ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS Drones have increasingly been used to take out high profile enemy combatants by the United States, especially over the last eight years. Aerial Killing Machines. The question that must be answered is; does America’s obligations to the Geneva Convention outweigh its obligations to itself. Drones provide military commanders an incredible advantage of stealth and anonymity. A perfect tool for clandestine operations operated from the safety of afar. Their surveillance and strike capability seamlessly paired with real time intelligence make them an ultimate game changer in America’s War on Terrorism. It is imperative this force multiplier is used justly and in line with our values, the Geneva Convention, and American …show more content…
In the end there is a window of opportunity, and a decision made based on if the benefit of the kill outweighs the disadvantages of civilian loss of life, (collateral damage). These decisions are made thousands of miles from the targets, without risk to the operators or the chain of command making the decisions to “pull the trigger.” Rules of engagement are much different than the use of deadly force. Operators are thought to become desensitized to killing, as if they were killing zombies in a video game. This is farthest from the truth. In fact, many of these individuals operating drones in Yemen and Afghanistan from the safety of their control centers, suffer tremendously from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). These operators, not only “pull the trigger”, but are required to surveille after the strike and document the effectiveness of the attack. (Head count). They also see the carnage left after a strike, after “they” engage, they will see the strewn bodies of state enemies, terrorists as well as non-combatants including those of women and children. Per Bowden (2013), drone operators feel a surprising degree of intimacy with their targets because they monitor them for such long periods of time. Drone operators report relatively high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in part because they are so acquainted with …show more content…
The level of technology and capability that has been put into the US Predator and Raptor drones are awe-inspiring. Today’s US drones can stay in the air for up to 40 hours. This allows them to stay in the air, attain the best real time video surveillance and intelligence, attain target acquisition, position itself to protect itself, reduce civilian casualties, fratricide, and collateral damage. In the Geneva Convention, there is no mention of use of a weapon that has such a high accuracy and kill ratio. One could consider a weapon that has a similar kill ratio could be a biological weapon, or poison. Bio weapons and poison are explicitly forbidden, not only in the Geneva Convention, but they are universally rejected by modern society. A clear indication drone use will continue to be protested until all our enemies have them or their advantage is