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Home > The Capricious Way America Conducts Drone Strikes
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The Capricious Way America Conducts Drone Strikes
By Pratap Chatterjee [1] / TomDispatch [2]
July 12, 2015
The myth of the lone drone warrior is now well established and threatens to
become as enduring as that of the lone lawman with a white horse and a
silver bullet who rode out into the Wild West to find the bad guys. In a
similar fashion, the unsung hero of Washington's modern War on Terror in the
wild backlands of the planet is sometimes portrayed [3] as a mysterious
Central Intelligence Agency officer [4]. Via modern technology, he prowls
Central Asian or Middle Eastern skies with his unmanned Predator drone,
dispatching carefully placed Hellfire missiles to kill top al-Qaeda
terrorists in their remote hideouts.
So much for the myth. In reality, there's nothing "lone" about drone
warfare. Think of the structure for carrying out Washington's drone killing
program as a multidimensional pyramid populated with hundreds of personnel
and so complex that just about no one involved really grasps the full
picture. Cian Westmoreland [5], a U.S. Air Force veteran who helped set up
the drone data communications system over southeastern Afghanistan back in
2009, puts the matter bluntly [6]: "There are so many people in the chain of
actions that it has become increasingly difficult to understand the true
impact of what we do. The diffusion of responsibility distances people from
the moral weight of their decisions."
In addition, it's a program under pressure, killing continually, and losing
[7] its own personnel at a startling and possibly unsustainable rate [8] due
to "wounds" that no one ever imagined as part of this war. There are, in
fact, two groups feeling the greatest impact from Washington's ongoing air
campaigns: lowly drone intelligence "analysts," often fresh out of high
school, and women and children living in poverty on the other side of the
world.
A Hyper-Manned Killing Machine
Here, then, as best it can be understood, is how the Air Force version of
unmanned aerial warfare really works -- and keep in mind that the CIA's
drone war operations are deeply integrated into this system.
The heart of drone war operations does indeed consist of a single pilot and
a sensor (camera) operator, typically seated next to each other thousands of
miles from the action at an Air Force base like Creech [9] in Nevada or
Cannon [10]in New Mexico. There, they operate Predator or Reaper drones
over countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, or Yemen.
Either of them might have control over the onboard Hellfire missiles, but it
would be wrong to assume that they are the modern day equivalent of the Lone
Ranger and his sidekick, Tonto.
In fact a typical "combat air patrol" may have as many as 186 individuals
[11]working on it. To begin with, while the pilot and the sensor operator
make up the central "mission-control element," they need a
"launch-and-recovery element" on the other side of the world to physically
deploy the drones and bring them back to bases in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia,
and elsewhere. As with so much that the U.S. military now does, this work is
contracted [12] out to companies like Raytheon of Massachusetts.
And don't forget another key group: the imagery and intelligence analysts
who watch the video footage the drones are beaming from their potential
target areas. They are typically at other bases in the U.S.
Each member of the flight crew has an Air Force designation that specifies
his or her task. The pilots are known as 18Xs [13], the sensor operators are
1Us [14], and the imagery analysts are 1N1s [15]. The launch and recovery
personnel are often former drone pilots who have quit the Air Force because
they can make twice [16] as much money working overseas for private
contractors.
In charge of the flight operators are a flight operations supervisor and a
mission intelligence coordinator who report to a joint force air and space
component commander. In addition, there are "safety" observers [17] and
judge advocates [18] (military-speak for lawyers) who are supposed to ensure
that any decision to launch a missile is made in accordance with officially
issued "rules of engagement" and so results in a minimum number of civilian
deaths. They are often situated at the Combined Air and Space Operations
Center [19] at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
[20]But Predators and Reapers don't fly solo. They typically roam in packs
of four aircraft known as "combat air patrols." [21] Three of them are
expected to be in the air at any given time, leaving one on the ground for
refueling and maintenance. A fully staffed patrol [11] should have 59
individuals in the field doing launch and recovery, 45 doing mission
control, and 82 working on the data gathered.
Bear in mind that the Air Force is currently staffing 65 [22] such combat
air patrols around the clock, and the Central Intelligence Agency may well
be operating quite a few more. (It is possible that the two fly all missions
jointly, but we have no way of knowing if this is so.) In other words, toss
away the idea of the lone drone pilot and try to take in the vast size and
complexity (as well as the pressures) of drone warfare today.
