@csteele: not sitting in a comfortable chair 12,000kms from the action playing God in the ultimate of video games.

Yeah, well you are commenting on the ethics of remote killing. I was commenting on soldiers being proud of kill tallies. There is nothing unique about this now, and there never has been. If you want to argue ethics of war and kill tallies, try this example.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488

They jumped into an APC, displayed some bait and killed everyone that was drawn to it. I have no doubt they expected God and country to be proud of them being so ingenious at killing barbarian heathens.

To me it makes observing someone for days on end from 12,000 kms away, and then killing them once you are sure of their intentions look positively saintly.

On a different thread I made the comment ;

“...I have respect for our law enforcement and armed service personnel. They have sacrificed a portion of their autonomy for the service to their community or country. To put it crudely they have been prepared to shelve part of their natural morality to effectively do their job. Rather than deny this or find a moral justification for an immoral act perhaps we should recognise the sacrifice being made, often on our behalf.”

We need to realise we have a responsibility as the citizenry to temper the actions of our armed forces.

It is not the military who are working to outlaw things like mines, cluster bombs, depleted uranium munitions rather it is the people. It was also not the military who outlawed mustard gas, torture, the use of phosphorus weaponry in built up areas etc.

We expect them to do a job on our behalf efficiently and with as little loss to their fellow service people as possible.

It is unfair of me to call one of these pilots (perhaps drone controllers is a more suitable word) cowardly. It is those of us who are not prepared to speak out and attempt to change methods, that are obviously unjust and immoral, who are the real cowards.

As Gandhi wrote: “They say, 'means are, after all, means'. I would say, 'means are, after all, everything'. As the means so the end...”

Some of the means we are resorting to as Western nations to prosecute these wars should be appalling to most fair minded people.

It will take a special kind of courage from our leaders if these were to ever be addressed because implicit in that change would be an acceptance of greater allied casualties, but it needs to happen.

CSteele,

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/world/asia/05drones.html?scp=1&sq=drones&st=cse

This article and many others I have read show how the Taliban and Al Quaeda operations are severely crippled.

This is enabling the Pakistani army to excise one area at a time from the Taliban control, as the Taliban are unable to mobilise much more than a token bombing.

I see no evidence of a more vigourous counter attack by the Taliban, and their area of control seems to be shrinking by the day.

Dear Shadow Minister,

I'm afraid you will need to cite some other evidence of the ailing Taliban since the article you linked to talks about the disruptions to the Taliban operations but also of the methods they have adopted to mitigate them.

The article quotes; “The question of civilian deaths is an almost daily worry, all four men said. “Civilians are worried because there is hardly a house without a fighter,” the militant said.”

So it would appear there is a lot more work for the drones to complete.

Wikipedia states Taliban numbers have increased from 11,000 in 2008 to 25,000 in 2009. British Maj. Gen. Richard Barrons last month put their strength as being up to 36,000.

It seems that our apprehensions about real-life video gaming were premature. I have it on good authority that the US Military has acted swiftly to ensure that all drone jockeys have been equipped with visual aids to ensure that they only acquire legitimate targets nowadays.

Like this one, for example:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/clutterbells/4495993800/sizes/o/

*Militants now sneak into villages two at a time to sleep, he said. Some homeowners were refusing to rent space to Arabs, who are associated with Al Qaeda, for fear of their families’ being killed by the drones, he said.*

From the earlier quoted URL. If they have to sneak into villages
just to sleep, I doubt if they are doing so well. Clearly the
locals would like to be rid of the Arabs who have invaded their
territory.