You know, what do you think is going to happen if we just leave. Do you really think that none of this violence will follow us home? Anyone hear about some bombs headed to Chicago? Oh wait, it was going to a Jewish address, hate mongering Israelies should stop building settlements in Dearborne.

The end of oil reserves will be a great day for the civilization. Collectively the developed world will be able to ignore the middle east and its religion of peace into oblivion, kinda like they do with Africa now.

you are an ill informed ass A/C. We haven't used DU in years, Iraq is not the most radio active country on the planet. Not even close to it. Hell we dont even use weapons that have a high probability of producing duds anymore. (read cluster munitions and the like) The problem is you give equal weight to the claims of idiots and the enemy as you do to experts and the good guys. Thats ok, go vote democrat tomorrow and file for your third year of unemployment benefits. It must be someone else's fault.

the army used to have portable nuke reactors. google it. it went really bad. The burn pits scare me, I dont want to live next to a nuke run by spec4 disgruntled.

a yurt weighs a shit-ton, then it gets wet. it requires care. It does not like the hot dusty UV environment of the desert. Turns out tents, like what the natives have used in the region for thousands of years are a better choice than something from another fucking climate. But thanks for playing. maybe we should try igloos? hey then we dont need AC! cause they are already cold! and i read snow is a good insulator in nat geo. Fuck me!

the problem is, you are a free-rider, man. Thats always the problem with hippies, they never pay.

Fuck, civilians piss me off. This isn't a trick fuck question about lateral thinking on some college exam. Most of the Jibs and Haj who are laying these IEDs are locals who have families and jobs. They dont use game theory to maximize outcomes, instead mostly what happens is some guy shows up at their house and says, "put this in the road next time the americans come by or we are going to kill your family. Or some guy is watching his family starve because we just torched his opium crop that was the only thing he could grow this year and he takes a couple of dollars to plant an IED in the road so he can feed his family. If the Americans dont come by that road as often as they used to the bad guy shows up and says "Dirka, Dirka, Ackbar give me my IED back, we have changed our plans. Muhamed Jihad!" Then the bad guys switch tactics to either direct action or indirect fire on the FOBs.

(im going to assume you are in a NATO alliance country). Troops decide to go to war much like you decide to pay taxes to support their efforts. Also, Godwin's law.

It can be, if the operator violates airspace or if the airplane reacts differently than what was planned.

I am a military Helicopter pilot and I have literally come back with a UAV sticking out of the side of my aircraft after a mid-air with a small drone. There are lots of growing pains with these things, and they are no where ready for integration in the national airspace system. A growing conflict with military use of UAVs is that they are often being operated by non-pilots(cheaper to train). In many cases the smallest drones are operated by infantrymen who throw these things into the air and rely on big sky theory to separate them from the aircraft providing Close Air Support. Non-pilots typically have less diversity of experience and a lot less air-sense when it comes to situational awareness.

The most likely user of this technology is Law Enforcement. The last thing civil aviation needs is some jack-hole beat cop throwing these things into the air to look for a guy on a stolen bicycle and have a mid-air with an airliner on approach because he dose not understand what is going on above him, or have any responsibility for his actions because his personal safety is not directly tied to the operation of his aircraft. They cant be trusted to use tazers, why the heck would we give them UAVs?

I have used some of the high power(readily cuts electrical tape, pops balloons etc) hand held laser devices for tactical purposes. Some thoughts. They dont work in daylight as a weapon sight. I dont care what you think, you aint gonna acquire a tennis ball sized faded blue spot at 200m while shooting/getting shot at/flying/driving/running, its a lot easier and faster to walk rounds on target. At night you dont need high power. You really dont want to shine one thru your windshield, cause when it hits a scratch or a bug (at night) it tends to blind (temporarily) everyone in the cockpit and light up said cockpit really well (kinda defeats the purpose of blackout lights). Using them as a weapon will get you thrown in the brig when you are caught because of all the blind guys that come to the clinic on the FOB to get treated (law of war and all). Red or IR are ideal lasers, blue and green suck as most NVGs attenuate these wavelengths. The Chinese and North Koreans have weaponized Lasers, the North Koreans have blinded US pilots with them. I fly with filters for the some of the most common wavelengths used during daylight.