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Confessions of a Drone Warrior

152 points by JanLaussmann 13y ago

ArikBe 13y ago
> He was told that they were carrying rifles on their shoulders, but for all he knew, they were shepherd’s staffs. Still, the directive from somewhere above, a mysterious chain of command that led straight to his headset, was clear: confirmed weapons. Can someone elaborate on how these decisions are made?
- badman_ting 13y ago
  An illuminating question just in its asking. (Why aren't we reading about those who make the decisions instead of the guy who holds the joystick?)
- nadaviv 13y ago
  A relevant Guardian article: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/obama-kill-list-doj-memo http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/obama-k... "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."
  - noir_lord 13y ago
    You have to wonder what the response would be if it was the French President making such decisions about drone strikes on people in New York. 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.
- jws 13y ago
  Remote targeting has been a part of modern warfare for a century now. Forward observers identify targets, a command procedure is followed, and artillery men fire shells at targets they can not see over distances of hundreds of meters to tens of kilometers. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indirect_fire 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.
  - PeterisP 13y ago
    Also, there is a huge psychological difference between a plane pilot dropping a bomb on an 'anonymous' target and observing a hit/explosion, versus the original article drone pilot observing the targets in a non-combat-action situation, dropping the bomb, and then monitoring the aftermath - not only the actual explosion, but the scared/suffering behavior of nearby people. 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.
alcuadrado 13y ago
Which is the latency of Nevada-Afghanistan? I'd always thought that this drones were operated from a relative short distance.
- hughlomas 13y ago
  I don't think that they are latency sensitive operations. I can't think of roles they fulfill that even a 1 second latency would affect.
  - alcuadrado 13y ago
    Missiles? What if in that 1-second latency a car full of innocent people appear and they get killed?
    - jfoutz 13y ago
      Well, If you're Bryant you feel bad. Reddit tears you apart. It's a pretty thought provoking article. I thought it was worth reading, at least.
    - olympus 13y ago
      It's not so much a latency issue but a field of view issue. Cars don't really go that fast and you'll see them coming way ahead of time as long as your camera is zoomed out far enough. There are procedures in place to reduce the amount of stuff like this happening, but they haven't always been in place and they don't work 100%. But it's not like it's an issue that nobody has ever thought of, it was happening even before the rise of the drones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grdelica_train_bombing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grdelica_train_bombing
    - eCa 13y ago
      There are two latencies: * 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? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_damage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_damage
    - 13y ago
coldcode 13y ago
Killing distant people in a foreign country is most people's definition of a terrorist attack. A declared war is one thing but this type of terror weapon is likely to backfire some day, if it hasn't already.
- papandrinko 13y ago
  I think most people's definition would be more like the mass murder of non-combatants for religious or political reasons
  - realo 13y ago
    hum. From what I have read so far about US drone attacks, they seem fit your description quite nicely. Thanks for the good definition. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/22/amnesty-us-officials-war-crimes-drones http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/22/amnesty-us-offi...
- DangerousPie 13y ago
  What? No it's not. Terrorism is about using violent, random attacks that cause fear to effect some sort of change. It has nothing to do with distance.
  - albertyw 13y ago
    One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter
  - fit2rule 13y ago
    What part of a drone attack isn't violent, random, causing fear in those who observe them? They don't exactly drop rainbow-candy, books and water supplies on those foreigners, you know .. Every single drone attack is absolutely terrifying.
- netcan 13y ago
  "Most people's definition of a terrorist attack" is any violence they don't believe in. It's a pejorative, not a description. Lets not do that fake objectivity thing here. The somewhat objective definition of terror attacks is no longer in use.
mcpherson 13y ago
Horrible
tudorconstantin 13y ago
i wonder how come they're not psychologycally trained(brainwashed) to be immune to this. after 1-3 months of constantly telling them how cruel the terrorists are, showing them images of the attrocities that their future targets perform, i believe the operators will begin to feel like heroes for taking them out. I guess US is not that good at propaganda afterall
mtgx 13y ago
"Daddy, when I grow up I want to be a drone warrior, too!" 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-medal-idUSBRE93E12V20130415 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.
- venomsnake 13y ago
  What is the difference between them and the pilots of the bombers over Serbia? Or the battleships missile operators? Or the submarine crews?
enko 13y ago
