Drone: Excerpt From My Play

Drone addresses one of the most serious moral issues of our time: the human cost of drone warfare. Although a majority of Americans supports the program, that support is based on both ignorance and misinformation. Leaked CIA documents to The Intercept show that, at least in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia, nine out of ten victims are not the intended targets, and many of the remaining targets have been mistakenly identified through incorrect metadata, poor intelligence, and by paid informants who seek revenge or who derive personal gain from identifying innocent targets (a plot device I use in my play). Even the CIA admits the program is questionable as to its effectiveness, that it “may increase support for the insurgents, particularly if these strikes enhance insurgent leaders’ lore, if non-combatants are killed in the attacks, if legitimate or semi-legitimate politicians aligned with the insurgents are targeted, or if the government is already seen as overly repressive or violent”.

It was the personal rather than the political, however, that prompted me to write this play. In reading about the men and women who operated drones, I discovered an inherently dramatic force in their stories. In many cases, drone operators, surveil their intended victims for weeks, before they strike them down. In that process, they come to know their targets almost intimately, often developing a sort of sympathetic, though one-way, relationship with them. Thus when they are finally asked to bomb them, it’s tantamount to killing someone they’ve known for some time.

Other serious issues affecting the pilots are the facts that they must view the mutilated bodies after they strike, something their real-pilot counterparts don’t contend with. Further there is the guilt of killing others with no risk to oneself—having “no skin in the game.” Thus people involved in the program suffer PTSD as well as “moral injury.” Though there have been several plays and films dealing with drone warfare, none that I’m aware of deals with the victims, as well as the drone pilots and sensors, rendering those dramas one-sided and emotionally distancing. The victims and their families are subjected to the constant humming noise of the drones, making them unable to sleep or concentrate. The continual threat from above poses debilitating psychological damage on a whole society.

During the Obama years, he expanded the controversial signature strikes in which people are targeted, not on the basis of specific evidence, but rather on their behavior. One of the insidious results of this policy led to the administration’s sweeping edict that “all military-age males in the a strike zone are combatants.” The drone-warfare issue is more relevant today than ever under Trump, who has inordinately upped the ante, killing as many as 30% more innocent civilians, though this receives virtually no media coverage. When Trump viewed a drone strike, he asked the CIA operative why we waited to strike a combatant until after he left his family’s home and was a safe distance away. During his campaign, he announced, “When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families.”

In the following excerpt from my play, Drone, Mike Powell, an ex-F-16 fighter pilot is now a drone pilot at the Creech Air Force Base near Las Vegas. His wife, Kristin, is a physician’s assistant and he has a 16-year-old soccer-playing son, Robbie. His main focus is surveillance of Salar Kahn, a miner, who is under suspicion as an insurgent. Khan lives with his wife and mother. He also has a 16-year-old soccer playing son. In the scene, a very shaken Mike, flouting all air force rules, breaks down and divulges to his wife some of the horrors of his job. In addition to having bombed a hospital and mistakenly hitting near to a school, he’s terrified that he will have to kill Salar Kahn, a man he has come to admire.

KRISTIN: Mike, what about that school strike?

MIKE: That was another mistake. That’s why I acted so badly with
you the other night. I’m so sorry, Kris. They embrace. And Robbie. I need to tell him how much I love him. . .

KRISTIN: He’ll be home soon. . .And the school?

MIKE: We were supposed to take out a top-level Taliban chief. The
sensor I was working with—

KRISTIN: Sensor?

MIKE: He’s the one who controls the cameras and guides the missile
to the target. He miscalculated. The missile hit the
mullah’s car a little late, a little too close to the school. No kids
died thank God, but I keep asking myself what will those kids think
about Americans now? And what about those who survived the
hospital bombing? Will they want revenge? Will their families?
Are we creating the next wave of terrorists we’ll need to kill?
People are right to think that these drones can deliver completely
accurate strikes. They can. What they don’t face is that human beings
are involved. They make mistakes. Sometimes we get bad
intelligence. Innocents come on the scene unexpectedly.

KRISTIN: Are there more of these bombings in the works?

MIKE: We never know. Right now we’re doing surveillance on a man
in North Waziristan who they suspect might be dangerous.

KRISTIN: Surveillance meaning what exactly?

MIKE: There are three crews watching him every minute. I’ve been
on this since my first day on the job.

KRISTIN: For all these weeks? What are you watching?

MIKE: Everything. I’ve come to know him and his family–his wife,
his mother. He even has a son Robbie’s age who plays soccer.

KRISTIN: You watch the whole family?

MIKE: When he’s with them. It’s creepy, I know. It’s like we’re
some kind of pervert voyeurs. We see everything. I watch
them having tea, planting vegetables, being happy, being
afraid, dancing, the boy kicking the soccer ball. He reminds
me of Robbie.

KRISTIN: It sounds like a totally normal family.

MIKE: That’s how I feel. I even saw him make love to his wife.

KRISTIN: No, that’s disgusting. Why would you be watching that?

MIKE: There’s a saying, “We never blink.”

KRISTIN: You can see inside their bedroom?

MIKE: No, not inside the house. They do it on the roof because
there’s no privacy inside.

KRISTIN: And what is all this spying telling you?

MIKE: So far nothing, that I can tell. But the commanders have
strong suspicions.

KRISTIN: Like what?

MIKE: I don’t know. Maybe he’s involved with the Taliban? I’m
thinking that they will drop this mission soon for lack of
any evidence. I just don’t think I could. . . It’s like I know these
people. The Khans. I joined the service right after 9/11,
because I wanted to serve my country. . .to protect our people.
And I felt I was doing good work. That’s what I thought I’d be
doing here, too. But this is a coward’s war. The drone is called
a Reaper. What does that make me? The Grim Reaper?
When I was up in the F-16, my life was on the line every time.
In that control room, my soul is on the line. We’re killing people,
while we sit safely in an air-conditioned room. Kristin, what
happened to that guy I used to be? Where is he now? Every
time I have to bomb these people, I destroy another part of myself.