I doubt anyone would use the much less than 1% of the military who goes to your "home town after the bars close" as the basis for who an "average soldier" is.

A magazine article has been rendered, by the publisher, and printed onto a fixed-size page. If you're going to render your web page to a bitmap or even PDF and hand it out, I'll agree that nobody cares about the HTML. When you're presenting it to a browser to render it, you're telling me that the magazine publisher doesn't care if you turn in an article that renders properly for them in MS Word 2010; they just care that it worked for you when you designed it in Microsoft Works 4.5.

mhm

The point is our discussion was about a piece of the pie and it's being turned into some childish tantrum because people like you want to cry about how much you wish we could all get along and play nice. You can sit there eating cheesy puffs and playing on your computer while you try to talk down to me, but I really don't care. You seriously need to get outside your little bubble - or is it your mom's basement? I could go on about how utterly incorrect the majority of your post is, but you really aren't worth my time. Have fun with your little moral superiority.

No, you're wrong. This has nothing to do with defending civilian deaths. Go away.

You are hilarious!

Hey crazy person, get a life. You didn't address what I was talking about at all. Thanks, weirdo. Go back to your basement.

Very true.

Then you be alarmed at the terms being used while everyone else actually worries about the situation.

I didn't want the conversation to get into one about what country is better than another. War is obviously a bad thing and life would be great if no one went to war. That being said... The things I'm talking about take no technology at all. I'm talking about the risk guys on the ground take every day to make sure they don't kill the wrong people. Meaning, strict rules of engagement, escalation of force milder than many police departments, clearing individual houses when we could drop bombs, using non-lethal means when possible, etc,. I wish the US wasn't at war, and I am not trying to justify civilian casualties. The point is most people in most countries don't want to see their own people getting killed under most any circumstances.

First, I understand where you're coming from. I want technology like this to go further. I just don't agree this particular model is the way to handle the situation.

They think everyone is dead down there and as they start walking down the stairs, the soldiers sees one of the guys and they open fire on the soldier. These guys start yelling "allah ahkbar", so they were obviously just sitting there waiting for the soldiers to come down to finish them off.

This is why you clear a house the same way every time. You never assume it's clear even if you just shot a missile into it.

I would prefer they have a camera inside to see get a view of what is inside and where they are hiding.

Great, but what if I throw this thing in there and dude takes that as a queue to grab whatever weapons he has and come at me, blow himself up, or whatever else.

So what if they see the ball coming in the room knowing that soldiers will be coming in for them, they will have the position surrounded anyways and anything that peeps its head outside or try to escape will be stopped.

I'm not worried about them getting away. I'm worried about them spraying the doorway and throwing grenades back over the wall. I don't want them to have that extra couple seconds to arm the suicide vest. Speed and surprise are fundamental.

Situations like these happen all the time and you really should see some of the combat videos coming out of Iraq/Afghanistan, it will open your eyes to what chaos is really going on over there and what these soldiers have to face.

I was in Iraq less than six months ago clearing houses. Totally agree it's crazy over there.

I'm all for continuing the funding and research for these technologies. After discussing it for a while I can see some usage, but I am still afraid it will be misused. The last thing you ever want to do is let the guy know you're coming in. If you're in a situation where you can't level that building for whatever reason (collateral damage is a big issue in places like Baghdad), you're pretty much stuck with having to send a team in the door.

Hence the quotation marks. I'm sorry you have issues understanding what a bad guy is. It's a person (a "guy") who is bad. Do you need me to break it down further?

Interesting and very valid point.

Well, I don't think the military has to worry much about these types enlisting. I don't ever remember worrying about whether the guy shooting at me was referred to as terrorist, insurgent, enemy, bad guy, or batman. The point is, the guy on the ground isn't going to be having all these philosophical debates in the middle of a clearance mission.