Truly a Nation Gone Mad

Jeff Grossman spoke of the evolving intelligence of robot soldiers. "Now, maybe, we're a mammal," he says. "We're trying to get to the level of a primate, where we are making sensible decisions."

And when they get to the level of humans, they can make truly insane decisions, like making killer robots.

The Pentagon predicts that robots will be a major fighting force in the American military in less than a decade, hunting and killing enemies in combat. Robots are a crucial part of the Army's effort to rebuild itself as a 21st-century fighting force, and a $127 billion project called Future Combat Systems is the biggest military contract in American history.

The military plans to invest tens of billions of dollars in automated armed forces. The costs of that transformation will help drive the Defense Department's budget up almost 20 percent, from a requested $419.3 billion for next year to $502.3 billion in 2010, excluding the costs of war. The annual costs of buying new weapons is scheduled to rise 52 percent, from $78 billion to $118.6 billion.

On the other hand, for $118.6 billion a year the government could give every one of the approximately 4 million people turning 21 each year a start on his or her "private account" of about $30,000, and not have to take the money out of grandma's social security or borrow it from the Chinese. But why do that when you can have endless war for which you don't even need people?

"They don't get hungry," said Gordon Johnson of the Joint Forces Command at the Pentagon. "They're not afraid. They don't forget their orders. They don't care if the guy next to them has just been shot. Will they do a better job than humans? Yes."

The proper response to the ongoing disaster in Iraq is to bring the troops home, not replace them with automatons. Our leaders are truly mad. (And yes, I realize that this isn't really new--high-altitude bombing, cruise missiles and armed Predator pilotless aircraft are already here.)

There is no possible good use for this obscene array of weaponry. Our leaders are intent on world domination and destruction, and need to be impeached before they go any farther.