Buzzing in your ears
Drones seem
to be a hot topic these days. Are they
a legitimate form of technology for use in a war? Is the comparison that the author makes to Big Brother apt? It is obvious that they negatively affect
the countries over which they fly, but what are the disadvantages for the
country that sends them?
What this article talks about came to me as a shock. I know about wars being waged over the world, but that this kind of psychological torture is being used I did not. I realize that there are no real rules or regulations in war when it comes to used technology, but I believe that there should be a certain level of tolerance for civilians on both sides of a conflict. What this article says is almost too horrible to even imagine.
ReplyDeleteYes, when it comes to war, it is fairly logical to use all the technology at hand, but the long term effects should be taken into consideration. The military drones may help get rid of potential terrorists, but might also cause new ones to form. As the article says, “there are reports of men, women, and children too terrified to sleep at night”. If a child is raised in these conditions, automatically the child will develop a hatred towards the country that put the drones there. And if such child would ever in adulthood find itself in a situation where it can take revenge against the country, it would not hesitate to do so. With the correct amount of hatred towards a country and a little red button with the text “send the missiles on the owners of the drones”, all rational thinking would go out the window and the child would find itself pressing the button. Repeatedly.
If a country wants to eliminate its enemies it should do it without creating new ones. What the United States are doing here is provoking innocent people and I strongly disagree with it. For the record, neither do I agree with what terrorists do, but evil is not the correct way to deal with evil. If the United States feel threatened by terrorist organisations then fine, they should take action. But there are limits to how far they should go.
I would like to start my comment with discourse about war as a principle. I believe that, both sides which are included in the war are fighting for some higher good which they highly praise for. Sometimes this higher good is actually lower good is absolute values (of course, it just my opinion). For example the fight of Europeans with Samurais. Both sides saw higher good for which they were fighting for, but in my eyes, the Europeans’ “good” was eventually very “low” good, whereas Samurais’ was a valuable one. What I am trying to say is that the war includes deaths because of fighting for some values, higher good. However, drones eliminate this feature from war partially. It basically only the fighting for good with only dollar sacrifices. These are only killing machines, not humans. Exactly this fact is a source of even higher terror in war-zone habitants’ psyches. I think that when people realize that is it a fight of machines (like in many US films) it affects them even more negatively than the war itself. Therefore, this is another aspect connected with drone usage.
ReplyDeletenother point, which is explained in more details in the article, is that the drones create perpetual pressure upon habitants. The sound which they create and the fact that they are always flying somewhere in the sky with killing guns make hostile conditions for habitants. It is simply impossible for human being to live in such situation, when there is non-moment of feeling safety. People just need to feel that they are in cave when nothing can thread them. They cannot permanently think of the sword of Damocles. This is also caused by drones, since if humans were in the sky, they would not definitely fly there all the time. It is like an eye which is still watching, but it is also capable of killing.
These two points mentioned represent two negative externalities of drones’ usage. However, I would like to mention also one positive. The benefit is that relatives of US soldiers may be calmer since they know that not their sons or husbands are piloting planes in war zones, but rather machines are doing this bloody work for them. Therefore there is a lower thread put upon the relatives from losing a close friend or family member. I think that also this fact should be included in cost-benefit analysis of usage of drones.
There are certainly many aspects which need to be considered when deciding whether the usage of drones is moral, or rather say “good,” or not. I believe that the human factor is the most important in such analysis. The fact that habitants in Pakistan or Gaza are permanently thrilled to death is definitely inhuman and though this situation should be solved. I believe that drones should be used for different purposes than flying above people's heads and monitoring the horizon. However, I just can comment on the described fact written in the article. Therefore, I consider myself to be highly incapable of commenting on the drone usage.
Drones are highly controversial not only because of their usage in war zones. Recently, the advance in technology, mainly in robotics, allowed for some awesome inventions including Boston’s Alpha Dog, Sand Flea jumping robot and quadrocopters or drones themselves. However, the last two have, besides being praised for their potential use in myriad of either military or commercial ways, been also questioned in terms of how they would bend the privacy of ordinary citizens. Some even envisioned Orwell’s kind of future, with quiet, ever watchful drones flying overhead and surreptitiously monitoring our daily activities. Far-fetched as it may seem, people in war zones are perhaps already experiencing it… and the studies show that instead of safety, uneasiness and frustration crept into the lives of Palestinians.
ReplyDeleteGuys above me covered in depth how horrible the drones are, but also that there is a certain positive thing about the drones – less casualties for the US. However, I think they forgot to put the drones into the context of the situation. The question is, what is the alternative to the drones? Taliban?
Hamas? The swift Special Forces teams taking out the targets in the war zones cannot be there forever, while it poses huge financial burden as well as risk to the troops, but in the current situation, not controlling an area means having it easily taken back by terrorists. Now it is apparent that the comparison probably should not be made between drones and no-drones but rather between drones and terrorists. What possess worse threat? What is the psychological impact of terrorists’ surveillance? I too think that the side effect of drones is truly distressing, but it might not be avoidable.
