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
Confessions of a Drone Warrior
11–20 of 172 posts
Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior
#12> 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?
A relevant Guardian article: 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."
Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior
#13"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-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.
Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Missiles? What if in that 1-second latency a car full of innocent people appear and they get killed?
Those missiles are laser-guided, and the Drone flies following way-points. The only time were the latency actually comes into effect is between the firing order and the actual launch - Hellfires are F&F.
Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior
#15Killing 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.
I think most people's definition would be more like the mass murder of non-combatants for religious or political reasons
Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior
#16Killing 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.
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.
Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior
#17I 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.
Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior
#18Killing 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.
"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.
Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior
#19This 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.
Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior
#20> 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?
A relevant Guardian article: 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…
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.