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Sighted: A Secret US Aircraft in Afghanistan

The X-45C can use the small diameter bomb against targets. this will reduce collateral damage. However if people are playing host to Al-Qaeda in their homes. Then they can expect to be targets.

No one is hosting al-qaeeda and neither is it plausible that virtual al-qaeeda would like to live in high risk areas.
If US know the house of alqaeeda than why don't inform us?

Why stealth UAV? do you expect villagers to have more advance radar and SAM's than Pak army?

I think US and TTP are going to step up their deadly operations in Pakistan. said UAV can fly without control means it will not go back to base and will be used for deep strike missions inside Pakistan. could be to hit key army installations.

I see a deadly december for people of Pakistan.
 
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Time to test long wavelength radars that you can buy from China.
You won't shoot them down just like the predators as long as they go for valid targets but it would be a valuable experiment to try detecting them.
Also max altitude of these subsonic platforms are generally about 9-10km. Small mobile radar sites with radar dishes facing directly upwards with low sidelobes can detect the entry of these vehicles above as well in my opinion. Fighter planes fly at 15-20km maximum altitude. Ir wvr missiles won't be very useful without an electro-optical processor to recognize the vehicles triangular pattern.
 
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No one is hosting al-qaeeda and neither is it plausible that virtual al-qaeeda would like to live in high risk areas.
If US know the house of alqaeeda than why don't inform us?

Why stealth UAV? do you expect villagers to have more advance radar and SAM's than Pak army?

I think US and TTP are going to step up their deadly operations in Pakistan. said UAV can fly without control means it will not go back to base and will be used for deep strike missions inside Pakistan. could be to hit key army installations.

I see a deadly december for people of Pakistan.

Yes I know you probably believe that Al Qaeda does not operate in Pakistan at all. and that there are no Al Qaeda or Taliban sympathizers that invite them into their homes to stay and hide.

as far as why Stealth UAV's are in theater there. Most likely simply to field test them. Also they do use bombs where predators and reapers do not. And who knows what other capabilities they might have we do not know about. Of course they could be there since Iran is next door to prepare for an attack on Iran's nuke sites......just a thought....lol
 
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OK, for iran you don't need drones.
Trust me you can walk past their eastern borders like walk in the park.
There is zero presence of irnaina soldiers or airforce at western front.
All iran defence is against arabs.
 
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New UAV, probably, secret, impossible....................
American secret projects(Aircrafts) are kept under tight wraps and are seldom flown in populated areas to avoid any leaks, i doubt they would avoid American populated areas but use it in Afghanistan..................
For testing it they already have the wide expanse of Area 51.
 
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Here we go!


Kandahar's Loch Ness mystery plane returns [Updated]
By Stephen Trimble on December 1, 2009 11:34 AM


Kandahar's Loch Ness monster has been spotted again. This time an actual photo of the beast was published by French journalist Jean-Dominique Merchet, who writes for the Liberation newspaper, on his Secret Defense blog. We last saw the mystery Kandahar aircraft in a drawing by Shephard's Unmanned Vehicles and a very grainy photo published by Air & Cosmos.

The new photo offers a slightly better view of the nose. Is that a canopy screen above the nose? I wondered in May if this might actually be a manned aircraft, even if it was first sighted on UV.com. If there is a cockpit, where is the air intake for the engine? The half-moon exhaust pipe strikingly resembles the P175 Polecat, a Skunk Works product.

Regardless of how it is piloted, the Kandahar aircraft's existence raises several existential questions: What does it do? Why do you need a stealthy-looking aircraft to spy on Al Qaeda and the Taliban? What's all the secrecy about? While I'm asking, can somebody please get a head-on picture?

[UPDATE: Bill Sweetman, of Ares blog infamy, believes the aircraft is the Skunk Works' Desert Prowler, which would make it a UAV.]


Kandahar's Loch Ness mystery plane returns [Updated] - The DEW Line
 
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as far as why Stealth UAV's are in theater there. Most likely simply to field test them.
Correct.

