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Drone pilots could be experiencing 'sniper's syndrome'

abc.net.au

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Re: Drone pilots could be experiencing 'sniper's syndrome'

#51

Post by ClumsyPilot »

harimau777 wrote: post #15
devoply wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

These violent lunatics have killed and tortured thousands of civilians in Afganistan before and during the war. Funding them was definitely immoral and illegal, as any lawyer will tell you.

You barely hear about it because western media reports on western things, if a thousand people die in Kenya, they barely get a footnote.

Re: Drone pilots could be experiencing 'sniper's syndrome'

#52

Post by glloydell »

tehjoker wrote: post #5

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.

I don't think that's the argument the author was making:

"Further, there needs to be proper counselling and supports for pilots following use of lethal force.

While such pilots might be removed from physical risks, we have a moral responsibility to ensure not just that drones are used in ways that adhere to the ethics of warfare, but that the pilots are adequately supported in their roles."

Re: Drone pilots could be experiencing 'sniper's syndrome'

#53

Post by glogla »

mieseratte wrote: post #33
rhizome wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afghanistan has been a known quantity for decades: heroin or Taliban, pick one. Beyond that, what's the international opinion on Erik Prince?

Taliban hosted AQ, gave us 9/11. We may be stuck in a quagmire, but there’s more to the Taliban than banning heroin and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

Saudi Arabia gave you 9/11 yet your president is super friendly with them.

It's almost as if you're looking for excuse to kill people.

Re: Drone pilots could be experiencing 'sniper's syndrome'

#54

Post by PhasmaFelis »

golergka wrote: post #7
anigbrowl wrote: post #2

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... 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…

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?

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.

Re: Drone pilots could be experiencing 'sniper's syndrome'

#55

Post by nesadi »

e12e wrote: post #48
nesadi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a matter of perspective. For people who believe a strong military is important to protect their own country and in a geopolitical world where military capability is everything that matters, what else is there? If a conflict breaks out, nobody's going to stop just because some military operators could be traumatized. At most you get to choose which military personnel are affected, but overall there's no "good" ou…

There's a difference between having problems committing war crimes by employing tactical weapons on civilians and being willing to attack a military force?

Is every drone operator killing civilians? Is the sniper's syndrome limited to the operators who've killed civilians?

Recent headlines about the US killing 30 farmers make it easy to confuse the context. I'm sure the operator(s) involved with that operation are traumatized. But that's not really the discussion here.

As per the article

> The rates of drone pilot burn out were in fact higher than that of traditional pilots.

> Given that the target often posed no direct threat to the sniper, there was a moral dissonance about taking the life of someone who is no direct threat. This has obvious parallels to drone pilots.

> Couple this with the familiarity that the drone pilot might have developed through long-term surveillance, and the target becomes an informationally rich human, rather than simply a blip on a screen.

> Posing a threat to someone is often seen as a moral requirement in order for a solider to use lethal force against a target. However, the drone pilot is acting remotely, and they lose this sense of moral justification for their action.

> One important thing to recognise is that such moral injury is not dependent on the pilot actually committing something morally prohibited.

> For instance, if a soldier must use lethal force to protect an innocent family against an enemy soldier threatening the family's lives, the soldier's actions are typically deemed justified.

> However, given the features of drones, this moral justification might not be properly felt by its pilot.

Re: Drone pilots could be experiencing 'sniper's syndrome'

#56

Post by kbenson »

matz1 wrote: post #45
kbenson wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what we are seeing is people with different moral values that thought they wouldn't have a problem having a problem, so I'm not sure your suggestion would help (and you may want to consider that before volunteering yourself for something that might affect your mental health). I can't help but view this as similar to someone offering to work as a nurse "because they don't get sick".

Yes, there are certainly people like that. But I'm referring to people with different moral value who really are wouldn't have problem. Its not that rare isn't it? Its different, because everyone can get sick. The more accurate analogy is someone offering to work as nurse because they are not afraid of blood.

I think you'll have to prove to me that people like that exist, at least in a state that is acceptable enough that they can be employed by the military and not excluded because of those same problems.

I suspect people like that cause far more problems than they solve. How many war atrocities do you need to make the entire idea cost more than its worth?

And before someone jumps in that these are already atrocities, there's a huge difference between a mistake killing innocents or the idea of acceptable losses and slaughtering every man, woman and child in a village, because we've seen that before.

Re: Drone pilots could be experiencing 'sniper's syndrome'

#57

Post by PhasmaFelis »

mieseratte wrote: post #32
elif wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

When did the Taliban sign on to Geneva?

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.)

Re: Drone pilots could be experiencing 'sniper's syndrome'

#58

Post by harimau777 »

glogla wrote: post #49
glloydell wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

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.

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?

Re: Drone pilots could be experiencing 'sniper's syndrome'

#59

Post by brokenmachine »

devoply wrote: post #4

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.

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".

Re: Drone pilots could be experiencing 'sniper's syndrome'

#60

Post by [deleted] »

glloydell wrote: post #46
matz1 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd say it's absolutely vital to have the responsibility in the hands of do have problems with "pushing the kill button", and then provide them with psychological support services to handle that duty. Giving people with no qualms or moral struggles with taking human life the tools to do so on a massive scale is an absolutely terrifying idea.

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