I cannot claim to have an answer, because I do not. However, despite the seriousness of evidence against the drones, I think the article presented only a simple opposition to its main line of argument, and therefore the overwhelmingly horrific image that is drawn in our heads after reading the article is not being completely honest with us. Maybe one last thing to think about: the studies assessing the impact of drones could have been conducted only after the areas were at least partly secured, by, among other means, even drones…
As much as this may seem inconsiderate towards the people living in warzones, I am not sure what they are expecting to happen in an active battleground. It’s not like they are going to be bestowed with an ordinary secure life, isolated of the risks and agony that a war conflict comes with. I am genuinely surprised that these people actually consider the drones to be the greatest of their problems – is it so that the attack helicopters, bombers and fighter jets that constantly roam the airspace above them are less bothering? I’m not even going to explain the effect of distant gunfire that occurs on a daily basis, as by now it is evident that this article clearly shows some bias towards unmanned warfare, but be as it may, I am not going to focus on the credibility of the article.
ReplyDeleteThe article mentions that several reports show that Unmanned Aerial Vehicle drones have earned a reputation of being bothersome, and on top of that, they have also been associated with a fair amount of civilian killings. Even though this is doubtlessly true, we must also look at the other side of the coin. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, throughout the entire length of action, approximately 3,200 people were killed by Predator drones, out of which 600 were reported to have been civilians. If we regard the 2,600 individuals as hostiles, then one could say that the drones prevented much more trouble than they caused to the civilian population in the form collateral damage.
Collateral damage in terms of civilian lives is nothing new to the realm of war conflicts. It is obvious that these so called blue-on-blue incidents and civilian deaths are not intentional, they occur in the spur of the moment; it so happens that a lot of these cases occur due to the battlefield rule of thumb which is similar to an old cliché saying: “kill or be killed”. Imagine that a drone spots a hostile militant group that happens to be in close proximity of an innocent bystander. Let’s say that the drone’s crew passes on the opportunity as they don’t want to risk hurting the civilian. A month later, it so happens that the hostile group was proclaimed to be a terrorist cell that later took out a whole military base including several civilian structures. Now, if we look back at the moment when the drone’s crew had the opportunity to take out the hostiles, if they took the shot, while probably injuring or even killing the one civilian, they would have effectively prevented an event that would result in many more civilian casualties. Even though there is no win from the perspective of the drone’s crew, they have the ability to minimalize their loss by acting preemptively, a truly controversial situation.
So here comes the million dollar question: “Is such a form of harassing and civilian killing acceptable?” Of course its not, but then again, is war really morally acceptable? It all comes down to a matter of opinion, in which experience and knowledge play a great role. Nevertheless, I do explicitly believe that civilian casualties should not be a part of a war. The disappointing thing is that even with today’s technology we are not capable of accomplishing such a ‘simple’ objective.
This comment is from Rasto:
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I have never liked the Theory of knowledge classes, because they remind of philosophy classes. However, the subject managed to teach me one thing - every serious charge or strong opinion should be analyzed before dismissed or accepted.
The same applies to these drones. The charges in the article are very serious, since the author basically says the population of Middle East is terrorized by the drones. If even half of the article is true and not an artificially inflated bubble, the US should seriously consider their invasion into the countries. The article was really disturbing, or rather too disturbing to be objectively true and unbiased. I’m not implying the buzzing of the drones isn’t real, but the way it is put in the article seems like there is at least one drone at the time in air twenty four hours a day and it shootsat civilians at least once a day. Although the drones are used to eliminate the terrorists, it is still controlled by humans, who realize the value of life and thus would not fire when the probability of civilian casualties is high. Maybe I’m a little naïve, but I don’t think the drones are operated by vengeance-seeking soldiers with anger issues who shoot at everything they see on the screen.
On the other hand, the civilians might have completely different attitude about the whole ‘big brother’ thing. The drones could be compared to the Damocles’ sword hanging on a slim rope just above their heads. I have never experienced any war conflict, so I can only try to imagine what it is like to live in such area, but I guess the drones are just a cherry on the top of the cake of violence and fights and the depression comes from the hopelessness of the situation that has been the main issue for years and it isn’t going to change anytime soon.
The author mentioned pre-drone era solutions like Special Forces ground operations of an air strike, so from a strategic point of view, the drones are perfect, since they’re fairly precise and very quick to respond to current situation. Before the drones, every ground operation required extensive planning, lots of intelligence about enemy location and difficult preparations, while risking the lives of US soldiers. The air strike was a bit faster and less dangerous method, but the air strikes are the most devastating form of combat, since they cover large area and operate with powerful bombs. From US military’s point of view, the drones are the most efficient solution. The damages are minimal, no US lives are put to risk, and this all at relatively low cost.
But still, I may be totally oblivious to the whole situation and US just don’t give a damn about the thousands of lives that came to their end in the drone attacks.