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Robot air attack squadron bound for Iraq

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent Sun Jul 15, 6:21 PM ET

BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq - The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It's outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles.

The Reaper is loaded, but there's no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.

The arrival of these outsized U.S. "hunter-killer" drones, in aviation history's first robot attack squadron, will be a watershed moment even in an Iraq that has seen too many innovative ways to hunt and kill.

That moment, one the Air Force will likely low-key, is expected "soon," says the regional U.S. air commander. How soon? "We're still working that," Lt. Gen. Gary North said in an interview.

The Reaper's first combat deployment is expected in Afghanistan, and senior Air Force officers estimate it will land in Iraq sometime between this fall and next spring. They look forward to it.

"With more Reapers, I could send manned airplanes home," North said.

The Associated Press has learned that the Air Force is building a 400,000-square-foot expansion of the concrete ramp area now used for Predator drones here at Balad, the biggest U.S. air base in Iraq, 50 miles north of Baghdad. That new staging area could be turned over to Reapers.

It's another sign that the Air Force is planning for an extended stay in Iraq, supporting Iraqi government forces in any continuing conflict, even if U.S. ground troops are drawn down in the coming years. - AP

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Other crazy shit:

US seeks mini-Imperial Walker mule-bots

Terminator kill-bots to be run by system called 'Skynet'

And the friggin scary quote, almost straight out of Terminator:

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"Skynet gives us capacity - a two-and-a-half times capability enhancement; it's assured - commanders want to know they will get through each time they press the send button; and it's also resilient against computer-based threats," said Brigadier Shadbolt.

The Ministry of Defence does not own the Skynet system; the military merely buys the services run over it from a company called Paradigm Secure Communications.

This arrangement - the most expensive Private Finance Initiative (PFI) signed by the MoD - allows for spare bandwidth on the new satellites to be sold to "friendly" forces, earning money not just for Paradigm but for the defence department as well.

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one of the incidents where it was used to kill, as well as surveill, involved some "designated bad guys" making their way across the countryside in Saudi Arabia.

General Atomics, who makes these new products, is located in San Diego.

also unfortunately, this technology is probably being deployed domestically in the US. just murmurings so far, for example this article

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Originally posted by HeywoodFloyd:
Homeland Security currently has one on the Arizona-Mexico border and NASA has one of the POC models.

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Originally posted by HeywoodFloyd:
It is being deployed domestically for sure. Homeland Security currently has one on the Arizona-Mexico border and NASA has one of the POC models.

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Actually it is an Israeli-made UAV called the Hermes 450. A friend of my brother-in-law works for the company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MQ-9_Reaper#Homeland_Security_version

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Homeland Security version

The United States Department of Homeland Security initially ordered one Predator B for border patrol duty, referred to as MQ-9 CBP-101. It began operations October 4, 2005, but on April 25, 2006, this aircraft crashed in the Arizona desert. The NTSB determined that the cause of the crash was most likely an error by the aircraft's ground pilot. During its operational period, the aircraft flew 959 hours on patrol and had a part in 2,309 arrests. It also contributed to the seizure of four vehicles and 8,267 pounds of marijuana.[9] Because of these successes, a second Predator B, called "CBP-104" (initially referred to as "CBP-102"), was delivered in September 2006, and commenced limited border protection operations on October 18, 2006.

The President’s FY 2006 Emergency Supplemental budget request added $45 million for the Predator B program, and the FY 2007 Homeland Security Appropriations bill adds an additional $20 million. In October, 2006, GA-ASI announced a $33.9 million contract to supply two more Predator B systems by Fall, 2007. The Department intends to eventually have four aircraft operational.[10]

The CBP-101 was equipped with the Lynx SAR, AX-15 payload, ARC-210 radios, and other sensors and communications equipment; CBP-104 was enhanced with Ku band satellite command and control link and MTS-A EO/IR sensors.[9]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Moshe Feinstein:

Actually it is an Israeli-made UAV called the Hermes 450. A friend of my brother-in-law works for the company.

Israeli Weapons Company

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You must be very proud.

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Originally posted by unionist:
Your website is a disgusting celebration of Israeli militarism,

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Unionist how do you know it is his website?

I think you are referring to the company website that he linked to.

Thats it.

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Originally posted by Moshe Feinstein:
Unionist,

I debated with myself whether or not to respond to your last post. You are obviously very angry about something and I do not wish to make things worse for you. Having said, I think you should look into your heart and ask whether or not your behaviour is appropriate. If you believe it is, then very well. If not, perhaps consider other less explosive ways of stating your point of view.

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Originally posted by johnpauljones:

Unionist how do you know it is his website?

I think you are referring to the company website that he linked to.

If you can show me that this poster is employed by the company then I will retract.