Also they do use bombs where predators and reapers do not. And who knows what other capabilities they might have we do not know about.
Correct.

Of course they could be there since Iran is next door to prepare for an attack on Iran's nuke sites......just a thought....lol
We can fly close to the Iranian borders and with standard radar operations we can record their electronic response (ELINT). Heck...We can probably cross into Iranian airspace and with the Soviet junks they would not know a thing.

Finally...Never mind that 'long wavelengths' nonsense. I admit underestimating the longevity and persistence of belief of that claim.
 
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However if people are playing host to Al-Qaeda in their homes. Then they can expect to be targets.

I have trouble with the implications behind that suggestion - no doubt as an individual for whom AQ is the enemy you see the deaths of those 'playing host' (women and children included) as acceptable - but by the same token attacks on US civilians (or the civilians of any other entity involved in a conflict) should be acceptable to you in war, since US civilians 'play host to' and fund (through their taxes) and deploy (through their elected government) the Armed forces of the United States.

IMO the deaths of civilians are unacceptable in any case, and to try and find excuses to justify the deaths of innocents in the drone attacks is a morally bankrupt exercise.
 
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I have trouble with the implications behind that suggestion - no doubt as an individual for whom AQ is the enemy you see the deaths of those 'playing host' (women and children included) as acceptable -
The Geneva Conventions have that allowance. If the military objective, which in this case could be a valuable al-Qaeda leadership figure, resides or in proximity with non-combatants, insofar as a bomb blast radius, for example, is concerned, then any civilian deaths, or 'collateral damages', are justified. The obvious problem is that this valuation is left to the combatants to calculate.

...but by the same token attacks on US civilians (or the civilians of any other entity involved in a conflict) should be acceptable to you in war, since US civilians 'play host to' and fund (through their taxes) and deploy (through their elected government) the Armed forces of the United States.
Yes...Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda decided to erase the 'military' and 'civilian' distinction a long time ago.

IMO the deaths of civilians are unacceptable in any case, and to try and find excuses to justify the deaths of innocents in the drone attacks is a morally bankrupt exercise.
What you just expressed is precisely what terrorists counted upon. Like it or not, the deaths of civilians, those who are necessary for the continuation of a society, serves as a painful reminder for the leaderships engaged in a war of the cost of war. It was the West that created the Geneva Conventions after WW II in an attempt to at least influence, if not regulate, the behaviors of combatants in armed conflicts and to spare as much as possible non-combatants from the horrors of war. The result is the many attempts at improving the technology of the weapons in order to reduce civilian casualties in war. Terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda know of this aversion of non-combatant deaths and how Western militaries will go to lengths they would disregard to minimize 'collateral damages'.

The corollary to this is the immediate condemnations the Western militaries would incur should the public learn of civilian casualties, or 'collateral damages', in a military operation, and the belief that civilian casualties are 'unacceptable' no matter what the circumstances, help prolong the conflict because the Western militaries are, or do try, to be sensitive to these moral condemnations. The military will perform the necessary self-examination and in the lull of that self examination and public self rebuke, the terrorist organization will regroup and refresh.
 
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The corollary to this is the immediate condemnations the Western militaries would incur should the public learn of civilian casualties, or 'collateral damages', in a military operation, and the belief that civilian casualties are 'unacceptable' no matter what the circumstances, help prolong the conflict because the Western militaries are, or do try, to be sensitive to these moral condemnations. The military will perform the necessary self-examination and in the lull of that self examination and public self rebuke, the terrorist organization will regroup and refresh.

Hence, shoot now, and justify later. Right? Civilians are civilians, except some civilians are fair game and others, especially if they live in the West, are out of bounds. Did I get you right?

Interesting point to note, the Taliban began losing support in Pakistan when they attacked civilians and security personnel outside of FATA and inside Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Islamabad etc. This also why the US has little support in this region of the world, which in turn, increases the number of people "willing" to "welcome" the AQ into their homes, as was put by one enlightened soul above. Both sides are engaged in a battle for the "hearts and minds", by breaking hearts and splattering brains.

