11 ms·

Drone pilots could be experiencing 'sniper's syndrome'

32 points by goodcanadian 7y ago

anigbrowl 7y ago
The other day a drone in Afghanistan killed 30 civilians. Rather than being ISIS members holding a meeting, they were pine nut farmers gathering around a fire to relax after their day's work. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-attack-drones/u-s-drone-strike-kills-30-pine-nut-farm-workers-in-afghanistan-idUSKBN1W40NW https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-attack-drones... I don't really give a fuck about the psychological condition of the drone pilots except insofar as it puts their children at risk. They and their commanders should feel ashamed to look other people in the eye.
- golergka 7y ago
  Then you really lack perspective on what any warfare is: it's always critical, life or death decisions that have to be taken without sufficient information. US civilian to combatant casualty ratio in the recent conflicts have been significantly better than any other modern wars as well. So, what do you suggest instead?
  - devoply 7y ago
    Goldstein is dead. The war is over. Stop killing Afghans. Let me sort their own issues and politics out. If you are worried about them coming to your country and messing with you then stop all Saudis from coming to your country... you can also ban Afghans if it makes you feel better. It's like really what are the hoping to gain from all of this. The people resent you as much as anyone can resent anyone else. The government is a puppet government. The country is fractured beyond repair. It's highly lawless. It's like yes if we can just prevent people from gathering in the Middle of nowhere they can't conspire against us. While most of their enemies came from their greatest ally in which country they can do as they please. This war is a massive Orwellian joke.
    - tomohawk 7y ago
      The US did overreact and attempted to do nation building in Afghanistan. But your prescription for letting them sort things out on their own has already been tried, and it was a colossal failure. The government hosted terrorist organizations who killed thousands of people in the US and mounted attacks on civilians of many nationalities around the world.
      - devoply 7y ago
        You mean the US has been sitting there since the 70s. Trained a bunch of militants there who eventually turned on their colonial masters using them for brute force to fight the Soviets, don't you? The government who hosted the terrorist organization in Afghanistan then could be said to be the US.
        harimau777 7y ago
        I'm not sure that's a fair characterization. Regardless of whether the US should have gotten involved or should have seen future problems coming, my understanding is that at the time that the US was supporting the Mujahideen they were attacking military targets and where therefore guerrilla fighters, not terrorists.
        devoply 7y ago
        It's funny how brainwashed most Americans are about this conflict, we might as well as be living in 1984's world. Have you heard the ancient saying one man's freedom fighter, another man's terrorist? What would happen if no terrorists had been trained by the US (and their Islamic puppet that wags the dog, Saudi Arabia)? The Soviet Union would have fallen and Afghanistan would be a normal country like its neighbors. > After Taraki was murdered the new Afghan Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin repeated requests for Soviet military support, at least to protect his residence. Finally, in December the Politburo decided to deal with the situation in Afghanistan,[8] and in early December sent special forces which attacked Amin's palace and killed him, putting the exiled Babrak Kamal in his place. These forces were subsequently reinforced by the 40th Army which entered Afghanistan on 24 December 1979. As the Kremlin foresaw, this intervention would cause problems around the world for the USSR, with the policy of detente and, not least, at the forthcoming Olympic Games due to take place in summer 1980 in Moscow.[9] The result was a far-reaching boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, supported not only by the United States but by many of the 65 other invited countries that did not take part. > At its greatest extent the Soviet military contingent in Afghanistan numbered 100,000 personnel. This presence remained for a decade and kickstarted U.S. and Saudi funding for Islamic Mujahideen groups opposed to both the Afghan government and the Soviet military presence. The local Mujahideen, along with fighters from several different Arab nations (Pathan tribes from across the border also participated in the war; they were supported by the Pakistani ISI), fought the Soviet forces to a standstill. On 24 January 1989 Gorbachev's Politburo took the decision to withdraw most of the Soviet forces,[10] while continuing to provide military assistance to the Afghan government.[11] Eventually, in-fighting within the Mujahideen led to the rise of warlords in Afghanistan, and from them emerged the Taliban.[12] The Soviets left behind the only highway in the country as well as many concrete structures built in the major cities, and airfields that are still in use (e.g. at Bagram).
