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"Drones are just like any other tools of war. " No they are not. The are risk free and relatively cheap, meaning its easier to order their use. The easier war

by alan_cx 13y ago

"Drones are just like any other tools of war. " No they are not. The are risk free and relatively cheap, meaning its easier to order their use. The easier war is, the easier it is to make war. "The fact that the combatant is sitting very far away from the battle doesn't make the killing any less real" Oh yes it does. There have been plenty of studies that clearly demonstrate this. It is always easier to press a button that look a man in the eyes and shoot him. Lastly. How do you surrender to a robot? Had Bin Laden and his men held up their hands and put down their weapons, they all may well be in US jails right now. Had that been a drone strike, that would not have even been a possibility.

wdewind 13y ago
They are similar risk to airforce units (ie: little/no risk to pilot). They are similar cost to airforce units (about 2/3 the cost of an F-15, which is certainly significant but not completely game changing). They perform similar actions to airforce units. I am always surprised that people draw such a big line between the pilot being in the cockpit and out of it. It's also totally possible Bin Laden did hold up his hands. None of the points you are making really have anything to do with drones.
- e12e 13y ago
  There was a report earlier about stress and drone pilots, that spurred some coverage, like: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-08/psychological-toll-drone-warfare http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-08/psychologic... partial quote: "The dazzling clarity of the drone's optics does have a downside. As a B-1 pilot, Dan wouldn't learn details about the effects of his weapons until a post-mission briefing. But flying a drone, he sees the carnage close-up, in real time—the blood and severed body parts, the arrival of emergency responders, the anguish of friends and family. Often he's been watching the people he kills for a long time before pulling the trigger. Drone pilots become familiar with their victims. They see them in the ordinary rhythms of their lives—with their wives and friends, with their children. War by remote control turns out to be intimate and disturbing. Pilots are sometimes shaken." In other words: similar:yes, same:no.
  - wdewind 13y ago
    That's really interesting to me because it claims the opposite of what most people are arguing re: the detachment of drone pilots. Thanks for sharing that article.
    - e12e 13y ago
      If you haven't yet done so, I also recommend reading the article posted here (Confessions of a Drone Warrior) -- I think quite a few of these commenters either commented before reading, didn't read the article very thoroughly, or took the article with quite a few pounds of salt. It references the study/report on PTSD among drone pilots, among other things.
srean 13y ago
I agree with you except for the last bit. From the accounts that I have read, I think Bin Laden's chances of surviving the Abbotabad raid was hypothetical at best. He had less than a fraction of a second to make an undeniable gesture of complete surrender in a surprise early morning raid. He could not put down a weapon because he did not have one on him. According to the SEAL who shot him, he was shot twice in the head and then again on his torso as a startled unarmed man waking up to the din. I am not arguing for or against whether he was entitled to a realistic chance, just stating that he didnt and it was by design.
- phaus 13y ago
  >I am not arguing for or against whether he was entitled to a realistic chance, just stating that he didnt and it was by design. I know that you aren't passing judgement yourself, but I hope that before anyone else does, they consider the fact that Bin Laden was extremely intelligent and fantastically disciplined. He was the kind of guy who ALWAYS considered every possibility. His system for remaining hidden was absolutely amazing in a world where highly educated people routinely make idiotic mistakes from an OPSEC standpoint. You could argue that air-gapping and delivering USB sticks to remote internet cafés isn't isn't impressive, but the reality is, few people stayed on top of their OPSEC like this guy did. When we did find him, it was because ONE guy on his crew fucked up, one time, after hiding for several years. The only OPSEC mistake that Bin Laden himself made was trusting a guy that had proven himself dependable for many years. Now, when you have a really brilliant guy like this that already knows that at some point in the future, he will be found by his enemies, you have to consider the possibility that he prepared for it. Thus, when our guys rolled into the complex, they had every reason in the world to believe that either someone in the compound would be wired with explosives, or that the compound itself would be rigged. With that being a real possibility, you don't really have time to give someone a proper chance to surrender.
  - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
    Of course not. It's not like they are Himmler's or Goebbels that clearly deserved fair trial for starting a war that costed 70 million deaths. We don't give that to people who blow up buildings killing thousands. At some point we started to be very cynical about our own values, like liberalism for that example. I wish we had taken our own values more to the heart. That's the only way to win these things morally as well.
phaus 13y ago
>It is always easier to press a button that look a man in the eyes and shoot him. I was a Soldier, I've never had to shoot anyone, but I strongly agree with this. I am 95% sure that I could shoot someone if my life depended on it, but I'm 1000% sure that I would have absolutely no problems launching a missile from a drone, while I'm safely located 1000s of miles away. Hell, video-games are one of the few things I've ever been talented at. Now, just to clarify, I would have problems if it meant that innocent people would get caught in the blast, I was purely focused on the issue of killing someone that meant to do me or any other innocent person harm. I also agree that its far too easy for a commander/politician to order a drone strike. Often, when the military decides not to take a particular action, its because the commander doesn't want to be responsible for sending a Soldier off to die. With drone strikes, the possibility of this happening is eliminated. While I feel that our drone program is out of control, I also feel that it could be reigned in and used in a way that's both productive and ethical. We need to place a priority on preserving innocent life, even if it is difficult. If Soldiers are on the ground, in a fire-fight, its arguable that saving their lives may involve the loss of innocent lives. That's a sad reality of war. However, when the aforementioned Soldiers are sitting in an air-conditioned building, there is no ethical dilemma that could possibly justify collateral damage. We need to reign in the drone strike program, and reserve its use for the rare opportunities where we can take out a high value target without killing innocent people.
philwelch 13y ago
> Oh yes it does. There have been plenty of studies that clearly demonstrate this. It is always easier to press a button that look a man in the eyes and shoot him. I'm not so sure. That's probably true all things held equal, but that doesn't mean being a drone operator is any easier than being a ground soldier, psychologically. My dad was a Marine. He was a combat engineer rather than an infantryman, but he saw his share of combat in three wars and while he absolutely hated killing people, the only way he could live with it was through the knowledge that in a combat situation, it's either you or them. That's emphatically not true for some specialties, like snipers and drone operators, and even seasoned combat veterans struggle with the moral weight of killing people without being in any danger themselves. Being in a firefight is hell but at least it feels like you're just trying to survive. Being a sniper or a drone pilot feels like you're just murdering people who pose no immediate threat to you. It's a tough thing to deal with.
rsheridan6 13y ago
Most killings in war haven't involved looking a man in the eyes and shooting him for a very long time. At least as recently as WWI, most deaths (excluding disease) were caused by artillery shells fired by someone who would usually never see his victim at all. That's even more impersonal than killing someone with a drone.
- stockliasteroid 13y ago
  But in those cases you don't know if you actually killed someone or not, you're just launching a shell off into the void. In this case the person pulls the trigger and then watches the carnage live and in IR/thermal. The action of pulling the trigger and the aftermath are inextricably interconnected. As perhaps they should be, but it's certainly not the same as being a gunner in an artillery battery.

