Confessions of a Drone Warrior
gq.com
gq.com
Drones don't kill innocent non-combatants, people do. There are many cases of civilians being killed by artillery shells or friendly fire by naval guns. I'm sure there was even an errant trebuchet or two. Long distance warfare is ok as long as there are people like Byrant on the other end of the weapon, people who worry and struggle with the moral consequences of what they have done. I feel for him and what he's had to go through, but at the same time I'm glad that drone warfare hasn't become the video game that people thought it would be.
Some of the commenters on this thread sound like the people who would throw things at veterans returning from vietnam. Have we learned nothing? The blame for the cost of war doesn't go to to the weapons or the people who pull the triggers. We're all responsible for the things done in our names, and responsible for changing them if we don't like the outcome.
Yes, it most certainly does. I used to be a submarine officer in the Navy, but I was discharged 2 years ago as a conscientious objector [1]. I left because I felt I had a moral responsibility to do so.
If your conscience says "don't kill someone," then you shouldn't kill them. You can't absolve yourself of responsibility just because the president ordered the killing.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/nyregion/23objector.html?p...
Surely those who order the killing, those who pay for it, and those who permit it by voting for the war, bear some of the responsibility?
However, taking the whole of his post and the one you're replying to, I believe it's an incontrovertible fact that there are citizens in a warmaking country who are not responsible: the ones who didn't want to go to war.
But what the OP said, and what you "wholeheartedly agreed" with was absolute and complete rubbish.
The doctrine of mutually assured destruction is what keeps countries from launching nukes at each other. In order to have that doctrine in place, we need people in the military who are willing to launch nukes, and that military needs to be firmly under the control of the civilian government.
In that context, was your objection to fire any nuke a personal decision, i.e. you personally wouldn't be comfortable with ending so many lives (who would?) or was it a wider objection, i.e. you feel it's immoral for any military personnel to be willing to launch nukes? If it's the former, then I totally understand. But if it's the latter, would you help me understand how to reconcile that belief with the necessity of mutually assured destruction? They seem to be at odds.
So I ask myself, "What am I doing right now to reduce war?" or "What am I doing right now to help the homeless living in my city?" This is how I measure whether or not I'm following Jesus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction#Cri...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLA_Marshall#World_War_II_comb...
With the regard of the enemy of state a so-called terrorist in the US today I have the same fundamental problems as with the enemy of the state called Jew in the Nazi Germany: 1. No definition of terrorist, hence anyone can be one including 82-old nuns: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/10/protesting-n... 2. "Terrorists" are devoid of all human and citizen rights. No right to free trial, no right to the attorney, no right to be not tortured, not right to be suspected innocent unless proven guilty, etc.
So now the dirty work of killing these quite often completely innocent people is handed over to those squads. And they just remind me of "special operations" done by SS Totenkopf. Go there kill a boy because his daddy is a suspected terrorist. And then kill their whole family too. All I'm saying there is difference in scale, but the legal ramifications are very similar. What stops the Government from labeling you a terrorist and targeting you? How will you proof your innocence without a trial and attorney?
There's parts of the government that have been caught doing really ridiculous, illegal things, and other parts of the government that have made costly mistakes, but you make it sound like the entire thing is a big conspiracy to kill innocent people in Afghanistan. That borders on insanity.
What kind of job could you do after having a background in "press the button when it's time to nuke someone"?
I'm a CS grad student right now. I'm not eligible for federal funding so I teach for money.
[Edit: I was once young too, I don't hold it against anyone. Nothing more heartbreaking than a 19y/o with the 1000 yard stare (which I've personally witnessed.)]
No they are not. The are risk free and relatively cheap, meaning its easier to order their use. The easier war is, the easier it is to make war.
"The fact that the combatant is sitting very far away from the battle doesn't make the killing any less real"
Oh yes it does. There have been plenty of studies that clearly demonstrate this. It is always easier to press a button that look a man in the eyes and shoot him.
Lastly. How do you surrender to a robot?
Had Bin Laden and his men held up their hands and put down their weapons, they all may well be in US jails right now. Had that been a drone strike, that would not have even been a possibility.