  - elif 7y ago
    >life or death decisions that have to be taken without sufficient information. Sounds like you're describing warfare before Geneva conventions or the somehow permitted US war crimes to me.
    - harimau777 7y ago
      I'm not sure that I understand your argument. War consisted of making life or death decisions based on insufficient information both before and after the Geneva conventions.
      - elif 7y ago
        Of course on the battlefield incorrect decisions must be made. However, drone strikes like the Afghan farmers do not fit that criteria. The decision did not /have/ to be made. It was a voluntary assassination.
    - mieseratte 7y ago
      When did the Taliban sign on to Geneva?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - elif 7y ago
        Not only does your logic bending (to for some reason avoid the basis of wartime morality?) fail in its own premise as the Taliban is not allowed to meet your standard as they are not a sovereign nation able to be a signatory, the convention itself does not work as you imply: "this Protocol must be fully applied in all circumstances to all persons who are protected by those instruments, without any adverse distinction based on the nature or origin of the armed conflict"
      - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
        Random Afghani civilians are not the Taliban. (Aside from the fact that the Geneva Convention doesn't work that way, as the other guy pointed out.)
  - hackeer 7y ago
    Shooting people from a drone is definitely not a life or death decision. And doing it just because they look like criminals is not a casualty of war, it's outright murder. Any cop would be in death row for pulling something like this in American Soil.
    - glloydell 7y ago
      A cop who followed the same regulations and rules of engagement as a soldier would be committing a crime. Because they have entirely different jobs, in entirely different contexts, with entirely different rules, serving entirely different purposes.
      - rasz 7y ago
        sure https://boingboing.net/2019/09/27/breakdown-of-how-sacramento-po.html https://boingboing.net/2019/09/27/breakdown-of-how-sacrament...
        glloydell 7y ago
        Precisely! Soldiers in an active military zone would almost certainly not be subject to any scrutiny or investigation for fatally shooting someone who they believed to be armed in the same situation. Thanks for the supporting evidence!!!!
    - mieseratte 7y ago
      > Any cop would be in death row for pulling something like this in American Soil. That’s a dubious claim.
      - hackeer 7y ago
        I meant to say He would be granted a paid leave.
  - journalctl 7y ago
    Have we considered maybe _not_ killing them?
    - mieseratte 7y ago
      Welcome to war. Bad intel kills good people. I would be more concerned with the classification of any male over 16 killed in a strike as an automatic combatant than a single given operation gone wrong. This is an unavoidable aspect of war.
      - c0nducktr 7y ago
        Thankfully, we can be concerned about more than one thing at a time. And this isn't a single operation gone wrong, there's been 10s if not 100s of these incidents. Framing it as a "single operation gone wrong" is ignorant at best.
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    Why was a bunch of dudes sitting around a fire a "critical, life or death decision" that couldn't wait for "sufficient information"? Total war was justified in WW2 when the Allies were facing a potentially existential threat. It was us or them. That has never been the case in Afghanistan.
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    If another nation's military had accidentally murdered 30 American civilians because they didn't wait for sufficient information, you'd be crying out for blood.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    I've been in multiple life and death situations thanks, and I am acutely aware of the complex calculus of war. I don't think drone warfare should be used against civilian targets, military ones are OK. If you want to assassinate people outside of regular military conflict, do it in person.
    - golergka 7y ago
      The entire point is being unsure if the target is civilian or a military one.
      - anigbrowl 7y ago
