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Confessions of a Drone Warrior

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Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#141

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

phaus wrote: post #102
srean wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 he…

>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 abso…

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.

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#142

Post by alecco »

stockliasteroid wrote: post #139
alecco wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

We haven't seen a major nation-state conflict between nuclear powers since nuclear weapons were invented. Of course there's no counterfactual, but it does seem given the state of relations with Russia it's likely that sans nuclear weapons we would have had a major conflict with them at some point. Also, try reading this, it's a decent summary of nuclear strategic thinking: http://www.amazon.com/The-Bomb-A-New-History…

You are assuming I'm less informed because I don't agree with you. Also, the burden of proof doesn't fall on me as I'm just skeptic of your (plural) assertion without clear proof.

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#143

Post by e12e »

wdewind wrote: post #67
alan_cx wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 butto…

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 h…

There was a report earlier about stress and drone pilots, that spurred some coverage, like:

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.

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#144

Post by e12e »

Volpe wrote: post #113
gbags wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"stealth edit" Oh go fuck yourself. I saw an utterly garbage argument, I responded quickly, then I edited it because my first draft had unhelpful content. "stealth edit" implies a perniciousness that simply wasn't present. > I don't think you should insult or speculate on the character and profession of other posters And I think that if somebody says that soldiers have no blame for war, that they're idiots, and it's…

Not to get too involved in this. But "stealth edit" just means you edited without mentioning it. The general etiquette seems to be to put an "EDIT: " with either an addendum or an explanation of edits you made within your comment. There is no implied perniciousness or anything, it's called that because you are effectively changing what people have responded to after their response.

An to add to this meta-comment: Remember that someone might have read your post and replied, even if you haven't seen it yet, because you hit "reply" - saw that you needed to do an obvious edit (because there is no preview).

It's sometimes frustrating when you've just realized that you've made a bit of a fool of yourself in the heat of the moment (or in your non-idomatic use of English, and come off as more of an ass-hole (or just more rude) than you might have intended, as might be the case for those of us whose native language isn't English...) -- and then having to explicitly acknowledge in a "edit: whoops, didn't mean to be offensive, sorry"-comment that you did in fact post something a little foolish, rude or just silly.

But, with the high rate of view/replies to some hn-threads, it's better to be safe than sorry, and add a small "edit:"-comment whenever you edit -- even if it's just formatting, grammar or spelling.

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#145

Post by e12e »

rhizome wrote: post #79
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…

The fact that the combatant is sitting very far away from the battle doesn't make the killing any less real It doesn't make it any less real, but it does make it more cowardly. Some of the commenters on this thread sound like the people who would throw things at veterans returning from vietnam. Have we learned nothing? Yes we have learned something: it didn't happen.

> It doesn't make it any less real, but it does make it more cowardly.

I strongly object to the last few wars both Europe and the US has been involved in, to our foreign policy and to a lot of the policies that surround these conflicts. I still think a comment about "cowardly" tactics and strategies are unwarranted. Bravery is indeed a virtue, but in deadly conflict there isn't really such a thing as "fighting cowardly". There's cautious, callous, heinous, smart and stupid -- but not really cowardly.

It's a little like a front page story a few years back in Norway, when some Norwegian troops stationed in Afghanistan were interviewed, and called the insurgents IED-tactics "cowardly". Said with a straight face by someone that had the latest equipment, aerial and satellite surveillance, areal and modern artillery support, sniper support, body armour, armoured vehicles, night vision and all other trappings of modern warfare -- fighting poorly equipped peasants that are subject to night raids where parts of entire families are boxed up and shipped across half the world never to be heard from again.

Now, I'm not saying that it wouldn't feel cowardly when one of these peasants injured or killed someone with a sneakily placed IED -- but it's just good tactics, it isn't really cowardly. I mean, there wouldn't be any more wars in these areas if the local people tried to fight "fair" whatever that is supposed to mean.

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#146

Post by wdewind »

e12e wrote: post #143
wdewind wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

There was a report earlier about stress and drone pilots, that spurred some coverage, like: 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…

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.

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#147

Post by wdewind »

fit2rule wrote: post #70
wdewind wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth pointing out that the 50-1 civilian to "bad guy" ratio comes from Pakistani intelligence, and no other sources have it that high. The figures are also only about Pakistan, where as far as I know we have no (or significantly fewer) JTACs. You're also talking about significantly different missions, whereas in one drones are supporting ground units and in another they are the primary unit. I don't trust Ameri…

Americas' own Brookings Institutes' conservative estimate is 10 to 1. That is still heinous.

I agree 10 to 1 is heinous, but it's far from unheard of in warfare w/o drones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#148

Post by alan_cx »

srean wrote: post #75
alan_cx wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 butto…

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 he…

Yeah, sure, of course. I used OBL because I don't have a list of US special forces assassinations. Big old list of drone ones though... If you like, I could say random foreign family who might have one member who the NSA/CIA think might be some how connected to what ever the US defines are "terror", leaving its own terror actions aside. I dunno, some thing like using a helicopter to gun down people in a van, then gunning down those who come to help the victims. Some thing terrorising like that. Any was, that family cant surrender to a robot killing machine.

My point is about a human to human contact, or the lack there of. Not the specifics of these murders.

And make no mistake, they are murders. I don't use the term lightly. Even if they are authorised by Obama himself, Obama has no right what so ever over non Americans on non American soil, who didn't vote for him and don't live in the US or its territories. Eight follow international law, respect borders and so on, or become the terrorist. Which many would argue happened decades ago, hence the considerable international, hate and suspicion. When Amercia causes Europe to become skeptical and suspicious on a political level, something is wrong. We should be America's default ally and that's beginning to crumble.

Beginning to wonder if Germany might reconsider Snowden's asylum. Would send quite a stark message, and I do think a national thank you for exposing the disgraceful surveillance of an ally's head of stated is well in order.

Oooops, Im long ranting again. I'll stop.

This stuff annoys me. America is supposed to be the good guys. :(

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#149

Post by e12e »

wdewind wrote: post #146
e12e wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a report earlier about stress and drone pilots, that spurred some coverage, like: 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…

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.

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.

Re: Confessions of a Drone Warrior

#150

Post by fit2rule »

harryh wrote: post #104
fit2rule wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When violence is easy, "having to be violent" will be more and more common, until .. eventually .. you arrive at the point of view you espouse: war is okay, as long as its easy.

Violence is less common now than it has ever been in all of human history. How can you square this fact with your statement about how "having to be violent" will be more common?

Education, plain and simple, has become more and more available to the masses - but I would submit to you that there is just as much violence going on in the world as there ever has been before - just that, we're shielded from most of it in our little Western happyboxes. You don't have to look far in the last decade to discover violent atrocities being enacted on our fellow humans .. you just have to be willing to look at the truth of the situation: violence is being used by those in power in order to stay in power. This is precisely the purpose of the American drone technology, along with every single weapon ever produced in the Western world.

I put to you that the USA has become one of the most violent cultures in the world, precisely because technology has allowed ignorance and hatred to fill in where education has failed. Or, at the very least, where once we educate ourselves, we nevertheless submit to those who would use violence to maintain their power; certainly it seems that the USA is in the grips of the very groups that, were the American people better educated, would never succeed. It is the technology of death - and those who profit from it - who poison the well of human decency, who undermine all education in order to prosper from their heinous endeavours.

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