This, by the way, is why Air Force officials hate the popular industry term
for drone aircraft: "unmanned aerial vehicle." The military notes correctly
that drones are in every meaningful sense manned. If anything, of course,
they are hyper-manned, when compared to, say, a traditional F-16 fighter
jet. (In fact, the preferred military term is "remotely piloted aircraft
[23].")
How PTSD Hits the Drone Program
In covering Washington's drone wars, the media has tended to zero in on the
top of the kill chain: President Obama, who every Tuesday [24] reviews a
"kill list" of individuals to be taken out by drone strikes; the CIA general
counsel who has to sign off on each decision (John Rizzo [25] did this, for
example); and Michael D'Andrea [26], the CIA staffer who oversaw the list of
those to be killed until he was replaced by Chris Wood [27] last year.
In reality, these decision-makers at the top of the drone pyramid see next
to nothing of what happens on the ground. The people who understand just how
drone war actually works are the lowly 1N1 imagery analysts. While the
pilots are jockeying to keep their planes stable in air currents that they
cannot physically feel and sensor operators are manipulating cameras to
follow multiple individuals moving around on the ground, the full picture is
only obvious to the imagery and intelligence analysts. They are steadily
reviewing both real time and past drone footage and comparing surveillance
data to see if they can spot potential terrorists.
Many of them are in their teens or slightly older with perhaps a year of
formal military training. They are outranked by drone pilots, officers with
degrees and years of training at the Air Force Academy, who will typically
pull the trigger on a Hellfire missile.
Add to this picture one more fact: the Air Force is desperately short of
people to do such work and losing [28] them faster than it can train new
recruits. As a result, Washington's drone wars are operating at perhaps
two-thirds of what the Air Force would consider ideal staffing levels. This
means that drone personnel are now expected to work double- and triple-duty
shifts. As one drone commander explained [11] to an Air Force historian:
"Your work schedule was 12-hour shifts, six days a week. You were supposed
to get three days off after that, but people often got only one day off. You
couldn't even take your 30 days of annual leave -- you were lucky to get 10.
When you have mainly a non-vol[unteer] community, what do you expect? It's
not going to be a happy place."
These overworked, under-trained, underpaid, very young drone personnel are
now starting to experience psychological trauma from exposure to endless
killing missions. They are the ones who see and have to live with the grim
scenes of what is so bloodlessly called "collateral damage."
"They are often involved in operations where they witness and make decisions
that lead to the destruction of enemy combatants and assets," Dr. Wayne
Chappelle, an Air Force psychologist, wrote [29] in the August 2013 issue of
Military Medicine. "They can still become attached to people they track,
experience grief from the loss of allied members on the ground, and
experience grief/remorse when missions create collateral damage or cause
fratricide. It is possible there are drone operators who perceive the
deployment of weapons and exposure to live video feed of combat as highly
stressful events."
Chappelle's studies have already shown an increased level of post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD) among these personnel. He is now working on new
studies aimed at focusing on exactly which of them are most affected, at
what point in the decision-making, and why. The Air Force hopes that
Chappelle can help them reduce the incidence of PTSD -- from which they are
losing personnel -- by offering advice on just how psychologists and
chaplains working alongside drone operators might counsel them on their
ongoing traumatic experiences. Otherwise it faces the problem of staffing
its missions, fulfilling a growing demand for ever more drone strikes in
ever more countries, and a new phenomenon as well: growing criticism and
resistance to its killing machine from within.
Cian Westmoreland, who was not even involved in active targeting work, is
nonetheless typical. He says that he is experiencing nightmares about the
200 or so "kills" that he was credited as having supported. As he wrote [6]
recently, "I started having dreams about bombs. I once dreamt I saw a small
girl crying over a body on the ground. I looked down and it was a woman. I
looked at the girl and told her I was sorry. I looked at my hands and I was
wearing my [battle dress uniform]. They were covered in her mother's blood."
Westmoreland's nightmares pushed him to speak out -- and he is just one of a
growing number of Air Force veterans who have chosen to do so. An imagery
analyst I recemtly interviewed told me that junior personnel were deeply
affected when they saw civilians, including women and children, in the line
of fire.