        You know what definitely is a valid military target? The drone operators and the facilities they work out of. If you care about them so much, maybe you should bend your efforts to reducing their moral culpability and think about the strategic logic of the entire mission, which has now killed 10 times more Afghan civilians than died on 9/11, in a country with 1/10 the population of ours, so as to lower the probability of their being selected as a target. How much longer is the US going to continue trying to win hearts and minds by throwing the most highly equipped military force on the planet at lightly armed peasants, while ignoring the fact that they probably feel just as pissed off about their friends, family, and selves being blown up as we do about ours, and by now have suffered far more than the original injury we are still attempting to retaliate for? There are now kids old enough to sign up for the military who were born after 9/11 and for whom the US has always been at war with Afghanistan, and your moral gymnastics serve only to perpetuate that while foreclosing any inquiry they might conduct as citizens rather than soldiers.
- tomohawk 7y ago
  Or did they... https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2019/09/afghan-officials-identify-aqis-members-killed-in-controversial-musa-qala-raid.php https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2019/09/afghan-offic...
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    Don't act like we don't kill huge numbers of civilians. We've killed more civilians in Afghanistan in the last 3 years than there are ISIS fighters in the country.
- glloydell 7y ago
  Your comment strikes me as textbook dehumanization of the drone pilots. "Dehumanizing the enemy involves denying the enemy’s humanity by negating in the enemy the characteristics normally associated with human beings, such as morality and compassion, and instead associating the enemy with acts of evil and depravity that merit forceful action and retaliation." https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-war-social-science-perspectives/i5961.xml https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-wa... The irony here is pretty intense.
  - glogla 7y ago
    Have the drone pilots not thrown their humanity away willingly? I think there's s difference between doubting humanity of someone because of skin color or sexual orientation or natinality or whatever, and someone who voluntarily became a murderer as a day job. The pilots can stop killing people any day. They continually chose not to.
    - harimau777 7y ago
      I don't think that we have sufficient evidence to draw that conclusion. It is likely that the drone pilots believe that they are fighting on the right side. Perhaps a more profitable line of discussion would be: On what basis would you say that this constitutes murder?
    - glloydell 7y ago
      Do you believe that there is ever a justification for taking human life?
      - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
        Well, self defence and protection of loved ones is the obvious one. Then goes the spectrum. Suppose someone is taking your property, can you employ violence to protect it? What if there is 1% risk of death to the thief? What if its 10%?
        7y ago
- golemiprague 7y ago
  What it got to do with drones? assuming the report is correct which I doubt, a lot of civilians got killed in wars even before drones got into the arena. If anything, overall drones helps a lot with verifying viable targets compared to times when commanders didn't have those eyes in the sky.
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  At least place the blame where is belongs, drone pilots don't get to choose who to kill. I don't think they recruit with "bombing Afghan farmers is great fun!"
  - rasz 7y ago
    >I don't think they recruit with "bombing Afghan farmers is great fun!" Why would you not think that???!?! "Recruited at video game fairs by military leaders who know the value of games that glamourise 'militainment' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGA8RFB0VSw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGA8RFB0VSw
    - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
      Damn...
jedimastert 7y ago
The title should be more explicit about the fact that they're talking about "military drones" as opposed to quad-copters, which was my first thought. It's pretty obvious at first glance after the first click, but still... As far as the article itself, it feels somewhat worrying that the people who implemented these programs didn't think people would be bothered about killing other people. Someone had to have thought of that.
- OrgNet 7y ago
  those mini drones are pretty cool too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw
- scoot 7y ago
  For "quad-coptor" substitute multi-rotor (not all are quads). The fact that you associate the term "drone" with hobby aircraft is a sad inditement of todays "press", who, in their attempt to demonise said multi-rotors (or to downplay the rise of the military drone?) have managed to confuse the general public as to the difference.