I couldn't finish this article. It just makes me too angry. 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.
- alexbell 13y ago
  I wonder if you'd allow a pilot to use the term? They do much the same thing, of course they are actually physically present (miles above). They are, however, about as likely to be injured (in these counter insurgency operations) as the drone operator is driving home. I think this is largely just what modern counter insurgency wars are for Air Forces, who are largely aerial assassins rather than "warriors". It makes war less sexy, and I think that's a good thing.
- grey-area 13y ago
  Before you get too angry, consider that this experience is common of soldiers in war, not many of whom would after combat use terms like warrior. I doubt he chose the headline himself or was even asked about it, and it is contradicted by the tone of the article. There are far more important questions here than which labels are used to describe the people who carry out the killings. 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. http://dirtywars.org/ http://dirtywars.org/
kayoone 13y ago
This is the future of warfare, and i am afraid it will only get worse, much worse. 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.
- StavrosK 13y ago
  They just won't put their bases near civilians, because they won't need people to operate them. Then we can pretty much just designate some spots to put each other's base, defend those as well as we can, and war will be "whoever can destroy the other guy's base first, wins". Meanwhile, civilians are over there, just waiting for the game of Playstation to end.
  - JabavuAdams 13y ago
    Nonsense. War is about coercion. I want you to do this. You don't want to do it. So I hurt you until you change your mind. 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.
TomGullen 13y ago
Watching countless documentaries about this war zone I can't help but recall the numerous occasions that IED's are branded as cowardly weapons. Surely on the same scale this sort of thing is the most cowardly weapon of all.
- venomsnake 13y ago
  Better live coward with dead enemies than a brave corpse. 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.
rayiner 13y ago
This is the future of warfare and it's a good thing. Way better than back when you would firebomb an industrial city or lob cruise missiles at poorly defined targets. No boots on the ground means none of our people at risk and drones are much more precise than bombs. 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.
- contextual 13y ago
  classic uneasiness with killing a few people while being okay with killing lots of people. What a smug remark. And who is okay with killing lots of people? Citation please!
  - eshvk 13y ago
    I am not sure if the OP phrased it properly but humans relate better to specific examples. This is why a little girl covered with napalm related burns has more of an effect in the media than 50,000 deaths [1]. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties#Deaths_caused_by_the_American_military http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties#Deaths_c...
    - DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
      It's because people can't really picture what "50,000 deaths" looks like. It's just outside of the scale our brains are evolved to cope with.
- AngrySkillzz 13y ago
  Drone warfare isn't inherently bad. The issue is that it makes warfare safer and more convenient for us, which raises the odds that we'll do it more often and use it for more questionable means.
- saljam 13y ago
  It's not a good thing. Only a handful of nations are capable of producing weaponized drones, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. This is very susceptible to abuse. The numbers here show my point exactly: http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/monthly-updates/ http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drone...
riggins 13y ago
Considering Bryant is one of the only operators speaking out, his conscience seems to bother him more than the average. Here's a comparison (an IAMA thread from reddit). http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ghkm7/iama_drone_sensor_operator_i_have_flown_hundreds/ 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.
- MisterWebz 13y ago
  > I think this shows a fundamental truth about humans which is that they'll kill without losing too much sleep. 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.
  - riggins 13y ago
    my belief isn't based on just the AMA. Its just another example of the dynamic. 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.
- jread 13y ago
  Keep in mind that the JTAC is usually an enlisted soldier embedded with a ground unit. He is highly trained on ROE and positive ID, and generally has a good first hand perspective on what is happening on the ground. He is responsible for protecting the lives of the unit he is embedded with, and air assets are tasked to support him. From my experience, these are not warmongers, just guys doing their jobs, trying to protect lives.
proksoup 13y ago
The worst human beings on the planet are the ones: 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.
- ansgri 13y ago
  You forgot those who develop technology to enable building better guns and drones.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 13y ago
    and the people who grew the coffee beans that help keep focused the people who developed the technology to enable...
- walshemj 13y ago
  so where does shooting a unarmed teenage girl who wanted an education come? 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
yk 13y ago
