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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'

#81

Post by glloydell »

rasz wrote: post #78
glloydell wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cop who followed the same regulations and rules of engagement as a soldier would be committing a crime. Because they have entirely different jobs, in entirely different contexts, with entirely different rules, serving entirely different purposes.

sure https://boingboing.net/2019/09/27/breakdown-of-how-sacrament...

Precisely!

Soldiers in an active military zone would almost certainly not be subject to any scrutiny or investigation for fatally shooting someone who they believed to be armed in the same situation.

Thanks for the supporting evidence!!!!

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

#82

Post by ClumsyPilot »

rasz wrote: post #79
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least place the blame where is belongs, drone pilots don't get to choose who to kill. I don't think they recruit with "bombing Afghan farmers is great fun!"

>I don't think they recruit with "bombing Afghan farmers is great fun!" Why would you not think that???!?! "Recruited at video game fairs by military leaders who know the value of games that glamourise 'militainment' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGA8RFB0VSw

Damn...

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

#83

Post by c0nducktr »

mieseratte wrote: post #31
journalctl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have we considered maybe _not_ killing them?

Welcome to war. Bad intel kills good people. I would be more concerned with the classification of any male over 16 killed in a strike as an automatic combatant than a single given operation gone wrong. This is an unavoidable aspect of war.

Thankfully, we can be concerned about more than one thing at a time.

And this isn't a single operation gone wrong, there's been 10s if not 100s of these incidents. Framing it as a "single operation gone wrong" is ignorant at best.

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

#84

Post by nesadi »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #72
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…

Back in feudal times wars did stop because army was not motivated. This is a legitimate problem. That why we demonize 'the enemy'. Take it to the extreme, and you have nazi atrocities and 'just following orders'.

I think those are two separate issues.

The former is about operational readiness. If your army is unable to shoot at the enemy for whatever reason, you don't have a functional army. Wars are lost because of this (which leads to political concessions and loss of resources/influence/etc), and it's an important topic to consider when your goal is to maintain a standing army like the US.

The latter is, well, morality.

Of course, these two topics clash. How far do you go to ensure an obedient and effective army, while allowing leeway to refuse orders that are immoral?

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

#85

Post by dang »

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.

You can't throw your humanity away.

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

#86

Post by rhizome »

e12e wrote: post #43
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?

Decades? How about the British presence in the region? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War (and so on and so forth..)

I don't see Taliban or heroin (or "opium") in that article, but sure, if you want to expand the relationship to being between theocratic rulers and vice production I'm fine with that. I didn't read the article to see if that's actually what was going on 200 years ago, but I'm assuming you aren't posting an offtopic reply.

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

#87

Post by ClumsyPilot »

nesadi wrote: post #84
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in feudal times wars did stop because army was not motivated. This is a legitimate problem. That why we demonize 'the enemy'. Take it to the extreme, and you have nazi atrocities and 'just following orders'.

I think those are two separate issues. The former is about operational readiness. If your army is unable to shoot at the enemy for whatever reason, you don't have a functional army. Wars are lost because of this (which leads to political concessions and loss of resources/influence/etc), and it's an important topic to consider when your goal is to maintain a standing army like the US. The latter is, well, morality. Of…

In the former case justification for war matters. Compare moral effect of Perl Harbour and compare that to war in Vietnam.

Same army will be far more motivated to fight to defend the homeland than to kill a poor sod in a faraway land for unclear reason. So it's not a static quality.

And every time there is a fuckup from the higher ups it affects morale.

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

#88

Post by rhizome »

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.

I'm not saying the Taliban is reducible to banning heroin, I'm relaying the actual history of US foreign policy toward Af chiefly hinging on that dilemma. When the Taliban is out of power, heroin production goes up. We know this. For decades.

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

#89

Post by matz1 »

glloydell wrote: post #73
matz1 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats more of a higher level objective and sometimes to achieve that objective, killing people is required. Yes Indiscriminate killing is a problem but that is a different problem. The article is in regards of actual pushing the button, I'm assuming the killing is already decided after careful judgement .

It doesn't matter how much care was taken in making the initial judgement if the information using it to reach it is flawed, or if the situation changes in the time between the decision being made and it's execution. I'd imagine that someone with no qualms about taking human life would be far less likely to confirm the validity and accuracy of those justifications. I don't think anyone wants drone operators who dismi…

>It doesn't matter how much care was taken in making the initial judgement if the information using it to reach it is flawed, or if the situation changes in the time between the decision being made and it's execution.

Of course, thats the leader job to make sure that the information is not flawed and take into account the time decision being made and it's execution.

>I'd imagine that someone with no qualms about taking human life would be far less likely to confirm the validity and accuracy of those justifications

Sure but the solider, during actual combat situation, can't always second guess and debate your commander. There might be simply no time.

The solider utmost job is to execute the action that the leader has ordered.

Thats why you have chain of command, separation of concerns.

If every soldier or drone operator has to do the job of making strategic decision and operating drone at the same time, I think that would be too much cognitive load.

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

#90

Post by matz1 »

kbenson wrote: post #56
matz1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, th…

while I'm fairly certain I am that people, I'm not sure how to prove it to you.

The war atrocities is either the issue of the leader making wrong decision or the soldier not following order.

Assuming the leader made the correct decision of killing and the solider who execute that order is a solider who doesn't have moral qualm about the killing then what is the issue ?

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