  - prawn 7y ago
    I think you ascribe too much malice to the press here. Drone is what the public understand them to be called. I fly a drone and that's the term used by everyone who raises the topic with me. I don't know that they led by the press, though it'd obviously be a feedback loop.
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    I consider press super-ignorant, rather than malevolent, but I sympathise with your frustration.
- leonidasv 7y ago
  I don't think it isn't clear. Reading "drone pilot" along with "sniper" instantly gave me the idea that the article was talking about military personnel and not hobbyists, long before I clicked.
devoply 7y ago
Well the US government, bastion of freedom and human rights can't have this can they? Time to replace people with AI and machines and Google is here to help.
- throwaway9980 7y ago
  I doubt it. Google seems to be on an inexorable path towards becoming a corporate nation state. They’re going to need those weapons when the time for secession arrives.
- brokenmachine 7y ago
  Just wait... soon the Captchas will be aerial pictures of Afghanistan. "To access this site, please click on all the boxes that contain males over 16 years old".
tehjoker 7y ago
Love how the perspective of this argument is that instead of drone pilots succumbing to a real sense that what they are doing is unjustifiable, this guy is an "ethicist" that is attempting to say that we need to find a way to train morality out of people so they can push remote kill buttons and feel fine.
- ambulancechaser 7y ago
  that reminds me of a suggestion of where to keep nuclear codes: > My suggestion was quite simple: Put that needed code number in a little capsule, and then implant that capsule right next to the heart of a volunteer. The volunteer would carry with him a big, heavy butcher knife as he accompanied the President. If ever the President wanted to fire nuclear weapons, the only way he could do so would be for him first, with his own hands, to kill one human being. The President says, "George, I'm sorry but tens of millions must die." He has to look at someone and realize what death is—what an innocent death is. Blood on the White House carpet. It's reality brought home. > When I suggested this to friends in the Pentagon they said, "My God, that's terrible. Having to kill someone would distort the President's judgment. He might never push the button." > — Roger Fisher, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1981 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Fisher_(academic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Fisher_(academic)
  - tmb 7y ago
    Direct link to article https://books.google.com/books?id=ygoAAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA16&ots=oVkrzABnMr&pg=PA11#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=ygoAAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA16&ots=...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- matz1 7y ago
  Or just hire people who has different moral values. Is it so difficult to find? I personally don't have the problem pushing the kill button.
techntoke 7y ago
In other news, murderers experience some guilt. Government neglects Vietnam vets yet allowed to prey on vulnerable high school students.
mnm1 7y ago
They are human beings killing people on command in an unjust situation. They should feel bad. They should be mentally hurt. They shouldn't just go about their lives like they completed a level in a videogame. This is what it means to be human and what it means to murder someone. All the bullshit justifications aside, it's impossible to keep rationalizing all the killings of the last seventy plus years. At least from a US perspective, we haven't been in a just war since WWII. The operators know this. So good. Maybe this will make the armed forces think twice about deploying such murderous technologies. I doubt it. But at least, hopefully less people will volunteer for sure murderous roles and missions. Once can only hope.
stygiansonic 7y ago
There was a movie, Good Kill, that came out a few years ago. Its plot dealt with similar topics.
mieseratte 7y ago
Does anyone have an interesting perspective to discuss, or all we just going to pile on our politicized opinions of the validity of the Afghanistan War?
drtillberg 7y ago
> ... if a UAV campaign is part of a war that has a justified cause, the use of force is necessary and proportionate to the threat posed by the enemy, the UAV pilot's actions can be seen as potentially justified. Maybe part of the problem is that the drone killings are occurring in a nontraditional conflict with no formal declaration of war and remote or conjectural threats to the territory of the United States....

