U.S. drone operator quits , says : They ordered me to shoot a child

Dude, it's all good as long as Obama (the one) is doing it. Hell, look at the thread. Notice Obama's name mentioned anywhere? This forum used to be Bush this and Bush that, but now they can't even bother to mention their dear leader's name even when he's directly responsible for the drone strikes.

reply to post by UltraMarine


Wow great find OP

reply to post by PvtHudson


You are correct the media is ok with him or dare I say the Democrats...funny how views on the politics of war change when you like someone...

I cant stand the use of drones.. and to know they are deployed on our own soil... ugh. I do feel that if we were forced to wage less detached mechanized war.. and fought all of these enemies real and imagined up close and personal ( pre airplane, rocket, drone, etc face to face style) we would be much more reluctant to wage war over everything at the drop of a hat.. or at the request of others. Its easy to kill .. especially when you arent looking in the eyes of the person you are killing.

I guess this goes against the whole "Video Games program people to be ruthless killers" idea doesn't it?

Obammy Wan Kanobe: "Boys, I have just two words for you....PREDATOR...DRONE, you'll never hear or see it coming."

(Obammy offers sly look to the audience)

(Audience laughs hysterically)

pan out

reply to post by Lazarus Short

When they say "support our troops", this is a soldier that I can support, a man with a conscience.

We need more soldiers to act like men. Put down your weapons and refuse these illegal, immoral orders in the context of wars being fought for money, oil and strategic control.

If only more men would act like men.

The day 69 children died

One way or another . this is the future we are facing ,to be controlled by drones. One day you don't see the difference between a dragonfly and the insect drone anymore. We are creating our own matrix. like Michael Jackson became thriller .... sad

War is hell. There is no other way to describe what you get yourself into when you join the US military. When you sign up, there is a very good chance you will be ordered to kill people for the benefit of the ruling elite class in America. They may or may not pay you well for carrying out the killings; it depends on how smart you are and how valuable your skill set is.

If you feel that you cannot bring yourself to kill people, or may have a issue with it later down the road, do NOT join the US military. You will be order to kill reporters, children, old men and women, mothers trying to protect their kids from gun fire, random citizens running from the battlefield, little babies, entire families trying to have dinner while war rages in their town, doctors, nurses, religious leaders and of course resistance forces trying to kill you. Everything which has life in it is a target for the killing.

It takes a very special kind of person to be able to do all that killing and walk away from it mentally and emotionally stable. This man, who I feel nothing but sympathy for, killed a kid and it messed up his mind good and proper. He should have never joined the US military. It is not a job he should be doing at all.

he couldn't keep doing what he was doing and quit the military. [...] 'I never thought I would kill that many people. In fact, I thought I couldn't kill anyone at all.'

I don't think he thought that comment through properly.

Anyway, the question I'd like to ask him is "if you wanted to serve your country without killing anyone, why didn't you join a mechanics or logistical branch of the military instead of the branch where you control drones, or the fire and rescue services, or volunteer at a retirement home or something?"

Fair enough that it shook him up, but did he honestly not foresee anything like this happening ever at all?

reply to post by Asktheanimals


I almost don't want to know the truth anymore. Whether a stockpile existed, whether our country has a hidden agenda, whether or not they are fabricating events and material to further a suggested agenda. Not only this, but any going ons in this world --- I almost don't want to know the truth anymore and I'm an avid truth seeker/researcher - I feel like I'm reaching a tipping point. I feel no matter what the truth is, my gut feeling and what I see tells me "things are going to get MUCH worse before we see better." No amount of truth and disclosure is going to change this plummet at this point. We're falling.

Does anyone else share this feeling in their heart? Lately? or as of now? Or always? Or is my sudden, abrupt change of view regarding the truth a product of of being overwhelmed from reading too much bad news in too little time?

reply to post by unb3k44n7

I reached a point where I realized nothing can be done to stop the violence because it's either hardwired into our nature or it's hardwired into the nature of the universe.

I don't think it'll get worse, so to speak. It'll just go on and on, taking on new forms.

Ignorance (any amount) + Finite Resources = Conflict. Something like that. We're all forced into a kind of battle for survival on this planet. We're trapped and have instincts to live.

It's possible that most other areas of the universe have no natural evolution at the scale we witness everyday. It might be that we're the exception. It might help explain Fermi's Paradox in some way. Hypothetically, you see, aliens should be all around us because they've had billions of years to populate this galaxy. But where're they? Well, maybe they've deemed natural evolution either criminal or savage. So they either have no interest in us because they believe we're beneath them or they have locked us up to protect the rest of the universe from this place. And maybe to reform us.