But I think we've gone way off topic now. Let's get back to the UAV. It's not really a secret, it's this one:

Boeing X-45
5d6f75d8ace329c4995cf5b389a8ba77.jpg

203f547f50a024c55261f5239cd36a3d.jpg
 
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Hence, shoot now, and justify later. Right? Civilians are civilians, except some civilians are fair game and others, especially if they live in the West, are out of bounds. Did I get you right?

Interesting point to note, the Taliban began losing support in Pakistan when they attacked civilians and security personnel outside of FATA and inside Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Islamabad etc. This also why the US has little support in this region of the world, which in turn, increases the number of people "willing" to "welcome" the AQ into their homes, as was put by one enlightened soul above. Both sides are engaged in a battle for the "hearts and minds", by breaking hearts and splattering brains.

But I think we've gone way off topic now. Let's get back to the UAV. It's not really a secret, it's this one:

Boeing X-45
5d6f75d8ace329c4995cf5b389a8ba77.jpg

203f547f50a024c55261f5239cd36a3d.jpg

Well not exactly the one. that is the "A" model. where the one sighted in Afghanistan is the "C" model. quite a bit of difference in the design. The C model also has 3x the range of the A model. There is a naval version being developed as well.
 
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Hence, shoot now, and justify later. Right? Civilians are civilians, except some civilians are fair game and others, especially if they live in the West, are out of bounds. Did I get you right?

Interesting point to note, the Taliban began losing support in Pakistan when they attacked civilians and security personnel outside of FATA and inside Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Islamabad etc. This also why the US has little support in this region of the world, which in turn, increases the number of people "willing" to "welcome" the AQ into their homes, as was put by one enlightened soul above. Both sides are engaged in a battle for the "hearts and minds", by breaking hearts and splattering brains.
No...You interpreted it wrong. As expected.

Have no doubt that IF the US military was as ruthless in Falluja as we were against Imperial Japan, and Japan capitulated without a single foreign troop in-country, the city would have been leveled without warning, combatant and non-combatant status would have been irrelevant. All you have to do is search through the news archive and see for yourself the amount of self recrimination and public apologies the US military expressed everytime a drone attack failed for any reason, for example. The charge of 'attack against civilians' is deliberately inflammatory and implied that the US military placed non-combatant status as highest criteria, if not the only one, in its adjudication prior to an operation. That is not true.

International Humanitarian Law - Additional Protocol I 1977
Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977.

4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:
(a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective;
(b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or
(c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol;

Keep in mind that these conventions were codified after WW II. But even so, the desire to distinguish combatants from non-combatants and to place different values on them predated the GCs.

Lieber Code - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Lieber Code of April 24, 1863, also known as Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field, General Order ? 100, or Lieber Instructions, was an instruction signed by President Abraham Lincoln to the Union Forces of the United States during the American Civil War that dictated how soldiers should conduct themselves in war time. It was named after the German-American jurist and political philosopher Francis Lieber.

The Lieber Code Of 1863
14. Military necessity, as understood by modern civilized nations, consists in the necessity of those measures which are indispensable for securing the ends of the war, and which are lawful according to the modern law and usages of war.

15. Military necessity admits of all direct destruction of life or limb of armed enemies, and of other persons whose destruction is incidentally unavoidable in the armed contests of the war; it allows of the capturing of every armed enemy, and every enemy of importance to the hostile government, or of peculiar danger to the captor; it allows of all destruction of property, and obstruction of the ways and channels of traffic, travel, or communication, and of all withholding of sustenance or means of life from the enemy; of the appropriation of whatever an enemy's country affords necessary for the subsistence and safety of the Army, and of such deception as does not involve the breaking of good faith either positively pledged, regarding agreements entered into during the war, or supposed by the modern law of war to exist. Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another and to God.