I know that you aren't passing judgement yourself, but I hope that before anyone else does, they consider the fact that Bin Laden was extremely intelligent and fantastically disciplined. He was the kind of guy who ALWAYS considered every possibility. His system for remaining hidden was absolutely amazing in a world where highly educated people routinely make idiotic mistakes from an OPSEC standpoint. You could argue that air-gapping and delivering USB sticks to remote internet cafés isn't isn't impressive, but the reality is, few people stayed on top of their OPSEC like this guy did. When we did find him, it was because ONE guy on his crew fucked up, one time, after hiding for several years. The only OPSEC mistake that Bin Laden himself made was trusting a guy that had proven himself dependable for many years.
Now, when you have a really brilliant guy like this that already knows that at some point in the future, he will be found by his enemies, you have to consider the possibility that he prepared for it. Thus, when our guys rolled into the complex, they had every reason in the world to believe that either someone in the compound would be wired with explosives, or that the compound itself would be rigged. With that being a real possibility, you don't really have time to give someone a proper chance to surrender.
At some point we started to be very cynical about our own values, like liberalism for that example. I wish we had taken our own values more to the heart. That's the only way to win these things morally as well.
First of all, if Himmler and Goebbels were hell bent on fighting to the death, they almost certainly would have been shot and killed by U.S. forces. Perhaps not though, because high-ranking German officials aren't known for blowing themselves up, so there's a much better chance of taking them alive even if they do fight back.
Another thing to consider, is that after the Germans surrendered, they largely stopped trying to kill us. They lost, and we occupied their territory in a relatively peaceful manner. The same cannot be said for Afghanistan or Pakistan, so you really can't compare the situations.
It was decided precisely by all Allied Forces: USA, UK, USSR during Yalta Conference in 1945 that some kind of International Tribunal will be established to give the Nazis elite a fair process. Mind you, that was after 70m people dead and horrors of the war. When Aushwitz was months old history, not years old. And they still gave them free process. Why? Because they believed in the values of our civilization. Once the political will like that is there, we are morally victorious as well. We just show to the world that our values are different. What you show by killing innocent 16 year old boy whose only fault was to have a father that was suspected of terrorist acticity is that you yourself don't believe in your values anymore and are cynical about them. And this makes radical muslims case in their countries of origin this much stronger. "You see, they are just like us, they kill innocent children too, they are just hypocrites and cynical people when they talk about the freedom, democracy, due process. There are no such things in the world". They can say it, and you know what? They'll be right! On this level we already lost big time, there is no slightest shadow of a doubt about it in my mind. They are ready to commit suicide in the name of their values. We don't give a crap about our own. How exactly you want to win this war of civilizations in this circumstance? Robespierre was ready to die for Liberal values. And he did. Dantone was ready to die for Liberal values. And he did. People are not going to die in the name of cynism. Capture Bin Laden and give him free, honest, open free trial. That's what people who actually believe in what they preach would do. If we don't believe in these things anymore, why on Earth you think that we can even remotely win?
> Another thing to consider, is that after the Germans surrendered, they largely stopped trying to kill us. They lost, and we occupied their territory in a relatively peaceful manner. The same cannot be said for Afghanistan or Pakistan, so you really can't compare the situations.
Talibans didn't lost. You ask me, they are winning. Winning like a little fly being still alive wins when you try to kill it with a machine gun. Just by its existence is a proof of your inability to win using the current strategy.
I actually agree with you in principle, that a trial would have been preferable. I just don't see how it would have been possible without putting even more lives at risk.
How would you have recommended we go about apprehending him alive, without any casualties? Its clear that the Pakistanis weren't going to help us apprehend him any time soon.
I think, that if the US made a political decision to give this monster - Osama - a chance for a free trial, as well as other Al Quaida members that would be a step in the right direction as far as winning the war goes. Because you play by your own rules. When opposite is being done, like killing children who are US citizens by Presidential Order just because their parent was a suspected terrorist killed a week earlier - that's like we're Al Quaida now. Because we run this war the same way they do. Like terrorists. The whole point of 9/11 was that we give up our values - freedom, democracy, rights, capitalism - and we did just that. We became exactly what they wanted us to become. Instead of forcing them to play by our rules. Can you imagine bin Laden having a trial? It's the concept from our civilization. That even the worst monster - like a master mind behind the Holocaust - deserves a trial. That's what differentiates our civilization from theirs. Applying this rule to Osama, and him partaking in it, is showing the Arab world the suporiority of our system. Going there and killing him like a dog when he isn't armed, just execution mafia style, is showing them we're not better.
