The Royal Air Force have confirmed that it will deploy armed "Reaper" unmanned aerial vehicles during the London 2012 Olympics.There is, it has to be said, a degree of risk in deploying armed "Terminator" inspired robo planes over London. However, the British government in their desire to keep the population under control regard the political benefits from spinning the terrorist threat as greater than the risk of any of the drones going awry and killing a civilian.
The Reaper is the latest version of the General Atomics Predator hunter-killer UAV, it can carry an array of laser-guided bombs and missiles including the Hellfire air-to-ground weapon which has been used against Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
Hunter-killer UAVs are controlled by a ground station that directs them to the enemy and remotely fires its weapons.
The 11m-long Reaper can fly for 14 hours and carry an array of sensors including cameras, radars, electro-optical and infra-red that allow it to be deployed around the clock in all types of weather.
UAVs are used primarily for surveillance and targeting, but can make a highly cost-effective offensive weapon when armed with bombs and missiles.
So that's reassuring then!
Hmm.
ReplyDeleteIf it can be equipped with face recognition capabilities and its offence capability can be tuned to and controlled for specific individuals I can imagine certain major benefits to society from its deployment over London during both pre-event training flights and the Olympics period.
But since it is unlikely that such a project would gain authorisation we are indeed left with the entire project being little more than a long term scare mongering story for public consumption.
One questions whether it will worry people more than the Identity Theft crusade which seems to get similar levels of publicity.
I suspect that both scares are being promoted to divert people from the Carbon Trading scam which should be in full scavenge by the time the Olympics comes around, snatching from the poor and enriching the already rich.