Understanding The Downfall of Drones

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" is a philosophical question regarding observation and reality, which can be further applied to the use of war drones. War drones, are remote controlled aircrafts that humans control on land in remote locations. These unmanned aerial vehicles must be analyzed to determine their legitimacy and morality. Drones, although having the possibility of decreasing risks to civilian and U.S. militant lives, make no binding promise. Furthermore, due to the secrecy in which they are operated the kills the vehicles do execute tend to go unnoticed because U.S. militants aren’t physically harmed; therefore, the kills go unobserved and mostly unacknowledged by the public. Secondly, drone attacks are merely aimed at killing, as opposed to capturing enemies; consequently, there is no gain of intelligence into the terrorists’ cells. Lastly, these remote controlled aircrafts can be hacked by enemies and currently we lack the security necessary to halt the hacking. The promises drones offer are empty and lack supporting evidence, while the negatives are clear and demonstrably verified; accordingly the risks drones present outweigh their possible benefits.

Drones have been said to have the potential of decreasing civilian deaths, however there is no data to support this assumption. In May Obama asserted the guidelines for drones: that a terrorist must pose "’a continuing and imminent threat’ to Americans, that no other government can address the threat effectively; and that there is ‘near-certainty’ no civilians will be killed or injured.” (Gorman, Siobaun). These standards seem reasonable; albeit, Human Rights Watch studied six strikes in Yemen and declared that each...

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...ssary to prepare the area of impact, to decrease the amount of damage caused. Lastly, as previously discussed, these drones can be used in military surveillance, armed attacks, and search in rescue, which, at times, can help promote and increase the safety of our military personnel.

It can be asserted that with current technology and supervision drones lack the stability required to be successful and safe and in actuality are counter-effective because these drones create an unsupervised means of power that could quickly spiral out of control. The drone program fails to decrease the death count of war, increase the intelligence needed to dismantle terrorist cells and be secure against hackers. As a result, drones are counterproductive, and in truth create a newfound terrorism. At the end of the day, the only means to eradicate the enemy is to make them a friend.