#1:

The first article I read is titled Critical Reflections on the Reality of Drone Warfare: Thinking with Jean Baudrillard written by Dr. Syed Sami Raza and Ghazala Rafi. Dr. Raza is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Peshawar in Pakistan and Ghazala Rafi is a lecturer in Political Science at Islamia College University in Peshawar Pakistan. The authors outline aspects of Baudrillard’s book of essays titled “The Gulf War Did Not Take Place” and compared those aspects to the Drone War in the War on Terror as well as highlight Baudrillard’s ideas that reflect the same principles in the Drone War. The Baudrillard ideas the authors highlights are virtual war, distant war, asexual war, inhuman/ blank war, symptomatic war, and domestication war. This was the most important article in my understanding of the transfiguration of reality according to Baudrillard. In discussing virtual war, Raza and Rafi discuss Baudrillard’s emphasis on transfiguration of reality as opposed to the subversion of reality in the Gulf War. They use examples of contradicting reports to alter reality. By having the Gulf War take place in a “jumble of information, speculation, and promotion” (Rafi & Raza, 2016), we are not able to see clearly the war itself. They also discuss Baudrillard’s idea that the Gulf War was stuck between “two contradictory tendencies… escalation and non-occurrence”(Rafi & Raza, 2016). The escalation of the drone war is seen in the one-sided causalities of the war as well as the deployment of “state of the art technology”(Rafi & Raza, 2016). Non-occurrence is shown due to the war being asymmetrical. An actual war cannot occur because drones make it impossible to have a face to face, symmetrical war (Rafi & Raza, 2016). In distant warfare regarding drone warfare, the authors argue that not only is it asymmetric, it also fails to recognize the faces of the adversaries and the American soldiers. American soldiers on the ground are considered “cyborg soldiers” (Rafi & Raza, 2016) and the drone pilots are completely hidden because they are not a part of the drone and are located far away. This creates a literal distance between the soldiers and the war. The Taliban cannot be determined in the photos from the drones due to the low resolution of the cameras. This creates distance by distancing the human from the target. The asexual war becomes apparent in drone warfare because the drone removes the typical masculinity of war out of the equation. War is traditionally sexualized by manliness and bravery. Drones have caused our adversaries to see us as “weak and cowardice”(Rafi & Raza, 2016). This is also shown in the selection of men for war. In the past, there has been a preference towards strong and physically capable soldiers. Now there is a preference to an “aptitude for technology, skills in understanding simulations and playing video games, intelligence and efficiency in gathering, sifting and reading electronic information.” This effectively removes the traditional sexuality of war. The section on inhuman/ blank war describes Baudrillard’s belief that “for a war to take place some blood should spill on both sides”(Rafi & Raza, 2016). The drone war is the definition of a blank war because there are no deaths on the side of the Americans and the victims of the drone strikes are seen as “extras”. This is also a blank war because running a drone is like an “everyday routine job done on a desk and screen”(Rafi & Raza, 2016). It is not as frightening to sit behind a desk and do the shooting as it is to be on the ground where you could get shot or crash your plane. The symptomatic war deals with Baudrillard’s idea of uncertainty. The authors highlight the Gulf War’s inability to effectively remove uncertainty and has still not fully been realized. However, with the new power of drone surveillance, there is more information than ever before to combat uncertainty. The outcome is that the drones bring an amount of uncertainty themselves with identification and isolation of the enemy. There is also uncertainty as to whether the target has been killed or not. Drones also create uncertainty in the number of civilian casualties taking place. Due to the low-resolution cameras, it also makes it very difficult to decide where drones should shoot. We cannot claim whether war is winnable or not even with the new information drones provide. The domestication of war refers to the United States and the Taliban Al-Qaeda alliance having “lost their sense of proportion of power”(Rafi & Raza, 2016). The U.S. does not believe in their power enough due to the enormity of their power. The Taliban Al-Qaeda alliance believes that it is powerful despite the enormity of the U.S’s power. This has created a non-war because both sides have lost the meaning in the end of the war. The U.S. wants to domesticate the unmanageable Taliban Al-Qaeda forces as a result losing the purpose of the war.