At this level of decision, I believe that the political decisions always overweight military ones. These are the top SEALs, this dude would stand no chance this or another way. Forcing a trial on him and his organization and sentencing to hanging for crimes against the humanity - this would resonate much more and have better outcome as long as winning the war goes. You show them - you put planes into buildings and kill thousands of innocents - and we still give you honest trial. That's what made us great. Believing in freedom. I think Arabs would be totally shocked to see that. They'd be more inclined to accept superiority of our system. And maybe that's why Germans in WW2 didn't fight after some point. They felt like moral losers. Like the evil that was defeated by something good. I think that's what we're lacking in this war. And without it, I doubt we will ever win it.
My point is about a human to human contact, or the lack there of. Not the specifics of these murders.
And make no mistake, they are murders. I don't use the term lightly. Even if they are authorised by Obama himself, Obama has no right what so ever over non Americans on non American soil, who didn't vote for him and don't live in the US or its territories. Eight follow international law, respect borders and so on, or become the terrorist. Which many would argue happened decades ago, hence the considerable international, hate and suspicion. When Amercia causes Europe to become skeptical and suspicious on a political level, something is wrong. We should be America's default ally and that's beginning to crumble.
Beginning to wonder if Germany might reconsider Snowden's asylum. Would send quite a stark message, and I do think a national thank you for exposing the disgraceful surveillance of an ally's head of stated is well in order.
Oooops, Im long ranting again. I'll stop.
This stuff annoys me. America is supposed to be the good guys. :(
I was a Soldier, I've never had to shoot anyone, but I strongly agree with this. I am 95% sure that I could shoot someone if my life depended on it, but I'm 1000% sure that I would have absolutely no problems launching a missile from a drone, while I'm safely located 1000s of miles away. Hell, video-games are one of the few things I've ever been talented at.
Now, just to clarify, I would have problems if it meant that innocent people would get caught in the blast, I was purely focused on the issue of killing someone that meant to do me or any other innocent person harm.
I also agree that its far too easy for a commander/politician to order a drone strike. Often, when the military decides not to take a particular action, its because the commander doesn't want to be responsible for sending a Soldier off to die. With drone strikes, the possibility of this happening is eliminated.
While I feel that our drone program is out of control, I also feel that it could be reigned in and used in a way that's both productive and ethical. We need to place a priority on preserving innocent life, even if it is difficult. If Soldiers are on the ground, in a fire-fight, its arguable that saving their lives may involve the loss of innocent lives. That's a sad reality of war. However, when the aforementioned Soldiers are sitting in an air-conditioned building, there is no ethical dilemma that could possibly justify collateral damage. We need to reign in the drone strike program, and reserve its use for the rare opportunities where we can take out a high value target without killing innocent people.
I'm not so sure. That's probably true all things held equal, but that doesn't mean being a drone operator is any easier than being a ground soldier, psychologically.
My dad was a Marine. He was a combat engineer rather than an infantryman, but he saw his share of combat in three wars and while he absolutely hated killing people, the only way he could live with it was through the knowledge that in a combat situation, it's either you or them. That's emphatically not true for some specialties, like snipers and drone operators, and even seasoned combat veterans struggle with the moral weight of killing people without being in any danger themselves. Being in a firefight is hell but at least it feels like you're just trying to survive. Being a sniper or a drone pilot feels like you're just murdering people who pose no immediate threat to you. It's a tough thing to deal with.
It's also totally possible Bin Laden did hold up his hands. None of the points you are making really have anything to do with drones.
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-08/psychologic...
partial quote: "The dazzling clarity of the drone's optics does have a downside. As a B-1 pilot, Dan wouldn't learn details about the effects of his weapons until a post-mission briefing. But flying a drone, he sees the carnage close-up, in real time—the blood and severed body parts, the arrival of emergency responders, the anguish of friends and family. Often he's been watching the people he kills for a long time before pulling the trigger. Drone pilots become familiar with their victims. They see them in the ordinary rhythms of their lives—with their wives and friends, with their children. War by remote control turns out to be intimate and disturbing. Pilots are sometimes shaken."
In other words: similar:yes, same:no.
I agree wholeheartedly. It's good for people in the west to read stories like this from the front lines and realise the moral ambiguities and atrocities which are inevitable in wartime. If you don't like this, do something about it, and vote against any politician who proposes to continue it, because in many cases our taxes are paying for it. The UK and Germany also host drone bases used in this expanding war.
