Robots of war

.Military’s killer robots must learn warrior code

Creating devices to do our dirty work for us, in my opinion, would create a particular heartlessness that I believe would actually INCREASE our proclivity for violence. If all I suffer is a robot destroyed while you lose villages and people, what difference is that to me? My people didn't die, my land was not over-run ... It seems a dark road to travel down.

As it is, human suffering, ours and theirs, gives us, the U.S. reason to think twice before sending in the troops - at least, I hope it does. In my mind, if a situation could be avoided by diplomacy then it is worth far more to pursue that avenue than to send in the military. That being said, there are certainly good reasons to send in the military - with the understanding that it will cost us, most likely as dearly as it will cost "them".

But if we were to send in machinery to do the dirty work, where is the cost? Money for more machines. Where is the human suffering? Not in MY hometown ... Who would benefit? The contractors who build the robots and their employees - hell, it would be a boon to the economy. But what would stop us or any other nation from pursuing war as a solution when we don't stand to lose much at all? And what IF those machines develop "minds of their own"?

General Douglas MacArthur said, "I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes."

How true is this? I think of what the ramifications would have been had we sent robots into Iraq - machines have no conscience, no compassion, simply a mission. If robots overthrew Saddam, drove out insurgencies and dismantled the Iraqi military, who would help rebuild the country? I think it would be naive in the extreme to say, "We would."

No, we wouldn't. We already spent x-numbers of billions of dollars sending our robot army over to do our will. Mission accomplished, regime overthrown, now what? We ship the robots home. We vote not to extend our time "over there" or keep wasting our tax dollars "over there". We withdraw from our neighbors and into ourselves and any time someone pisses us off, we simply launch our robots.

And let me ask this: if "THEY" have robots, too, and the robots fight the robots - WHO WINS????? What would be the point in the first place? We'd fall back on the diplomatic routes and eventually end up sending humans, or worse, using bigger weapons (nukes), because, "Hey, 'Kreblakistan', we don't like you, so we're sending our robots to beat up your robots" just doesn't make any sense! The whole point of war, or a fistfight, for that matter, is, "I don't agree with you, so I'm going to beat you until you submit or until you beat ME and I HAVE to put up with your point of view."

I am all for defending those who are suffering and standing for freedom and democracy. I feel that the current war(s) are and were justified and that we will have, ultimately, done some good in this world. But if we start doing that "good" via remote control, we lose yet another piece of our humanity, and if, as the linked article mentions, those robots develop a "mind of their own" and decide to turn their programming and abilities back on their creators, we've done nothing but develop yet another form of human suffering and warfare.

Let's use robots to disarm roadside bombs, fly reconnaisance missions and conduct deep strike missions. But when it comes to feet on the ground warfare, we need to remember that it's the humanity of the mission that keeps us from escalating and ultimately destroying ourselves.