Distant Death - effects of UAVs or Drones

Amended: 29 September 2019.
There has been recent research into the "moral dissonance" and "sniper syndrome" experienced by pilots of UAV or drone aircraft.

Amended: 8 Dec 2015:
Both the US military and the UK military are now finding that the stress of piloting a UAV (drone) is such that many pilots are "burning out" and suffering psychological problems.

I originally wrote this in 2012 - so while I may have been slightly "ahead" regarding this matter, to me it is a "no brainer" for the following reasons:-

I wonder what it must be like sitting in a chair in front of a large computer screen handling the controls of a Predator drone unmanned aircraft flying 12000 km away? I wonder especially how I would feel at the moment I saw a “target” individual appear on the screen and was authorised to press the “fire’ button sending a missile to destroy that target person? I wonder how I would feel after I witnessed the resulting explosion, knowing that the target individual was now dead or at least very seriously injured? I wonder how I would feel when I went home that night and spoke to my wife and children knowing that, through my actions, I had denied someone the ability to do the very things that I was doing?

Would I be glad that I had rid the Earth of a bad person? Would I be jubilant I had struck a blow for peace? Would I be aware of the irony in what I had done? Would I be interested in hearing the reasons why the person I have just killed – from my desk 12000 km distant – was deemed by my superiors to be a worthy target? Would I care that he had a family and that he loved his wife and children – and that they loved him? Would I care that some injustice, actual or perceived, suffered by this person was blamed on the “Great Satan” America. Would I be interested in hearing that this injustice (actual or perceived) had so affected him that he tried to redress the affects of the injustice in the only effective way he knew – violence against “The West”?

What would I have done differently if I had actually been on the ground seeking this individual? What would have done if I actually confronted him? What would I have done in the heat of the moment amid the flies and dust and heat and the smell of perspiration and fear – his and my own? What would I have done when I saw the expression in his eyes – the surprise; or the determination to kill or be killed; or the fear or pleading for life? What would I have done if I noticed he was unarmed?

In these circumstances would I be chivalrous and ask him to surrender? In these circumstances would I shoot first and damn the consequences?

Maybe, if I was still at my desk, I would compare notes with those at other controls at other desks flying other drones. Maybe I would be competitive and strive to “shoot and outscore” the others. Maybe, just maybe, I might experience a pang of guilt that someone I never knew, but was instructed to kill, died as a result of my actions; someone I knew only from a foreshortened aerial image taken from an altitude of 10 000 metres some 12 000 km from my computer screen.

Surely everyone has a right to live? Who am I to judge otherwise? Who are those unworthy of life? Am I? I wonder.

I wonder too, if at any stage of my day, the sentiments expressed by the famous lines written by John Donne, (1572 – 1631) would cross my mind:

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

I just wonder at the psychological effects this distant death may have if I had to do this day after day? I wonder.

What is the bottom line to you?

Those who believe that the financial bottom line is the be all and end all of commerce and industry are wrong. As has been repeatedly pointed out in these posts, money is useful but without human beings, people, individuals, you and I, there would be no money. So to me it is a blinding glimpse of the obvious to realise that human beings, people, individuals must be considered more important than money!! Look after people, customers, patients – whomsoever, and the money will flow.

This is ‘service’. The core, the prime purpose of every business is to provide a service. Think about it. I need a jacket – I can’t make one so I go to someone, a shop for example, that provides them. They are servicing my needs. The shop purchases the jacket from a tailor – the tailor services the needs of the shop; the tailor buys the jacket material from the weaver – the weaver services the needs of the tailor – and so on right back to the farmer who breeds sheep and has them sheared for the wool. Each is servicing the needs of the other. Likewise if I need coal or iron ore for my factory I approach an organisation that provides these minerals – they too are servicing my needs. So by default all commerce and industry is ultimately providing a service – but to whom? To human beings, people, individuals – you and I!!

The jacket or the coal or iron ore does not make money; it is the people who require the products that pay for the goods or materials (the service) provided that “make” the money. So, once more (it is worth repeating again and again), take care of the ultimate source of the money you are seeking - provide a service to human beings; care for people, and the money will flow. It is really very simple.

This is the ideal and the ultimate “win – win” situation. Commerce and industry win and people win, each get what they want. Greed, hubris, inflated egos and plain old selfishness, however, are all too common human attributes that need to be accounted for when the subject of money is mentioned. Enough, seemingly, is never enough.

But the truth remains – provide a service and money will flow.