"If the pilot really wants to, they can ignore us and push the button
without us agreeing," the analyst added. "We are often completely helpless
because airmen are terrified of officers. It is an unbalanced chain of
command."
What's striking is the whistleblowers coming forward are not pilots and
officers but the lowest ranked personnel in the drone teams.
PTSD in the Global Wild West
The trauma of desktop warfare comes mostly from the voyeurism of watching
death thousands of miles distant and can, in some cases, be tuned out and
eventually turned off. The same cannot be said for the experiences of
targeted communities.
Washington experts regularly claim that the surgical elimination of top
al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Yemen has reduced terror in these
communities, but actual studies on the ground suggest that the very opposite
is true.
Last month, Alkarama (the name means "dignity") -- a Geneva based human
rights organization that specializes in the Arab world -- published
"Traumatizing Skies [30]," a special report on the impact of drones in
Yemen. One hundred participants were interviewed from the villages of Qawl
and al-Sirin between July and September last year and evaluated using the
same American Psychiatric Association standards for PTSD that Chappelle's
team used on drone analysts.
"An overwhelming majority of adult respondents are seen to be suffering from
numerous drone-inflicted symptoms of PTSD, which are even more prevalent
amongst children," writes Radidja Nemar, Alkarama's regional legal officer
for the Gulf countries. "The situation has transcended the question about
whether or not an individual has lost a family member to a drone attack,
simply because trauma has become pervasive in a society living constantly
under the fear of drones."
Their situation differs from that of the pilots or analysts who can and do
quit their jobs when they begin to suffer. The victims have no such options.
They can't escape the drones regularly buzzing overhead. "The common
denominator in most of the cases is the feeling that life has no value and
that death could happen at any moment and without apparent reason," wrote
one of the Yemeni survey researchers. "This shared feeling hinders most
everyday activities in the villages and results in constant anxiety and
fear. The deterioration of the living conditions in general, as added to the
lack of healthcare services and the mental suffering of the populations, are
aggravating their general feeling of hopelessness, frustration, and
anxiety."
The most distressed respondents were women, partly because they felt the
drones violated their modesty. Girls reported the highest percentage of
sleeplessness and nightmares. Not least was the impact on women's daily
lives, already far more restricted than those of men. Atiqa, a 55-year-old
mother of three, for instance, explained that her blood pressure problems
had become more severe, forcing her to stay in bed for several days at a
time. Fatima, a 40-year-old mother of five, reported that women like her
were unable to enjoy the few opportunities where they could meet other
women, like weddings [31], for fear that such gatherings would act like
drone magnets.
Similar reports have emerged from Pakistan, says Dr. Mukhtar-ul-Haq, the
head of the psychiatry department at Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital. He
has studied the impact of the drone war on Waziristan, a tribal borderland
near Afghanistan. "The vast majority of people report being perpetually
scared of drone attacks day and night," Dr. Haq said [32] in a video
conference call held by Alkarama to mark the release of its Yemen report.
"The constant noise makes them experience bouts of emotional trauma and
symptoms of anxiety. They often manifest themselves in the form of physical
illness, heart attacks, and even suicide."
Joining the Alkarama conference call was Brandon Bryant, a former Air Force
sensor operator, who has experienced PTSD, thanks to his work with drones.
He has become one of the most outspoken critics of Washington's killing
program. "The leadership only looks at this program as a numbers-based
thing. how many people were killed," says [32] Bryant whose unit took part
in 2,300 kills. He estimates that he personally killed 13 people with
Hellfire missiles. "They don't care about the human beings doing the job or
the human beings affected by the job."
Although they never served together, Bryant and Westmoreland recently
discovered each other's work at a screening of the film Drone [33] by
Norwegian filmmaker Tonje Schei. The two Air Force veterans have now joined
forces to seek justice for affected communities. They have set up an online
organization of national security whistleblowers and their supporters,
giving it the symbolically bloody name of Project Red Hand [34]. Through it
they are calling for others from the drone program to join them in speaking
out.
"Many of us are people who looked down one day to see our hands painted
red," they write in the organization's mission [35] statement. "To those
[to] whom we direct our words, we are not your adversaries. We are only a
mirror. Through our crimson hands we only seek to show you your reflection.
