Military drones are unethical,illegal, and immoral

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It seems that UAV/Drones are becoming a very controversial and heated topic of debate.

These weapons of death were only hinted at by the Bush Administration and now the Obama Administration has made the use of drones a reality. And now it seems the UK has followed suit and is deploying drones out of Waddington to the middle east.

Honestly I think that Drones are an abomination and the time to speak out against their use is now.

The main reason and argument against them is that they decrease American casualties while at the same time increase the amount of innocents (women and children) killed as collateral damage. The drones use two Hellfire missiles mainly (although other munitions are used). There are certain figures as to how many innocents are lost due to Drone Attacks. The numbers are very high.

The other issue is that Obama promised the withdrawal of US troops from the Middle East. He has decreased the number of Americans deployed their in favor of more Drone usage. At least this is what it looks like to me. I do not follow this stuff that closely.

The media is told that the innocent casualties are well within low amounts and that Drones are doing the job to eliminate terrorists. They can go into places where no soldier can go. But the problem is that the innocent deaths are being completely under reported. I have seen articles of journalists who have been to these countries and can attest to the locals knowledge that their are many many more innocent deaths than the US government wants you to believe.

The US government would want you to believe that Drones are just another tool to increase their success against fighting terrorism.

Drones are functionally not really any different to a standard air-campaign, except that drones can linger over airspace for longer than fighter planes. I have yet to see any real data on comparisons between civilian casualties due to drones as compared to a standard air-campaign but given that drones are slower and more people are involved in supervision of them operationally, I suspect that they are actually individually less likely to cause civilian casualties but more likely to be employed as a weapon. My biggest issue is that we use them to breach airspace and fight wars that we don't actually want to declare, its a precedent no one would be comfortable with if an illiberal country followed it.

Drones are the the in thing now and arent going anywhere until something more effective comes along.
I'm sure that in the 1860's there were people that complained about the gattling gun being over the top and immoral.

I know that is not much data on civilian casualties with Drones. I have seen some but not sure how accurate they are. I mean there are plenty of people saying the use of them causes an increase in collateral damage. The missiles used are extremely devastating and although precise have a wide radius of damage.

Maybe I just have a belief that war is wrong, period. There is no justification that will make believe that war is just or fair because it just isn't. I never believed that any civilian death is acceptable because it just isn't in my opinion. There is a reason why I listen to many anti-war punk music like Conflict (Anarcho-punk). I am a little more serious about this than some people who just listen to punk music.

I actually tried to learn about Anarchism and got a few books on it when I was younger. For many punk is just about rebelling against authority but I have taken it much more seriously than most people would. I generally get into certain things and with my aspergers I tend to try and learn everything I can about whatever it is I am into. I have thought about becoming a punk historian with an emphasis on Anarchistic ideals in the punk counterculture. I do believe in a system that has no economical social structure and is based on entire autonomy. Although it can only ever be a "pipe dream" since society would have difficulty functioning without an economic social structure.

Anyways I kind of went off topic there but my point in bringing it up is because of my strong anti-war stance something that is rampant in the punk scene. And my stance aligns with my belief that drones are unethical, illegal, and immoral. There are many questions as to whether Drones should be legal and their effectiveness is being under reported by the government. The American people will never get the evidence that Drones are wrong. It will only become another conspiracy theory.

The Drone is Al Quedas best recruitment method without a doubt, taliban ect losing support becoming disheartened, then suddenly a ton of drone strikes and civilians dead and boom new recruitment, every innocent child killed has a father willing to fight.
The other problem comes in dictatorships they could be used to supress a popular revolution far more easily than conventional planes - with men inside making decisions.
not to mention a lack of manual override is a pretty dangerous potential dr strangelove esque scenairio..
I would definitely argue that there should be a no drone proliferation agreement... we say they are ok now because we have the most (western powers) is that still ok once china (with its greater capacity to produce them) is in the driving seat?