I don't agree that drones are just like any other tools of war though. There are a few important differences from say cruise missiles or artillery - they are capable of stand-off surveillance for hours before and after strikes. They don't require warships or other platforms in the theatre of war, just an air base which could be several countries away and controllers who can be a world away. Also, importantly, many of them are tasked on missions directly controlled by the President or CIA (not this operator though). I think that has changed the way this administration looks at war and made Obama a very direct military leader.
Prior to drones, it was far harder for President Obama to order a strike in say Pakistan or Yemen, based on what his intelligence handlers tell him is a terrorist, and be sure of hitting targets moving on the ground so precisely, with visual footage before and after. Because they give a feeling of omnipotence over low-tech adversaries, even if the footage is blurry and the intelligence scarily incomplete, it will be tempting to use them more and more for surveilling and attacking as one operation, in any country in the world, without really having permission or a war ongoing. It will also be tempting to use them on civilian targets like houses or groups of people in ordinary life. That's a distinct change from previous engagements which if they killed civilians were far less targeted.
Drones, and this administration's use of them, have blurred the boundaries between war and peace, and of war itself, until it seems the world is viewed as a battlefield, and the war is an eternal one against enemies who look like civilians. There hasn't even been a formal declaration of war, and pre-crime assassination has been adopted as a tool of war. That is a huge change in how we view war, partly brought about by drones and partly by the nature of the enemy the US is trying to face down in this asymmetric war.
It doesn't make it any less real, but it does make it more cowardly.
Some of the commenters on this thread sound like the people who would throw things at veterans returning from vietnam. Have we learned nothing?
Yes we have learned something: it didn't happen.
I strongly object to the last few wars both Europe and the US has been involved in, to our foreign policy and to a lot of the policies that surround these conflicts. I still think a comment about "cowardly" tactics and strategies are unwarranted. Bravery is indeed a virtue, but in deadly conflict there isn't really such a thing as "fighting cowardly". There's cautious, callous, heinous, smart and stupid -- but not really cowardly.
It's a little like a front page story a few years back in Norway, when some Norwegian troops stationed in Afghanistan were interviewed, and called the insurgents IED-tactics "cowardly". Said with a straight face by someone that had the latest equipment, aerial and satellite surveillance, areal and modern artillery support, sniper support, body armour, armoured vehicles, night vision and all other trappings of modern warfare -- fighting poorly equipped peasants that are subject to night raids where parts of entire families are boxed up and shipped across half the world never to be heard from again.
Now, I'm not saying that it wouldn't feel cowardly when one of these peasants injured or killed someone with a sneakily placed IED -- but it's just good tactics, it isn't really cowardly. I mean, there wouldn't be any more wars in these areas if the local people tried to fight "fair" whatever that is supposed to mean.
Forgive me for putting the "human cost to the operator" a very distant second in my reckoning about this issue, ie dropping bombs on people, wiping out whole generations. This is killing people, do you understand? Dropping bombs and killing people. You know, I want it to be difficult.
> Drones don't kill innocent non-combatants, people do
Well it is exactly like guns, isn't it. Guns don't kill people, people do, but guns sure make it a hell of a lot easier. There is no nation on earth that looks at America's gun culture and thinks "that is a good idea!". Same with military drones.
Drones aren't only weapon like this, they aren't unique, but it's untrue to claim they are nothing different. They are an evolution of bombers and the effects on and reactions of pilots is strikingly similar to some carpet bomber crews of WWII and Vietnam Police action.
At its core, war starts with a society or their leaders deciding that yes, they want a goal X achieved even it will require dying and killing of innocent people, and that X is more important than their lives. If the decision is made, then it doesn't really matter how the killing is executed - the main moral issue is the choice of starting a war.
> asking if a child had just run directly into the path of their shot. “And he says, ‘Per the review, it’s a dog.’ ”
Its disgusting how casualties are being counted. Rather than own it up, and admit that both civilians and kids die in a war, they redefine children as dogs, and count all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants.
This is absolute and complete horseshit.
I protest against war. I vote against war. I campaign for candidates who oppose war. I refuse to work for companies that profit from war. War happens anyway.
A soldier surveys his opportunities and realizes he can put money in his pocket from war. He votes for war. He makes fun of protesters. He fights the war. He freely spends lives and money.
