US Drone "How It Became a Killer"

[Monthly Aviation Editor-in-Chief Kim Jae-han] Last January, the U.S. government’s assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the second-in-command and military strongman of Iran’s Quds Force, brought renewed attention to American drone operations. Drone missions, which had primarily been limited to surveillance and reconnaissance in the past, have now become commonplace for assassination operations.

The U.S. government began using drones to eliminate threats?that is, to conduct assassination missions?following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. After this event, the U.S. started equipping the MQ-1 Predator, which had been operated solely for surveillance at the time, with Hellfire missiles to eliminate terrorists threatening American security.

Subsequently, the U.S. military’s first assassination operation using drones targeted a convoy carrying Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar. Although the military failed to hit the convoy in this initial operation, it marked the beginning of the era of armed drones.

Notably, a significant change in military operations after 9/11 was the U.S. government’s establishment of a new concept that legally circumvented the assassination ban. At that time, the U.S. government explicitly prohibited assassination under an executive order issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, which remains in effect today. This executive order states, "No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in or conspire to engage in assassination."

However, after 9/11, the U.S. government applied a new concept called "targeted killing," which allows for the lethal use of force in self-defense against an "imminent threat." President Trump’s statement to reporters after the assassination of Soleimani?that "Soleimani was planning imminent and sinister attacks against American diplomats and military personnel"?appears to emphasize that the operation was a targeted killing, not an assassination.

Critics, however, argue that this targeted killing is no different from justifying brutal acts by using euphemisms such as "enhanced interrogation" instead of "torture," and "collateral damage" instead of "civilian casualties" resulting from large-scale military attacks.

The enhanced interrogation program was a method applied by the CIA to obtain information from terror suspects such as Al-Qaeda operatives to prevent terrorist threats. However, the 2014 CIA torture report revealed that the U.S. military conducted brutal interrogations beyond legal boundaries, including waterboarding suspects until near death, explicit sexual abuse, beatings, and forcibly injecting water into the rectum.

Targeted killings using drones have become a core strategy in today’s war on terror. This approach reduces defense budgets and human casualties, allows attacks anytime and anywhere, and provides psychological warfare advantages. Nonetheless, ethical debates continue over whether targeted killing is a legitimate military act or an act of murder.

Meanwhile, alongside ethical concerns about targeted killings, the severe stress experienced by drone pilots is also problematic. Although drone pilots are often described as video game players because they operate missions by watching monitors, they reportedly suffer extreme stress from repeatedly witnessing enemy combatants being shattered by weapons they have launched. The U.S. Department of Defense has already acknowledged this issue.

In fact, in 2014, the number of U.S. Air Force drone pilots who quit was about 240, exceeding the 180 new drone pilots trained that year. The primary reason for quitting was found to be post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.