psychotic but don't have overwhelming force that's going to rally people worse, the point is when people fear what's coming and realize that they aren't going to be able to resist, and all say sending gueriellas is going to do is make it so the next group of guys get it 10x worse.
At any rate, to my way of thinking Drones are fairly "clean" we just need to stop moralizing about them and understand that even taking out dozens of targets in collateral damage is a good thing. You want the everyman to be afraid of the drones. We need to stop seeing that as being morally ambigious, and actually as fairly righteous in a time of conflict like this. Doing it for the hell of it is of course wrong, but in a war it's a way of making a strike both physical and psychological without doing as much damage as other methods would, and most importantly it's safe to our own people who should always be our own priority.
I don't expect many people to agree with me here, but that's how I think on warfare (as I've mentioned before). I actually prefer not to actually fight wars, but when the time comes and we need to represent our interests I believe in getting the job done, and morality isn't much of a concern. I think this is the attitude that should be reinforced by a responsible nation. Basically the way I see it is that if you want civilized relations with the USA, don't push things to the point where we want to send the military to represent our interests. The more scared people are of our military the less likely we have to use them... a point we forget, and a lack of fear has been deeply affecting our global standing and causing incursions into the territory of our allies as well as our sphere of influence.
At any rate I'm just rambling about the subject, and explaining why I'm not likely to ever watch this movie, as the review pretty much reinforces everything I've heard. The whole spin that it's "bad for our soldiers" apparently had some people I've heard talk about it claiming they vomited day glo since you know, running around someone else's back yard with a rifle where they can shoot you back is so much better for them. All war is traumatic, which is why we want to avoid it, and making examples out of people with Drones reduces the chances we have to keep doing it assuming we can prevent politics from hampering those activities too.
That said as "Evil Therumancer" I've been of the opinion for a while that dropping a few of our really big non-nuclear bombs might solve a lot of problems if we can keep the media under control. The way I see it is if we drop a half a dozen neutron bombs millions might die BUT the sheer horror of that example will probably ensure nobody wants to get involved in any conflicts where such a thing could happen for a long time to come. We can publically cry crocodile tears while making sure to not so subtly make it clear that diplomacy is a preference, but at the end of the day not our only way of backing our interests since we do have the nuts to use our technology when we have to. Basically kill a few (comparatively speaking) to save a lot which is key to a lot of my philosophy. To me if it brought about another 50 years of relative peace due to the fear caused by the example it would probably be worth it.... but as I said, not a popular point of view, especially hear. A lot of people do not seem to understand how doing really bad things can ever be the "good" thing to do in the big picture.
Yeah, the drones can function in a mostly autonomous fashion and can take off, fly to an area to conduct a mission and then fly back and land but human pilots supervise the whole process and can step in at anytime or if a chosen runway lacks the correct beacons or if they want to reposition the aircraft or parameters change and fire orders are always supervised.Bob_McMillan said:
At that point all the controls and instruments are exactly the same as any other aircraft, the obvious difference is the pilot isn't actually in the aircraft. There are other differences too, like the way a single mission may have several supervising pilots. It's common for a drone to be launched by one pilot, its mission to be carried out by another and then landed by another set of crew as they "hand off" from command centre to command centre.
Landing and take off are generally supervised by a crew (in special portable command centres) at or very near the airfields while the mission, either surveillance or combat is supervised from a base in United States. They have more than one crew member as well, usually two and sometimes more if someone like the CIA or if a member of another branch of service are involved in joint operations.
Being a pilot doesn't automatically mean someone qualifies as a drone pilot but all drone pilots are pilots and weapon and sensor operators.
Because that really worked out well in Vietnam didn't it? More explosives dropped in both volume and weight on the North Vietnamese than were dropped on the Axis powers in WW2, millions killed and it accomplished almost nothing apart from costing the US taxpayer about $20,000,000 each and every day (just the bombs not the whole war cost).Therumancer said:
Pilots fly drones... Your question is massively misplaced.Bob_McMillan said:
Fast Jet, Multi Engine/ Fixed Wing, Rotary and Remotely Piloted Air Vehicle pilots all do the same ground school and elementary flying training. Then they are streamed. This means they all start by learning to fly the same small propeller aircraft and then moving onto further training on a specific area before finally converting to a specific airframe with a war role.
Fast Jet and Multi Engine/Fixed Wing pilots convert very easily to be RPAS pilots as the basic flying principles are the same. It wouldn't take long to convert, you save thousands on training someone from civvy street and you get someone who knows war, airspace and how they are together. Taking a Fast Jet chap who has already dropped ordinance on enemy territory will also have the advantage of enhanced knowledge of rules of engagement and how the kill chain works. Something that can only really be taught through experience, and not just a classroom.
So yes. The Air Force are converting other pilots through downsizing existing fleets, as well as training other existing personnel from across the force (logisticians, Air Trafficers, Battlespace Managers, Intel guys, adminers) and it actually makes a lot more sense than taking someone new due to the bolstered knowledge they came with.
It is very different to the other types you describe.."Exact same impact as any kind of warfare?". Lol no, warfare doesn't all have the same impact by a long shot. I.e: psychological conditions of trench warfare during ww1 and the methods of warfare used then such as mass gas attacks made for very different conditions and impact on a person's sanity then say...Napoleonic warfare (a deliberate choice due to being total opposite of trench warfare..People had to march in lines and stuff and follow rigid orders, made for a different sort of mental stress).Stupidity said:
Mines don't fly around and seek out targets, and ICBMs, naval guns or even those helicopters aren't usually used to take out single targets in remote villagers (of those only the helicopter might fit but I feel a comparison to air strikes is the best one you can get). Not all means of warfare are equal, otherwise wtf would we be using drones if ICBMS, mines and helicopters can do the same exact job? Because they ain't the same, drones provide long range strike ability at no risk of american lives and with better accuracy then ICBMS. That alone makes it very different, ICBMS aren't used willy nilly like drones are. The US public isn't sold the idea that they can just target ICBMS at anyone that threatens 'Murrica in the way that drones can.
