Posted on 05/27/2008 12:55:58 PM PDT by neverdem
The demands of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are behind a new push by the Pentagon to increase the ranks of one of its most tireless fighting machines: remote-controlled attack aircraft called Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs.
U.S. soldiers in Iraq prepare to launch an RQ-7B Shadow drone over Diyala province in February.
The U.S. military in recent months has doubled its squadrons of the small, quiet and deadly drones, which are operated by pilots in the United States.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, praised the work of the Predator UAVs flying over Baghdad.
"I think there's some path-breaking work ongoing here," Petraeus said.
Yet Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last month that it's "been like pulling teeth" to get more UAVs into the air over Iraq and Afghanistan. He established a task force to speed up the process.
"Unmanned systems cost much less and offer greater loiter times than their manned counterparts, making them ideal for many of today's tasks," Gates told Air War College graduates last month. Watch drones blast unsuspecting targets »
CNN has obtained previously classified video of the Air Force's newest heavily armed unmanned warplane with the grim moniker "The Reaper," which is essentially a Predator on steroids.
The newly declassified video shows a 500-pound bomb slamming into a suspected Taliban bunker in southern Afghanistan this year...
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
It’s puzzling why there aren’t more airship drones for urban use. That is, guided balloons that would just sit over a city, digitally recording all vehicle and foot traffic for days.
Its purpose is not real time action, but to be able to record when an incident takes place, where the bad guys have come from, and where they go after the incident. This would compromise every building and vehicle used by the terrorists.
Without such buildings a vehicles, they are neutralized, and just need to be picked up.
If the Air Force does not get more fully with the UAV program, they are going to lose control over them to the Army... Just like they did with armed helos.
Oh wait, ICE has just ONE Reaper there...! Oh....
It’s cool that they can “fly” them from locations in the States—but does anyone know WHY they do that.
Even with sattelites, there has to be a slight delay in transmitting the signals for flight manouvers and guns.
I see your point. There are efforts to do this, but not over cities in Iraq, but cities in the US. Argh.
It used to be that our politicians could at least distinguish between our citizens and those of our enemies. This is because we are *supposed* to be authoritarian when we conduct an occupation—NOT to our own citizens.
The purpose of such surveillance is to keep our enemy from being able to do that crapola to us!
Thanks for the link.
You would have to be willing to use them in a useful manner. Just taking pictures of illegals as they stream by would not help.
Thanks neverdem.
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