Israel paves the way for killing by remote control

www.thenational.ae.../20100713/FOREIGN/707129834/1002

It is called Spot and Shoot. Operators sit in front of a TV monitor from which they can control the action with a PlayStation-style joystick.

The aim: to kill.

Played by: young women serving in the Israeli army.

Spot and Shoot, as it is called by the Israeli military, may look like a video game but the figures on the screen are real people – Palestinians in Gaza – who can be killed with the press of a button on the joystick.

The female soldiers, located far away in an operations room, are responsible for aiming and firing remote-controlled machine-guns mounted on watch-towers every few hundred metres along an electronic fence that surrounds Gaza.

The system is one of the latest “remote killing” devices developed by Israel’s Rafael armaments company, the former weapons research division of the Israeli army and now a separate governmental firm.

According to Giora Katz, Rafael’s vice president, remote-controlled military hardware such as Spot and Shoot is the face of the future. He expects that within a decade at least a third of the machines used by the Israeli army to control land, air and sea will be unmanned.

The demand for such devices, the Israeli army admits, has been partly fuelled by a combination of declining recruitment levels and a population less ready to risk death in combat.

I am literally speechless this is a ten year program to populate the middle east with automated killing machines.

They really have NO intention of ever ending the inhumane siege

Now that's what I call border-control!

Does it really matter if the trigger is pulled in person or a hundred miles away - the target is just as dead.

This isn't even new; how is this different from a hellfire missile fired from a drone piloted via remote control?

Oh I get it; it's a travesty because it's Israel doing it instead of instead of a nice Moslem country, Right?

Reminds me of Ender's Game.

Originally posted by mydarkpassenger
This isn't even new; how is this different from a hellfire missile fired from a drone piloted via remote control?

Very different. There are not thousands of Drones stationed 24 hours, floating, in one spot...

Originally posted by mydarkpassenger
Oh I get it; it's a travesty because it's Israel doing it instead of instead of a nice Moslem country, Right?

*sigh* Sick of hearing this... You're answer is NO. If America put up these guns on the Mexican border, there would/will be equal backlash.

Isreal has a definate need for such devices along its borders.
I can see these towers saving a lot of young isreali soldiers live and their time too...
They can be instantly at their post from the command shack at the flick of a switch...
They have no time limit aloft like a drone would, and one operators could concievable service several stations with a few rotating back ups circulating to take up any slack when TSHTF....
A few drawbacks also exist.
If the gazans can capture the tower they have a good little bit of weaponry to cart off or use against its makers from that osition.
Also it may be possible to jam or cut control from the bunker to the tower, even take over a tower with sophisticated electronics.
I must assume that the army has self destruct charges placed inside to prevent the use of the equipment by unauthorised humans.....but well things go astray sometimes....
heres the logical progression too....mount these devices on mini tracked vehicles,(or other) and keep the women off the front lines.....perhaps that would be a good solution to the differences between both types of troops men and women.??
I get this vision of advancing troops with these small trackes machines amongst them,carrying combat loads and sporting all kinds of specialised weapons...(rocket and anti tank launch capability. heavy machine guns,forward scouting small analisers and infr red cameras and detectors,mine laying ones,etc etc.)
All operated by the womens corps about a few hundred yards to the rear of the assault troops.
The troops once used to working with these devices should be able to accomplish far more dangerous missions than without them....
They would be a force multiplyer of high denomination....

[edit on 12-7-2010 by stirling]

Originally posted by CanadianDream420

Originally posted by mydarkpassenger
This isn't even new; how is this different from a hellfire missile fired from a drone piloted via remote control?

Very different. There are not thousands of Drones stationed 24 hours, floating, in one spot...

Originally posted by mydarkpassenger
Oh I get it; it's a travesty because it's Israel doing it instead of instead of a nice Moslem country, Right?

*sigh* Sick of hearing this... You're answer is NO. If America put up these guns on the Mexican border, there would/will be equal backlash.

Well pal, I'm sick of hearing that it's a different case when Israel does what other nations are doing. I am sick of rockets being launched from Gaza and Lebanon into civilian population centers, and any response by the IDF is met with howls of protest. I guess Israeli lives are cheaper than others, so there are less tears for them?

By the way: If the US put this technology in place, what exactly do you think the Mexican "Government" (what a laugh that is) would do?

I'm not shivering in fear over them; they can't even establish a modicum of governance over half of their states for fear of the drug gangs.

Mexico is about eight months away from becoming a Middle American version of Somalia.

It's not going to shoot everything that moves around the border.. So what's the big deal? Why is it bad for us to not let anyone get near our borders when we know it's used to smuggle drugs, plant explosives and kidnap soldiers?
I don't get it...

And if mexicans would have been blowing up in your streets then I'm not sure anyone would object to you putting fences and guns...
What's the big deal?

Gosh, I feel like posting a fat "face palm" image but this is too sad for that. I cant believe people out there still defend anything Israel does. People really need to do their own research on whats happening their instead of believing all of that zionist propaganda in our media. Israel is not the good guy here, they steal land and kill civilians while doing it. Mossad shoot rockets into their own country and blame it on the Palestinians, people just buy Israel's lies and refuse to do any real research. What a sad sad joke.

Originally posted by CREAM
Gosh, I feel like posting a fat "face palm" image but this is too sad for that. I cant believe people out there still defend anything Israel does. People really need to do their own research on whats happening their instead of believing all of that zionist propaganda in our media. Israel is not the good guy here, they steal land and kill civilians while doing it. Mossad shoot rockets into their own country and blame it on the Palestinians, people just buy Israel's lies and refuse to do any real research. What a sad sad joke.

You and I share this disbelief: I can't believe that there are people out there who condemn EVERYTHING Israel does, out of hand and without any specific data, and who do not bother to see if any other nation has similar practices.

I also can't believe the use of the "Z" word as if that explains every contention made against Israel and Jews as part of some vast conspiracy: let's see, getting several million of your kind killed in gas chambers and labor camps, wow - what a sinister, insidious, and ingenious strategy!