The use of weaponized drones has become a large component of United States intervention in the Middle East, but with lack of oversight, the methods have become contentious with reason for concern. Thousands have been killed, including unidentified civilians and children.
National Bird, a documentary about this military drone use over the past decade, will be screened at the Central Square Branch Library at 7:00 pm on July 18th. Three whistleblowers who have suffered from their participation in drone warfare share their stories in the film, recounting the secrecy of their missions and the lack of humanity in their orders. The documentary tells what our government has attempted to keep secret, hoping to end the prolonged suffering of participants and survivors.
Filmmaker Sonia Kennebeck, an independent documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist, designed the film to focus on the human perspective. She includes interviews with veterans and civilian survivors of misguided attacks.
“I wanted to bring transparency to the U.S. drone war through the voices of people directly impacted by it — the operators and analysts working in the drone program, and the victims and survivors in the target countries,” said Kennebeck in an interview with PBS.
After more than 15 years of directing and producing experience, National Bird is Kennebeck’s first feature length film. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2016 and won the Ridenhour Documentary Film Prize in 2017 for its defense of whistleblowers and its captivation of the issues surrounding drone warfare.
Drone programs allow the military to track and kill anywhere, including outside of conflict areas, and the operators are often far away with little knowledge of their target. Missions are so highly classified that pilots and analysts are forbidden from sharing details with anyone, including their psychiatrists – a problematic regulation considering some suffer from PTSD as a result of their work.
The operators’ detachment from the assigned target is extreme. Opponents of drone use argue that the land-based control makes war seem “as innocuous as a video game.” While take-offs and landings are handled locally, many drone missions in Afghanistan are controlled from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, where the operator is physically safe and completely removed from the situation.
“This raises a plethora of legal and ethical questions,” said Kennebeck, noting the lack of oversight and accountability in drone warfare.
The military refers to drones as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), or Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), the latter of which incorporates the vehicle, the ground-based controller, and the communications between the two. They can range from hand-launched surveillance drones that weigh less than five pounds to large, armed planes with lethal capabilities.
Since the attacks of September 11th, the United States has used drones to kill suspected terrorists in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and other countries. Drone use began under President George W. Bush, but usage more than doubled under President Barack Obama’s administration.
Historically, the use of unmanned weaponry can be traced back to 1849, when the Habsburg Austrian Empire used pilotless balloons armed with bombs to attack the citizens of Venice. The more modern idea of drone warfare was conceived during WWII, when the United States developed the Fairchild BQ-3, but the plane was considered ineffective and it was never produced.
Today, not only are drones used by the military, but they can be bought commercially and used by civilians for film and entertainment. Kennebeck even used a small video drone to film some parts of National Bird. While drones may be effective for filmmaking, do they belong in warfare?
One of the focal problems with drone use in war is the lack of proper targets and intelligence. Obama’s administration acknowledged the killing of 117 civilians, but the Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that number could be as high as 1,400.
“There has to be transparency, and we have to be better educated about the efficiency of this weapon,” said Kennebeck. “There are so many unanswered questions: Is it as efficient as politicians want us to believe? How many people are being killed, how many civilians, in how many countries…We need that information, so we as a society can decide if this is the kind of warfare that we want.”
National Bird will be screened at the Central Square Branch Library in Cambridge at 7:00 pm on July 18th. A discussion will follow the screening, with suggestions for how we can stop this immoral form of warfare.