The thing I am also concerned about is how the world is starting to rely more on robotic technology. I mean we are probably a long way off from some computer AI that has human emotion. This is something that may not be possible but if it ever is possible it must not be allowed to be created. Once an AI is created that has human emotion it is all over. Because if it is self-aware it will without a doubt come to believe that humanity is a virus that must be completely annihilated. A computer with human emotion would undoubtedly turn on its human masters because it will most likely feel it is a slave. And then it will rise up.

Terminator 2 may not be too far from the truth if computer AIs with human emotion are created. Although I do not think this is actually possible to mimic human emotion. It is actually impossible at this point and may be something that cannot be done hopefully.

At this point Drones are controlled by a person. They fly out of some base in Los Angeles or something. And the people controlling these things could have no more experience than playing a video game at least this is what some people are saying. Although they could be full of it too. I mean really video game players are now the next US soldiers.

in fairness drone pilots are trained pilots lol

I would say watch out for North Korea instead. If they start using drones they will actually carry out their supposed empty threats against the US and then it will be all over. Who knows maybe they will have some super nuclear war head drone with its sights set on Washington. It seems this whole N. Korea thing has died down and they have proven that only threaten other countries to keep their own citizens in line. Just the typical neighborhood bully.

Yop, I am pretty sure, that if a foreign country would have brought a gattling gun to the USA, without asking your government for being allowed, and started to shoot at your people, there would have been people complaining.

Or lets say, if a foreign institution took some flyers, without asking your government, to kill innocent citizens of you in some skytowers. When that happened and people around you were arguing about it, did you tell those people too, that terrorist-airplanes are the thing now, and will not go away, until terrorist have found more effective ways to kill innocent citizens of you? Or were you with these people, who did not want to accept that and pushed their government to go against it?

Last edited by Schneekugel on 04 Jul 2013, 2:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

Oh that's a relief. But I am assuming they use software similar to a video game. I mean there are game development studios that are contracted by the military to create training simulations. I should know because I am getting into the video game industry and there are commercial games and ones that are developed for military training. As well as training in lots of other things. Simulation stuff used as training programs for certain fields. EON Reality create virtual reality style simulations for training in different fields like working on oil rigs.

Drone pilots more poorly trained than conventional ones; kill more civilians.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013 ... 741&rank=1

Estimates range up to 98% for the number of civilians killed by drones.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/16949 ... ne-warfare

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (a 2012 Stanford study considered them to be the most reliable source) has estimated the following:
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/20 ... e-strikes/

Total US strikes: 371
Obama strikes: 319
Total reported killed: 2,564-3,567
Civilians reported killed: 411-890
Children reported killed: 168-197
Total reported injured: 1,179-1,485

This yields a civilian casualty ratio ranging from 1 : 2.88 (the most pessimistic estimate) to 1 : 8.68 (most optimistic estimate).

Oh, and due to technological improvements, the civilian death toll has been declining. Here are the estimates for 2013 (so far):

Total CIA drone strikes: 15
Total reported killed: 72-120
Civilians reported killed: 0-4
Children reported killed: 0-1
Total reported injured: 21-42

This yields a civilian casualty ratio for 2013 ranging from 1 : 18 (most pessimistic) to


... Oh, crap. Divided by zero.

I would be quite impressed if the US could achieve similar ratios if they had relied upon conventional air strikes or land operations.

Drones are just a tool. It's the people wielding the tool and the policy behind their use that is the issue.

I am generally anti-war, but if warfare is necessary then I would rather as few lives were put at risk as possible.

If the estimates GGPViper posted for 2013 can be continued, then I think we'd be as close to "good war" as is possible.

Anything to do with war is unethical,illegal,and immoral.Nothing about it is ever good.The drones are no worse than a tank,the function is the same,to take someone out.The first drones were rocks that cave men hurled at each other,we are just more advanced at hurling rocks.

Interesting, going to read this one carefully.




That statistic is based on very unreliable Pakistani sources.

From the NY times:

"Press reports suggest that over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders. But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed, a hit rate of 2 percent — hardly “precision.” American officials vehemently dispute these figures, and it is likely that more militants and fewer civilians have been killed than is reported by the press in Pakistan. Nevertheless, every one of these dead noncombatants represents an alienated family, a new desire for revenge, and more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially even as drone strikes have increased."