Vanguard | November 25, 2009 | 31 comments

Remote Control War

Kaj
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Vanguard presents: Remote Control War

Criss-crossing America to uncover some of the trend lines in warfighting technology, Kaj Larsen investigates the issue of remote control warfare.

***Vanguard is Current TV's original documentary series. Led by correspondents Laura Ling, Mariana van Zeller, Christof Putzel, Adam Yamaguchi and Kaj Larsen, Vanguard features enterprising reports from around the globe. It airs every Wednesday at 10pm on Current TV. And you can view all Vanguard stories by visiting current.com/vanguard.***

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  2. tags:
    US Only,  VG-video-KL
  3. credits:
    Kaj Producer, Kaj Correspondent, BenitaSills Editor, more
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31 comments // Remote Control War // Video

  • Wonsunnyday
  • remanns
  • warriorprincess
    • 0
      warriorprincess  
    • Image

    • I remember, several years ago, at a state fair, talking to a vendor and he told me that he had been high up on the intelligence ladder of war and that he was in the Pentagon one time when they were showing videos from bombers bombing Vietnam villages and all the men were clapping and cheering and slapping each other on the back. Can you say: Macho, macho man? (pretty darn awesome when American military might, billions of our tax dollars, airplanes from above, can kill innocent people tending rice paddies, opium farms, whatever).

      http://www.zerotolerenceforwar.org/

      http://www.youtube.com/user/badattitude77769

    • 2 years ago
  • PHubb
    • +1
      PHubb  

    • Do the war profiteers fund your work? This is something like I'd expect to see on the 'Military Channel' (a spin off of the Discovery Network) that celebrates the slaughter of war (in particular the US role in that slaughter). What young boy who plays FPS video games wouldn't find something like this a natural? Calling a piece like this 'Vanguard' Journalism makes any meaning of that definition an oxymoron in my opinion. You've provided no insight into the role of the US military/industrial complex or why the US government now spends more on war (military) than the next highest 20 countries of the World combined. The US military has over 700 bases throughout the world which, in essence, are outposts of US corporate power and exploitation of indigenous populations. Since the end of WWll, the US Government has participated/precipitated in the overthrow of 60 sovereign foreign governments (43 of them democratically elected). I cite William Blum's excellent book - Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II - for that statistic. In those countries where these weapons will be used live millions of desperately poor, food insecure, environmentally degraded people who are starting to resist the exploitation of their resources by multinational corporate predators. Weapons like this will only advance the extent and horror of US war crimes in places like Iraq (oil), Afghanistan (natural gas; oil pipelines), Pakistan (6th most populous country in the World). I also take exception to the use of 'we' and the assumption that all Americans are complicit in the military/industrial complex's crimes against humanity. Weapons production adds no new wealth to the American economy either. They are not sold on legitimate markets that recirculate capital (i.e. have no use value in society at large). In times of war, weapons are disposable commodities - made to be destroyed. In times of relative 'peace' weapons become obsolete, sold for scrap.

      In the future these weapons will also be used on the American people themselves - students protesting budget cuts in California, foreclosed homeowners refusing to leave their houses, striking workers demanding better wages, the unemployed (of which there are now 15 million) demanding jobs or peace activists protesting US foreign wars of aggression. The Pentagon budget is already $3/4 of a trillion per year. Development of high tech weapons of mass destruction surely will soon inflate that to over $1 trillion. A lot of infrastructure rebuilding, education, and healthcare for the American people will be flushed down the toilet by those expenditures.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvTceESSSLU
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1rADNgj-kg
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrhSuEhJ4OY

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • remanns
  • remanns
  • cclark_productions
  • babanaji
    • -1
      babanaji  

    • http://current.com

      after having watched such investig reports like e.g. 'from russia with hate', i was quite shocked about this one on current.com. one reason of course is that it's fairly one-sided by looking on warfare industrys "clean side." this leads over to the second critic: the whole video appears as a recruiting advertisement for tech loving teenagers. i think it is the reporters/observers responsability, in any case, to make clear that we don't talk about IKEA engineers, but about the core topic: going to war and kill others and maybe having the chance to get killed too... brainwashed confidence tricks?!

