Drones and Speer's warning

[AdamSmith]

An article about a German fighter pilot who took pity on an American bomber pilot and crew during WWII currently leads cnn.com. Key excerpt:

... What is this bond that surfaces between enemies during and after battle?

It's called the warrior's code, say soldiers and military scholars. It's shaped cultures as diverse as the Vikings, the Samurai, the Romans and Native Americans, says Shannon E. French, author of "Code of the Warrior."

The code is designed to protect the victor, as well as the vanquished, French says.

"People think of the rules of war primarily as a way to protect innocent civilians from being victims of atrocities," she says. "In a much more profound sense, the rules are there to protect the people doing the actual fighting."

The code is designed to prevent soldiers from becoming monsters. Butchering civilians, torturing prisoners, desecrating the enemies' bodies -- are all battlefield behaviors that erode a soldier's humanity, French says.

The code is ancient as civilization itself. In Homer's epic poem, "The Iliad," the Greek hero Achilles breaks the code when his thirst for vengeance leads him to desecrate the body of his slain foe, the Trojan hero Hector.

Most warrior cultures share one belief, French says:

"There is something worse than death, and one of those things is to completely lose your humanity."

The code is still needed today, French says.

Thousands of U.S. soldiers returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. Some have seen, and have done, things that are unfathomable.

A study of Vietnam veterans showed that those who felt as if they had participated in dishonorable behavior during the war or saw the Vietnamese as subhuman experienced more post-traumatic stress disorder, French says.

Drone warfare represents a new threat to soldiers' humanity, French says.

The Pentagon recently announced it would award a new Distinguished Warfare Medal to soldiers who operate drones and launch cyberattacks. The medal would rank above the Bronze Star and Purple Heart, two medals earned in combat.

At least 17,000 people have signed an online petition protesting the medal. The petition says awarding medals to soldiers who wage war via remote control was an "injustice" to those who risked their lives in combat.

Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta defended the new medal at a February news conference.

"I've seen firsthand how modern tools, like remotely piloted platforms and cybersystems, have changed the way wars are fought," Panetta says. "And they've given our men and women the ability to engage the enemy and change the course of battle, even from afar."

Still, critics ask, is there any honor in killing an enemy by remote control?

French isn't so sure.

"If [i'm] in the field risking and taking a life, there's a sense that I'm putting skin in the game," she says. "I'm taking a risk so it feels more honorable. Someone who kills at a distance -- it can make them doubt. Am I truly honorable?" ...

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/09/living/higher-call-military-chivalry/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Reading that, it struck me that those points about drone warfare dehumanizing us even further than before, if possible, make Speer's closing statement at Nuremberg all the more chillingly prescient:

Final Statement of Albert Speer: Mr. President, may it please the Tribunal: Hitler and the collapse of his system have brought a time of tremendous suffering upon the German people. The useless continuation of this war and the unnecessary destruction make the work of reconstruction more difficult. Privation and misery have come to the German people. After this Trial, the German people will despise and condemn Hitler as the proven author of its misfortune. But the world will learn from these happenings not only to hate dictatorship as a form of government, but to fear it.

Hitler's dictatorship differed in one fundamental point from all its predecessors in history. His was the first dictatorship in the present period of modern technical development, a dictatorship which made complete use of all technical means in a perfect manner for the domination of its own nation. Through technical devices such as radio and loudspeaker 80 million people were deprived of independent thought. It was thereby possible to subject them to the will of one man. The telephone, teletype, and radio made it possible, for instance, for orders from the highest sources to be transmitted directly to the lowest-ranking units, where, because of the high authority, they were carried out without criticism.

Another result was that numerous offices and headquarters were directly attached to the supreme leadership, from which they received their sinister orders directly. Also, one of the results was a far-reaching supervision of the citizen of the state and the maintenance of a high degree of secrecy for criminal events. Perhaps to the outsider this machinery of the state may appear like the lines of a telephone exchange--apparently without system. But like the latter, it could be served and dominated by one single will. Earlier dictators during their work of leadership needed highly qualified assistants, even at the lowest level, men who could think and act independently. The totalitarian system in the period of modern technical development can dispense with them; the means of communication alone make it possible to mechanize the subordinate leadership. As a result of this there arises a new type: the uncritical recipient of orders.

We had only reached the beginning of the development. The nightmare of many a man that one day nations could be dominated by technical means was all but realized in Hitler's totalitarian system. Today the danger of being terrorized by technocracy threatens every country in the world. In modern dictatorship this appears to me inevitable. Therefore, the more technical the world becomes, the more necessary is the promotion of individual freedom and the individual's awareness of himself as a counterbalance. Hitler not only took advantage of technical developments to dominate his own people-he almost succeeded, by means of his technical lead, in subjugating the whole of Europe. It was merely due to a few fundamental shortcomings of organization such as are typical in a dictatorship because of the absence of criticism, that he did not have twice as many tanks, aircraft, and submarines before 1942.

