Obama, winning hearts and soul. Drone warfare

[Freewill]

I saw no mention of the at least two Americans killed by drone, one of them being a very innocent 16 year old.

Obama claims US drones strikes have killed up to 116 civilians

Rafiq ur-Rehman, whose mother was killed and children seriously injured by a 2012 drone strike in Pakistan, told the Guardian this year: “In my opinion, America treats us worse than animals.”

Faheem Qureshi, who at 14 years old survived Obama’s very first drone strike in January 2009, told the Guardian: “If there is a list of tyrants in the world, to me, Obama will be put on that list by his drone program.”

 

[waltky]

WH worried drones will be used for terrorist attacks...

White House Workshop Predicts Deadly Drone Attacks in US
Oct 12, 2016 | The White House is taking steps to rein in commercial drone flights over U.S. airspace amid concerns that the tiny, flying machines will be used as weapons in a terrorist attack.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Workshop on Drones and the Future of Aviation recently brought together representatives from industry, government and academia to find solutions for regulating and potentially tracking the thousands of recreational unmanned aerial systems, or UAS, in use across the country.

One working group discussed the role government and industry should play to encourage UAS users to "adopt specific standards" to avoid the need for significant regulatory burden, but "everyone agreed that the need for counter-UAS security measures is significant and urgent," according to the Oct. 12 report of the proceedings. "Domestically, the United States has been spared a deadly UAS attack. But participants agreed that it is only a matter of time before one is carried out," the report states. "With 'the clock ticking,' the U.S. has to establish the technology to prevent it or to provide law enforcement with the tools to respond." Workshop organizers announced President Barack Obama has pledged $35 million over five years for unmanned aircraft research through the National Science Foundation.

Booby-Trapped Drones

The Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International released the workshop proceedings Wednesday as news reports emerged that a booby-trapped drone killed two Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and badly wounded two French soldiers battling militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The drone exploded when the Peshmerga tried to pick it up after it had crashed to the ground, according to the BBC. The incident happened Oct. 2, north of the ISIS-held city of Mosul. ISIS militants are said to have tried to use drones to launch attacks at least two other times in the past month, the BBC reported.

UAS, commonly known as drones, have become an effective, reliable tool to help commanders gather battlefield intelligence. They have also exploded on the commercial market, flooding toy stores and hobby shops with inexpensive, multi-propeller drones. They're small, extremely quiet and fly at high altitudes, making them difficult to detect. Earlier this month, the commander of U.S. Army Europe said he wants anti-drone weapons to counter potential threats from Russian forces. Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges said he would welcome any number of systems to do the job, from newer non-kinetic technologies like Batelle's DroneDefender to older, Cold War-era equipment such as the Avenger, a Humvee equipped with a launcher housing eight FIM-92 Stinger missiles, as well as the German-made Gepard, a twin-33mm cannon mounted on a Leopard tank.

An Effective Defense

See also:

ISIS Rigs Time-Bomb Drones to Blunt Mosul Offensive: Official
Oct 12, 2016 | ISIS has been rigging small, off-the shelf drones and model airplanes as time bombs in an effort to blunt the imminent offensive to retake its Iraqi stronghold in the northwestern city of Mosul, a U.S. official said Wednesday.

The official confirmed an incident last week, first reported by The New York Times, in which two Kurdish Peshmerga fighters were killed while trying to dismantle a model airplane that was shot down in northern Iraq. "There was an explosive charge hidden inside what appeared to be a battery that was on a timer," said the official, who spoke on grounds of anonymity. The deaths of the two Kurdish fighters were believed to be the first for anti-ISIS forces as a result of the use of drones on the battlefield by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The U.S. official said U.S. and coalition forces, and the Iraqi Security Forces, have been warned to treat the drones and model airplanes as "UXO," or unexploded ordnance. "Call in EOD," or explosive ordnance disposal, personnel upon encountering the devices, the official said troops have been told. In a phone briefing to the Pentagon from Baghdad, Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said that Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of CJTF-OIR, has made countering the drones a priority. Townsend "has made clear we're going to move out smartly against them," Dorrian said.

The Pentagon's Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization has deployed systems to either shoot down the drones or bring them down electronically, Dorrian said. He declined to describe the systems or say where they were deployed. No U.S. or coalition troops have been killed or injured by drones, and "this threat is not new to the area. The coalition has been working this issue for some time," Dorrian said. ISIS has deployed numerous small drones, mostly for surveillance, he said. "We have seen them over coalition bases. We have shot some of them down."

ISIS has used a variety of small drones and model airplanes in an effort to gain intelligence and harass Iraqi forces as the offensive against Mosul approaches, Dorrian said. "There's nothing very high-tech about them. Some are just quad-copters." Both Dorrian and the U.S. official stressed that ISIS' use of drones would not be a game-changer in the push to drive the militants from Mosul. "It's not going to have any strategic impact at all," Dorrian said. "It's not going to stop anything."

ISIS Rigs Time-Bomb Drones to Blunt Mosul Offensive: Official | Military.com