When I hear drone warfare, I always wonder what would happen if someone puts on his uniform and guns down a drone operator in a crowded shopping mall. Obviously he distinguished himself as a combatant and engaged in a act of war.
hooande 13y ago
Drones are just like any other tools of war. The fact that the combatant is sitting very far away from the battle doesn't make the killing any less real, the stakes any lower or the human cost to the operator any cheaper. War is hell because of the horrible decisions that have to be made. Distance doesn't make it any easier. 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.
- jackpirate 13y ago
  The blame for the cost of war doesn't go to to ... the people who pull the triggers. 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?pagewanted=all&_r=1& http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/nyregion/23objector.html?p...
  - grey-area 13y ago
    Perhaps a better statement would be - The blame for the cost of war doesn't go entirely to the people who pull the triggers? 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?
    - 13y ago
pointernil 13y ago
The historical trajectory of the "issue" of remote killing maybe starting with the ancient catapults, maybe earlier with spears or event the first rock ever thrown at an enemy; this development of increasingly "safer" ways to kill from far away will follow the trajectory unless humanity decides this got out of hand, is not tolerable, not in line with some higher moral understanding of military conflict and decides to stop the progression of the trajectory. Similar to the way ever mightier bombs and nuclear weapons were put under quite heavy "restriction" and "control" in the end. 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
Sagat 13y ago
Sorry, if you are not putting your life on the line, you do not deserve to call yourself a "warrior" or any other term which implies duty and honor.
- stockliasteroid 13y ago
  Seems he put his mental health on the line... As someone else here so nicely pointed out, being a drone op isn't an "it's him or me" situation, you're clearly aware that it's just the other guy that's at risk. So if you do have a conscience, this could be a lot harder to deal with than popping a guy who's shooting at you with an AK, at least in a sense in that case you were defending yourself. This guy seems painfully aware of the fact that he bore no risk and he feels guilty for that. It's not shell-shock, but it's the moral equivalent.
D9u 13y ago
military drones, a projection of American power that won’t risk American lives. Yet burning some Muslim books places Americans at risk? 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.
- myko 13y ago
  > 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.
deleted 13y ago
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JabavuAdams 13y ago
What happens the first time an autonomous weapon refuses to fire because the target is not positively identified, or because non-combatants would be harmed?
wfunction 13y ago
"Most Americans—61 percent in the latest Pew survey—support the idea of military drones, a projection of American power that won’t risk American lives." I sincerely hope this survey is wrong, though something tells me it isn't...
4ccc0f9200a7a 13y ago
Relevant and worth reading: http://www.livingunderdrones.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Stanford-NYU-Living-Under-Drones.pdf http://www.livingunderdrones.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/... It's not just that the drone strikes are killing civilians in large numbers, and that the administration defines "militant" as any young adult male and doesn't really care who they're killing. It's not just that the whole thing makes a mockery of due process and national sovereignty. It's not just that the policy is counter-productive in terms of its own stated aims ("fighting terrorism"). It's that grave damage is done to the entire social fabric of the targeted area, as if they didn't have enough problems. EVERYBODY living there knows they could get randomly blown up at any time and there's nothing they can do about it. People are afraid to gather in groups of more than 2. Normal funerals are impossible, both because the the bodies are so completely destroyed and because funerals are deliberately attacked. People don't rescue victims because they know they'd just get killed, too. People stay away from the sites of the attacks for hours. The families of victims struggle because the main wage earner for the family is gone. Parents take their children out of schools, and children in schools are too traumatized to focus on studying. It's all good as long as our brave soldiers never have to face someone that can fight back, right? Susan Sontag was absolutely right that we're being infantilized. Of course it's easier and cheaper to kill people with flying death robots. Of course it's easier to catch "the bad guys" if we just make sure we know everything about everybody all the time. What's missing is any sense of pride that we're too good for those things and we'll accept trade-offs for freedom like adults. The cost of due process is that some criminals go free. The cost of free speech is that obnoxious people we can't stand will say things we don't like. Given how little terrorism there actually is, giving up ANY freedoms or principles in the name of "stopping terrorism" is cowardly. It's as if the military-industrial complex has no pride in "American values" whatsoever.
networked 13y ago
From the article: >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 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.
Nux 13y ago
That's not a warrior, that's a serial murderer hiding behind a screen. 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.

