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I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

theguardian.com

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Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#171

Post by kevinpet »

macspoofing wrote: post #86

The entire concept of targeted drone assassinations is so surreal. Executing a convict in the US civilian court system requires a trial with a high-burden of proof, and the convict is afforded multiple appeals before the sentence is carried out. But in this case all it takes for the state to execute a suspect is the interpretation of some mid-level analyst. More perplexing, there are no qualms around civilian collate…

> In what universe is striking a convoy carrying a suspect but also carrying innocent (or even if not innocent, not deserving a death sentence) civilians, deemed acceptable?

During war, as accepted by every politician going back to the dawn of civilization. On the plus side, for the past several hundred years, we've started to make efforts to minimize.

> there are no qualms around civilian collateral damage.

Really? That seems to be all anyone is talking about when it comes to drones. From the perspective of anyone from more than a century ago, we're obsessed with it (and conversely, from the perspective of today, Dresden and Hiroshima would be war crimes.)

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#172

Post by dhughes »

ck2 wrote: post #4

The feed is so pixelated, what if it's a shovel, and not a weapon? I felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always wonder if we killed the right people If this question even comes up once, drones should never, ever be armed. Why is is okay to repeatedly kill the wrong person in another country? Can you imagine if that happened even just once in the USA? We need an international ban on armed…

> The feed is so pixelated,...

I read that but farther down I read "but I watched parts of the conflict in great detail on a screen for days on end." seems to contradict. I understand what's meant, pixels and detail are different, but it's a poor choice of phrasing.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#173

Post by classicsnoot »

neals wrote: post #14
ck2 wrote: post #4

The feed is so pixelated, what if it's a shovel, and not a weapon? I felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always wonder if we killed the right people If this question even comes up once, drones should never, ever be armed. Why is is okay to repeatedly kill the wrong person in another country? Can you imagine if that happened even just once in the USA? We need an international ban on armed…

I think the innocent victims that we make today will get us on track to developing better drones with more resolution and less errors and doubt. I imagine a perfect drone without any human controller, doing it's business by AI, actually making the world a better place. [edit] lots of hate and naive comments. Fact remains that human progress has always come through sacrificing some of us for the greater good. Innocent…

No one ever wants to portray death as a technical aberration because it is an icky feeling. Also, people love to be self righteous and condescending because it adds millimetres to their imaginary pedestal. Just to rile them up more, which guy campaigning for president in 2008 had killed more Americans by hand, McCain or Obama? The answer is shocking, but not unbelievable. My grandfather was a naval aviator. He told me about a dear friend who was smashed to bits immediately after take-off because the deck crew had installed his control surfaces backwards. Was he a person, or a lesson to future deck crews? was it a tragedy, or a teachable moment?

If you are like me, you are easily able to divorce the appalling human costs to obtain the raw data of cause and effect. I have had to force myself to temper my observation, given that most people do not want you pointing out unique anatomical facets whilst a person lays bifurcated. Pay them no mind, fellow freak. It was our lot that were the first barber-surgeons and grave robbers, and it is through our collective twisted perspective that we will continue to stick our little babby fingers in the wall socket of the unknown.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#174

Post by SpaceRaccoon »

I watched a documentary by Vice recently about the Taliban in Pakistan. I do not remember the exact words, but when asked about allied air superiority with drones, an insurgent commander responded "Talking to people, I can get a few people to join my side. With one drone strike, I can get a whole village on my side." And herein lies the problem: for every insurgent a drone strike kills, whether he deserves it or not, that drone stroke motivates many more to join their ranks.

After a flood, the Taliban helped to rebuild villages in Pakistan. People felt that the state did nothing for them, thus again strengthening support for the insurgency. I feel as though, if the US instead invested the money from war to rather rebuilding, infrastructure, healthcare, education, that the insurgency would fade on its own.

People join the insurgency because they are motivated by hate and anger. Attempting to eliminate it through extermination is futile: the collateral damage only multiples the numbers wanting to fight. The way to win a war is by winning hearts and minds, as the cliche goes.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#175

Post by wetmore »

spiritplumber wrote: post #76

The public should also know that all this long range drone stuff can be done for cheap. Also, they pixelate the feed on purpose, to remove hesitation when hitting the trigger.

>Also, they pixelate the feed on purpose, to remove hesitation when hitting the trigger.

Any proof for this?

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#176

Post by Bahamut »

rgbrenner wrote: post #115
sleepyK wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But unfortunately, it always is. American life, and American citizenship is more precious than any other life. I know it's not the same issue, but throughout the whole NSA snooping revelations, Americans have only been concerned by the legality of spying on their own citizens. All of us foreigners are fair game. This is similar. The value of an American life is much more than that of a foreigner's life.

