The longbow and cross bow were also once considered immoral, for that matter: in 1139, the Second Lateran Council of Pope Innocent II is said to have "prohibit[ed] under anathema that murderous art of crossbowmen and archers, which is hateful to God" -- at least when used against Christians.
3. Drones Turn Killing into a Video Game.
Writing in the Guardian, Phillip Allston (the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions) and Hina Shamsi of the ACLU decry "the PlayStation mentality" created by drone technologies. "Young military personnel raised on a diet of video games now kill real people remotely using joysticks. Far removed from the human consequences of their actions, how will this generation of fighters value the right to life?"
But are drones more "video game-like" than, say, having cameras in the noses of cruise missiles? Those old enough to remember the first Gulf War will recall the shocking novelty of images taken by cameras inside U.S. Tomahawk missiles, the jolting, grainy images in the crosshairs before everything went ominously black.
Regardless, there's little evidence that drone technologies "reduce" their operators' awareness of human suffering. If anything, drone operators may be far more keenly aware of the suffering they help inflict than any distant sniper or bomber pilot could be.
Journalist Daniel Klaidman reports the words of one CIA drone operator, a former Air Force pilot: "I used to fly my own air missions.... I dropped bombs, hit my target load, but had no idea who I hit. [With drones], I can look at their faces... see these guys playing with their kids and wives.... After the strike, I see the bodies being carried out of the house. I see the women weeping and in positions of mourning. That's not PlayStation; that's real."
Increasingly, there's evidence that drone pilots, just like combat troops, can suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder: watching a man play with his children, then seeing his mangled body takes a psychological toll. A recent Air Force study found that 29 percent of drone pilots suffered from "burnout," with 17 percent "clinically distressed."
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