152 points by JanLaussmann 13y ago

> He was told that they were carrying rifles on their shoulders, but for all he knew, they were shepherd’s staffs. Still, the directive from somewhere above, a mysterious chain of command that led straight to his headset, was clear: confirmed weapons. Can someone elaborate on how these decisions are made?

badman_ting 13y ago
An illuminating question just in its asking. (Why aren't we reading about those who make the decisions instead of the guy who holds the joystick?)
nadaviv 13y ago
A relevant Guardian article: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/obama-kill-list-doj-memo http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/obama-k... "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."
- noir_lord 13y ago
  You have to wonder what the response would be if it was the French President making such decisions about drone strikes on people in New York. 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.
jws 13y ago
Remote targeting has been a part of modern warfare for a century now. Forward observers identify targets, a command procedure is followed, and artillery men fire shells at targets they can not see over distances of hundreds of meters to tens of kilometers. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indirect_fire 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.
- PeterisP 13y ago
  Also, there is a huge psychological difference between a plane pilot dropping a bomb on an 'anonymous' target and observing a hit/explosion, versus the original article drone pilot observing the targets in a non-combat-action situation, dropping the bomb, and then monitoring the aftermath - not only the actual explosion, but the scared/suffering behavior of nearby people. 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.

alcuadrado 13y ago

Which is the latency of Nevada-Afghanistan? I'd always thought that this drones were operated from a relative short distance.

hughlomas 13y ago
I don't think that they are latency sensitive operations. I can't think of roles they fulfill that even a 1 second latency would affect.
- alcuadrado 13y ago
  Missiles? What if in that 1-second latency a car full of innocent people appear and they get killed?
  - jfoutz 13y ago
    Well, If you're Bryant you feel bad. Reddit tears you apart. It's a pretty thought provoking article. I thought it was worth reading, at least.
  - olympus 13y ago
    It's not so much a latency issue but a field of view issue. Cars don't really go that fast and you'll see them coming way ahead of time as long as your camera is zoomed out far enough. There are procedures in place to reduce the amount of stuff like this happening, but they haven't always been in place and they don't work 100%. But it's not like it's an issue that nobody has ever thought of, it was happening even before the rise of the drones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grdelica_train_bombing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grdelica_train_bombing
  - eCa 13y ago
    There are two latencies: * 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? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_damage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_damage
  - 13y ago

coldcode 13y ago

Killing distant people in a foreign country is most people's definition of a terrorist attack. A declared war is one thing but this type of terror weapon is likely to backfire some day, if it hasn't already.

papandrinko 13y ago
I think most people's definition would be more like the mass murder of non-combatants for religious or political reasons
- realo 13y ago
  hum. From what I have read so far about US drone attacks, they seem fit your description quite nicely. Thanks for the good definition. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/22/amnesty-us-officials-war-crimes-drones http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/22/amnesty-us-offi...
DangerousPie 13y ago
What? No it's not. Terrorism is about using violent, random attacks that cause fear to effect some sort of change. It has nothing to do with distance.
- albertyw 13y ago
  One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter
- fit2rule 13y ago
  What part of a drone attack isn't violent, random, causing fear in those who observe them? They don't exactly drop rainbow-candy, books and water supplies on those foreigners, you know .. Every single drone attack is absolutely terrifying.
netcan 13y ago
"Most people's definition of a terrorist attack" is any violence they don't believe in. It's a pejorative, not a description. Lets not do that fake objectivity thing here. The somewhat objective definition of terror attacks is no longer in use.

mcpherson 13y ago

Horrible

tudorconstantin 13y ago

i wonder how come they're not psychologycally trained(brainwashed) to be immune to this. after 1-3 months of constantly telling them how cruel the terrorists are, showing them images of the attrocities that their future targets perform, i believe the operators will begin to feel like heroes for taking them out. I guess US is not that good at propaganda afterall

mtgx 13y ago

"Daddy, when I grow up I want to be a drone warrior, too!" 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-medal-idUSBRE93E12V20130415 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.

venomsnake 13y ago
What is the difference between them and the pilots of the bombers over Serbia? Or the battleships missile operators? Or the submarine crews?