by alan_cx 13y ago

wdewind 13y ago

They are similar risk to airforce units (ie: little/no risk to pilot). They are similar cost to airforce units (about 2/3 the cost of an F-15, which is certainly significant but not completely game changing). They perform similar actions to airforce units. I am always surprised that people draw such a big line between the pilot being in the cockpit and out of it. It's also totally possible Bin Laden did hold up his hands. None of the points you are making really have anything to do with drones.

e12e 13y ago
There was a report earlier about stress and drone pilots, that spurred some coverage, like: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-08/psychological-toll-drone-warfare http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-08/psychologic... partial quote: "The dazzling clarity of the drone's optics does have a downside. As a B-1 pilot, Dan wouldn't learn details about the effects of his weapons until a post-mission briefing. But flying a drone, he sees the carnage close-up, in real time—the blood and severed body parts, the arrival of emergency responders, the anguish of friends and family. Often he's been watching the people he kills for a long time before pulling the trigger. Drone pilots become familiar with their victims. They see them in the ordinary rhythms of their lives—with their wives and friends, with their children. War by remote control turns out to be intimate and disturbing. Pilots are sometimes shaken." In other words: similar:yes, same:no.
- wdewind 13y ago
  That's really interesting to me because it claims the opposite of what most people are arguing re: the detachment of drone pilots. Thanks for sharing that article.
  - e12e 13y ago
    If you haven't yet done so, I also recommend reading the article posted here (Confessions of a Drone Warrior) -- I think quite a few of these commenters either commented before reading, didn't read the article very thoroughly, or took the article with quite a few pounds of salt. It references the study/report on PTSD among drone pilots, among other things.