Only a completely insane person would claim that the soldier and I are equally culpable. We just aren't. It's repulsive that you'd make such an ignorant and asinine assertion. I'd ask for your reasoning, but it's clear that you excluded your reasoning because there IS no valid, logical, sane underpinning to your argument.
And the comparison with Vietnam is absolutely fucking disgusting. Vietnam was a draft. Modern wars aren't fought by draftees, they're fought by low-talent assholes who think that shooting brown people sounds better than flipping burgers.
p.s. the vietnam vet spitting thing is an urban legend.
We're all responsible for the things done in our names,
Only a completely insane person would claim that the soldier and I are equally culpable.
The first statement does not imply the second.
We are all, to a greater or lesser degree, responsible for the actions of our government, and for the wars it prosecutes. You may feel powerless in your opposition to war, but if you feel outraged by that, spare some thought for those half a world away who have had their grandmother or other members of their family killed by a drone.
[EDIT - I see you've removed the reference to human filth now]
OP explicitly exempts people who voluntarily agree to fight wars for profit from blame for the wars. That is insane.
If you want to down vote me because I can't pretend to respect that sort of bullshit, that's fine; I hope it made you feel powerful to click a button and tell me off.
Oh go fuck yourself. I saw an utterly garbage argument, I responded quickly, then I edited it because my first draft had unhelpful content. "stealth edit" implies a perniciousness that simply wasn't present.
> I don't think you should insult or speculate on the character and profession of other posters
And I think that if somebody says that soldiers have no blame for war, that they're idiots, and it's ludicrous to pretend respect for them.
The general etiquette seems to be to put an "EDIT: " with either an addendum or an explanation of edits you made within your comment.
There is no implied perniciousness or anything, it's called that because you are effectively changing what people have responded to after their response.
It's sometimes frustrating when you've just realized that you've made a bit of a fool of yourself in the heat of the moment (or in your non-idomatic use of English, and come off as more of an ass-hole (or just more rude) than you might have intended, as might be the case for those of us whose native language isn't English...) -- and then having to explicitly acknowledge in a "edit: whoops, didn't mean to be offensive, sorry"-comment that you did in fact post something a little foolish, rude or just silly.
But, with the high rate of view/replies to some hn-threads, it's better to be safe than sorry, and add a small "edit:"-comment whenever you edit -- even if it's just formatting, grammar or spelling.
This is not a help.
Here's a comparison (an IAMA thread from reddit).
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ghkm7/iama_drone_sens...
Q: Have you ever had to strike a target that you were not comfortable with?
sensor_operator: No, I trust our JTACs 1000000% they really know their stuff.
While this was the top voted comment, I found it very dark. To me, what the operator was implicitly saying was that he'd target whoever his superiors told him too.
I don't get outraged. More than being outraged I think this shows a fundamental truth about humans which is that they'll kill without losing too much sleep. I'd put myself in the 'let him who is without sin cast the first stone' camp.
EDIT: Holy fuck, there is even an edit that clarifies his actual meaning, and shows I am correct (I don't know when this edit was made, I am assuming it was made before your comment). Here is the clarification he added:
"Not really, this notion that we go out and pick our own targets is the most invalid statement ever. And by JTACs controlling us, we are an extension of their capability. They are the ones with boots on the ground, the know the ground situation WAY better than anyone thousands of miles away and they are ultimately responsible for Friendly forces lives and the lives of the civilians [my emphasis]. When they give us a target and clearance the burden is always on them unless something goes wrong and we miss. Then it becomes our fault. But JTACs really do know their stuff and if I didn't trust them then I wouldn't be here today."
If these JTAC's are so great, why the 50 to 1 civilian to 'bad guy' kill ratio?
I don't trust American figures about drone strikes, but I certainly don't trust Pakistani intelligence either.
Drone pilots are dealing with the delivery on a more personal basis than much of the rest of the military, even arguably infantry soldiers.
I absolutely do not worship death, and that's a pretty inflammatory thing to say. I also think your grouping of "technology of life" vs. "technology of death" is far to simple. For one thing we are currently communicating over a medium originally designed to monitor nuclear silos.
But I also have a logical mind and I can't avoid the implication that if his JTAC was a bad apple, he'd do what the JTAC said.