16. Military necessity does not admit of cruelty--that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions. It does not admit of the use of poison in any way, nor of the wanton devastation of a district. It admits of deception, but disclaims acts of perfidy; and, in general, military necessity does not include any act of hostility which makes the return to peace unnecessarily difficult.
Basically...Even though the idea of 'military necessity' compelled the military to inflict death and destruction, the fact that we are moral beings is equally compelling and is expected of a command decision to inflict said death and destruction to create a calculus or 'balancing act' between non-combatant status, deaths and a potential outcome of a military operation prior to the execution of that operation. If that potential outcome can lead to an eventual cessation of the war, or perhaps even an immediate cessation of that war, but that some civilians will die, then the operation is justified. The fire bombings of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were not absent of these 'balancing acts', as much as those who would like to heap moral approbiums upon the US would like to believe. The continuing debate about them on whether the US military devoted sufficient time and efforts to justify the missions serves only to highlight the fact that discussions and disagreements did exist prior to the authorization to execute those missions.

Civilian deaths in war are never joyful events for the side that is on the receiving end of the attack regardless of the fact that these calculus exists. The issue and problem is that there are not and have never been any concrete valuations and calculations that will absolve any military of the charge of conducting an 'indiscriminate' attack, even when there was a legitimate military necessity, such as an arms depot as the primary target. One civilian death can be dismissed under the military necessity principle, but not one hundred and if the owner of that arms depot is sufficiently adept at public displays of grief and anger, the immorality of that one hundred civilian deaths will outweight any military necessity valuation. Even your Quran and related Islamic literature are not crystal clear on this issue. Even the older Code of Hammurabi is equally unclear on this issue despite the king's attempt at outlining his opinion on the conduct of war.

The GCs and their Additionals are to date the best we have at consolidating these past attempts from many cultures at regulating the conduct of war. The objections from many but not all US generals over Fat Man and Little Boy, even after the horrors of the fire bombings missions were known, are clear indicators that there were internal conflicts in the military leadership because of the lack of indisputable precepts on these valuations and calculus. If God Himself, in any incarnation other than burning bushes, dreams or vague figures in rocks and trees, can make it so undeniable His wishes on how mankind SHOULD kill ourselves in our anger, the US military would welcome His opinions.

The Quran and related Islamic literature are unclear so al-Qaeda and the Taliban took the broadest interpretation and erased any distinctions between combatant and non-combatant status. The Quran is not our book. Take a sober look at our current nuclear arsenal...Read below...

International Court of Justice
However, in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of facts at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defense, in which the very survival of a State is at stake.
...And be glad that we did not adopt the same attitude as they have and be true to your slander that we shoot first and justify later.

When one side so easily discard the combatant and non-combatant distinctions for its enemy, like how al-Qaeda and the Taliban have done in order to expedite an offensive operation, be it to hijack enemy airliners or to suicide bomb a marketplace, it would be equally easy to make the same discard for itself. Hence al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iraqi insurgency were able to quickly blend themselves with the general non-combatant population in order to take advantage of the other side's stricter respect for what they hold in contempt. They are counting on the other side's reluctance to liberalize whatever criteria there may be regarding military necessity to enhance their survival in the face of overwhelming superiority. Sadly, there are many Western apologists who sees nothing wrong with tactics like using human shields or even suicide bombing marketplaces when their pets are facing superior forces that respects even unclear guides on the conduct of war.

Erasure of the combatant and non-combatant distinctions naturally would negate the need for any proportionality calculus and would make the prosecution of ANY war, conventional or nuclear, much easier. Of course, by the time we are done, even without resorting to nuclear weapons, given our technological advantages and the same ruthlessness we displayed against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, there would be no need to justify ourselves to anyone in any war regarding any conduct. The danger is real that the battlefield tactics of al-Qaeda, its ilk and their Western apologists are influencing a move towards a redefinition of the current GCs and their Additionals, potentially to the detriments of civilians in future conflicts. Your slander now, that we shoot first and justify later, may later end up as high praise.
 
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