[0] https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2026/country-chapters/haiti
> Launched by Haitian law enforcement forces and private contractors working for Vectus Global between March 1, 2025, and Jan. 21, 2026, the strikes also injured at least 738 people, according to the organization’s report. At least 49 of the injured appeared to have no ties to gangs or other criminal groups.
The first paragraph made it sound like the majority were bystanders, while the second made it sound like it was 5%.
Maybe that is still unacceptable collateral damage, but it'd be nice if the article was more specific than "many" so we know what we are actually talking about here.
Mercenaries with drones, just great.
They deserve recognition for maintaining the standards of good journalism in what is, by any measure, a difficult era.
wow, such an insight, how didn't they think about that before?
yeah, complaining about 1200 killings, without considering the rape/killings/displacement that would happen in their absence by Viv Ansamn
to clarify: Erik Prince founded Blackwater, of the Nisour Square Massacre infamy in the GW Bush administration. He is deeply tied to Republican politics, mercenary work, and particularly the Trump administration. He is IPOing an autonomous lethal drone company, Swarmer, and his other company, Vectrus, is behind the events of this article.
And sadly the infamy continued into the prior Trump administration. In 2020 Trump pardoned all four employees who had been convicted in 2014.
Also worth pointing out that, due to this "contractor" relationship, they never count towards official casualty figures. For example, if Iran were to kill 50k of them (I'm of course exaggerating to make a point), they wouldn't count towards US casualty figures, so it's also a way for the government to downplay the effects of foreign intervention to the general public.
The human that launched the missile is still responsible for it. Weapons that have autonomy are still given engagement parameters (e.g. limit target to certain geo bounds, engage between two certain timestamps). The humans that set those parameters and choose to deploy the weapon are responsible for what the autonomous weapon does.
It is not largely capable of "thinking"
We are proactively destroying human society. And many people are rallying behind it VCs investing in killing machines.
Citizen's largely don't care, they are largely passive.
It sort of reminds me of Richard Feynman who claimed he was extremely depressed. After the use of the atomic bomb.
It was something very stupid for a so called genius to say.
You work on a mass murder tool, then complain that a mass murder tool you worked on was used for mass murder.
The people doing the most to actually improve material conditions in the third world are constantly poo-pooed by people who profit off these places remaining impoverished.
I think the NRxers are right here you need to go in there and crack skulls. Few will invest in long term skills if they aren't valuable. The simple fact: In these next 10 years Haiti will see more growth than the last 40 years, thanks in large part to this partnership.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI-assisted_targeting_in_the_G...
1 - Immediately share all information and intel with the public so as to spare any judicial accountability. 2 - Quit. 3 - Prepare to go to jail for the rest of your life. This is profoundly evil.
For example, I do in fact want to live in a world where only the bad guys have child soldiers, use human shields, deliberately target civilians, and abuse prisoners of war.
There will only be consequences for the losing side, if even then. See WW2. Options 1/2 are valid, option 3 should be "cope being evil."