JTACs are basically radio/telephone operators, and often aren't physically with the unit calling in the fires because there are more platoons than there are JTACs, so the JTAC sits at the company (or sometimes up to the brigade) HQ and handles a whole bunch of platoons at once. He takes what the ground commander says (via radio in the field), and passes that to a control center via telephone, IRC (seriously), satcom, etc. The control center then routes a plane overhead and facilitates direct contact between the pilot and JTAC (not the ground commander). The real specialty of the JTAC is speaking in both Air Force-isms and Army-isms and communicating clearly with both parties. Imagine a weird game of telephone where adding another person in the chain actually makes the message come out more clearly at the end.
So to wrap up a long story, there's a whole lot of communication being passed around and it would be awfully difficult for a JTAC to just decide "I'm going to get that family over there killed because I feel like it"
I don't think you can deduce that from the AMA. It could just as well be a PR campaign and wouldn't necessarily represent what an actual drone operator really believes.
my observation is there's no shortage of willing participants for officially sanctioned, military actions where the participants believe there will be no consequences.
And I'm not saying that as a value judgement. I'm saying that as an observation about human nature.
Hell, the guys who fletched arrows and cast musket balls were trusting they will be used justly and have always done so (or didn't care). Drone warfare really doesn't change that at all.
Fighting irregular forces does. It's far harder to be sure someone is an enemy.
Remember this? http://worldblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2009/04/17/4376383-taliba...
I assume this name came from the government/military itself, and GQ just used it without putting much thought into it, or maybe they just wanted to be sensationalist, but I'm becoming increasingly less patient and angry at these sort of Orwellian names.
Why a warrior? Why not its true meaning like "drone assassin" or even "drone terrorist". But if you really don't want to cause certain emotions (even they would be the accurate reaction to it), then you can at least call it "drone operator", I suppose, but I don't think that would do it justice. A drone operator could be someone delivering pizza by drones in the future. I'd rather they got a much more accurate, and less vague, name.
But warrior? What are they battling to deserve the honor of a warrior? The buttons on their gamepad? What's next? Calling them "drone heroes"? Don't laugh, they actually tried to give these drone assassins medals, until others in the military spoke out against it:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/15/us-usa-pentagon-me...
I think this is a very important issue that shouldn't be downplayed, because these are the sort of tools (just like the word "patriot") used to brainwash people with little education and coming from poor families, to get them to fight wars for them, and do even very immoral things, while making them feel good about themselves for doing it:
"Hey son, killing those men, their wives and children at the push of a button, made you a warrior, and you served your nation well, today!".
It disgusts me.
The somewhat objective definition of terror attacks is no longer in use.
It's one thing to kill people you are at war with(even if it's an odd war), it's another to intentionally terrorize civilian populations to not help your targets. The later, if it's actually what's going on, would be terrorism by most people's definition and very distressing.
But fear has always been used in war. Civilians have always been affected by war. Our armies aren't champions that go out and duel to decide our quarrels.
Thanks for the good definition.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/22/amnesty-us-offi...
Warrior? How dare anyone involved in this dignify themselves with such an honour-laden term. They're just murderers, and the fact they hide behind so many layers of technology just makes it all the more cowardly and despicable.
The problem is that in order to maintain the capability and infrastructure to deploy that function, and in order to offer some solace to the people we ask to carry out that function, we have to maintain the fiction that it's all very honourable.
Which leads to young people in some of the richest, most comfortable countries of the world actually volunteering to join the military, believing that they are doing a great service.
It's a despicable sham, and a horrible waste.
Any weapon is technology, so swordsman too?
Martial arts could right be considered 'technology', so the only people who are warriors are untrained people who fight... So we are talking Bar brawlers...?
Every soldier in the US military is hiding behind a plethora of technology layers... they completely outclass their opponents... yet you draw the line at drone pilots? (how are they any different from fighter pilots?... it's not like the US has ever engaged anyone capable of shooting them down)
Even if a killing seems justified, killing someone is not "more moral" than plenty of other daily activities. What (historically) distinguished the warrior is the personal physical risk he faced. Taking physical risk for good cause has always been honored.
I can just see Saladins PR minster issuing self serving press releases about how these franks stand 200 yards away and shoot the lightly armourd cavalry to bits.
Though haven't heard of anti longbow campaigns it was Crossbows that there was an attempt to ban by the church - did you know the first war crimes trial dates from the 1300's
This one guy (part of the largest group ever inducted as drone pilots) killed 1,626 people, and that figure won't include the civilians near the targets, who were often at home or travelling with their families. The real figure is probably 2-3 times that.
