I don’t often find myself smiling while reading about the killing in Iraq and Afghanistan but I did today when I ran across a short article in Wired, Shrinks Help Drone Pilots Cope With Robo-Violence. Like many people, I was concerned that fighting a war via remote controlled vehicles would turn the killing into a video game, completely disconnecting the soldiers’ consciences from their actions. It is a very hopeful sign that the men and women firing missiles from drone airplanes are disturbed enough by what they are doing to require counselling.
It has often been a problem that the men who run the wars are not the ones on the front lines, personally experiencing the maiming and killing. Even the vocabulary of war encourages pretty much everybody to ignore the consequences: people become “units” or “troops.” We talk about things like “troop strength” and not “the number of men able to stand and fight.”
At least this summer, the people in California who are killing people in Iraq get what they are doing. I am sure that the people who program the drones will try to solve this problem, making the people who do the killing a bit more efficient. With luck, it will take a long time.
