Hearts and Minds

A report prepared for ISAF's RC-East claims the rising number of coalition forces being killed by Afghanistan National Army and Police partners is indicative of a deeper animosity growing between the allies' lower ranks.

“Lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between ‘allies’ in modern military history),” said the report. Official NATO pronouncements to the contrary “seem disingenuous, if not profoundly intellectually dishonest.”

Read the article here.

The Shifting Application of Airpower

From carpet bombing and cluster munitions to overwatches and shows of presence, the (re)development of COIN Ops in Afghanistan has brought combat aviation to heel:

The use of air power has changed markedly during the long Afghan conflict, reflecting the political costs and sensitivities of civilian casualties caused by errant or indiscriminate strikes and the increasing use of aerial drones, which can watch over potential targets for extended periods with no risk to pilots or more expensive aircraft.

Read the article here.

Ethical Rules for Robots

In September of 2011, the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council hosted a conference of experts drawn from the fields of technology, industry, the arts, law and social sciences, to develop rules for robots in society. The result, five ethical rules for robots:

1. Robots are multi-use tools. Robots should not be designed solely or primarily to kill or harm humans, except in the interests of national security.

2. Humans, not robots, are responsible agents. Robots should be designed & operated as far as is practicable to comply with existing laws & fundamental rights & freedoms, including privacy.

3. Robots are products. They should be designed using processes which assure their safety and security.

4. Robots are manufactured artefacts. They should not be designed in a deceptive way to exploit vulnerable users; instead their machine nature should be transparent.

5. The person with legal responsibility for a robot should be attributed.

Read an expanded version of the principles here.

Can Plato's Cave Help to Explain Addiction?

Of course it can. Peg O'Connor explains how:

[Addicts] engage in faulty yet persuasive alcoholic reasoning, willing to take anything as evidence that they do not have a problem; no amount of reasoning will persuade them otherwise.

Read the article here.

How far Should Science Take Us...?

NYT's Armchair Ethicist posed the following:

Recently, scientists at two laboratories tweaked a dangerous bird-flu virus in order to make it more contagious. Was it ethical to even undertake such an experiment? Does the importance of preparing for a pandemic justify publishing the experiment’s results? Should the importance of preventing bioterrorism justify governments’ suppressing the information? Is some information simply too dangerous to share — or even to ascertain?

Read the responses here.

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman..."

... who's had her salon appointment interrupted by a bunch of young zealots. To wit:

Vigilante gangs of ultra-conservative Salafi men have been harassing shop owners and female customers in rural towns around Egypt for “indecent behavior,” according to reports in the Egyptian news media. But when they burst into a beauty salon in the Nile delta town of Benha this week and ordered the women inside to stop what they were doing or face physical punishment, the women struck back, whipping them with their own canes before kicking them out to the street in front of an astonished crowd of onlookers.

Read the story here.

Maple Leafs GM Warns Against Decline in Hockey Fighting

Brian Burke told ESPN he's wary of the decline in on-ice fighting because of what he sees happening on game nights: "If you want a game where guys can cheap-shot people and not face retribution, I'm not sure that's a healthy evolution," he said. "The speed of the game, I love how the game's evolved in terms of how it's played. But you're seeing where there is no accountability." Burke argues that players, some more than others, are seeing that there's no longer a price to pay for throwing a cheap shot at the opposition, and they're taking advantage of that change. "I wonder about the accountability in our game and the notion that players would stick up for themselves and for each other," Burke said. "I wonder where we're going with it, that's the only lament I have on this. The fear that if we don't have guys looking after each other that the rats will take this game over.

Read the article here.

"I fear they do not know us"

"National leaders and advocacy groups say they see a widening rift between a military at war and a public at peace, distracted by a sputtering economy and weary of hearing about Iraq and Afghanistan." USA Today published a piece on the alienating effect that has on families who've lost loved ones in combat.

Read the article here.