Weapons and Technology Do Not Mix
Weapons and Technology should be used in seperate contexts the biggest mistake that the world has made is mixing the two together. On paper it may have looked like an effective way of defeating an enemy, but I contradict this theory.
Gone are the days where war was a battle and it was every man for himself to slug it out with a sword or an axe on a battle field. The battle field these days have the highest death rate of innocent people ever recorded in history, while in the past they would fight it out on an actual field and no innocent person would get hurt. These days in war the innocent people that are killed exceed the number of soldiers that are killed on the battle field. This is all because of technology getting involved in weaponry, this led to missiles and bombs being dropped from outside the country and hitting random areas killing thousands of innocent by standers that ran for cover.
1 million people were killed in the invasion of Iraq, that is people just like you or I that would be running for cover to evade the explosions and gun fire. This figure exceeds the amount of soldiers by nearly 500 times, that means for every soldier that lost their life fighting for what reason is beyond me, 500 civilians died along with them. That figure works from either side of the conflict.
The main reason for this loss of life is technology, be it fighter jets, or bomber planes pinpointing a target from thousands of feet above or ships launching an assault from miles off the coast. These missiles and bombs that were dropped exploded with great force. At the start of the Iraq invasion leaflets were dropped telling the people to get out of the area by a certain time. No body could evacuate a whole city the size of Baghdad in the time frame given, even superman would struggle with that task, so what chance did the people have on the ground.. The truth is very little.
At the start of the Iraq invasion nearly every plane in the entire fleet of the US army dropped a payload or two on the city in the middle of the night. The only light that was seen in Bagdad was the exploding bombs that shook the buildings and killed everyone who ran from or to cover. The bombing of Iraq appeared to be just random bombs falling here and there, but the US government will tell you that they were all targets and they were all hit with precision. The fact is that bombs don’t just fall in a straight line to the target and some are duds that stray off in the same direction.
Misiles
Missiles have GPS to guide them to their destination, this GPS system will guide the missile to the target but it will take the shortest route available. These missiles more often than not get intercepted by a building that may stand in the targets way, these buildings are where the people would feel safe enough to hide and wait it out. The missiles are to blame for the high fatalities of the people on the ground. If they missed the target they would just simply send another along in its wake to cause even more destruction. The Americans have learned from this and one would hope so because the loss of innocent life would cause war crimes against humanity charges in any other country.
The new missiles have been designed by the US military to travel high above the city and just drop straight down on the target just hitting the building that they are suppose to. Prior to the Invasion these efforts were still being explored and not fully developed or tested yet. The new missiles are truly impressive to watch on the testing field but they are still very dangerous if intelligence is not correct. But this technology is a little too late for these people.
Dropping Bombs
Droppingbombs is highly inaccurate, the pilot of the plane may be the best in the world but he still has a huge circle guidinghim to his target. The higher up the plane is the bigger the target circle is for the pilot, he knows that dropping these bombs will have a devastating effect on the people below. The circle is a rough guide to where the bombs will land and they will wipe out everything in this circle and maybe the odd few will take a different approach to the ground. Bombs that drop from a plane use their weight to guide them to the ground but they could still land a good distance from their target. This is another way of killing thousands of people by accident. There are no ways to better this technology they have exhausted all their efforts, dropping bombs from a plane is just unpredictable.
Intelligence Development
Gathering Intelligence is one of the hardest things you could do when on the battle field, or being confronted by the enemy. In World War One and Two the scout or sniper was the man for the job along with pilots that relayed information back as he flew over head. Now they have spy drones the size of your hand that are remote controlled from a safe distance. The snipers are still used but not to the same effect as before. These days with the technology they don’t advance forward unless the drone says so. This minimizes the loss of life for the soldiers that hold such technologies.
As the drone relays the info back to the squads on the ground, depending on the scale of the threat all depends on what force they are going to use. Should they bring in the helicopters, hit it with an air strike or move the tanks in first. The last people that will advance in most cases are the soldiers themselves. Hitting the target with any three will result in more innocent lives being lost. Because the battle fields are not fields anymore they use cities that are full of people. The tank shells and helicopters missiles are usually used as a diversion, these machines will hit random targets to scare off the possible threat in side pushing them back further into the city.
As the soldiers advance they are a bit jumpy and could open fire at anybody looking out a window or someone running for cover. The atmosphere is so dense that any body could get hurt, they even shoot each other unintentionally. If they feel that there is a strong hold ahead regardless if there are civilians taking refuge inside they could order the chopper or an air strike to take it out resulting in more innocent fatalities.
Human Shields
Because of the jump in technology in weapons the enemy has to lower themselves to using human shields and suicide bombers. They take refuge amongthe innocent and launch attacks from inside the buildings that they are taking refuge. The enemy terrorize the people inside so as they cannot leave. The army with the better technology have no idea that the innocent are inside but they do know that the enemy occupy the area from the gun shots or anti amour rounds coming from the area.
The army with the technology instead of advancing into an unpredictable area will launch an arial assault on that building. Some times the enemy will show that they have innocent people held up inside to delay any further attacks making it harder for the army to advance. Gun fights break out and innocent people get killed in the cross fires accidentally.
Conclusion
Technology in warfare pushes the enemy to stoop to these levels on the battle field. The more the weapons advance the more that innocent people will suffer. The jump in technology caused all these people to lose their lives unnecessarily. It has also brought the fight into the cities because that is where the enemy with less technology can move around easier, and result in using dirty tactics to prevail. In the long run yes the army with the bigger arsenal won but at what cause. 1 million lives of innocent people…… Draw your own conclusion from this, mine is that technology should have stayed away from weaponology a long time ago…
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User Comments
REPuckett
On April 9, 2009 at 2:24 am
Steve, I could probably write a couple thousand words about this article. Overall, I completely concur with your views on this issue. The continual and ever-growing use of killing technology has shifted the natural balance of death from conflicts. You know, there are technologies currently in use that are unknown to the population and would blow your mind if you knew about them. Good work, my friend. I hope that many find this and read it well.