“We’re gonna shoot and collapse the building. They’ve gotten intel that the guy is inside.”...Bryant stared at the screen, frozen. “There’s this giant flash, and all of a sudden there’s no person there.” He looked over at the pilot and asked, “Did that look like a child to you?” They typed a chat message to their screener, an intelligence observer who was watching the shot from “somewhere in the world”—maybe Bagram, maybe the Pentagon, Bryant had no idea—asking if a child had just run directly into the path of their shot. “And he says, ‘Per the review, it’s a dog.’ ”Bryant and the pilot replayed the shot, recorded on eight-millimeter tape. They watched it over and over, the figure darting around the corner. Bryant was certain it wasn’t a dog.
What I find most troubling about this is that:
This program has been expanded to Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan already, and the same legal justification given for killing in Pakistan with no trial or even proper investigation could be given for a drone killing in Idaho. There is no limit to this war in time or space.
Even if you are on a battlefield, killing of non-uniformed and unarmed combatants is illegal under the Geneva conventions - you're supposed to avoid civilian casualties - clearly targeting houses and markets etc doesn't do that.
People who have not been positively identified as combattants and are away from any battlefield are killed without trial, without counsel, without charges and without official remorse if there was a mistake or they were innocent.
The distance created by the drone and the lack of risk to US personnel gives a very real risk that substantial abuse of this method of killing will occur. What if the US withdraws from Afghanistan/Pakistan/Iraq, but continues to kill from a distance? What if they expand the war to other countries and don't tell anyone (JSOC is in 100 countries)? All this has been done without even declaring war.
This drone pilot deserves to be recognised for at least having the courage to speak up about what he was asked to do, about the mistakes made.
The book Dirty Wars is definitely worth reading if you are interested in finding out more about US drone programs.
"This program has been expanded to Yemen, Somalia,
Pakistan"
We cannot state that we are a moral/ethical nation of laws with a justice system and routinely deny others a day in court because they are not living in this country. Last I checked, Congress has not declared war in Yemen, Somalia or Pakistan, so what are we doing conducting a war there. Exterminating someone without trial from the skies is not a police action.
Indeed, most of the people I hear glorifying war and the military in general have never seen combat. Most of the people I know who have seen combat, don't like to talk about it at all.
Also there is some bias in the representation of the way the "drone systems" are perfectly working (they are not faultless obliviously) and they are certainly NOT the uber-over-mega weapons the stories make them to appear. This has implications:
1.) collateral damage is quite common
2.) the insurgents learn to "fight" them over time (this will not be reported on)
Pure technocratic minds may wonder about the "latencies" and the infrastructure involved...BUT just watch the skies at the next protest and remember the first time "just" tear gas got very precisely administered to a crowd.
The sad part as always: convincing the "political" circle in the US is not enough, the huge weapons industry needs to be provided with some replacement idea/product/contracts should the killing drones become banished or more controlled.
ps: i'd love to see the good old RATM create a song out the first few paragraphs of this gq text; proposed working title:
“missile off the rail”
/edit: typos
The problems is not the cowardly weapons but the ... I don't know how to explain it precisely - the ease and recklessness with which the US army is deployed outside of the US territory.
In a decade or two tanks and soldiers might be remote controlled too, and between nations fighting their playstation-wars there will still be innocent civilians.
Meanwhile, civilians are over there, just waiting for the game of Playstation to end.
If you care enough about an issue, you aren't going to let it be decided by a formalized game ... well, if you lose the formalized game. You are going to keep fighting at least until the cost outweighs the benefit.
Can someone elaborate on how these decisions are made?
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indirect_fire for a typical decision making process.
The significant change here isn't that the distance is three orders of magnitude greater, or the required number of projectiles two orders of magnitude fewer. The sensor operator sees what he is doing and the effect. He is not in danger, he is not in a kill or be killed situation, but is called on to kill and observe the results. It is different psychological territory from where most combat soldiers operate.
The result of the explosion is the same, but the impact on the soldier is vastly different. In general, a standard healthy homo sapiens isn't really psychologically suited for killing others and handling it well, and thus most of the article is not about the killing but about living with your conscience afterwards.