We believe that truth deserves its own narrative. We hope that people like
you will also stand up and join us in our efforts. We are also living proof
that there is life after this, and if you trust us, we will show you a
better world."
In bucking the military system and Washington's cherished drone war program,
perhaps Bryant and Westmoreland are themselves the ones who are taking on
the classic Wild West roles of the Lone Ranger and Tonto. They have ridden
into the badlands of the national security state to challenge the injustice
of an outlaw system of killing that extends across significant parts of the
planet. In the face of such an implacable program, one can only hope that
they will find their silver bullets.
Pratap Chatterjee, a TomDispatch regular [8], is executive director of
CorpWatch. He is the author of Halliburton's Army: How A Well-Connected
Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War [36]. His next
book, Verax [37], a graphic novel about whistleblowers and mass surveillance
co-authored by Khalil Bendib, will be published by Metropolitan Books in
2016.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook [38]. Check out the
newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse's Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars
and Secret Ops in Africa [20], and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow
Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a
Single-Superpower World [39].
Copyright 2015 Pratap Chatterjee
Pratap Chatterjee is managing editor of CorpWatch [40] and the author of
Halliburton's Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized
the Way America Makes War [41] (Nation Books, 2009).
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Source URL:
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Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/pratap-chatterjee
[2] http://www.tomdispatch.com/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVA3T7FoM3E
[4]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/theater/anne-hathaways-solo-turn-as-a-figh
ter-pilot-in-grounded-at-the-public-theater.html
[5] https://www.linkedin.com/in/cianwestmoreland
[6] http://projectredhand.org/tag/cian-westmoreland/
[7]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/us/as-stress-drives-off-drone-operators-ai
r-force-must-cut-flights.html
[8]
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175964/tomgram%3A_pratap_chatterjee,_is_dron
e_warfare_fraying_at_the_edges/
[9] http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-drone-pilots-20150617-story.html
[10]
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/23/us-usa-security-drones-idUSBRE93M0
4520130423
[11]
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/air-force-drone-crews-got-so-demoralized-th
at-they-booed-their-commander-cfd455fea40f
[12]
http://investor.raytheon.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=84193&p=irol-newsArticle_Pr
int&ID=1576407
[13] http://www.holloman.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123289389
[14] http://usmilitary.about.com/od/airforceenlistedjobs/a/1u0x1.htm
[15] http://www.airforce.com/careers/detail/geospatial-intelligence/
[16]
http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2015/04/21/drone-pilot-compensat
ion/25837209/
[17] http://www.alamogordonews.com/tablehome/ci_19958182
[18]
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/15/drone-attack
s-obama-administration
[19]
http://intercepts.defensenews.com/2014/01/pulling-the-curtain-back-on-air-ba
se-in-qatar/
[20] http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
[21] http://www.wired.com/2012/02/air-force-drones/
[22]
http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/485358/rpa-community
-launches-65th-combat-air-patrol.aspx
[23]
http://archive.defensenews.com/article/20130326/C4ISR02/303260023/The-8216-D
-8217-Word-What-Call-UAV
[24]
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda
.html
[25] http://www.newsweek.com/inside-killing-machine-68771
[26]
http://gawker.com/why-wont-the-post-name-cia-counterterrorism-chief-micha-16
93833306
[27]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/us/politics/deep-support-in-washington-for
-cias-drone-missions.html
[28]
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/06/a_chilling_new_post_traumatic_stress_disorde
r_why_drone_pilots_are_quitting_in_record_numbers_partner/
[29] http://publications.amsus.org/doi/pdf/10.7205/MILMED-D-13-00501
[30]
http://en.alkarama.org/component/k2/1764-yemen-alkarama-s-report-2015-trauma
tising-skies-u-s-drone-operations-and-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd-am
ong-civilians-in-yemen
[31]
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175787/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_washington%27s
_wedding_album_from_hell/
[32] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy8NwkkO9LY
[33] https://www.facebook.com/DRONEDOCUMENTARY
[34] http://projectredhand.org/
[35] http://projectredhand.org/about/
[36]
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1568583923/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20#_blank
[37] http://whistle4democracy.org/
[38] http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch
[39] http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
[40] http://www.corpwatch.org
[41] http://www.powells.com/partner/32513/biblio/9781568583921
[42] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on The Capricious Way
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Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > The Capricious Way America Conducts Drone Strikes
The Capricious Way America Conducts Drone Strikes
By Pratap Chatterjee [1] / TomDispatch [2]
July 12, 2015
The myth of the lone drone warrior is now well established and threatens to
become as enduring as that of the lone lawman with a white horse and a
silver bullet who rode out into the Wild West to find the bad guys. In a
similar fashion, the unsung hero of Washington's modern War on Terror in the
wild backlands of the planet is sometimes portrayed [3] as a mysterious
Central Intelligence Agency officer [4]. Via modern technology, he prowls
Central Asian or Middle Eastern skies with his unmanned Predator drone,
dispatching carefully placed Hellfire missiles to kill top al-Qaeda
terrorists in their remote hideouts.
