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Confessions of a Drone Warrior

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Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#121

Post by alecco »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #106
jackpirate wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Would you help me understand something? The doctrine of mutually assured destruction is what keeps countries from launching nukes at each other. In order to have that doctrine in place, we need people in the military who are willing to launch nukes, and that military needs to be firmly under the control of the civilian government. In that context, was your objection to fire any nuke a personal decision, i.e. you pers…

> The doctrine of mutually assured destruction is what keeps countries from launching nukes at each other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction#Cri...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLA_Marshall#World_War_II_comb...

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#122

Post by jackpirate »

dm2 wrote: post #119
jackpirate wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why couldn't you just change to a role that didn't involve directly killing someone? What kind of job could you do after having a background in "press the button when it's time to nuke someone"?

I don't see a moral difference between being the person pulling the trigger and being the person who supplies the person pulling the trigger. Everyone in the military is there because they make the organization more effective at war. I couldn't be a part of that.

I'm a CS grad student right now. I'm not eligible for federal funding so I teach for money.

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#123

Post by jackpirate »

xmonkee wrote: post #116
jackpirate wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally believe that Jesus calls us to "love our enemies" and that this means not killing them for any reason whatsoever. My personal objection to war goes far beyond the whole nuke thing to even self defense.

I fully agree with Jesus on this one, but sometimes I wonder what I would do in a situation where this belief was really challenged. I hope I don't have to find out.

My view is that how we act in these "crisis scenarios" isn't super important. It's how we act in the everyday situations that matters.

So I ask myself, "What am I doing right now to reduce war?" or "What am I doing right now to help the homeless living in my city?" This is how I measure whether or not I'm following Jesus.

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#124

Post by phaus »

phaus wrote: post #90
jackpirate wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You must be exceptionally lucky. In most cases they will ruin your life before they give you conscientious objector status.

Just to elaborate on this, conscientious objector status won't always disqualify one from military service. In past scenarios where people were drafted, conscientious objectors were often given non-combat related jobs. On today's battlefield, a non-combat job doesn't mean much, because there isn't really "enemy" or "friendly" territory.

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#125

Post by rhizome »

grey-area wrote: post #83
jackpirate wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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?

Sure. They're all responsible. Hooande set up a strawman describing an imaginary situation where grunts are held responsible for the cost of war, which is of course allocated by the mucky-mucks on high (and well far away from the front lines, natch).

However, taking the whole of his post and the one you're replying to, I believe it's an incontrovertible fact that there are citizens in a warmaking country who are not responsible: the ones who didn't want to go to war.

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#126

Post by njharman »

hooande wrote: post #48

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…

Drones are different than many tools of war. They allow one society to wage war on another with no direct risk of life. This makes war a much more palatable, desirable even, solution to whatever perceived problem they have. And the primary incentive to end war "our sons being killed" is gone.

Drones aren't only weapon like this, they aren't unique, but it's untrue to claim they are nothing different. They are an evolution of bombers and the effects on and reactions of pilots is strikingly similar to some carpet bomber crews of WWII and Vietnam Police action.

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#127

Post by PeterisP »

jws wrote: post #22
ArikBe wrote: post #2

> 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?

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 for a typical decision making process. The significant change here isn't that the distance is three orders of magnit…

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.

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#128

Post by PeterisP »

agumonkey wrote: post #108
hooande wrote: post #48

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…

I found the delocalization of killing a pretty big difference. I think most of war is justified by the fact that you're risking your life on site, a distorded 'kill or get killed' excusing the its absurdity, the emotional rush of surviving makes the act acceptable for some time. On the other hand, sitting comfy at home and triggering death is a pretty dissonant concept that makes people rethink being at war. Often ve…

War isn't justified by the fact that you're risking your life on site.

At its core, war starts with a society or their leaders deciding that yes, they want a goal X achieved even it will require dying and killing of innocent people, and that X is more important than their lives. If the decision is made, then it doesn't really matter how the killing is executed - the main moral issue is the choice of starting a war.

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#129

Post by Nux »

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.

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#130

Post by DerpDerpDerp »

eshvk wrote: post #120
contextual wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

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_c...

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.
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