and then they can be ordered to shoot

Here's a disturbing report on stress as it affects drone pilots. Contra to the idea of videogame, push-button warfare the problem seems partly to be one of intimacy:

The particular nature of drone warfare is also a contributor to the higher stress levels. While the number is very small, officials who conducted the study said they did encounter a handful of pilots who suffered symptoms of PTSD — post-traumatic stress disorder — directly linked to their experience running combat operations. Unlike traditional pilots flying manned aircraft in a war zone, the pilots operating remote drones often stare at the same piece of ground in Afghanistan or Iraq for days, sometimes months. They watch someone's pattern of life, see people with their families, and then they can be ordered to shoot.

Col. Kent McDonald, who co-authored the report, says the Air Force tries to recruit people who are emotionally well-adjusted, "family people" with "good values."

"When they have to kill someone," he says, "or where they are involved in missions and then they either kill them or watch them killed, it does cause them to rethink aspects of their life."

McDonald describes it as an "existential crisis."

You're not actually fighting enemies who are fighting you or dropping high explosives on people from vast distances way out of your sightline: you're coming into the office from a nice suburban home and waiting for an order to kill someone who you may have spent months watching interact with their family in the same way you interact with yours. What's especially disturbing about this is that a logical next step as far as counselling/training goes is a programme to dehumanise targeted communities; either that or to select for lack of empathy.

Comments

[Barry Freed]

Empathy might be a useful "skill" to have for an operator in analyzing the life patterns of their targets. Another way I can see them dealing with this is to separate the surveillance and kill roles so when it's time to pull the trigger someone else takes over.

[bert]

Franco made a particular point of posting Guardia Civil officers away from their home districts. Empathy interferes with duty to the state and the execution of its wishes.

[Chris Williams]

Anyone who's flown a kite could have told them that would happen.

[Matt]

" a logical next step as far as counselling/training goes is a programme to dehumanise targeted communities; either that or to select for lack of empathy."

No worries - they've already started doing it. The giveaway is the line about "good values"; anybody who's been following the MRFF lately knows that the upper echelons of the Air Force (and most of the other services) have been heavily stuffed with ultra-evangelical leaders.

Add in the standard dollop of Christianist bigotry and a little Dominion theology, and you've got the sort of folks that would have enthusiastically participated in the Crusader's slaughter of Jerusalem in 1099