"The president's underlings compile their proposed lists of who should be executed, and the president - at a charming weekly event dubbed by White House aides as "Terror Tuesday" - then chooses from "baseball cards" and decrees in total secrecy who should die. The power of accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner are all consolidated in this one man, and those powers are exercised in the dark."
There is no longer even the pretence that the US and it's allies are the "good guys" (it was a shallow cover to start with..), now it's just the naked execution of power with an attached "what you going to do about it" to the rest of the world.
It would be war crimes if we where at sodding war.
The reactions in this thread demonstrate the classic uneasiness with killing a few people while being okay with killing lots of people. The people complaining about drones likely had nothing to say about Clinton lobbing cruise missiles into downtown Belgrade.
A nation spends money on defense for precisely this reason, to produce an asymmetry in that's nation's capabilities compared to all others. It's an explicit design goal! Your argument can be applied to all new technology being developed for defense in all countries-- consequently, I don't think you'll find much support for this line of argument.
It is not a good thing that people can drive to a strip mall in Americana, spend all day killing people in a video-game like reality, and get away with it with impunity. This is industrialized murder, and your justification is exactly the kind of point of view that must be thwarted in a just, honest, ethical society..
What you have problem is the ease with which US deploys stuff and not the fact that there are less corpses coming home.
So change Washington. Not the drones.
I put to you that the USA has become one of the most violent cultures in the world, precisely because technology has allowed ignorance and hatred to fill in where education has failed. Or, at the very least, where once we educate ourselves, we nevertheless submit to those who would use violence to maintain their power; certainly it seems that the USA is in the grips of the very groups that, were the American people better educated, would never succeed. It is the technology of death - and those who profit from it - who poison the well of human decency, who undermine all education in order to prosper from their heinous endeavours.
Huh?
People 'complaining about drones' are very likely the same people that 'complained' about the other unjustified wars and bomb/missile attacks over the last 60 years. But Clinton is what you're going with here...really?
Almost every European has family members who can recall ww2 and the area bombing which no civilian Americans experienced.
What a smug remark. And who is okay with killing lots of people? Citation please!
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties#Deaths_c...
>And yet the very idea of drones unsettles. They’re too easy a placeholder or avatar for all of our technological anxieties—the creeping sense that screens and cameras have taken some piece of our souls, that we’ve slipped into a dystopia of disconnection. Maybe it’s too soon to know what drones mean, what unconsidered moral and ethical burdens they carry. Even their shape is sinister: the blunt and featureless nose cone, like some eyeless creature that has evolved in darkness.
I'm not sure how to feel about drone warfare myself but I think the media spinning narratives like the above (note that this comes from the author and not the subject of the article) only serves to legitimize disliking drone warfare on emotional grounds. That is an undesirable thing, if only because it discourages people from even considering the downsides to the alternatives.
This satirical piece titled What if drone warfare had come first? might serve as a counterpoint: https://squid314.livejournal.com/338607.html (scroll down to the italicized description the scene). It may seem way over the top, especially in contrast with the OP article, but I think it gets the point across pretty well.
(Distance from Carson City, Nevada to Kabul, Afghanistan) / The speed of light = 39.3783 milliseconds
* For the fire order from the command central to the drone.
* For the missile from drone to target.
I'd guess the later is greater than the former.
> and they get killed?
military drones, a projection of American power that won’t risk American lives.
I'd say that the collateral damage caused by "Signature Strikes" is as an effective terrorist recruiting agent as is burning some old religious books.
This is your opinion, but I think you are wrong. The most tense times as a coalition soldier in the Middle East for me were shortly after some idiot burned Korans (in Florida?). This pissed every civilian off.
When a lone soldier went off his rocker and heinously killed a bunch of civilians the only civilians that were upset were those related to the dead and some who lived in the same area.
This is anecdotal but I really got the impression that burning 'old religious books' was a much bigger deal to far more people (at least in Afghanistan) than even randomly, purposefully, killing of someone of another tribe.
I sincerely hope this survey is wrong, though something tells me it isn't...
It's disgusting. Then again, it's for "defence" so it's OK.
If a nuclear holocaust is coming, we more than deserve it, some more than others.
1) Building the guns/drones 2) Pulling the trigger of the guns/drones 3) Telling others to pull the trigger.
No one in that chain is less responsible than the other.
Or using human shields and violating the red cross /crescent both of which are war crimes not woo it's a drone so it must be bad