Military Review English Edition November-December 2015 | Page 80

operator, removed from both risk and fear, and sitting
at a computer’s controls surrounded by joysticks and
buttons, is disconnected from the scene of battle and
its concomitant dangers. War is allegedly transformed
in the imagination of the cyber warriors into a virtual
landscape, removed from the brutal reality of death,
and its moral implications. According to Walje, “Killing
through a computer screen sterilizes and dehumanizes
the act, and seems to create a cavalier attitude toward
their [drones’] use by both their operators and senior
leadership in the U.S. government.”16
The video game quality allegedly makes violence
easy for the perpetrators, who become desensitized
to it, and who can imagine they are playing in a
death-delivering video game. In his 2010 “Study on
Targeted Killings,” Philip Alston, then United Nations
special representative on extrajudicial executions,
made the parallel between operating a drone and
playing a video game. He wrote, “Because operators
are based thousands of miles away from the battlefield, and undertake operations entirely through computer screens and remote audio-feed, there is a risk
of developing a ‘PlayStation’ mentality to killing.”17
In this scenario, drone warfare is the worst form of
violence, the encouragement of aggressiveness robbed
of gravitas and sacrifice.
In this context, the debate concerning a service medal
for drone pilots is interesting. In 2012, the Pentagon
decided to create the Distinguished Warfare Medal
specifically for drone pilots. The war medal reflected
the changing nature of war in the twenty-first century,
then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta explained. In
fact, the proposed medal ranked above the Purple Heart
and other decorations earned in direct combat. Yet, the
opposition to the medal was strong. A petition on the
website Change.org opposing the medal quickly gathered
thirty thousand signatures. One of America’s largest
veterans groups, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, vocally
and publicly opposed the medal, as did others such as the
American Legion and VoteVets.org. In 2013, a bipartisan
group of twenty-two U.S. senators pressed the Pentagon
to reconsider the medal. In a letter to new Secretary of
Defense Chuck Hagel, they wrote,
We believe that medals earned in combat, or
in dangerous conditions, should maintain their
precedence above noncombat awards. Placing
the Distinguished Warfare Medal above the
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Bronze Star and Purple Heart diminishes the
significance of awards earned by risking one’s life
in direct combat or through acts of heroism.18
Forty-eight members of the House of Representatives also wrote Hagel, questioning the new medal.
The main point voiced was that drones may be important to modern American warfare, but controlling
them does not involve gallantry, risk, or valor—the
conditions that make a great warrior. This shows
there is political ambivalence towards the figure of the
drone operator as warrior. Hagel canceled the medal
soon after replacing Panetta.19

Good Kill?

Good Kill, the first Hollywood feature film about a
drone pilot, was released in the United States in May
2015.20 Unlike American Sniper, which came out six
months prior, the film has not become a blockbuster hit
or received extensive media coverage.21 Nonetheless,
Andrew Niccol’s Good Kill is an interesting film from
a political perspective because it brings to life many of
the tropes that circulate in the academic literature and
in the press concerning drones. Many reviews of Good
Kill discuss drones as a symbol of our cultural decay.
Anthony Lane, writing in The New Yorker, claims
that the drone is “almost too convenient an emblem of
alienation.”22 Stephen Holden writes in the New York
Times that the “movie makes a persuasive case that
our blind infatuation with all-powerful technology
is stripping us of our humanity.” He claims that Good
Kill is “a contemporary horror movie about humans
seduced and hypnotized by machines into surrendering
their souls.”23 Ethan Hawke, who stars as Maj. Thomas
Egan, believes that the drone symbolizes a larger drama
we all face: “It’s not a huge jump from what’s happening
to these pilots to what’s happening to all of us,” he said.
“More and more of our intimacy, what used to feel real
and tangible, is now automated, [and] is now from a
distance. We’re avoiding … [things that were] difficult,
war being one of them.”24 The idea is clear. Drone technology strips us of our humanity, increases and displays
our alienation, and destroys our ethical center.
The movie, said to be based on actual events, follows
Egan, an experienced F-16 fighter pilot who has served
six combat tours but is now stationed in Las Vegas as a
drone pilot. Therefore, the film does not take place in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but rather in a bunker, a suburban
November-December 2015  MILITARY REVIEW