So much for the myth. In reality, there's nothing "lone" about drone
warfare. Think of the structure for carrying out Washington's drone killing
program as a multidimensional pyramid populated with hundreds of personnel
and so complex that just about no one involved really grasps the full
picture. Cian Westmoreland [5], a U.S. Air Force veteran who helped set up
the drone data communications system over southeastern Afghanistan back in
2009, puts the matter bluntly [6]: "There are so many people in the chain of
actions that it has become increasingly difficult to understand the true
impact of what we do. The diffusion of responsibility distances people from
the moral weight of their decisions."
In addition, it's a program under pressure, killing continually, and losing
[7] its own personnel at a startling and possibly unsustainable rate [8] due
to "wounds" that no one ever imagined as part of this war. There are, in
fact, two groups feeling the greatest impact from Washington's ongoing air
campaigns: lowly drone intelligence "analysts," often fresh out of high
school, and women and children living in poverty on the other side of the
world.
A Hyper-Manned Killing Machine
Here, then, as best it can be understood, is how the Air Force version of
unmanned aerial warfare really works -- and keep in mind that the CIA's
drone war operations are deeply integrated into this system.
The heart of drone war operations does indeed consist of a single pilot and
a sensor (camera) operator, typically seated next to each other thousands of
miles from the action at an Air Force base like Creech [9] in Nevada or
Cannon [10]in New Mexico. There, they operate Predator or Reaper drones over
countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, or Yemen. Either
of them might have control over the onboard Hellfire missiles, but it would
be wrong to assume that they are the modern day equivalent of the Lone
Ranger and his sidekick, Tonto.
In fact a typical "combat air patrol" may have as many as 186 individuals
[11]working on it. To begin with, while the pilot and the sensor operator
make up the central "mission-control element," they need a
"launch-and-recovery element" on the other side of the world to physically
deploy the drones and bring them back to bases in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia,
and elsewhere. As with so much that the U.S. military now does, this work is
contracted [12] out to companies like Raytheon of Massachusetts.
And don't forget another key group: the imagery and intelligence analysts
who watch the video footage the drones are beaming from their potential
target areas. They are typically at other bases in the U.S.
Each member of the flight crew has an Air Force designation that specifies
his or her task. The pilots are known as 18Xs [13], the sensor operators are
1Us [14], and the imagery analysts are 1N1s [15]. The launch and recovery
personnel are often former drone pilots who have quit the Air Force because
they can make twice [16] as much money working overseas for private
contractors.
In charge of the flight operators are a flight operations supervisor and a
mission intelligence coordinator who report to a joint force air and space
component commander. In addition, there are "safety" observers [17] and
judge advocates [18] (military-speak for lawyers) who are supposed to ensure
that any decision to launch a missile is made in accordance with officially
issued "rules of engagement" and so results in a minimum number of civilian
deaths. They are often situated at the Combined Air and Space Operations
Center [19] at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20[20]But
Predators and Reapers don't fly solo. They typically roam in packs of four
aircraft known as "combat air patrols." [21] Three of them are expected to
be in the air at any given time, leaving one on the ground for refueling and
maintenance. A fully staffed patrol [11] should have 59 individuals in the
field doing launch and recovery, 45 doing mission control, and 82 working on
the data gathered.
Bear in mind that the Air Force is currently staffing 65 [22] such combat
air patrols around the clock, and the Central Intelligence Agency may well
be operating quite a few more. (It is possible that the two fly all missions
jointly, but we have no way of knowing if this is so.) In other words, toss
away the idea of the lone drone pilot and try to take in the vast size and
complexity (as well as the pressures) of drone warfare today.
