As a society, we have somehow deluded ourselves into believing that bombs dropped at thousands of feet are more moral than conventional land action. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Starting in 2013, President Obama stated at least 16 times that there would be "no boots on the ground" in Syria when it came to US military intervention in that country. Instead, he opted for thousands of drone strikes.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported that between Jan 2004 and the time of this publication, in Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen the US has conducted more than 14,040 drone strikes resulting in approximately 2,200 civilian deaths.
Between August 2014 and January 2017, 8,876 and 8,772 drone strikes were taken in Iraq and Syria, respectively. Between January 20, 2009, and December 31, 2015: 473 U.S. strikes "against terrorist targets outside areas of active hostilities" (i.e., outside Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria) with between 2,372 and 2,581 combatant deaths and between 64 and 116 non-combatant deaths, i.e., a civilian casualty rate of 2.63–4.30%, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
President Trump continued the policy of sweeping drone strikes throughout the Middle East, relaxing rules of engagement for aerial strikes which resulting in a 330% increase in civilian deaths in Afghanistan due to drone strikes.
Between the two Presidents, Airwars estimates 14,886 and 19,904 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, respectfully; resulting in 2,942 alleged civilian casualties since the commencement of Operation Inherent Resolve.
Cost of life aside, the cost in taxpayer dollars is also astronomical. Each MQ-9 drone costs $32 million apiece; the US Air Force operated 195 MQ-9 Reapers as of September 2016. The MQ-9 payload consists of a mixture of the munitions, the two most popular being the AGM-114 Hellfire II air-to-ground missiles (colloquially "Hellfire Missiles") coming it at $150,000 each, and the GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bomb with a price tag of $21,000. Factor in the cost of training UAV pilots, providing their salary, healthcare and education benefits for themselves and their dependents and the numbers continue to mount. These numbers do not even begin to calculate infrastructure damage in the countries where drone strikes occur.
In August 2021, a drone strike in Kabul killed 10 civilians, including 7 children. The Pentagon apologized, labeling the event a "tragic mistake"; but as far as I am aware, that was the extent of accountability.
Contrast this with conventional land operations. If an Infantry platoon or squad conducts a raid and enters a building, no children will be killed by a "tragic mistake". The only way children die is if an Infantryman points his weapon at someone he knows to be a child, and consciously and volitionally pulls the trigger. If this occurs, there are witnesses. There is an arrest, there is a court-martial for war crimes. Fellow soldiers testify against him, and he his sentenced to hard labor at Military Prison at Fort Leavenworth (and rightfully so!) In short, there is accountability; something that is glaringly absent when children die from drone strikes.
The cost to train an Infantryman is much less than a UAV pilot, and their munitions cost 23 cents per round. Infrastructure damage is also significantly less; NATO 5.56 rounds make significantly smaller holes in walls than Hellfire missiles.
So then why thousands of strikes, billions of dollars in munitions, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths?
Because as a society, we have somehow deluded ourselves into believing that bombs dropped at thousands of feet are more moral than conventional land action. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The reason we believe this is both psychological and practical. In his book On Killing, psychologist and retired Army lieutenant colonel Dr. Dave Grossman observes that the psychological trauma of the killer is increased based on his proximity to the killed. Aerial bombers and artillerymen, who rarely even see their victims, experience much less guilt and trauma than a sniper, who experiences less trauma than a soldier to shoots at close range. The most traumatizing kill is stabbing, because it is the most intimate, involving forcibly penetrating an enemy's body with a blade held in your own hand.
The psychological separation of aerial bombing gives the illusion of moral acceptability. During World War II, hundreds of thousands of bomber aircrews with the US Army Air Corps were asked to bomb civilian targets in Europe such as factories where civilians—including women—worked. There was very little pushback to such orders. Contrast this to the amount of pushback you could expect from a Infantry company if they were commanded to enter a factory on foot and kill these civilians with rifles. Yet there is virtually no difference in civilian lives lost or strategic effect. The only difference is distance from the intended target. The physical separation between the aircrew and the civilians within the factory creates the illusion of a moral act of war. In reality, if the Infantry land action is immoral, then so must be the aircrew bombing.
The second reason is practical. It is much safer for Americans to drop bombs at thousands of feet. In the previous example, Infantrymen might meet resistance from security personnel at the factory, or the civilian workers themselves might become violent, risking the lives of the men on the ground.
In addition, aerial bombings are the preferred method of policymakers because there is no accountability. There is no Leavenworth for Presidents, Secretaries of Defense, or CENTCOM Commanders for killing of children. There are no court-marshals for UAV pilots, only mandatory 8-hour sleep sessions in their cozy beds in Creech Air Force Base, Nevada.
Then there is public opinion at home to consider. In the war in Iraq and Syria, the American public becomes more enraged at the death of US soldiers than the death of Afghani children. Soldier deaths lead to declining domestic support for military action, or worse (in the politician's eyes), failure to win reelection; Arab civilian deaths lead to feigned outrage which is quickly forgotten.
And yet, if we are truly committed to moral war-making, then it is a boots-on-the-ground approach that we should pursue. Yes, it is more risky for the combat troops who wear these boots. Yet the soldier that would participate in conventional land operations knows what he has signed up for. He is prepared to die for his country; and this may take the form of dying so that his country can retain the moral high ground. His weapons are more precise than Paveways for he has trained in target discrimination at close range. His bullets are cheaper than Hellfires. And the collateral damage—while it can never be eradicated completely—is significantly and morally less.
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