The logic is not hard to comprehend. Older civilizations will have the capability to control genetics and environment and many different factors. They will seek to eliminate unknowns. Eventually, this should seem to remove the uncertainty and the conflict and the disaster and death. They'll fear losing that control. They'll come to think that not having it is harmful and criminal. They'll grow used to living for very long lengths of time and when they see beings, such as ourselves, live only short lives and die as a result of numerous unknowns, they'll recoil in both sadness and revulsion. But their responses to seeing it are greater if they see one of their own kind experiencing it. Much as ourselves, they have a centrism that's restricted to their own species. They believe that one should have X and Y and anything less is "inhumane". But this does not mean their "pets" or "animals" will be ignored. It's most likely that their inferiors will also be controlled and living "better" lives.

For all we know, this reality isn't even real. It's "sanctioned" evolution. As in, it's fake. Thing is, from my perspective, it's as real as it gets. So I very much doubt this reality is fake. If it were, per say, then they would be exposing us to what feels to us REAL. So to accept this condition they have to be willing to submit us to this "suffering" without recourse or without explanation. Another words, they have to conclude that this suffering we experience in this reality is not suffering.

If you ask me, none of this would have even happened if Ron Paul had been elected...
Ron Paul 2016!!!!

reply to post by Wertdagf


Either way, war will ultimately lead to death.

A side is not going to lose the battle cause they ran out of drones. After the drones.... It's time to die... Simple as that.

You equating war to some kinda futuristic kind of immoral game show...

reply to post by unb3k44n7


Whatever comes, comes.
Are we not better prepared to meet the future if we keep our eyes and minds open?
Evil is afoot, and if you believe in evil then there surely good exists at all times too.
We all choose our side, play our role and such is our lives..
Just because the world is going crazy around us doesn't mean we have to join it.
We ALWAYS have a choice, if not in what we can do then in how we feel about it and maybe more importantly how we react to it.

reply to post by Asktheanimals


Thank you for helping me reevaluate my lack of hope for humanity

reply to post by ThisToiletEarth


why ? drones dont kill people - people kill people , hmmm.........where have i hear that before ?

Originally posted by UltraMarine
Attack against innocent women and children is very distubing . America is making a big mistake by terrorrizing people with these drones. These attacks are doing nothing but inciting more hatred . The story that is being told in the US says it is all about targeting top-level terrorist leaders and is not killing the civilians but the reality is total opposite to this . Time has come for US to stop these senseless drone attacks . What do you say ?

Nobody is right if everybody is wrong. It is not an either or question.

Yes...Drones target what the US believes are high level terrorist operatives....and they have had great success doing that.

Yes...those operatives are not always standing alone in hte middle of the desert waiting for justice from above.

Innocents are killed and any effort, no matter how thorough, will have errors where innocents are mistakenly targeted.

Yes...the US government will do it's best to deny this happens, to obfuscate the numbers etc. They will do this under the heading of "National Security" as it alievates some of the moral pain associated with knowing innocent folks die.

Yes...Drone strikes kill significantly less innocent civilians than bombs and full on ground invasions. That is why they are used so often.

The moral question is....If you have a man in the sights of a drone, whom all the intelligence you have gathered shows he has coordinated bombing of churches and public squares...and who continues to fund, plan, coordinate the deaths of many, many innocents. Where the intelligence shows that killing him would likely save lives of innocents...and he is standing beside his wife and child...do you let him dissapear back into the crowds or forrests? Or do you fire execute the drone strike?

There is the argument of the greater good...more lives are saved...by accepting that a few innocent lives will be lost along with the killing of a man that has and will continue to kill 100's if not thousands of innocents?

There is the argument that killing one innocent live to potentially save a hundred or thousand innocent lives is not our place. That it is becoming the very beast we are battling.

It is the travel back in time and kill Hitler argument...but killing Hitler surrounded by a dozen innocent folks?

I am honestly still undecided...but I do know that the US government doesn't take those strikes lightly, and they certainly don't intentionally strike civilians unless a high-profile target is believed to be present. They do fudge and outright deny the number of civilians killed...and the number of civilians killed is much less than other "older" methods of striking these targets.

Difficult decisions that I am grateful that I am not the one "pulling the trigger" on those drones. BTW - I do know personally someone who has operated drones, coordinated strikes etc. Back from the war and finding their way. Our vets need our support.

Originally posted by Advantage
I cant stand the use of drones.. and to know they are deployed on our own soil... ugh. I do feel that if we were forced to wage less detached mechanized war.. and fought all of these enemies real and imagined up close and personal ( pre airplane, rocket, drone, etc face to face style) we would be much more reluctant to wage war over everything at the drop of a hat.. or at the request of others. Its easy to kill .. especially when you arent looking in the eyes of the person you are killing.

Agreed!

Sir William Petty, the political economist who spelled out the balance-of-trade idea and co-authored the first book on statistics. And who was so nearsighted that on one occasion when challenged to a duel, and therefore given the choice of weapons and venue, said: 'Axes, in a dark cellar.'

The other guy withdrew the challenge.

When all sides in a conflict have lives on the line, there is incentive to end war. When warriors become robots (drones) we become detached from the full price of our aggression. We are playing a very dangerous game as we begin to move humans out the equation, if we don't answer the philosophical questions soon robots will be everywhere enforcing the programing of their masters.