Phill Senters
On April 9, 2009 at 2:25 am
How true. But technology since the stone age has been advancing. The better the weapon, the more people die.
Evelyn Moore
On April 9, 2009 at 3:21 am
Great and important thoughts Steve. Thank you for expressing your thoughts so clearly.
Stacey T Pollock
On April 9, 2009 at 4:56 am
Yes it is so important that people are aware of these things, especially the weaponry that is being developed in order to destroy, rather than producing technology that can help and bring better comfort to the world. Most live in their cosy world protected in their lifestyle with only worries about having to go to work or whether they will be able to watch their favourite television show at night. Other people lie in their beds at night wondering if they will avoid being killed by bombings. Not knowing their fate. If they had to run, where would they go anyway? These things are never considered. If bombings would occur in places like America it would be on the news hour by hour for weeks on end. People die in these other places of the world without anyone ever considering their life as being valuable.
Fantastic article that highlights alot of these issues. Thankyou for sharing.
Daisy Peasblossom
On April 9, 2009 at 6:41 am
War is never a happy thing or a good one. Technology has better uses than killing people, for sure. Peace isn’t won with guns, either. Civilians always suffer in wartime; the middle east has been an unhappy place for a long stretch of history. It is a shame that all that technology could not be working on desalinizing ocean water or revitalizing the fertile crescent. True peace comes only when the diplomats sit down and work out agreements; true peace comes only when everyone involved abides by the agreement.
Mrs M
On April 9, 2009 at 11:48 am
This was such a good article. The only kind of weapons and technology mixtures I usually am used to are those in my video games. I always ask….”is this a real weapon?” Half the time they are. Amazing~
Debra.
On April 9, 2009 at 12:29 pm
The more advanced the technology the more human fatalities. A very important article, Stephen. Well worth the read.
papaleng
On April 9, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I too agree with your points, and I’m wondering why did those intellectual beings gave Nobel an award in the first place. They should not only look for the merits of today but stretch their minds to the perils of tomorrow.
Dreyan
On April 9, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Civilians died during the Dark Ages when there was an invasion, or in Mayan civilization. They suffered when there was no war at all. Technology had far less effect on it than human nature and it still does.
In the invasion of Iraq, (since you said you didn’t know why we were there I’ll explain- Sadam Hussein was basically killing the people himself and predended he was going to nuke us all, so we had to stop it.) the citizens had a tendency to kill each other, or try to kill soldiers who would get mad and kill them back, or soldiers sometimes killed civilians for reasons that I as a sane being prefer not to think about.
You said yourself leaflets were dropped. Anyone who wasn’t out by the “deadline” you failed to define was apparently dumb or had a sense of uberhonor. Technology didn’t set its own deadline. And bombs are not innacurate, they automatically factor in wind speed and the like using calculus with onboard computers, which is possible because of technology. This will take more than one post…
rutherfranc
On April 9, 2009 at 7:08 pm
more population today that is why there are more casualties.. more technology for warfare, more money for the manufacturer.. and believe me, most electronic comforts in the household and the community were all originally intended for warfare technology..
Luffy12
On April 10, 2009 at 1:51 am
Dont mix! it
DA Cournean
On April 10, 2009 at 11:37 am
Another example of government’s destrutive use of power. Great story Stephen.
Westbrook
On April 11, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I can tell most of your commenter’s have no idea what war is all about. It seems most of them are “yes” people on an issue they know nothing about. I fought in battle and could write a book on the issue but I will try to refrain from that. War is hell! War is not neat and clean and innocent people are always victims. There is no way around this. Some will not want to think about this, but technology brought WWW2 to an end. The Atom bomb. Yes, many innocent people died and suffered, but had the war continued, how many more thousands of people would have died? How many more months or years would the war have continued? Technology may not be precise but it is much better than destroying everything and everyone. I can draw a parallel with the medical field. Technology today allows precise pinpoint surgery, rather than cutting open a person. Sometimes it does not work as planned. Technology is intended to cause minimum harm to civilians and maximum harm to the enemy and at the same time maximize the safety of our troops. People make fantasy comments about sitting down and talking out our differences and Voila! There will be peace in the world. They are dreamers and understand little about human nature. There are people in this world who thrive on power over innocent people and will kill them without conscience. There are people who want more land or territory, more resources, such as oil. We are not talking about a handful of these people. The world is full of them. Talking to them is ridiculous. People need to face reality and quit living in a fantasy world. If they do not, they may someday see what the real world is, but not by choice.
Westbrook
On April 11, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Oops, please excuse some of the spelling problems. For example, I meant WWII not WWW2.
Westbrook
On April 12, 2009 at 3:43 am
Today’s Drones give us an edge over the enemy. Don’t be deceived that the enemy would not use innocent people as human shields if we did not use drones and other sophisticated technological weaponry. In Vietnam, the enemy took whole villages as human shields and often, we had no choice but to take down innocent people or be killed ourselves. We didn’t have drones, but the enemy behavior was the same. Generally, the enemies in most wars have a disregard for life and use innocent people as shields. Anyone that does not know this does not know the reality of war. There will always be wars and if we are not prepared to win it, we will lose our country. People need to get off this bleeding heart idea that we can be docile and war will not exist.
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