May 2 and 4 blog discussion question

1) Does the Washington Post article indicate that the United States has learned the lessons about the limits of cybernetic warfare or cybernetic "counter-insurgency" as discussed at the conclusion of Bousquet?

I would say yes rather than no to the first question, because the US military involvement in Vietnam should have learned from their failures particularly the strategies toward counter-insurgency and the technologies that they have used during the counter-insurgent operations there. I am quite optimist that the US military new plan of the ‘gated communities” will work because the US military is going to use more concrete strategy and more advanced technologies in the “gate communities’ to counter-insurgent operations in the war-oriented areas of Iraq.

2) If the United States is still in Iraq 30 years from now (2037), and has turned over surveillance and shooting of curfew violators in Baghdad to autonomous robots (mentioned in the BBC article), what would be the ethical and moral implications of this form of mid-21st century cybernetic counter-insurgency?

I think using the autonomous robots for encountering terrorist attacks as well as for the surveillance of the society is ethnically good, because each individual human being, to my point of view, has much more value than a human made robot, which is under the control of human itself. For example, if a soldier gets killed, no matter whether American or Iraqi Army, the dead of this particular individual will bring family ties suffrage and the family, friends, and relatives loose a human soul. But, nothing will happen if the tough duty of this soldier can be done by robot, not one will mourn for the robot if it gets destroyed. But I would suggest that the autonomous robots should be used only for military operations against terrorists, but on to take publics’ places of doing things.