This, by the way, is why Air Force officials hate the popular industry term
for drone aircraft: "unmanned aerial vehicle." The military notes correctly
that drones are in every meaningful sense manned. If anything, of course,
they are hyper-manned, when compared to, say, a traditional F-16 fighter
jet. (In fact, the preferred military term is "remotely piloted aircraft
[23].")
How PTSD Hits the Drone Program
In covering Washington's drone wars, the media has tended to zero in on the
top of the kill chain: President Obama, who every Tuesday [24] reviews a
"kill list" of individuals to be taken out by drone strikes; the CIA general
counsel who has to sign off on each decision (John Rizzo [25] did this, for
example); and Michael D'Andrea [26], the CIA staffer who oversaw the list of
those to be killed until he was replaced by Chris Wood [27] last year.
In reality, these decision-makers at the top of the drone pyramid see next
to nothing of what happens on the ground. The people who understand just how
drone war actually works are the lowly 1N1 imagery analysts. While the
pilots are jockeying to keep their planes stable in air currents that they
cannot physically feel and sensor operators are manipulating cameras to
follow multiple individuals moving around on the ground, the full picture is
only obvious to the imagery and intelligence analysts. They are steadily
reviewing both real time and past drone footage and comparing surveillance
data to see if they can spot potential terrorists.
Many of them are in their teens or slightly older with perhaps a year of
formal military training. They are outranked by drone pilots, officers with
degrees and years of training at the Air Force Academy, who will typically
pull the trigger on a Hellfire missile.
Add to this picture one more fact: the Air Force is desperately short of
people to do such work and losing [28] them faster than it can train new
recruits. As a result, Washington's drone wars are operating at perhaps
two-thirds of what the Air Force would consider ideal staffing levels. This
means that drone personnel are now expected to work double- and triple-duty
shifts. As one drone commander explained [11] to an Air Force historian:
"Your work schedule was 12-hour shifts, six days a week. You were supposed
to get three days off after that, but people often got only one day off. You
couldn't even take your 30 days of annual leave -- you were lucky to get 10.
When you have mainly a non-vol[unteer] community, what do you expect? It's
not going to be a happy place."
These overworked, under-trained, underpaid, very young drone personnel are
now starting to experience psychological trauma from exposure to endless
killing missions. They are the ones who see and have to live with the grim
scenes of what is so bloodlessly called "collateral damage."
"They are often involved in operations where they witness and make decisions
that lead to the destruction of enemy combatants and assets," Dr. Wayne
Chappelle, an Air Force psychologist, wrote [29] in the August 2013 issue of
Military Medicine. "They can still become attached to people they track,
experience grief from the loss of allied members on the ground, and
experience grief/remorse when missions create collateral damage or cause
fratricide. It is possible there are drone operators who perceive the
deployment of weapons and exposure to live video feed of combat as highly
stressful events."
Chappelle's studies have already shown an increased level of post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD) among these personnel. He is now working on new
studies aimed at focusing on exactly which of them are most affected, at
what point in the decision-making, and why. The Air Force hopes that
Chappelle can help them reduce the incidence of PTSD -- from which they are
losing personnel -- by offering advice on just how psychologists and
chaplains working alongside drone operators might counsel them on their
ongoing traumatic experiences. Otherwise it faces the problem of staffing
its missions, fulfilling a growing demand for ever more drone strikes in
ever more countries, and a new phenomenon as well: growing criticism and
resistance to its killing machine from within.
Cian Westmoreland, who was not even involved in active targeting work, is
nonetheless typical. He says that he is experiencing nightmares about the
200 or so "kills" that he was credited as having supported. As he wrote [6]
recently, "I started having dreams about bombs. I once dreamt I saw a small
girl crying over a body on the ground. I looked down and it was a woman. I
looked at the girl and told her I was sorry. I looked at my hands and I was
wearing my [battle dress uniform]. They were covered in her mother's blood."
Westmoreland's nightmares pushed him to speak out -- and he is just one of a
growing number of Air Force veterans who have chosen to do so. An imagery
analyst I recemtly interviewed told me that junior personnel were deeply
affected when they saw civilians, including women and children, in the line
of fire.