 

#2:

In the article, Games of Drones: The Uneasy Future of the Soldier-Hero in Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Carrie Andersen compares the game Call of Duty and it's heavy influence of drone warfare to the modern military. She argues that Call of Duty reflects the military's new use of drone technology as it transforms the identity of the soldier’s new role in war (Andersen, 2014). By examining Call of Duty closely, Andersen reveals the game’s ability to show the shift of the American soldier from one of strength to one of weakness (Andersen, 2014). The drones in the game are stronger than the player’s avatar. Andersen goes in depth into a scene in the game where the entire premise is to not be seen by the drones. If they get seen by the drone, the avatar gets killed instantly. This reinforces the strength of the drone and the weakness of the soldier (Andersen, 2014). Also, in the examination of Call of Duty, Andersen claims that not only does the drone dehumanize the victim, it dehumanizes the soldier. This happens through the drone being the only method in which a soldier can act and use their power. Andersen argues that there is a link between the emotional experience of the game and that of a modern American soldier. The emotions experienced in the game are laid out as “impotence, boredom, and ambiguous pleasure” (Andersen, 2014). Impotence due to the drones’ power over the solider, boredom due to the drone fighting the battle as opposed to the soldier, and ambiguous pleasure at watching the drone destroy everything in it's path. She claims that this is more of a true reflection of what the modern-day drone pilot experiences. The satirical video game titled “Unmanned” is discussed in relation to this topic. This video game highlights the real life of a drone pilot in which he must drive to work, have workplace conversation, and deal with stress occurring from normal life. It is emphasized that games like Call of Duty and Unmanned prepare potential soldiers, gamers, for what the future, and current reality, of war is like (Andersen, 2014). Andersen leaves with the question of what becomes of our traditional soldier-hero and who will fill their shoes in future discourse? As well as the question, will this new form of hero make the public less or more inclined to support the war overseas? This article surprised me by showing how video games are promoting this new way of being a soldier. The stereotype of the brave traditional soldier is so engrained that it is surprising people are so willing to give up this idea of the traditional soldier for a more passive modern soldier.

 

#3:

Albert Bandura is a well-known psychologist who teaches at Stanford University. In his piece “Disengaging morality from robotic war”, Bandura applies the social cognitive theory of moral agency. Bandura discusses moral justification, euphemistic language, advantageous comparison, displacement and diffusion of responsibility, and dehumanization. Bandura argues that not only are the laws designed to easily justify the use of robotic war but the Obama administration uses the self-defense argument to justify drone strikes. In the discussion on moral justification, Bandura cites that the common justification for the drone movement is that terrorists pose a continuing threat to American national security. In American rhetoric, it is our right to protect our own country, however; international human rights law says that military action can only be used for just causes and not for revenge and that it is necessary to limit the force used only to that which is needed to eradicate the threat (Bandura, 2017). This loose language allowed for the moral justification to work in the Obama administration’s favor. Whatever they define as necessary is what will be done. The use of euphemistic language is shown using clean and playful language that wouldn’t trigger thoughts of drones of out of context. Drone strikes that succeed are called “touchdowns” (Bandura, 2017) and “jackpots” (Bandura, 2017) and drones are referred to as “birds” (Bandura, 2017) by people within the military. Unless it is very clear otherwise, the dead are labeled as “enemies killed in action” (Bandura, 2017). This makes it difficult to count the civilian deaths. The use of euphemistic language belittles the actions of the drone making it morally tolerable. Morality is also disengaged by the utilitarian comparison of saying the harmful act is small and will prevent larger suffering in the future. The other comparison Bandura discusses is a creative comparison that drones are the lesser of two evils. If drones are the “humanitarian weapon” (Bandura, 2017), then it is morally advantageous to use them despite knowing that drones cause large numbers of civilian deaths. Bandura discusses disengagement of morality as displacement and diffusion of responsibility. This happens in two ways. The first is that the lower power blames the upper power (Bandura, 2017). For example, in the chain of command, the person pulling the trigger would displace responsibility by saying it was an order. The second way is through group decisions (Bandura, 2017). There is more than one person who decides what the operation is and the group becomes a “faceless agent” (Bandura, 2017) where blame is diffused between the group. The last way of disengaging morality that Bandura cites is dehumanization which is characterizing the enemy as sub-human (Bandura, 2017). By classifying the enemy this way, the soldier is able to remove the “moral restraints”(Bandura, 2017) they have on killing. However, Bandura reports that drone pilots have to “turn off and on” (Bandura, 2017) their morality. The pilots pull the trigger, watch the drone strike, and see clearly the aftermath of the strike, then just drive home and are surrounded by their family. This makes it difficult to dehumanize people daily and keep their “sense of moral integrity” (Bandura, 2017). Being able to morally disengage is a vital part of the new modern soldier. Without these ways of diffusing guilt, there would be no people to fly the drones. I think it is important to realize that this has always been a part of war but the dilution of the screen on the reality of the soldiers actions adds another layer to processing their actions which make moral disengagement vital to survival as a drone pilot.

