Requiem for a War Robot

Excerpted from War Virtually: The Quest to Automate Conflict, Militarize Data, and Predict the Future by Roberto J. González, published by the University of California Press. The blistering late afternoon wind ripped across Camp Taji, a sprawling U.S. military base north of Baghdad in an area known as the Sunni Triangle. In a desolate corner of the outpost, where the feared Iraqi Republican Guard once manufactured mustard gas, nerve agents, and other chemical weapons, a group of American soldiers and Marines solemnly gathered around an open grave, dripping sweat in the 114-degree heat. They were paying their final respects to Boomer, a fallen comrade who had been an indispensable team member for years. Days earlier, he had been literally blown apart by a roadside bomb.