What, getting a LITTLE BIT of a CONSCIENCE out there, remote-control killers?
Yeah, a guess BEING a NAZI doesn't feel to good, does it?
"Remote-control warriors suffer battle stress at a distance; Psychologists, chaplains ease mental strain" by Scott Lindlaw, Associated Press | August 8, 2008
MARCH AIR RESERVE BASE, Calif. - The Air National Guardsmen who operate Predator drones over Iraq via remote control, launching deadly missile attacks from the safety of Southern California 7,000 miles away, are suffering some of the same psychological stresses as their comrades on the battlefield.
Working in air-conditioned trailers, Predator pilots observe the field of battle through a bank of video screens and kill enemy fighters with a few computer keystrokes. Then, after their shifts are over, they get to drive home and sleep in their own beds.
But that whiplash transition is taking a toll on some of them mentally, and so is the way the unmanned aircraft's cameras enable them to see people getting killed in high-resolution detail, some officers say.
In a fighter jet, "when you come in at 500-600 miles per hour, drop a 500-pound bomb and then fly away, you don't see what happens," said Colonel Albert K. Aimar, who is commander of the 163d Reconnaissance Wing here and has a bachelor's degree in psychology. But when a Predator fires a missile, "you watch it all the way to impact, and I mean it's very vivid, it's right there and personal. So it does stay in people's minds for a long time."
He said the stresses are "causing some family issues, some relationship issues."
Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Robert P. Herz, who interviewed pilots and sensor operators for a doctoral dissertation on human error in Predator accidents:
"They're putting a missile down somebody's chimney and taking out bad guys, and the next thing they're taking their wife out to dinner, their kids to school."
The lack of reflection upon the VICTIMS of our mass-murdering actions astonishes me, readers.
Maybe Americans really do deserve what they are getting.
