Who flies the drones America uses to take out military targets in foreign locales all over the globe? I had the chance to talk to an Air Force drone pilot operating out of Whiteman Air Force Base, and astonishingly, he admitted to me that he took part in strikes on wedding parties in Middle East & Asian countries said to harbor terrorists.
I confronted him with some of the troubling news that has emerged about the secret White House kill list and the apparent readiness to destroy the lives of innocent bystanders in pursuit of a target -- women, children and elderly villagers who are all considered nothing more than "collateral damage."
Did he, too, find these people dispensable? Did he share the cold rationale of our leaders that it is "worth it" to kill these civilians to target an enemy? I tried to find out when I saw him during a wedding I attended, all while I was deeply aware of the unsettling irony that the celebration we were attending was seen differently than the weddings, funerals and other gatherings that U.S. airstrikes have unofficially declared to be venues of war.
I confronted him with some of the troubling news that has emerged about the secret White House kill list and the apparent readiness to destroy the lives of innocent bystanders in pursuit of a target -- women, children and elderly villagers who are all considered nothing more than "collateral damage."
Did he, too, find these people dispensable? Did he share the cold rationale of our leaders that it is "worth it" to kill these civilians to target an enemy? I tried to find out when I saw him during a wedding I attended, all while I was deeply aware of the unsettling irony that the celebration we were attending was seen differently than the weddings, funerals and other gatherings that U.S. airstrikes have unofficially declared to be venues of war.
/////
No comments:
Post a Comment