"If the pilot really wants to, they can ignore us and push the button
without us agreeing," the analyst added. "We are often completely helpless
because airmen are terrified of officers. It is an unbalanced chain of
command."
What's striking is the whistleblowers coming forward are not pilots and
officers but the lowest ranked personnel in the drone teams.
PTSD in the Global Wild West
The trauma of desktop warfare comes mostly from the voyeurism of watching
death thousands of miles distant and can, in some cases, be tuned out and
eventually turned off. The same cannot be said for the experiences of
targeted communities.
Washington experts regularly claim that the surgical elimination of top
al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Yemen has reduced terror in these
communities, but actual studies on the ground suggest that the very opposite
is true.
Last month, Alkarama (the name means "dignity") -- a Geneva based human
rights organization that specializes in the Arab world -- published
"Traumatizing Skies [30]," a special report on the impact of drones in
Yemen. One hundred participants were interviewed from the villages of Qawl
and al-Sirin between July and September last year and evaluated using the
same American Psychiatric Association standards for PTSD that Chappelle's
team used on drone analysts.
"An overwhelming majority of adult respondents are seen to be suffering from
numerous drone-inflicted symptoms of PTSD, which are even more prevalent
amongst children," writes Radidja Nemar, Alkarama's regional legal officer
for the Gulf countries. "The situation has transcended the question about
whether or not an individual has lost a family member to a drone attack,
simply because trauma has become pervasive in a society living constantly
under the fear of drones."
Their situation differs from that of the pilots or analysts who can and do
quit their jobs when they begin to suffer. The victims have no such options.
They can't escape the drones regularly buzzing overhead. "The common
denominator in most of the cases is the feeling that life has no value and
that death could happen at any moment and without apparent reason," wrote
one of the Yemeni survey researchers. "This shared feeling hinders most
everyday activities in the villages and results in constant anxiety and
fear. The deterioration of the living conditions in general, as added to the
lack of healthcare services and the mental suffering of the populations, are
aggravating their general feeling of hopelessness, frustration, and
anxiety."
The most distressed respondents were women, partly because they felt the
drones violated their modesty. Girls reported the highest percentage of
sleeplessness and nightmares. Not least was the impact on women's daily
lives, already far more restricted than those of men. Atiqa, a 55-year-old
mother of three, for instance, explained that her blood pressure problems
had become more severe, forcing her to stay in bed for several days at a
time. Fatima, a 40-year-old mother of five, reported that women like her
were unable to enjoy the few opportunities where they could meet other
women, like weddings [31], for fear that such gatherings would act like
drone magnets.
Similar reports have emerged from Pakistan, says Dr. Mukhtar-ul-Haq, the
head of the psychiatry department at Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital. He
has studied the impact of the drone war on Waziristan, a tribal borderland
near Afghanistan. "The vast majority of people report being perpetually
scared of drone attacks day and night," Dr. Haq said [32] in a video
conference call held by Alkarama to mark the release of its Yemen report.
"The constant noise makes them experience bouts of emotional trauma and
symptoms of anxiety. They often manifest themselves in the form of physical
illness, heart attacks, and even suicide."
Joining the Alkarama conference call was Brandon Bryant, a former Air Force
sensor operator, who has experienced PTSD, thanks to his work with drones.
He has become one of the most outspoken critics of Washington's killing
program. "The leadership only looks at this program as a numbers-based
thing. how many people were killed," says [32] Bryant whose unit took part
in 2,300 kills. He estimates that he personally killed 13 people with
Hellfire missiles. "They don't care about the human beings doing the job or
the human beings affected by the job."
Although they never served together, Bryant and Westmoreland recently
discovered each other's work at a screening of the film Drone [33] by
Norwegian filmmaker Tonje Schei. The two Air Force veterans have now joined
forces to seek justice for affected communities. They have set up an online
organization of national security whistleblowers and their supporters,
giving it the symbolically bloody name of Project Red Hand [34]. Through it
they are calling for others from the drone program to join them in speaking
out.
"Many of us are people who looked down one day to see our hands painted
red," they write in the organization's mission [35] statement. "To those
[to] whom we direct our words, we are not your adversaries. We are only a
mirror. Through our crimson hands we only seek to show you your reflection.
