The
Elbit Systems Hermes 450 is an Israeli medium size multi-payload
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designed for tactical long endurance
missions.
Whenever I read comments by politicians defending the Unmanned Aerial
Vehicle Predator and Reaper program – aka drones – I wish I could ask
them some questions. I'd start with: "How many women and children have
you seen incinerated by a Hellfire missile?" And: "How many men have you
seen crawl across a field, trying to make it to the nearest compound
for help while bleeding out from severed legs?" Or even more pointedly:
"How many soldiers have you seen die on the side of a road in
Afghanistan because our ever-so-accurate UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicle]
were unable to detect an IED [improvised explosive device] that awaited
their convoy?"
Few of these politicians who so brazenly proclaim the benefits of
drones have a real clue of what actually goes on. I, on the other hand,
have seen these awful sights first hand.
I knew the names of some of the young soldiers I saw bleed to death
on the side of a road. I watched dozens of military-aged males die in
Afghanistan, in empty fields, along riversides, and some right outside
the compound where their family was waiting for them to return home from
mosque.
The US and British militaries
insist that this is such an expert program, but it's curious that they feel the need to deliver
faulty information,
few or no statistics about civilian deaths
and twisted technology reports on the capabilities of our UAVs. These
specific incidents are not isolated, and the civilian casualty rate
has not changed, despite what our defense representatives might like to tell us.
What the public needs to understand is that the video provided by a
drone is a far cry from clear enough to detect someone carrying a
weapon, even on a crystal-clear day with limited clouds and perfect
light. This makes it incredibly difficult for the best analysts to
identify if someone has weapons for sure. One example comes to mind:
"The feed is so pixelated, what if it's a shovel, and not a weapon?" I
felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always
wonder if we killed the right people, if we endangered the wrong
people, if we destroyed an innocent civilian's life all because of a bad
image or angle.
It's also important for the public to grasp that there are human
beings operating and analyzing intelligence these UAVs. I know because I
was one of them, and nothing can prepare you for an almost daily
routine of flying combat aerial surveillance missions over a war zone.
UAV proponents claim that troops who do this kind of work are not
affected by observing this combat because they are never directly in
danger physically.
But here's the thing: I may not have been on the ground in
Afghanistan, but I watched parts of the conflict in great detail on a
screen for days on end. I know the feeling you experience when you see
someone die. Horrifying barely covers it. And when you are exposed to it
over and over again it becomes like a small video, embedded in your
head, forever on repeat, causing psychological pain and suffering that
many people will hopefully never experience. UAV troops are victim to
not only the haunting memories of this work that they carry with them,
but also the guilt of always being a little unsure of how accurate their
confirmations of weapons or identification of hostile individuals were.
Of course, we are trained to not experience these feelings, and we
fight it, and become bitter. Some troops seek help in mental health
clinics provided by the military, but we are limited on who we can talk
to and where, because of the secrecy of our missions. I find it
interesting that the suicide statistics in this career field aren't
reported, nor are the data on how many troops working in UAV positions
are heavily medicated for depression, sleep disorders and anxiety.
Recently, the Guardian ran a commentary by Britain's s
ecretary of state for defence Philip Hammond.
I wish I could talk to him about the two friends and colleagues I lost,
within one year leaving the military, to suicide. I am sure he has not
been notified of that little bit of the secret UAV program, or he would
surely take a closer look at the full scope of the program before
defending it again.
The UAV's in the Middle East are used as a weapon, not as protection,
and as long as our public remains ignorant to this, this serious threat
to the sanctity of human life – at home and abroad – will continue.
© 2013 The Guardian/UK
Heather Linebaugh served in the United Stated Air Force from 2009
until March 2012. She worked in intelligence as an imagery analyst and
geo-spatial analyst for the drone program during the occupations of Iraq
and Afghanistan. Follow her on Twitter:
@hllinebaugh
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