    • 2 years ago
  • bking74
    • 0
      bking74  

    • I have to agree with you. Life becomes cheap when killing becomes so casual. The operators of these deaths from afar weapons are too detached from the human condition and agony of war. But, as a career Solider any technology that saves Soldiers live would be a welcome addition. Although technology no matter how advance can never replace the value of a skilled soldier on the ground interacting with the local populace and making split seconds decision concerning life and death. We are having a huge problem with IED’s and after eight years; I haven’t seen any dramatic advance in the detection and safe removal of these deadly devices. Most of the robots I have witnessed in the field are incredibly unreliable and are far too expensive and never accomplish the tasks that they were created for. A lot of empty promises by defense contractors raping the American public and stuffing their coffers with American tax money. There are getting rich while U.S. soldiers are losing their lives relying on unreliable robotic equipment. Wanna see something scary, go visit one of the new mega recruitment centers with it's neon lights, multiple banks of computers playing first person shooters and life size replicas of military equipment.

    • 2 years ago
  • tonicsouls
  • tonicsouls
    • -1
      tonicsouls  

    • "A nation that draws too great a divide between its warriors and its scholars, will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools"

      You've advance from Foolishness and dabbled in Scholarly. For whom are you a Warrior?

      Your position is never clear Mr. Larsen. Viewers have yet to see your potential. Your mission is to promote questions more so and to stray from answering conspiracies, but it would do much for the world watching you if you answered some questions. With the accesses you have, which few are aware of im sure, Current and pure Truth would advance to another level. Tackle the journalist taboo. I hope that you have already begun the assignment of the inherited issue. There is a large invisible Elephant whose cloak needs more help to be removed.

    • 2 years ago
  • tonicsouls
    • 0
      tonicsouls  

    • "A nation that draws too great a divide between its warriors and its scholars, will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools"

      You've advance from Foolishness and dabbled in Scholarly. For whom are you a Warrior?

      Your position is never clear Mr. Larsen. Viewers have yet to see your potential. Your mission is to promote questions more so and to stray from answering conspiracies, but it would do much for the world watching you if you answered some questions. With the accesses you have, which few are aware of im sure, Current and pure Truth would advance to another level. Tackle the journalist taboo. I hope that you have already begun the assignment of the inherited issue. There is a large invisible Elephant whose cloak needs more help to be removed.

    • 2 years ago
  • B_Cramer
  • jamiebal
    • 0
      jamiebal  

    • This pod is shallow. Aside from a couple of passing comments there is no genuine effort to investigate the ethics of all of this. This seems more like a celebration of the military industrial complex. Boys with their toys... when you are removed from the violence of war, wont it all become easier to kill? Westerners already perceive foreigners as 'the other' how much easier will it be to go to war, to kill and to experience no guilt as an individual, as a collective nation or nations?

      This pod seems to treat war like a video game. This comment of 'we' invent etc, when will 'we' stop thinking in terms of us and them and think globally. Better not to start these Internationally illegal wars than to need to invent new profits for companies to invent new weapons for them. We need to understand the enemy, to understand foreign cultures, to bridge divides. If only as much energy and money was spent on education locally and on dialogue offshore to help build understanding as there is in the financial shares of making military products.

      'Driving a ferrari for your first car'? You seem to enjoy these toys, 'wall-e'... 'kinda cute'; there is nothing cute about war neither about these instruments of such, naming them wall-e only makes it easier to kill. 'Army arcades' 'gamers paradise' these are recruiting schemes presenting war as fun.

      Clearly no one wants to see civilians nor soldiers die, they are peoples sons, mothers, brothers parents etc. There is a risk though, that if less American troops die in wars that it will be easier for Presidents to justify wars to suit their economic needs, vengeance, power wims etc. But what will this mean for global justice and for the innocent people in foreign lands? These questions need to be asked. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed over 200,000 people... people. With the removal or risk for Americans and the distant nature of a bomb, it seems it was easier for people in power and civilians to justify such a large scale killing. These new inventions could only further distance our countries ethically, empathetically and further dehumanize war and the people upon foreign shores.

