A reaper is a weapon that like all other weapons is designed to kill. That the person that pulls the trigger is far away is neither here nor there. Cannons kill people from kilometers away where the person firing has only a calculation of where he is firing, and only sketchy information of whether he hits anyone. A missile is the same again.

The difference is that the person pulling the trigger can differentiate to some degree between targets and civilians.

Should there be moral concerns about civilian jet aircraft, where the pilot is not always flying the plane and even where he is, the robotics are handling complex adjustments and reckonings for him?

Military manned plane or drone there is really little difference. In the manned version, just like the civilian passenger jets, the pilot couldn't fly it without the computer and robotics. The practical difference between drone and 'manned' is where the pilot and crew are sitting. In one case the fuel use is much lower, time aloft longer and the pilot and crew much safer.

Australia needs to preserve its pilots and use them to the utmost effect. Drones are ideal for such large distances.

Most disappointing that no moralising, leftish, human rights types have visited this thread. Obviously the weight of argument in the article and comments was too much for them.

So, in fairness, and in Devil's Advocate, here's an own goal for them http://www.sott.net/article/264247-Global-surveillance-state-Australias-Pine-Gap-drives-US-drone-kills . It includes a cute cartoon to.

The very idea that drones are somehow "immoral" weapons is, frankly, laughable. A quick spin through the history of weaponry-in-war will find the same logic applies to the deployment of the English longbow, the musket and its successor, mustard gas, bombs (as dropped from aircraft), rocket missiles - whether the originally unguided (V1, V2), heat-seeking etc. etc.

Clearly, it is pointless to reclassify these weapons as "retrospectively immoral", without the ability to follow through with some kind of action. Similarly, it is pointless to identify these new iterations of remote warfare as "presently immoral", without the remotest possibility to do anything about them. After all, you cannot un-invent them, therefore they will be used.

Picture the following dialogue in the court of the Dauphin over Christmas dinner in 1415:

Dauphin: Well, I thought it was jolly unfair of Henry to use longbows at Agincourt. We didn't stand a chance - all they had to do was stand there and fire at us.

Gérard Depardieu (in one of his earlier roles) True, true. Let's not allow ourselves to sink to that level - it's un-French

Dauphin: Absolutely. If we can't fight a war with just our stumpy little swords, I'd say that we shouldn't fight at all, nést-ce pas (innit)

GD: [**hic**]

Hi Pericles

Judging by the absence of moralisers on the this thread it could be that OLO's lefties have now learnt to love the Reaper.

Much of the drone's bad press seems to stem from:

- it having the reputation as (publically) an America only weapon.

- as though the US was abusing its military and technical dominance

- as though pilots had to be down, dirty and in danger, over the battlefied, to make it a fair fight

- Pakistan complained

- some wedding parties were sadly obliterated (but that was years ago)

Since then Russia, China, UK and Israel are getting more seriously into armed drone use - making it less an "unfair" American monopoly.

In 'Killer' drones for Australia? Peter Coates comments that "Several Royal Australian Air Force personnel are now being trained in the US to operate Reaper armed drones". RAAF personnel are well aware of the laws of armed conflict and restrictions the use of weapons. I can't see there is much difference between RAAF personnel in an aircraft pushing the "fire" button or on a remote console controlling a UAV: http://blog.tomw.net.au/2013/11/law-and-new-technologies-in-warfare.html