srean 13y ago

I agree with you except for the last bit. From the accounts that I have read, I think Bin Laden's chances of surviving the Abbotabad raid was hypothetical at best. He had less than a fraction of a second to make an undeniable gesture of complete surrender in a surprise early morning raid. He could not put down a weapon because he did not have one on him. According to the SEAL who shot him, he was shot twice in the head and then again on his torso as a startled unarmed man waking up to the din. I am not arguing for or against whether he was entitled to a realistic chance, just stating that he didnt and it was by design.

phaus 13y ago
>I am not arguing for or against whether he was entitled to a realistic chance, just stating that he didnt and it was by design. I know that you aren't passing judgement yourself, but I hope that before anyone else does, they consider the fact that Bin Laden was extremely intelligent and fantastically disciplined. He was the kind of guy who ALWAYS considered every possibility. His system for remaining hidden was absolutely amazing in a world where highly educated people routinely make idiotic mistakes from an OPSEC standpoint. You could argue that air-gapping and delivering USB sticks to remote internet cafés isn't isn't impressive, but the reality is, few people stayed on top of their OPSEC like this guy did. When we did find him, it was because ONE guy on his crew fucked up, one time, after hiding for several years. The only OPSEC mistake that Bin Laden himself made was trusting a guy that had proven himself dependable for many years. Now, when you have a really brilliant guy like this that already knows that at some point in the future, he will be found by his enemies, you have to consider the possibility that he prepared for it. Thus, when our guys rolled into the complex, they had every reason in the world to believe that either someone in the compound would be wired with explosives, or that the compound itself would be rigged. With that being a real possibility, you don't really have time to give someone a proper chance to surrender.
- LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
  Of course not. It's not like they are Himmler's or Goebbels that clearly deserved fair trial for starting a war that costed 70 million deaths. We don't give that to people who blow up buildings killing thousands. At some point we started to be very cynical about our own values, like liberalism for that example. I wish we had taken our own values more to the heart. That's the only way to win these things morally as well.

phaus 13y ago

>It is always easier to press a button that look a man in the eyes and shoot him. I was a Soldier, I've never had to shoot anyone, but I strongly agree with this. I am 95% sure that I could shoot someone if my life depended on it, but I'm 1000% sure that I would have absolutely no problems launching a missile from a drone, while I'm safely located 1000s of miles away. Hell, video-games are one of the few things I've ever been talented at. Now, just to clarify, I would have problems if it meant that innocent people would get caught in the blast, I was purely focused on the issue of killing someone that meant to do me or any other innocent person harm. I also agree that its far too easy for a commander/politician to order a drone strike. Often, when the military decides not to take a particular action, its because the commander doesn't want to be responsible for sending a Soldier off to die. With drone strikes, the possibility of this happening is eliminated. While I feel that our drone program is out of control, I also feel that it could be reigned in and used in a way that's both productive and ethical. We need to place a priority on preserving innocent life, even if it is difficult. If Soldiers are on the ground, in a fire-fight, its arguable that saving their lives may involve the loss of innocent lives. That's a sad reality of war. However, when the aforementioned Soldiers are sitting in an air-conditioned building, there is no ethical dilemma that could possibly justify collateral damage. We need to reign in the drone strike program, and reserve its use for the rare opportunities where we can take out a high value target without killing innocent people.

philwelch 13y ago

> Oh yes it does. There have been plenty of studies that clearly demonstrate this. It is always easier to press a button that look a man in the eyes and shoot him. I'm not so sure. That's probably true all things held equal, but that doesn't mean being a drone operator is any easier than being a ground soldier, psychologically. My dad was a Marine. He was a combat engineer rather than an infantryman, but he saw his share of combat in three wars and while he absolutely hated killing people, the only way he could live with it was through the knowledge that in a combat situation, it's either you or them. That's emphatically not true for some specialties, like snipers and drone operators, and even seasoned combat veterans struggle with the moral weight of killing people without being in any danger themselves. Being in a firefight is hell but at least it feels like you're just trying to survive. Being a sniper or a drone pilot feels like you're just murdering people who pose no immediate threat to you. It's a tough thing to deal with.

rsheridan6 13y ago

Most killings in war haven't involved looking a man in the eyes and shooting him for a very long time. At least as recently as WWI, most deaths (excluding disease) were caused by artillery shells fired by someone who would usually never see his victim at all. That's even more impersonal than killing someone with a drone.

stockliasteroid 13y ago
But in those cases you don't know if you actually killed someone or not, you're just launching a shell off into the void. In this case the person pulls the trigger and then watches the carnage live and in IR/thermal. The action of pulling the trigger and the aftermath are inextricably interconnected. As perhaps they should be, but it's certainly not the same as being a gunner in an artillery battery.