32 points by goodcanadian 7y ago

The other day a drone in Afghanistan killed 30 civilians. Rather than being ISIS members holding a meeting, they were pine nut farmers gathering around a fire to relax after their day's work. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-attack-drones/u-s-drone-strike-kills-30-pine-nut-farm-workers-in-afghanistan-idUSKBN1W40NW https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-attack-drones... I don't really give a fuck about the psychological condition of the drone pilots except insofar as it puts their children at risk. They and their commanders should feel ashamed to look other people in the eye.

golergka 7y ago
Then you really lack perspective on what any warfare is: it's always critical, life or death decisions that have to be taken without sufficient information. US civilian to combatant casualty ratio in the recent conflicts have been significantly better than any other modern wars as well. So, what do you suggest instead?
- devoply 7y ago
  Goldstein is dead. The war is over. Stop killing Afghans. Let me sort their own issues and politics out. If you are worried about them coming to your country and messing with you then stop all Saudis from coming to your country... you can also ban Afghans if it makes you feel better. It's like really what are the hoping to gain from all of this. The people resent you as much as anyone can resent anyone else. The government is a puppet government. The country is fractured beyond repair. It's highly lawless. It's like yes if we can just prevent people from gathering in the Middle of nowhere they can't conspire against us. While most of their enemies came from their greatest ally in which country they can do as they please. This war is a massive Orwellian joke.
  - tomohawk 7y ago
    The US did overreact and attempted to do nation building in Afghanistan. But your prescription for letting them sort things out on their own has already been tried, and it was a colossal failure. The government hosted terrorist organizations who killed thousands of people in the US and mounted attacks on civilians of many nationalities around the world.
    - devoply 7y ago
      You mean the US has been sitting there since the 70s. Trained a bunch of militants there who eventually turned on their colonial masters using them for brute force to fight the Soviets, don't you? The government who hosted the terrorist organization in Afghanistan then could be said to be the US.
      - harimau777 7y ago
        I'm not sure that's a fair characterization. Regardless of whether the US should have gotten involved or should have seen future problems coming, my understanding is that at the time that the US was supporting the Mujahideen they were attacking military targets and where therefore guerrilla fighters, not terrorists.
        devoply 7y ago
        It's funny how brainwashed most Americans are about this conflict, we might as well as be living in 1984's world. Have you heard the ancient saying one man's freedom fighter, another man's terrorist? What would happen if no terrorists had been trained by the US (and their Islamic puppet that wags the dog, Saudi Arabia)? The Soviet Union would have fallen and Afghanistan would be a normal country like its neighbors. > After Taraki was murdered the new Afghan Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin repeated requests for Soviet military support, at least to protect his residence. Finally, in December the Politburo decided to deal with the situation in Afghanistan,[8] and in early December sent special forces which attacked Amin's palace and killed him, putting the exiled Babrak Kamal in his place. These forces were subsequently reinforced by the 40th Army which entered Afghanistan on 24 December 1979. As the Kremlin foresaw, this intervention would cause problems around the world for the USSR, with the policy of detente and, not least, at the forthcoming Olympic Games due to take place in summer 1980 in Moscow.[9] The result was a far-reaching boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, supported not only by the United States but by many of the 65 other invited countries that did not take part. > At its greatest extent the Soviet military contingent in Afghanistan numbered 100,000 personnel. This presence remained for a decade and kickstarted U.S. and Saudi funding for Islamic Mujahideen groups opposed to both the Afghan government and the Soviet military presence. The local Mujahideen, along with fighters from several different Arab nations (Pathan tribes from across the border also participated in the war; they were supported by the Pakistani ISI), fought the Soviet forces to a standstill. On 24 January 1989 Gorbachev's Politburo took the decision to withdraw most of the Soviet forces,[10] while continuing to provide military assistance to the Afghan government.[11] Eventually, in-fighting within the Mujahideen led to the rise of warlords in Afghanistan, and from them emerged the Taliban.[12] The Soviets left behind the only highway in the country as well as many concrete structures built in the major cities, and airfields that are still in use (e.g. at Bagram).
- elif 7y ago
  >life or death decisions that have to be taken without sufficient information. Sounds like you're describing warfare before Geneva conventions or the somehow permitted US war crimes to me.
  - harimau777 7y ago
    I'm not sure that I understand your argument. War consisted of making life or death decisions based on insufficient information both before and after the Geneva conventions.
    - elif 7y ago
      Of course on the battlefield incorrect decisions must be made. However, drone strikes like the Afghan farmers do not fit that criteria. The decision did not /have/ to be made. It was a voluntary assassination.
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    When did the Taliban sign on to Geneva?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - elif 7y ago
      Not only does your logic bending (to for some reason avoid the basis of wartime morality?) fail in its own premise as the Taliban is not allowed to meet your standard as they are not a sovereign nation able to be a signatory, the convention itself does not work as you imply: "this Protocol must be fully applied in all circumstances to all persons who are protected by those instruments, without any adverse distinction based on the nature or origin of the armed conflict"
    - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
      Random Afghani civilians are not the Taliban. (Aside from the fact that the Geneva Convention doesn't work that way, as the other guy pointed out.)
- hackeer 7y ago
  Shooting people from a drone is definitely not a life or death decision. And doing it just because they look like criminals is not a casualty of war, it's outright murder. Any cop would be in death row for pulling something like this in American Soil.
