VANDERBILT POLITICAL REVIEW
FEATURE
The warrior’s dilemma
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the Afghanistan War
O
n September 7, 2013, a 28-year
old farmer from a small village
in eastern Afghanistan was filling potholes near his home when a missile from a sleek grey aircraft whistled
across the sky, landing with an enormous
explosion nearby. As reported by the
New York Times, the farmer ran to the
explosion, only to recognize his cousin’s
blue pickup truck engulfed in flames.
Trapped in the truck were the remains
of his brother, sister-in-law, and nephew.
According to the same article, initial coalition reports stated the September 7th airstrike killed “ten enemy
forces,” insisting there were “no signs
of civilians in the vicinity.” Yet, when
asked about the missile strike, the farmer told a different story: “There were
pieces of my family all over the road.”
Such discrepancies in reports of civilian casualties reveal a disturbing reality
of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, commonly referred to as “drones.” The tragic
irony is that U.A.V.S, the technology designed to win the War on Terror, may be
prolonging the bloodshed. Despite their
effectiveness in killing Taliban and AlQaeda leaders, collateral civilian deaths
have alienated key Afghan leaders,
thereby encouraging them to support
the insurgency over American forces.
To justify the use of drones, the
U.S. Air Force routinely describes the
MQ-1 Predator and the MQ-9 Reaper,
the primary U.A.V.’s in Afghanistan,
as precision technologies with a keen
eye for striking enemy combatants and
avoiding civilians. In a speech at the
National Defense University in March
2013, President Obama even asserted
that “conventional airpower or missiles
are far less precise than drones, and are
by EMMETT MCKINNEY ‘16
likely to cause more civilian casualties
and more local outrage.” The September
7th incident, however, is no anomaly. In
fact, civilian casualties seem to be the
trend in the War on Terror. According
to data from the Bureau و[