But, if a modern industrial state utilizes its intelligence, its science, its technical developments, and its production for a number of years in order to gain a lead in the sphere of armament, then even with a sparing use of its manpower it can, because of its technical superiority, completely overtake and conquer the world, if other nations should employ their technical abilities during that same period on behalf of the cultural progress of humanity.

The more technical the world becomes, the greater this danger will be, and the more serious will be an established lead in the technical means of warfare. This war ended with remote-controlled rockets, aircraft traveling at the speed of sound, new types of submarines, torpedoes which find their own target, with atom bombs, and with, the prospect of a horrible kind of chemical warfare. Of necessity the next war will be overshadowed by these new destructive inventions of the human mind.

In 5 or 10 years the technique of warfare will make it possible to fire rockets from continent to continent with uncanny precision. By atomic power it can destroy one million people in the center of New York in a matter of seconds with a rocket operated, perhaps, by only 10 men, invisible, without previous warning, faster than sound, by day and by night. Science is able to spread pestilence among human beings and animals and to destroy crops by insect warfare. Chemistry has developed terrible weapons with which it can inflict unspeakable suffering upon helpless human beings.

Will there ever again be a nation which will use the technical discoveries of this war for the preparation of a new war, while the rest of the world is employing the technical progress of this war for the benefit of humanity, thus attempting to create a slight compensation for its horrors? As a former minister of a highly developed armament system, it is my last duty to say the following: A new large-scale war will end with the destruction of human culture and civilization. Nothing can prevent unconfined engineering and science from completing the work of destroying human beings, which it has begun in so dreadful a way in this war.

Therefore this Trial must contribute towards preventing such degenerate wars in the future, and towards establishing rules whereby human beings can live together. Of what importance is my own fate, after everything that has happened, in comparison with this high goal? During the past centuries the German people have contributed much towards the creation of human civilization. Often they have made these contributions in times when they were just as powerless and helpless as they are today. Worth-while human beings will not let themselves be driven to despair. They will create new and lasting values, and under the tremendous pressure brought to bear upon everyone today these new works will be of particular greatness.

But if the German people create new cultural values in the unavoidable times of their poverty and weakness, and at the same time in the period of their reconstruction, then they will have in that way made the most valuable contribution to world events which they could make in their position. It is not the battles of war alone which shape the history of humanity, but also, in a higher sense, the cultural achievements which one day will become the common property of all humanity. A nation which believes in its future will never perish. May God protect Germany and the culture of the west.

http://propagander.tripod.com/as7.html

[RA1]

These kinds of arguements and suppostitions have been at the forefront ever since the invention of weapons that can kill from afar. Probably the most powerful and recent is the atomic bomb being dropped from a flying aircraft. However, the B-29, the Enola Gay, that dropped the first A-bomb was still at risk from the Japanese aircraft or anti-aircraft artillery. I have no idea that the operators of drones are at risk from any others except possibly terrorists or sereptitious foes. Likely they go home to their families every night.

I have personally known several survivors of WWII as well as the Korean Police Action and the Viet Nam conflcit, among others. I feel very sad for those among them who are suffering from PTS or the like. I think this is a "real" problem. However, many have managed to put aside their difficulties with being in conflict. They are not unmarked but they have dealt with whatever demons have tried to invade their psyches. I applaud them for the effort and result. We all are the products of our life experiences and have to deal with them however. Some are more difficult than others.

I can only offer comfort and sympathy for those who are having difficulty dealing with their demons.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

Here is the text of the petition mentioned in the CNN article above.

we petition the obama administration to:

Lower the precedence of the new Distinguished Warfare Medal

The Pentagon is introducing a new medal to recognized the service of pilots of unmanned drones during combat operations. This medal will be placed in precedence order just below the Distinguished Flying Cross and just above a Bronze Star Medal. Bronze Stars are commonly awarded with a Valor device in recognition of a soldier's service in the heat of combat while on the ground in the theater of operation. Under no circumstance should a medal that is designed to honor a pilot, that is controlling a drone via remote control, thousands of miles away from the theater of operation, rank above a medal that involves a soldier being in the line of fire on the ground. This is an injustice to those who have served and risked their lives and this should not be allowed to move forward as planned.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/lower-precedence-new-distinguished-warfare-medal/5KdnkBBN?goback=.gde_139773_member_221714330

[RA1]

I am not in favor of awarding any "combat" medals to operators of drones unless they are actually in close proximity to the "battlefield" and in imminent physical danger. "E" for efficiency or the like, if deserved, but nothing more.

Best regards,

RA1