Originally Posted by
Pontius Navigator
On the subject of risk, I am aware of an RPA Driver, who is at risk, possibly more than in-theatre base wallahs, in a different way. If the address became publicly available the pilot and family would all be directly at risk.
This risk is personal in much the same way as the targets are personal, and not random as in a conventional aircraft attack.
Pontius makes a good point. In the 39-45 war all the foreign nationals, other than those of our allies, were locked up and denied contact with the outside world.
Yet today we allow people who are blatant supporters of the "enemy" to have unfettered access, to observe people coming and going from our military bases, and also allow them to communicate what they see, to "head office" where the troops are operating. It's madness on a General Melchett scale.
The people working in the IED factory can't really stop the Reaper from seeing them and prosecuting the war effort. I'm sure they would like to. However... if it is fair game for our forces to follow their staff to and from work, and then know who to kill, why would they not do the same thing?
We can't send in people to openly live on the ground over there, taking notes and sending back intel. Why do we permit them to do so?
Since the world's "leaders" seem determined to prevent the establishment of an Islamic State, which seems odd, as it would give us a place to deport folk to, we need to just lock *them* up here, in the absence of a country to send them to.
*Them refers to people openly expressing any opinion contrary to that of HMG.