Americans should be more concerned about the NSA spying on US citizens than on foreigners. Here's why: When the US government decides a US citizen's communication patterns makes him a terrorist, the US government is free to knock down their door in the middle of the night and whisk them off to Guantanamo, and NO ONE except the US government can do anything to stop them. When the US government decides a foreigner is a…

> When the US government decides a US citizen's communication patterns makes him a terrorist, the US government is free to knock down their door in the middle of the night and whisk them off to Guantanamo, and NO ONE except the US government can do anything to stop them.

While I dislike how the U. S. government has decided that who they classify as terrorists superceding the rights of a US citizen, this is just wrong. Communicating with terrorists on a typical basis isn't enough for the U. S. government to do so - the only cases where I have heard of this happening is when the US citizen in question has carried out actual violent terrorist actions such as armed combat.

You have far less protection against the U. S. government if you are not a citizen, since there is nothing protecting you against broad actions. You can be assassinated in the middle of the night & your government wouldn't be able to do a damn thing to pre-empt that. There are also far less protections as to spying as well, but that has nothing to do with this article.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#177

Post by sliverstorm »

fit2rule wrote: post #138
mikeash wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...we need an organization that makes peace, for the state, far more." What does such an organization look like, and how does it work? It's very easy to say that we should just stop killing people and instead make peace. It's extremely difficult to put forth a realistic plan that accomplishes that.

Imagine if the resources being used to develop drones and bombs and other killing robots were instead being used to develop tools that would improve the lives of your average Afghani child. This would be a far more honorable investment than the current situation. Yes, I'm not sure I know what it would look like, but I'm pretty sure that its possible to develop the "B1 bomber" of education systems. I'm quite sure that…

This would be a far more honorable investment than the current situation.

Honorable and effective are not the same.

Seriously, the problem is hardly farming. The world has thousands of years of farming development, and Afghanistan has been farmed for just as long. Nor is the problem education systems. The problem is political, and I fail to see how we can drop K-12 educations on people who aren't allowed to or are unwilling to learn.

But, of course, you appear to be a flower hippie pretty dead-set in your ways, so I don't really hope to change your mind. You keep working on that B2 Tulip Bomber- I'm sure if we can only manage to bomb Afghanistan with flowers & love, world peace will be immediately achieved.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#178

Post by jessaustin »

melling wrote: post #36
ck2 wrote: post #4

The feed is so pixelated, what if it's a shovel, and not a weapon? I felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always wonder if we killed the right people If this question even comes up once, drones should never, ever be armed. Why is is okay to repeatedly kill the wrong person in another country? Can you imagine if that happened even just once in the USA? We need an international ban on armed…

There you go again ck2. One of your classic comments. We used to napalm people. Lots of "wrong people" get killed in all wars. Flying in B-17's and B-52's was pretty ugly too, we just couldn't record the carnage on video. There's probably never going to be a war where innocent people aren't killed. Precision weapons probably kill fewer people but if you want a "clean" war, I don't think that's possible. The real solu…

...solve the remaining problems. Otherwise, decades from now, people on HN will be complaining about how future weapon systems are killing innocent people.

Aha, your theory of history is of a teleological bent. Not really my cup of tea, as it requires ignoring nearly the entirety of human history...

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#179

Post by melling »

coldtea wrote: post #168
melling wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There you go again ck2. One of your classic comments. We used to napalm people. Lots of "wrong people" get killed in all wars. Flying in B-17's and B-52's was pretty ugly too, we just couldn't record the carnage on video. There's probably never going to be a war where innocent people aren't killed. Precision weapons probably kill fewer people but if you want a "clean" war, I don't think that's possible. The real solu…

> We used to napalm people. Lots of "wrong people" get killed in all wars. Flying in B-17's and B-52's was pretty ugly too, we just couldn't record the carnage on video. There's probably never going to be a war where innocent people aren't killed. Precision weapons probably kill fewer people but if you want a "clean" war, I don't think that's possible. I don't war a war at all. I want sovereign countries to be left t…

Do you mean like in Syria where 130,000 people have died?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/02/us-syria-crisis-to...

By some accounts, 1 in 10 killed was a child. Why don't we ever discuss this on HN?

Until after the WWII, the US really didn't involve itself in much of the world's conflicts. Our tradition is to pretty much leave the world to fix its own problems. We joined WWI during the last year of the war and WW2 was already 3 years in before we officially joined.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#180

Post by alan_cx »

jusben1369 wrote: post #112

We need to make sure we're not being manipulated. Here the Guardian is just serving up an emotional, unsubstantiated, one sided view of this discussion. I'm not sure how this is different to much of the chest beating I'd see on Fox News. I'm not here to argue for or against the drones. Just that if we pride ourselves on being educated and critical thinkers that we apply that to all sources of data we read. We all kno…

"We need to make sure we're not being manipulated."

Why is your post not an attempt at manipulation? Reads like it to me. "Hell" and "horrific" require value judgements, manipulations.

Oh, and even if you are being told the 100% truth, what ever that is, you are still being manipulated.

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