We believe that truth deserves its own narrative. We hope that people like
you will also stand up and join us in our efforts. We are also living proof
that there is life after this, and if you trust us, we will show you a
better world."
In bucking the military system and Washington's cherished drone war program,
perhaps Bryant and Westmoreland are themselves the ones who are taking on
the classic Wild West roles of the Lone Ranger and Tonto. They have ridden
into the badlands of the national security state to challenge the injustice
of an outlaw system of killing that extends across significant parts of the
planet. In the face of such an implacable program, one can only hope that
they will find their silver bullets.
Pratap Chatterjee, a TomDispatch regular [8], is executive director of
CorpWatch. He is the author of Halliburton's Army: How A Well-Connected
Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War [36]. His next
book, Verax [37], a graphic novel about whistleblowers and mass surveillance
co-authored by Khalil Bendib, will be published by Metropolitan Books in
2016.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook [38]. Check out the
newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse's Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars
and Secret Ops in Africa [20], and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow
Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a
Single-Superpower World [39].
Copyright 2015 Pratap Chatterjee
Pratap Chatterjee is managing editor of CorpWatch [40] and the author of
Halliburton's Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized
the Way America Makes War [41] (Nation Books, 2009).
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [42]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[43]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/capricious-way-america-conducts-drone-strikes
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/pratap-chatterjee
[2] http://www.tomdispatch.com/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVA3T7FoM3E
[4]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/theater/anne-hathaways-solo-turn-as-a-figh
ter-pilot-in-grounded-at-the-public-theater.html
[5] https://www.linkedin.com/in/cianwestmoreland
[6] http://projectredhand.org/tag/cian-westmoreland/
[7]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/us/as-stress-drives-off-drone-operators-ai
r-force-must-cut-flights.html
[8]
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175964/tomgram%3A_pratap_chatterjee,_is_dron
e_warfare_fraying_at_the_edges/
[9] http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-drone-pilots-20150617-story.html
[10]
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/23/us-usa-security-drones-idUSBRE93M0
4520130423
[11]
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[12]
http://investor.raytheon.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=84193&p=irol-newsArticle_Pr
int&ID=1576407
[13] http://www.holloman.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123289389
[14] http://usmilitary.about.com/od/airforceenlistedjobs/a/1u0x1.htm
[15] http://www.airforce.com/careers/detail/geospatial-intelligence/
[16]
http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2015/04/21/drone-pilot-compensat
ion/25837209/
[17] http://www.alamogordonews.com/tablehome/ci_19958182
[18]
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/15/drone-attack
s-obama-administration
[19]
http://intercepts.defensenews.com/2014/01/pulling-the-curtain-back-on-air-ba
se-in-qatar/
[20] http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
[21] http://www.wired.com/2012/02/air-force-drones/
[22]
http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/485358/rpa-community
-launches-65th-combat-air-patrol.aspx
[23]
http://archive.defensenews.com/article/20130326/C4ISR02/303260023/The-8216-D
-8217-Word-What-Call-UAV
[24]
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda
.html
[25] http://www.newsweek.com/inside-killing-machine-68771
[26]
http://gawker.com/why-wont-the-post-name-cia-counterterrorism-chief-micha-16
93833306
[27]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/us/politics/deep-support-in-washington-for
-cias-drone-missions.html
[28]
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/06/a_chilling_new_post_traumatic_stress_disorde
r_why_drone_pilots_are_quitting_in_record_numbers_partner/
[29] http://publications.amsus.org/doi/pdf/10.7205/MILMED-D-13-00501
[30]
http://en.alkarama.org/component/k2/1764-yemen-alkarama-s-report-2015-trauma
tising-skies-u-s-drone-operations-and-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd-am
ong-civilians-in-yemen
[31]
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175787/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_washington%27s
_wedding_album_from_hell/
[32] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy8NwkkO9LY
[33] https://www.facebook.com/DRONEDOCUMENTARY
[34] http://projectredhand.org/
[35] http://projectredhand.org/about/
[36]
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1568583923/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20#_blank
[37] http://whistle4democracy.org/
[38] http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch
[39] http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
[40] http://www.corpwatch.org
[41] http://www.powells.com/partner/32513/biblio/9781568583921
[42] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on The Capricious Way
America Conducts Drone Strikes
[43] http://www.alternet.org/
[44] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