enko 13y ago

I couldn't finish this article. It just makes me too angry. 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.

alexbell 13y ago
I wonder if you'd allow a pilot to use the term? They do much the same thing, of course they are actually physically present (miles above). They are, however, about as likely to be injured (in these counter insurgency operations) as the drone operator is driving home. I think this is largely just what modern counter insurgency wars are for Air Forces, who are largely aerial assassins rather than "warriors". It makes war less sexy, and I think that's a good thing.
grey-area 13y ago
Before you get too angry, consider that this experience is common of soldiers in war, not many of whom would after combat use terms like warrior. I doubt he chose the headline himself or was even asked about it, and it is contradicted by the tone of the article. There are far more important questions here than which labels are used to describe the people who carry out the killings. 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. http://dirtywars.org/ http://dirtywars.org/

kayoone 13y ago

This is the future of warfare, and i am afraid it will only get worse, much worse. 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.

StavrosK 13y ago
They just won't put their bases near civilians, because they won't need people to operate them. Then we can pretty much just designate some spots to put each other's base, defend those as well as we can, and war will be "whoever can destroy the other guy's base first, wins". Meanwhile, civilians are over there, just waiting for the game of Playstation to end.
- JabavuAdams 13y ago
  Nonsense. War is about coercion. I want you to do this. You don't want to do it. So I hurt you until you change your mind. 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.

TomGullen 13y ago

Watching countless documentaries about this war zone I can't help but recall the numerous occasions that IED's are branded as cowardly weapons. Surely on the same scale this sort of thing is the most cowardly weapon of all.

venomsnake 13y ago
Better live coward with dead enemies than a brave corpse. 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.

rayiner 13y ago

This is the future of warfare and it's a good thing. Way better than back when you would firebomb an industrial city or lob cruise missiles at poorly defined targets. No boots on the ground means none of our people at risk and drones are much more precise than bombs. 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.

contextual 13y ago
classic uneasiness with killing a few people while being okay with killing lots of people. What a smug remark. And who is okay with killing lots of people? Citation please!
- eshvk 13y ago
  I am not sure if the OP phrased it properly but humans relate better to specific examples. This is why a little girl covered with napalm related burns has more of an effect in the media than 50,000 deaths [1]. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties#Deaths_caused_by_the_American_military http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties#Deaths_c...
  - DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
    It's because people can't really picture what "50,000 deaths" looks like. It's just outside of the scale our brains are evolved to cope with.
AngrySkillzz 13y ago
Drone warfare isn't inherently bad. The issue is that it makes warfare safer and more convenient for us, which raises the odds that we'll do it more often and use it for more questionable means.
saljam 13y ago
It's not a good thing. Only a handful of nations are capable of producing weaponized drones, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. This is very susceptible to abuse. The numbers here show my point exactly: http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/monthly-updates/ http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drone...

riggins 13y ago

Considering Bryant is one of the only operators speaking out, his conscience seems to bother him more than the average. Here's a comparison (an IAMA thread from reddit). http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ghkm7/iama_drone_sensor_operator_i_have_flown_hundreds/ 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.

MisterWebz 13y ago
> I think this shows a fundamental truth about humans which is that they'll kill without losing too much sleep. 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.
- riggins 13y ago
  my belief isn't based on just the AMA. Its just another example of the dynamic. 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.
jread 13y ago
Keep in mind that the JTAC is usually an enlisted soldier embedded with a ground unit. He is highly trained on ROE and positive ID, and generally has a good first hand perspective on what is happening on the ground. He is responsible for protecting the lives of the unit he is embedded with, and air assets are tasked to support him. From my experience, these are not warmongers, just guys doing their jobs, trying to protect lives.

proksoup 13y ago

The worst human beings on the planet are the ones: 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.

ansgri 13y ago
You forgot those who develop technology to enable building better guns and drones.
- TheSpiceIsLife 13y ago
  and the people who grew the coffee beans that help keep focused the people who developed the technology to enable...
walshemj 13y ago
so where does shooting a unarmed teenage girl who wanted an education come? 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

yk 13y ago

When I hear drone warfare, I always wonder what would happen if someone puts on his uniform and guns down a drone operator in a crowded shopping mall. Obviously he distinguished himself as a combatant and engaged in a act of war.