  - glloydell 7y ago
    A cop who followed the same regulations and rules of engagement as a soldier would be committing a crime. Because they have entirely different jobs, in entirely different contexts, with entirely different rules, serving entirely different purposes.
    - rasz 7y ago
      sure https://boingboing.net/2019/09/27/breakdown-of-how-sacramento-po.html https://boingboing.net/2019/09/27/breakdown-of-how-sacrament...
      - glloydell 7y ago
        Precisely! Soldiers in an active military zone would almost certainly not be subject to any scrutiny or investigation for fatally shooting someone who they believed to be armed in the same situation. Thanks for the supporting evidence!!!!
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    > Any cop would be in death row for pulling something like this in American Soil. That’s a dubious claim.
    - hackeer 7y ago
      I meant to say He would be granted a paid leave.
- journalctl 7y ago
  Have we considered maybe _not_ killing them?
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    Welcome to war. Bad intel kills good people. I would be more concerned with the classification of any male over 16 killed in a strike as an automatic combatant than a single given operation gone wrong. This is an unavoidable aspect of war.
    - c0nducktr 7y ago
      Thankfully, we can be concerned about more than one thing at a time. And this isn't a single operation gone wrong, there's been 10s if not 100s of these incidents. Framing it as a "single operation gone wrong" is ignorant at best.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  Why was a bunch of dudes sitting around a fire a "critical, life or death decision" that couldn't wait for "sufficient information"? Total war was justified in WW2 when the Allies were facing a potentially existential threat. It was us or them. That has never been the case in Afghanistan.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  If another nation's military had accidentally murdered 30 American civilians because they didn't wait for sufficient information, you'd be crying out for blood.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  I've been in multiple life and death situations thanks, and I am acutely aware of the complex calculus of war. I don't think drone warfare should be used against civilian targets, military ones are OK. If you want to assassinate people outside of regular military conflict, do it in person.
  - golergka 7y ago
    The entire point is being unsure if the target is civilian or a military one.
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      You know what definitely is a valid military target? The drone operators and the facilities they work out of. If you care about them so much, maybe you should bend your efforts to reducing their moral culpability and think about the strategic logic of the entire mission, which has now killed 10 times more Afghan civilians than died on 9/11, in a country with 1/10 the population of ours, so as to lower the probability of their being selected as a target. How much longer is the US going to continue trying to win hearts and minds by throwing the most highly equipped military force on the planet at lightly armed peasants, while ignoring the fact that they probably feel just as pissed off about their friends, family, and selves being blown up as we do about ours, and by now have suffered far more than the original injury we are still attempting to retaliate for? There are now kids old enough to sign up for the military who were born after 9/11 and for whom the US has always been at war with Afghanistan, and your moral gymnastics serve only to perpetuate that while foreclosing any inquiry they might conduct as citizens rather than soldiers.
tomohawk 7y ago
Or did they... https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2019/09/afghan-officials-identify-aqis-members-killed-in-controversial-musa-qala-raid.php https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2019/09/afghan-offic...
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  Don't act like we don't kill huge numbers of civilians. We've killed more civilians in Afghanistan in the last 3 years than there are ISIS fighters in the country.
glloydell 7y ago
Your comment strikes me as textbook dehumanization of the drone pilots. "Dehumanizing the enemy involves denying the enemy’s humanity by negating in the enemy the characteristics normally associated with human beings, such as morality and compassion, and instead associating the enemy with acts of evil and depravity that merit forceful action and retaliation." https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-war-social-science-perspectives/i5961.xml https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-wa... The irony here is pretty intense.
- glogla 7y ago
  Have the drone pilots not thrown their humanity away willingly? I think there's s difference between doubting humanity of someone because of skin color or sexual orientation or natinality or whatever, and someone who voluntarily became a murderer as a day job. The pilots can stop killing people any day. They continually chose not to.
  - harimau777 7y ago
    I don't think that we have sufficient evidence to draw that conclusion. It is likely that the drone pilots believe that they are fighting on the right side. Perhaps a more profitable line of discussion would be: On what basis would you say that this constitutes murder?
  - glloydell 7y ago
    Do you believe that there is ever a justification for taking human life?
    - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
      Well, self defence and protection of loved ones is the obvious one. Then goes the spectrum. Suppose someone is taking your property, can you employ violence to protect it? What if there is 1% risk of death to the thief? What if its 10%?
      - 7y ago
golemiprague 7y ago
What it got to do with drones? assuming the report is correct which I doubt, a lot of civilians got killed in wars even before drones got into the arena. If anything, overall drones helps a lot with verifying viable targets compared to times when commanders didn't have those eyes in the sky.
ClumsyPilot 7y ago
At least place the blame where is belongs, drone pilots don't get to choose who to kill. I don't think they recruit with "bombing Afghan farmers is great fun!"
- rasz 7y ago
  >I don't think they recruit with "bombing Afghan farmers is great fun!" Why would you not think that???!?! "Recruited at video game fairs by military leaders who know the value of games that glamourise 'militainment' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGA8RFB0VSw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGA8RFB0VSw
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    Damn...