      Enough with the boy culture documentaries already.

    • 2 years ago
  • artist_speaks_out
    • +1
      artist_speaks_out  
    • jamiebal:

      Gonna have to agree with you here... I feel like more could have been done to highlight that the nature of these machines is to kill, perpetuating warfare in general. These machines do not merely exist as marvelous technological spectacles of the twenty-first century, but will serve the purpose of taking a human life. Insurgency? Why has this word made it into the lexicon? An outside army killing the native citizens of a foreign land is called an invasion, which is clearly what our perpetual 'war on terror' has justified for the American people. Whether these machines keep American troops alive or not has little to do with the fact that they are designed to kill, and that death will only feed the strong emotions that lead to hatred. These toys are not the ultimate manifestation of our video game fantasies, but rather the cold harsh reality of a people so bellicose in their core belief system that they wish to invest further in the undoing of civilization.

    • 2 years ago
  • babypotato
  • babypotato
    • +1
      babypotato  

    • Wow - terrifying. Where did he get the million dollars to finance his weaponry projects? Is this the guy The New Yorker profiled last year?

    • 2 years ago
  • royulery
    • 0
      royulery  

    • i'm all for tech. but this is the worst way to use tech. against a bronze age culture. for a minute try to live in arab sandals, when you see robot tech., what do you really see? satan.
      america commands metal demons to hunt the followers of jihad, and these weapons of blackest magic kill not only the holy warriors but the innocent as well. this is certain proof that the koran is true and jihad is just. all technology is from satan.

      IDIOTS

      we could have won already if we went in with x-boxes, jeans and chocolate instead of metallic demons with eyes of glass.

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • Image

    • BY THE WAY...
      Wouldn't the use of an army of mercenaries to work beyond any senate or congress oversight could also be considered as 'remote control war' ?

      US ARMY/BLACKWATER GONE ROGUE !
      http://current.com/items/91534386_us-army-blackwater-gone-rogue.htm

      "To initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." -Nuremberg tribunal

    • 2 years ago
  • Nephwrack
  • WhiteNoise
  • ThoughtNu
    • 0
      ThoughtNu  

    • Excellent piece.

      But there seams to be something missing; countermeasures made to insure all bots can verify it's operator.

      I mention this because while watching about all the 'smart' technology , I glance over to my sidearm with biometric security thumb pad and notice a flaw..I am certain that some measures must have been implemented to secure a 2billion dollar system but my sidearm has more security on it than any that was shown in the pod. This was highlighted when the soldier handed you the 360 type controller.

      I understand that these systems are still in the development stage and modifications are par for the course but there was no mention of such considerations.

      All an opponent got to do is go to Vegas?!

      In this day of stolen identities and hacked systems... wouldn't that be a concern if not to the military; then to the public whose security is being guarded more and more remotely?

      One more question ; Are any Asimov type laws being programed into the system?

      If ya could use someone to carry bags I'm available!

    • 2 years ago
  • indecisiveh
  • UWAZell
    • 0
      UWAZell  

    • Yet another excellent pod Kaj.

      I can't help but wonder if in fact that the use of robots in modern warfare is in fact 'making war easier. That is to say, governments, I presume, are hesitant to engage in war due to the cost of human life. However, if that cost is removed, would we be quicker to engage in pointless conflicts against technologically inferior opponents because the risk is seemingly non-existent? That said, anyone with family and mates serving in the military would obviously welcome any piece of technology that can save lives, myself included.

    • 2 years ago
  • copperdragon
  • patrickclair
  • nkeg87
    • 0
      nkeg87  

    • Love how you pointed out the guy's sense of humor. I found it really ironic the lady in Tennessee was wearing a peace sign necklace while talking about producing weapons for war. Overall, an awesome Pod. Kaj is a great part of the team. Because of his background, he brings a lot of military knowledge and experience like from in waterboard pod. The VG team has a lot of different people that are great for telling different stories.

    • 2 years ago
  • Joewithay
  • Denica_Cassandra

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