United Nations launches fleet of surveillance drone patrols The United Nations has for the first time launched drone aircraft as part of its peacekeeping activities. The UN said that its fleet of UAVs would be unarmed and would be tasked with performing reconnaissance and surveillance activities in parts of the country where armed rebel groups continue to pose a threat to peacekeeping …
UAV’s have their uses and place in both recon and battle deployment, as stated before (on another thread) it makes no difference to someone if they get blown up by a ground attack aircraft a few miles away, from missile launched from a ship hundreds of miles away or by a drone a few hundred feet above them being controlled by someone in another country, and while people try and argue it takes the human element away or such nonsense (because someone watching a screen and pressing a button in a helicopter or a ship is more empathetic than someone watching a screen pressing a button in a bunker?) it’s like arguing artillery is ‘unfair’.
The main difference with a drone, apart from the operator is in a better position to judge the target to be correct and there is less time for the situation to change between the time it takes to press the button and the target to be hit, if it gets shot down it just costs money, not the life of the operator.The people the UAVs target will get killed one way or another, the ‘drone’ is just in place of a more expensive and less ‘controlled’ way of killing them.
In my mind the value of a life outweighs the cost of a UAV, it also hardly compares to the cost of a life, in terms of supplies, training, transport etc etc, using drones for the purposes the UN state not only make it cheaper and easier to carry out these observation tasks, but it also doesn’t put the person controlling it in anything like the danger faced by a guy in a helicopter or boots on the ground.
@ Billy > As for the worry they will be used in UN countries, can you point out the difference between a CCTVs on the side of buildings and in helicopters then in a UAV? Big Brother is already watching, The first thing that springs to mind is that if a Police drone crashed into that pub in Scotland, there would have been at least two less deaths.
Fine for you to say. You live in a country that is riddled wtih traffic cameras everywhere. That is a trend that is growing here in the United States as well. It is of no use to plot against your government if that government can watch your every move. You can't even carry out a politicaly campaign without government interference. Just ask the Tea Party people here in the US! This is not about covering a rebellion or even carrying out crimes. It is about the ability act against a tyrannical government once it starts overreaching its bounds. Right now, it is very difficult to discern the differences between the last two of our duly elected presidents and King George III! I never thought that I would live long enough to see these kinds of htings take place. Oh, and look at the choices the American people were given during the last two elections! First, we had a warmongerin madman in John McCain running against Barak Obama. The next time we had theinventor of Obamacare, Mitt Romney, running against Barak Obama. What the hell was that all about? When you see stuff this ridiculous, you start to worry that perhaps the nutty conspiracy theorist are not all that crazy. Oh, and you have noticed how well Obamacare is working, right?
The question is, once these UN recon drones have located The Dodginess happening on the ground could they then share that info with a nation-state's (peacekeeping force*) fully armed (and operational *ahem*) Reaper fleet to attend and blow the everliving shit out of The Dodginess?
In fact isn't that kind of the point of this?
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