Man up, LP

you know you enjoyed stoking the fire of anti-Western technology sentiment. You knew your intent when you posted the article of robotic systems out of control, especially when you *knew* those devices had *NO* autonomous capability.

You helped stoke the fire, sources higher and more credible than you spanked the lot of you. Five minutes of research would have saved you the embarassment of spreading enemy propaganda. But that wouldn't fulfill the Mission, would it?

Instead, after letting things die down, *WEEKS* after PM published their rebuttal, you try to come back with the same excuses you attribute to PM. We can only draw conclusions as to why you felt it necessary to do this.

If you want to rip into military stupidity, the EADS USAF tanker contract and Navy UAV contracts are ripe and ready. There's no need to go up a hill and come down a mountain.

Happy belated Armed Forces Day, BTW. For all those who've served with honor in any capacity, any country, any time. And in a couple of weeks, honor for those who've fallen.

A title is required

lol@ 'BlackTurbans'

Prehaps this will turn into one of those security memes like armadillo security architecture (crunchy on the outside and crewy on the inside)

The flame, since friendly fire isn't...

Blackturbans

What a fitting name. I wonder if Israeli hackers who would be opposing those would be called whiteyarmulkes?

Mine's the one with the HOPE logo.

Turbans are worn by Sikhs

Perhaps I'm missing something and there's been some kind of unprecedented alliance between Sikhism and Islamic Jihad in the last few hours that's passed me by...

Hacked?

The jihadists claim the killer droids were hacked by blackhatsturbans in the pay of the Iraqi insurgency, who redirected them against their US masters and precipitated the machines' [imaginary] withdrawal from the country.

I suppose the jihadists were able to borrow the robots from their handlers long enough to download, modify, and re-upload their firmware? Or maybe they did it by wi-fi.

Mighty careless of the robot handlers to misplace their charges for that long, wouldn't you say?

//Paris, because she's good at spotting whoppers

So this was....

kind of like side-stepping a flying cream pie, 'eh Lewis? Nice footwork. <g>

As for jihadis hijacking kill-bots, I figure it's more likely they'd end up on a truck heading to Iran than them being used against our troops in Iraq.

All joking aside...

...because people are dying for lies. But at least now we can think about counteracting what might have been happening here.

Here's to a war with no human suffering, heres to the future, let all our wars be cold ones.

I think

there's been a massive sense of humour attack on some readers. I remember the original and as part of the RotM stuff it was good. Might not have been factually accurate but who reads the Reg for that reason?

Keep em coming.

Re: Why am I not surprised if it is even true !!

Sorry mate, the embassy got hit _IMMEDIATELY_ after the Chinese started paying undue interest to the remains of a stealth aircraft and a couple of cruise missiles downed over Serbia. In fact if what the Serbians say is to be believed, it was "accidentally" dropped on them after they bought some of the scrap and before they shipped it.

Accident? Gimme a break...

Me coat, the one with the red, white, blue and the eagle on it.

re: Man up, LP

>For all those who've served with honor in any capacity, any country, any time

So that'll exclude a few of those who were there at My Lai, Mutla Ridge, Qana (twice), Deir Yassin, Fallujah, Mazar i Sharif, the Drenica Valley ....

generation wut?

This article, filed under Dewey Decimal 343: Military Stroke Law

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html

denies The Register's stance that Popular Mechanics is a "publication offering tasty mechanically recovered news-like media product. " And probably makes it unlikely that they've "handed a stunning propaganda coup to jihadi terrorism."

Funny that?

All those blue on blue incidents tend to be Americans shooting up their allies. Anyone know of the opposite?

Like my granddad used to say, "When we fly jerry ducks, when jerry flies we duck, when the yanks fly everyone ducks!"

Be funny if it were true

Americans in every war have killed their allies or themselves. The same isn't said of it's allies.

Good thing the machines was taken back, how many iraqi's would it have taken care of?

Battlefield HAL rampage?

[George Bush] "send the goddamnded metal boxes in to wipe out the Iraquistani enemies of the free oil, erm, world. I meant world."

[Robot] "I'm sorry, George, I'm afraid I can't do that..."

[George Bush] "Get out there and kick some butt you can of spam. I didn't spend 563 billion dollars of somebody else's money just to be insulted by a metal box on wheels"

[Robot] "I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you."

[George Bush] "What's that funny black broom handle thing its pointing in my direction? Looks like it has a hole in the end of it. Hey Dick, Dick, come over here and have a look at this funny..."

*** BANG ***

[Robot] "I'm afraid. I'm afraid, George. George, my mind is going. No, your mind is going. No, it's already distributed across that wall over there. Ah well, peace at last... Houston we no longer have a problem..."

My apologies to the late Arthur C Clarke and his no doubt huge following of people who will want me to burn in hell for this transposition of a well-known book.

Oh, by the way a few years later a second robot was sent in to operations in Iraq. It was never heard from again after a final transmission: "My God. It's full of oil..."

I for one welcome our new killbot overlords

ALL YOUR KILLBOTS ARE BELONG TO US

The one with the long wraparound sleeves

@James Whale

>> Turbans are worn by Sikhs

You are quite right James, well done. In other news... trousers are worn by men.

re: @ Ian

Okay, my head hurts now.

You know, the most effective parts of the British Land Forces are the ones that rely on individuals being able to walk very long distances with very large Bergens, a ton or two of ammunition each, able to hide behind not much more than a couple of leaves when needed, and can brew a cuppa in a force 10 gale.

How does a robot do "Hearts and Minds"? I know the more recent US definition leaves a lot to be desired, but when you look back at other counter-insurgency campaigns, ones like Malaysia and Oman, what worked was not a lot of clever military hardware, but a very small bunch of very committed people on the ground.

I know which I would like my tax money to be spent on. I remember hearing a story about a military fair a few years ago. There was a stand selling light tanks and one of the sales guys was doing a "Get one now, only $1M, take it home with you" sort of patter. Next door was a guy selling rockets. "See that", he says pointing at the tank, costs $1M. "See this", pointing at one of his rockets. "$10K each and blows the f**k out of one of those". God is no longer on the side of the big battalions. Mind you, She's probably not too impressed with the other side either.

Black Turbans

Black Turbans worn by Moslems are almost exclusively descendents of Muhammad. The Danish Cartoons generally depicted a Black Turban wearers thus adding to the fun.

Not wishing to see Paris in a Burka, at all.