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Ok, let's take this one step at a time. Please click on his link. It takes you to a website called "Israeli Weapons".

Guess what?

It is NOT a "company website". There is no company there at all. None. It is a website full of militaristic weapons-fetishistic extreme right wing videos, all hosted by a 25-year-old calling himself only "David".

Here is the logo that appears throughout the website:

For those whose Hebrew is rusty, it says:

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I'm proud of the flag! What about you!?

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Some company website!

Please feel free to look around this site. Pick a "video" at random and listen to the narrative.

ETA: johnpauljones, you took his word at face value when he called it "Israeli weapons company". My suggestion is: do your own checking.

[ 16 July 2007: Message edited by: unionist ]

Reminds me of a recent article about the US military buying bullets from Israel because they are running out -- expending 250,000 bullets for every militant killed! WTF?

So basically there are billions of bullet casings all over the place!

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Originally posted by ceti:From remote killing, to remote controlled killing, and finally automated killing, we will arrive shortly in the realm of science fiction.

That is what extremely alarming, especially with the weaponization of space proceeding afoot with no checks at all.

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maybe we can look to science fiction for inspiration re. a solution.

in the fourth Star Wars movie, the one named Phantom Menace, the young Anakin Skywalker flies into and destroys the command center, which controls all the drones (remote control killing machines).

action ceases on the battlefield, and Jar Jar Binks survives (admittedly, a lot of people didn't like Jar Jar. separate subject.)

that's a decent metaphor for "electronic countermeasures", a near-ceaseless electronic cat-and-mouse game. there's counter-measures, counter-counter-measures, and so on.

one example - an EW (electronic warfare) plane will capture an "enemy" radar signal, alter the phase, and re-broadcast it, so as to make the airplane appear like it's "over there", from the point of view of the person operating the enemy radar.

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The planned capacity to kill without human involvement or risk fits closely with the prevailing ideology of permanent war in Washington. ....

Automated killing of this kind hasn't been approved by anyone yet, but it is certainly being planned. John Tirpak, editor of Air Force Magazine in the U.S., expects initially that humans will retain the last word, but he predicts that, once robots, "establish a track record of reliability in finding the right targets and employing weapons properly," the "machines will be trusted to do even that."

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Originally posted by unionist:

ETA: johnpauljones, you took his word at face value when he called it "Israeli weapons company". My suggestion is: do your own checking.

[ 16 July 2007: Message edited by: unionist ]

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No Unionist I did look at the sire I took offense to your attack of the poster who simply linked the site.

and your opinion that

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What kind of person are you and what the fuck are you doing here?

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I wanted to know why you are attacking the poster. I could care less if you attack the site.

ETA are you saying Moishe is this David? if so proof please

[ 17 July 2007: Message edited by: johnpauljones ]

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Originally posted by ceti:
I can imagine the final hours of the American Empire with the president/antichrist cornered in the White House, with the drones and orbiting nuclear space platforms about to obliterate the earth, going dark due to heroic hackers.

I think that's what sort of happened in Roger Water's Radio Kaos.

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one recent news article was about a "successful" test result for Northrop Grumman's Airborne Laser. i use the term in quotes because the division of NGC that works on this, what used to be called TRW, had some of their inner workings aired in a lawsuit involving scientist Dr. Nira Schwarz
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0315-06.htm

they fired her when she refused to falsify test results for the missile defense program.

i believe she worked at the Redondo Beach facility - same location as their Airborne Laser.

- - -

a year or 2 ago i saw an article about China disabling American military satellites. not necessarily doing it, maybe it was just American government scaremongering. can't find the article right now.

if NGC has an occasional success shooting down a test missile ... probably China & Russia have similar thoughts about America's military satellites.

as far as hacker heroines disabling America's Death Star apparatus over a network ... there have been isolated similar incidents. in one case, the CIA somehow injected malicious code into a Russian pipeline system, caused a big mess.

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Originally posted by johnpauljones:

ETA are you saying Moishe is this David? if so proof please

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For God's sake no I'm not saying that, I never said that (I said "your website" meaning "the one you cited"), and why don't you have enough of a spirit of patience to have a look at the website, at least bloody well acknowledge that it is not a company website, and tell me if you think it is worthy for civilized human beings. Just please do it, otherwise I'm not sure what basis we have for talking other than childish sniping. You are a serious poster - Mr. Feinstein is not, as a review of his few posts will show. Is this rocket science?

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I wanted to know why you are attacking the poster. I could care less if you attack the site.

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If you linked to a vicious militarist extreme right-wing site, I might attack you too for doing so. In his case, my attack was a culmination of every single thing he has said since he joined a couple days ago. But this ugly site was the icing on the cake, as was his feeble attempt to lie about it, calling it the "Israeli Weapons Company".

[ 17 July 2007: Message edited by: unionist ]