Our Drone War Burnout
As many as 180 people, from military lawyers and commanders to private contractors from Raytheon andNorthrop Grumman, are required to maintain each patrol of three to four Predator or Reaper drones around the clock.
.. Working up to 12 hours a day, sometimes six days a week, analysts watch their targets up close for months on end. They often witness their subjects’ final moments. In follow-up surveillance, they may even view their funerals.
“Watching targets go about their daily lives may inspire empathy,” said Julie Carpenter, a research fellow at California Polytechnic State University who has studied human-technology interactions in the military.
.. “We can say we see children and we think you shouldn’t do it. But it isn’t up to us,” one former analyst, who asked to remain anonymous, told me. “We are completely outranked, and at the very bottom of the food chain.”