Published: August 25, 2008 02:01 pm            

This is not progress

A Salt Lake City company, Sarcos, is under contract with the U.S. Army to develop and build “Exoskeletons” — aluminum and electronics devices which multiply human strength and endurance 20 times.

Sarcos is helping assess the 150-pound suit’s viability for future soldiers. The suit senses then magnifies every wearer movement almost instantly — comic book and movie Iron Men will become a reality.

Suit sensors detect body joint movement, transmit data to the suit’s internal computers, much as the brain sends signals to tendons to get muscles to move. Suit computers send instructions to hydraulic valves, which drive the suit’s mechanical limbs, replicating and amplifying the wearer’s movement. Suit response time is slightly slower, so users must adjust.

Newsweek’s John Barry and Evan Thomas write of drones — pilotless aircraft generally called UAVs, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, to assist reaching the goal in the Art of War; get to the other side of the hill.

The UAV is the “Smart Bomb” of the Iraqi war — it has the ability to loiter over a target. American forces call this persistent stare ability, the Unblinking Eye.

Army units searching and fighting house-to-house are using hundreds of drones, some as small as a model aircraft, to track enemy movements.

Army drones flew more than 46,450 hours in March. A commander of Apache attack helicopters says 90 percent of his kills have been aided by UAVs.

Ability to deploy UAVs fast enough to meet demand has been a frustration for Defense Secretary Robert Gates. People are stuck in old ways of activity — tank against tank, ship against ship. Pilotless aircraft have been a stepchild of the military. The way to advance in any service is to see combat.

Drones were used for anti-aircraft target practice in the 1950s. In 1960, a Japanese-American engineer pushed a new idea: equip drones with nose cameras for aerial reconnaissance and espionage.

The Predator is the UAV most familiar to civilians. It and a newer aircraft, the Reaper (a three-foot wingspan which can be mistaken for a bird) are armed with two 500-pound bombs.

The CIA and Air Force control these drones to take out targets in remote corners of Iraq and Afghanistan (they can stay aloft for 20 hours, watching a battlefield) from Air Force bases in Nevada and California — 8,000 miles from the killing zone.

The Northrop-Grumman company has a contract of $635 million to develop an unmanned bomber to fly from an aircraft carrier.

When ants and UAVs change warfare, Gen. Robert E. Lee’s “It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it,” will read, “It is well that war is not so terrible, we can grow fond of it.” Warriors will see no enemy, hear no enemy, speak with no enemy.

Despondent Americans know warfare of any kind is expensive. If economic woes are not fixed, the U.S. may become an outdated power competing with updated countries.

Is killing by remote progress in the art of war? No, it’s the antithesis of everything good — the terrible, tragic immorality of mankind!

Cecil Acuff is a Perkins resident.

        

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