How ethical is it to kill with drone planes? Ones where the "pilot" is in an office in DC?

[Taverner]

Seriously

One might argue that its more ethical, as it only puts at risk one belligerent

On the other hand, how ethical can it be to bomb from an office in DC?

[ShortnFiery]

1. It's equivalent to *Summary Execution* where authorities in the USA play ...

Judge, Jury and Executioner. :wow: :(

[dorktv]

2. Humanity has been seeking a way to kill without damage to the person

fighting on your side since the dawn of our species. That is why projectiles were invented.

So I guess if you look at it that way...yeah?

[WeDidIt]

3. Absolutely 100% morally and ethically correct

I hope we build tons of drones.

Save our troops.

HEll, I'm all for robotic combatants controlled by troops in a foxhole to help clear out the enemy in defensive positions.

[HopeHoops]

4. Every time you kill a drone plane, an intern in DC has an orgasm.

Video game to them, you know.

[Freddie Stubbs]

5. If it saves American lives, we should use the technology

[gravity]

6. No different than a manned plane taking orders from DC

[Thickasabrick]

7. It's basically a really sick, perverted military war game with real

dead people.

[Echo In Light]

20. Carried out & supported by sick people for twisted reasons

[OnyxCollie]

8. Ethical? I don't know.

Legal? Probably not. It would explain why the CIA got Blackwater to load the bombs, to avoid culpability.

[dhpgetsit]

9. I remember an anti-war ad that ran again and again in the 60s.

It depicted 2 older men, presumably heads of state who had a disagreement. They met on a meadow, took off their jackets, and began duking it out with bare fists.

No drafting other peoples' sons and daughters to do the fighting for you.

[Stinky The Clown]

10. In the larger "war" milieu, I don't see it as an "ethical" issue

Once you accept war as ethical, then you do the best you can to save your guys and kill their guys. By that measure, it is sheer genius.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

11. Big article in the New Yorker about it.

They kill a helluva lotta civilians with drones.

[Taverner]

12. Got a link?

Sounds interesting

[JonQ]

13. Exactly as ethical as killing anyone in a war in any method

Go hack someone to death with a sword, or bomb them from 10,000 miles away, the end result is the same.

[Johonny]

16. I agree

Although you could claim it "saves" lives by having only one combatant at risk. Depends on which side of the sword or drone you are one. Was it more ethical to be hacked to death by a sword than hit by an arrow shot at you 100 feet away? If your dead, does it matter?

[JonQ]

19. I would say in the bigger scheme of things there is no difference

from our side it is the more ethical choice as it saves american lives.

[arcadian]

14. Drones can be taken out with a handheld laser.

The drones are flown by telemetry gathered from laser sensors in the forward radome. When the UAV receives unknown information via a outside laser shined on to it's sensor, the UAV interprets the data as a malfunction of it own systems. Then Boom! it crashes.

[spoony]

15. It makes war easier to sell

Just in the sense that it removes the weighty proposition of endangering your own people, thereby making warfare easier both logistically and from a PR stance, it is unethical.

[superduperfarleft]

17. Same thing as dropping huge bombs on wedding parties

from several thousand feet in the air.

And yet the 9/11 hijackers were "cowards"...

[Arkansas Granny]

18. This reminds me of the lyrics of CSNY "After the Dolphin".

Now men without faces rain fire from the sky.
When you kill from a distance is anyone to blame?
And the armies of warfare will never be the same again.

http://www.mp3lyrics.org/c/crosby-stills-nash-and-young/after/

I'm torn on this one. For one thing, I know that it removes the risk of life and limb of a pilot and crew, which is a good thing, but OTOH it seems to reduce killing to the same emotional level of a video game. I'm just sick of war and killing and the toys that men invent to destroy each other.

[lwcon]

21. This is the best writing I've read about this topic:

http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1865-depraved-indifference-drone-wars-whack-jobs-and-imperial-terror.html

[Taverner]

22. Thanks nt

[blindpig]

23. Ain't so much the ethics...

as it is the psychological distancing. First there was the warrior on the horse, then the tank commander, then the bomber pilot. In each case the warrior is set ever further apart from those he would kill, abstracting his endeavor, making it all the more easy to kill.

[Echo In Light]

25. George Carlin & Bill Hicks were two comics who were very outspoken against the 1st Gulf invasion...

.... and I believe it was Carlin, specifically, who termed it "Nintendo Pilots," referring to that type of cognitive dissonance, and how it's overcome by what you've alluded to re 'distancing' one's self from the actual killings.

[Taverner]

26. Milgram is a perfect example of how you don't need much distance at all to do heinous acts

[Echo In Light]

27. And it's that tendency for people to submit to authority that will lead to our eventual extinction

[Taverner]

28. Its as if homo sapiens never worked out whether he was a social animal or solitary one...

[TwilightGardener]

24. Modern warfare--efficient kill, less risk.

Is it any more ethical to lose troops as they shoot and bludgeon and stab?

[Orsino]

29. About as ethical as it is to kill without the drone plane. n/t

[PVnRT]

30. *shrug* The outcome is the same

Our government could kill millions with a phone call.

[Javaman]

31. The same ethics as dropping a bomb from 10,000 feet...

the same ethics as a stealth fighter taking off in Indiana, bombing someone in Iraq then being home for dinner that same night.

War is becoming more and more antiseptic.

And as a result, more acceptable to the general public who never have to experience it.

Only those who actually do ground fighting feel it as well as their families. But those folks are now pushed to the back of the rah rah cheering crowd. Can't have them upset a good war rally now, can we?

War becomes obtuse.

On edit: trying to assume that there are ethics in war is amusing. This is not meant to be an insult on the OP, just an observation.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

32. No less ethical than any other sort of weapon.

[Cid_B]

33. I've seen this questioned several times...

Sometimes I think people want to go back to revolutionary days where we all just line up in a row and shoot at each other.... If you can save your Soldier and take out the enemy then by all means go for it.