The psychological impact on the ground is very different between the various means you describe, and in the case of drones we won't really have all the data and studies for a few more years, so is kinda cavalier at this point to assume they have no unique psychological impact in comparison to others, (i really doubt civilians are terrified of flying mines coming to get them in their sleep anymore then they are scared of finding a drone in the sand randomly that might explode and take away their legs) I'd imagine they would have an impact similar to regular airstrikes if anything, that fear of death coming from above that might just one day decide to come down on your house and blow it up.
Sounds exactly like what I'd expect. When a movie (or any form of media) focuses too hard on making a point, it usually forgets about the "Make the movie good" part. Another sub-par preachy movie to join the ranks of Fern Gully, Birth of a Nation, and countless others.
I'm sorry... why are you advocating blowing up Boston in the wake of the Boston Marathon Bombing, again?Therumancer said:
The Tarkin Doctrine doesn't work, especially when we're not at war with any nations, and instead are fighting amorphous and flexible NGOs.
I'm sorry... why are you advocating blowing up Boston in the wake of the Boston Marathon Bombing, again?Scow2 said:
The Tarkin Doctrine doesn't work, especially when we're not at war with any nations, and instead are fighting amorphous and flexible NGOs.[/quote]
WTF are you talking about, I've never talked about blowing up Boston. I think you might be getting lost in your own projection.
That said your sort of correct, technically we are at war with North Korea still, as that war never actually ended, but most of our major threats are coming from cultures as opposed to nations. That said the backbone of these cultures exists through certain geographic regions. As I've said before at the end of the day I advocate attacking the Islamic culture, through wide scale action against all of the Muslim nations and their populations. A point which gets into arguments about things like genocide, which I'm not going to go into again so soon (though according to Archon I can discuss that I believe, but what I think has been covered in detail numerous times as unpopular as it is). Some of the threats we're facing are not ones that can be addressed by simply attacking a nation and/or destroying it's infrastructure, you need to break the people and bring an end to a way of life, because as long as the ideas continue to thrive the threat will never disappear. This is part of what "Total War" doctrine is all about. My basic argument is along the lines of how after something like the 9/11 attacks we should have been dropping fuel air bombs on major middle eastern cities, and blowing up entire towns for things like the Boston marathon attacks. In the end it might come down to a blanket attack against the entre idealogy throughout the region, but to begin with you focus on containment and of course to simply make it too difficult for them to sustain when they are losing tens of thousands of people for every one of ours that dies. See, people are going to become less tolerance of people broadcasting a religious agenda that will ultimately lead to a few people picking up guns and bombs and going on the warpath, in a case like this the idea is the problem not so much the people actually carrying the weapons since as long as the ideas remain the way they are it ensures there will be an endless conflict. Likewise people can be very brave with their own lives, but when they know their friends, family, and entire people are going to be made to suffer as a result that can deter people who are not personally afraid to die, after all what can be achieved through something like the 9/11 attacks if it means the people meant to benefit from it are going to die from retaliation? Would the Boson Marathon Bombers have struck if they knew a hundred thousand or more people they were supposedly doing it for would die in exchange for those scant casualties? The point here is not so much that I want to see people die, so much as a deterrent primarily works when people know your going to use it, right now the US is sitting on all of these massive weapons we were supposed to be using in these situations and we refuse to deploy them, which means nobody fears them, and as a result we'll deal with current
problems from a lot of the major Muslim ideologies. We've already tried diplomacy and as a general rule it has not been effective, largely leading to other problems when the people we deal with wind up betraying us, indeed part of the reason why we have so many weapons down there to deal with is that we were dumb enough to trust guys like Saddam and build them up.
Now yeah, at the end of the day you might have to go "Full Tarkin" and rev up the 20th century equivalent of The Death Star which involves unleashing so many weapons that nothing remains of your designated enemy. But this gets into discussion about Genocide and such where I'm not going right now since it's all hypothetical and I don't believe we're even close to that right now.
See, a measured response doesn't work in cases like this, you need to make a conflict simply too expensive for your enemy to sustain it, and you also need to be able to recognize threats other than those coming from nations with an organized military. What's more you also need to be prepared to start wars when needed in order to maintain your own interests, you cannot continually back down from everyone and give them what they want and succeed, all that does is make people push you more.
If you want a better villainous analogy to what I'm saying I'm pretty close to John Travolta's character in the old movie "Swordfish" in my overall point of view.
No need to really argue with me, it's not that important, and really it's pretty obvious not many people here (if anyone) agrees with me. At the end of the day I more of a pessimistic realist than an idealist. I do not believe there are pleasant or antiseptic solutions to problems. If the US was in a stronger position right now I'd probably think a lot differently. Even though I'm not a fan of Bill Clinton, I tend to look back at the 1990s (as opposed to the 1950s as many people accuse me of) as being pretty close to where I'd like to see the US. Our threats were minimal even if things weren't entirely peaceful, and we had enough of an apparent surplus to be generous and keep things relatively booming as opposed to an absolutely staggering debt. I do not think we can achieve that again without being a group of titanic bastards and that means being pretty brutal with our military force in pursuit of our own goals as we not only have to deal with the threat posed by Islamic culture, but also in protecting our own economic interests from nations like China.
So yeah, basically in order to protect paradise we need to introduce the serpent.