hooande 13y ago

Drones are just like any other tools of war. The fact that the combatant is sitting very far away from the battle doesn't make the killing any less real, the stakes any lower or the human cost to the operator any cheaper. War is hell because of the horrible decisions that have to be made. Distance doesn't make it any easier. 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.

jackpirate 13y ago
The blame for the cost of war doesn't go to to ... the people who pull the triggers. 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?pagewanted=all&_r=1& http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/nyregion/23objector.html?p...
- grey-area 13y ago
  Perhaps a better statement would be - The blame for the cost of war doesn't go entirely to the people who pull the triggers? 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?
  - 13y ago

pointernil 13y ago

The historical trajectory of the "issue" of remote killing maybe starting with the ancient catapults, maybe earlier with spears or event the first rock ever thrown at an enemy; this development of increasingly "safer" ways to kill from far away will follow the trajectory unless humanity decides this got out of hand, is not tolerable, not in line with some higher moral understanding of military conflict and decides to stop the progression of the trajectory. Similar to the way ever mightier bombs and nuclear weapons were put under quite heavy "restriction" and "control" in the end. 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

Sagat 13y ago

Sorry, if you are not putting your life on the line, you do not deserve to call yourself a "warrior" or any other term which implies duty and honor.

stockliasteroid 13y ago
Seems he put his mental health on the line... As someone else here so nicely pointed out, being a drone op isn't an "it's him or me" situation, you're clearly aware that it's just the other guy that's at risk. So if you do have a conscience, this could be a lot harder to deal with than popping a guy who's shooting at you with an AK, at least in a sense in that case you were defending yourself. This guy seems painfully aware of the fact that he bore no risk and he feels guilty for that. It's not shell-shock, but it's the moral equivalent.

D9u 13y ago

military drones, a projection of American power that won’t risk American lives. Yet burning some Muslim books places Americans at risk? 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.

myko 13y ago
> 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.

deleted 13y ago

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JabavuAdams 13y ago

What happens the first time an autonomous weapon refuses to fire because the target is not positively identified, or because non-combatants would be harmed?

wfunction 13y ago

"Most Americans—61 percent in the latest Pew survey—support the idea of military drones, a projection of American power that won’t risk American lives." I sincerely hope this survey is wrong, though something tells me it isn't...

4ccc0f9200a7a 13y ago

Relevant and worth reading: http://www.livingunderdrones.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Stanford-NYU-Living-Under-Drones.pdf http://www.livingunderdrones.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/... It's not just that the drone strikes are killing civilians in large numbers, and that the administration defines "militant" as any young adult male and doesn't really care who they're killing. It's not just that the whole thing makes a mockery of due process and national sovereignty. It's not just that the policy is counter-productive in terms of its own stated aims ("fighting terrorism"). It's that grave damage is done to the entire social fabric of the targeted area, as if they didn't have enough problems. EVERYBODY living there knows they could get randomly blown up at any time and there's nothing they can do about it. People are afraid to gather in groups of more than 2. Normal funerals are impossible, both because the the bodies are so completely destroyed and because funerals are deliberately attacked. People don't rescue victims because they know they'd just get killed, too. People stay away from the sites of the attacks for hours. The families of victims struggle because the main wage earner for the family is gone. Parents take their children out of schools, and children in schools are too traumatized to focus on studying. It's all good as long as our brave soldiers never have to face someone that can fight back, right? Susan Sontag was absolutely right that we're being infantilized. Of course it's easier and cheaper to kill people with flying death robots. Of course it's easier to catch "the bad guys" if we just make sure we know everything about everybody all the time. What's missing is any sense of pride that we're too good for those things and we'll accept trade-offs for freedom like adults. The cost of due process is that some criminals go free. The cost of free speech is that obnoxious people we can't stand will say things we don't like. Given how little terrorism there actually is, giving up ANY freedoms or principles in the name of "stopping terrorism" is cowardly. It's as if the military-industrial complex has no pride in "American values" whatsoever.

networked 13y ago

From the article: >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 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.

Nux 13y ago

That's not a warrior, that's a serial murderer hiding behind a screen. 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.