   

#4:        

To take a deeper dive into how the Obama administration framed the rhetoric of drone use, I read an article titled “Lethal sterility: innovative dehumanization in legal justifications of Obama’s drone policy” written by Jeffrey Bachman and Jack Holland. Bachman teaches in the School of International Service at American University in Washington DC and Holland works in the School of Politics and International Studies Department at the University of Leeds in the UK. In this article, Bachman and Holland look closely at six speeches made by the Obama Administration in legal support of UAV’s. The administration was constantly being challenged on the legality of the drone program which is why, in the speeches, the administration was attempting to normalize the drone strikes as a necessary function of the war (Bachman & Holland, 2019). They also looked at the rhetoric of George Bush after September 11, 2001 to analyze the War on Terror rhetoric and how that set up the Obama administration to be able to fully develop the drone program. What they discovered by comparing and analyzing both administrations rhetoric was that Obama continued Bush’s labeling of the conflict as an ongoing issue and that the Bush administration used animalistic labeling of the enemy and the Obama administration dehumanized the enemy to make the case for drone warfare(Bachman & Holland, 2019). Bush used many western metaphors, like “round them up” (Bachman & Holland, 2019), to dehumanize them as animalistic. He used a more simplistic, good and evil, way of dehumanizing the enemy. Obama portrayed the enemy as mechanic and in a bureaucratic lens. By using this language, Obama’s administration hid the human qualities of the enemy in order to promote and advocate for the UAV form of fighting the war (Bachman & Holland, 2019). By hiding the human qualities, the act of killing was transformed into a sterile government necessity that moved into an abstract realm (Bachman & Holland, 2019). The overall argument Holland and Bachman make about this new way of dehumanization is that Obama’s administration was able to use “more palatable and diplomatic language”(Bachman & Holland, 2019) to support drone warfare. Although many of Obama’s supporters were not in favor of UAV technology being used, it still happened and the legality of drone warfare was effectively changed in support of the shift. The takeaway from this article is the power of governmental framing. The Obama administration was very successful in down playing the full might of drones killing power which allowed them to expand the program under the nose of the public.

 

#5:

In the article titled “The Drone Paradox: Fighting Terrorism with Mechanized Terror”, authors Christopher Coyne and Abigail Hall argue that the use of drones does not end international terrorism but perpetuates it amongst international populations. They claim this is caused by drone strikes happening everywhere, not in particular locations, and that drone strikes happen due to imperfect information on the part of the Americans (Coyne & Hall, 2018). These together create the “paradox” (Coyne & Hall, 2018). They first discuss the rhetoric surrounding drones and how they are “the equivalent of a scalpel that kills targets with surgical precision” (Coyne & Hall, 2018) and that drones are a rhetorically labeled as a much better alternative to traditional bombings. In this discussion, they find evidence that drones are not as precise as the rhetoric would make us believe and non-combatants typically get injured or die in the procedure of drone strikes (Coyne & Hall, 2018). This causes terror among the people who live in the states where we strike. Next, they discuss the perspective of the people living in areas where drone strikes are common and the terror that is induced. The negative side effect of drones is not only civilian causalities but also the negative effect it has on the communities in which drones circle overhead. There is constant concern over when the next strike will happen (Coyne & Hall, 2018). Many comment on being able to hear the drone overhead without being able to see it and acknowledge that there is no way to know who they are tracking. The threat of secondary strikes also occurs due to drones. Children suffer from this because their life becomes more important than their education (Coyne & Hall, 2018). Children are kept home to keep them safe. This all culminates to a sympathizing with the people the drones are tracking. The organizations drones are attempting to intimidate use drone strikes to recruit new members (Coyne & Hall, 2018). People who have experienced drone strikes often become angry towards the Americans who have created terror in their country. The Taliban are also said to exaggerate the amount of civilian deaths after a drone strike to recruit new members as well. In this way, drones are strengthening the organizations they are attempting to weaken (Coyne & Hall, 2018). What makes drones advantageous for Americans is what makes them a terror for our enemy countries. In conclusion, the authors make the point that the United States has hurt their credibility in the eyes of international populations as a protector of human rights. The unbridled use of drones has created irony in the US claiming to be a force against terrorism. The authors also conclude claiming that although drone strikes do kill the enemy, the level of civilian deaths only help the terrorist groups recruit more people which in turn keep the fighting going forever. This article essentially claims that Americans act like terrorists against terrorists, which many people probably do not like hearing. This is something that many modern soldiers must deal with and wrap their head around a war that is perpetuating terror.

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Positions in pieces:

The major connecting theme throughout all of the amount of civilian deaths caused by drone strikes. This fact has moral, legal, paradoxical, emotional, and reality altering effects on the War on Terror.