jedimastert 7y ago

The title should be more explicit about the fact that they're talking about "military drones" as opposed to quad-copters, which was my first thought. It's pretty obvious at first glance after the first click, but still... As far as the article itself, it feels somewhat worrying that the people who implemented these programs didn't think people would be bothered about killing other people. Someone had to have thought of that.

OrgNet 7y ago
those mini drones are pretty cool too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw
scoot 7y ago
For "quad-coptor" substitute multi-rotor (not all are quads). The fact that you associate the term "drone" with hobby aircraft is a sad inditement of todays "press", who, in their attempt to demonise said multi-rotors (or to downplay the rise of the military drone?) have managed to confuse the general public as to the difference.
- prawn 7y ago
  I think you ascribe too much malice to the press here. Drone is what the public understand them to be called. I fly a drone and that's the term used by everyone who raises the topic with me. I don't know that they led by the press, though it'd obviously be a feedback loop.
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  I consider press super-ignorant, rather than malevolent, but I sympathise with your frustration.
leonidasv 7y ago
I don't think it isn't clear. Reading "drone pilot" along with "sniper" instantly gave me the idea that the article was talking about military personnel and not hobbyists, long before I clicked.

devoply 7y ago

Well the US government, bastion of freedom and human rights can't have this can they? Time to replace people with AI and machines and Google is here to help.

throwaway9980 7y ago
I doubt it. Google seems to be on an inexorable path towards becoming a corporate nation state. They’re going to need those weapons when the time for secession arrives.
brokenmachine 7y ago
Just wait... soon the Captchas will be aerial pictures of Afghanistan. "To access this site, please click on all the boxes that contain males over 16 years old".

tehjoker 7y ago

Love how the perspective of this argument is that instead of drone pilots succumbing to a real sense that what they are doing is unjustifiable, this guy is an "ethicist" that is attempting to say that we need to find a way to train morality out of people so they can push remote kill buttons and feel fine.

ambulancechaser 7y ago
that reminds me of a suggestion of where to keep nuclear codes: > My suggestion was quite simple: Put that needed code number in a little capsule, and then implant that capsule right next to the heart of a volunteer. The volunteer would carry with him a big, heavy butcher knife as he accompanied the President. If ever the President wanted to fire nuclear weapons, the only way he could do so would be for him first, with his own hands, to kill one human being. The President says, "George, I'm sorry but tens of millions must die." He has to look at someone and realize what death is—what an innocent death is. Blood on the White House carpet. It's reality brought home. > When I suggested this to friends in the Pentagon they said, "My God, that's terrible. Having to kill someone would distort the President's judgment. He might never push the button." > — Roger Fisher, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1981 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Fisher_(academic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Fisher_(academic)
- tmb 7y ago
  Direct link to article https://books.google.com/books?id=ygoAAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA16&ots=oVkrzABnMr&pg=PA11#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=ygoAAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA16&ots=...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
matz1 7y ago
Or just hire people who has different moral values. Is it so difficult to find? I personally don't have the problem pushing the kill button.

techntoke 7y ago

In other news, murderers experience some guilt. Government neglects Vietnam vets yet allowed to prey on vulnerable high school students.

mnm1 7y ago

They are human beings killing people on command in an unjust situation. They should feel bad. They should be mentally hurt. They shouldn't just go about their lives like they completed a level in a videogame. This is what it means to be human and what it means to murder someone. All the bullshit justifications aside, it's impossible to keep rationalizing all the killings of the last seventy plus years. At least from a US perspective, we haven't been in a just war since WWII. The operators know this. So good. Maybe this will make the armed forces think twice about deploying such murderous technologies. I doubt it. But at least, hopefully less people will volunteer for sure murderous roles and missions. Once can only hope.

stygiansonic 7y ago

There was a movie, Good Kill, that came out a few years ago. Its plot dealt with similar topics.

mieseratte 7y ago

Does anyone have an interesting perspective to discuss, or all we just going to pile on our politicized opinions of the validity of the Afghanistan War?

drtillberg 7y ago

> ... if a UAV campaign is part of a war that has a justified cause, the use of force is necessary and proportionate to the threat posed by the enemy, the UAV pilot's actions can be seen as potentially justified. Maybe part of the problem is that the drone killings are occurring in a nontraditional conflict with no formal declaration of war and remote or conjectural threats to the territory of the United States....