# Armed drones: Should the Canadian military use the controversial weapons?



## Eye In The Sky (9 Mar 2016)

Article Link

Armed drones: Should the Canadian military use the controversial weapons? 

*'There are multiple different uses for them — not just killing machines,' says professor Stephanie Carvin*

Laura Wright 

Canada's chief of defence staff announced this week that the Canadian military needs new drones and he wants those drones to be armed — an upgrade that doesn't come without its share of controversy. 

Gen. Jonathan Vance's comments came on the heels of a U.S. air strike in Somalia over the weekend that killed 150 militants linked to al-Shabaab. The strike was partly carried out by unmanned drones.

But military use of armed drones is fraught with controversies, from the perceived ease at which drone operators pull the trigger, to the number of civilian deaths associated with drone strikes.

The benefits of using drones, however, are difficult to ignore — namely the fact drone operators don't run the risk of dying in a strike, as fighter-pilots do.

"It's high time that Canada bought that kind of a drone," says Elinor Sloan, an international relations professor at Carleton University. "Arming them simply provides options in a war zone."

As Canada gets set for a possible debate on the topic, here's a look at some of the pros and cons of using armed drones.

Cheaper, more efficient

The use of armed drones is just the next step in the increasing "stand-off character" of warfare, Sloan argues. Humans used to fight hand-to-hand and developed tools to get further and further away from close-up combat.

"Drones just put that effort still further away from direct human contact," she says. "But a human is still in charge and directly tethered to that platform."

Drones are safer for those operating them since pilots can be thousands of kilometres away from their targets, with no risk of physical injury.

And they're relatively cheap, says Stephanie Carvin, an assistant professor of international affairs, also at Carleton University. "There are multiple different uses for them — not just killing machines."

Drones can be better for warfare because of their precision; their surveillance capabilities allow them to follow a target for hours or days before deciding whether to strike.

This allows for what Jesse Kirkpatrick calls "tactical patience."

"It allows individuals to be operating in a cool remove that will allow them to maybe not engage in atrocities that some do after the stress of battle takes its toll on them," says Kirkpatrick, the assistant director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at Virginia's George Mason University.

Sloan and Carvin both say drone pilots often don't act alone — up to 25 people can be involved in a mission, including the U.S. president.

Despite drones' ability to be more effective, Kirkpatrick says that "cool remove" can be unsettling.

"You have someone who seems to be hunting individuals from 3,000 miles away and can patiently wait for them," he says. "I think that image bothers people."

Civilian casualties

Despite the benefits, some say there is a high civilian death toll associated with drone strikes. The problem is those numbers are incredibly difficult to verify.

"We just don't have good data," says Carvin. "Those reports are based on the U.S. program, and are based on reports from far-off areas that we don't have access to." 

She adds that some of the reports only looked at a small number of drone strikes, which can skew the data. "They're deeply methodologically flawed."

Drone pilots are sometimes disparagingly called "chair pilots," as there is a perception that their distance from the scene of a strike allows them to more easily pull the trigger. 

But Kirkpatrick says he found drone pilots suffer psychological trauma at a comparable rate to fighter pilots.

"That can lead us to speculatively conclude that it's not like playing a video game — the killing and the harm feels very real," he says.

Secrecy, myths

The public perception of the U.S. drone program in particular has not been helped by the fact it is shrouded in secrecy. 

"One of the main issues is its lack of transparency, and there are significant issues for democratic oversight, participation and civilian control of the military," says Kirkpatrick. He adds this secrecy makes it very difficult to determine how many civilians are being harmed.

The U.S. government claims no civilians have been killed, but that's debatable based on who they define as a combatant.

"Observers say the only reason you can claim this is that the definition of what it means to be a combatant is way too broad," says Sarah Kreps, an associate professor of governance and law at Cornell University who has written two books about drones.

Whether the Canadian military eventually moves to using armed drones may be a debate that's missing the point; Carvin says it doesn't make a difference if the military kills people with F-18 fighter jets or with armed drones.

"[Drones] are a shiny object and we all get distracted because it's a new technology and that's understandable," she says. "But what we need to be asking is: 'What is the actual policy that we're using this for?'"

Canada should consider buying drones, she says, if they can potentially contribute to the country's future military missions — not just because everyone else has them.

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It would be a nice starting point for people to understand:

a.  drones and RPAs/UAVs/UASs are not the same;

b.  drones cannot have pilots and '_drones_' [RPAs/UASs/UAVs] aren't always able to go out and play when their big brothers _Fighters_ and _MPAs_ are able to.  They are more scared of weather and storms and stuff.  They have their CAPS, and they have their LIMS.

c.  looking at stuff you see 'thru the straw' on a screen orbiting above a point/target/whatever or on a screen XXXX km's away thru a feed is likely not all that different.  Watching _stuff on a screen _is _watching stuff on a screen_.  It will take whatever toll it takes, regardless of if it's from a manned or unmanned platform.  

d.  not to discount the knowledge of professionals in their fields, the professors in the article, etc, but until they find themselves actual 'links of the chain' involved in targeting and striking, it is (IMO) hard for them to know what it actually feels like to be a link in that chain.  I can tell you how awesome the strawberry ice cream I had at supper was, but you won't really get it until you eat that ice cream yourself.  You might find it tastes horrible compared to what you imagined it would...never know until you take a bite.



> "That can lead us to speculatively conclude that it's not like playing a video game — the killing and the harm feels very real," he says.



:2c: from a scope dope.


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## Eye In The Sky (9 Mar 2016)

Article Link

Canada should buy drones that can strike as well as see, says Jonathan Vance 

*Defence chief says there's 'little point' having drones that can only watch
*

Tom Parry 

Canada's top soldier says the Canadian Forces need new drones. And Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of the defence staff, wants those drones to be armed.

"We do need UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles)", Vance told a Senate committee Monday. "And I am of the view that we need armed UAVs."

Vance told senators that such drones would improve the military's ability to patrol and monitor Canadian territory as well as help in search and rescue efforts. The drones would also assist in operations overseas.

"If we are in operations against a force like ISIS, the surveillance piece is important but we also want to contribute to the strike," Vance said.

"In my view there's little point to having a UAV that can see a danger but can't strike it if it needs to."

Vance acknowledged drones are controversial and he anticipates a debate over how they should be used.

The U.S. has used drones to target militants in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. The Pentagon confirmed this week it used unmanned aircraft to help carry out an airstrike in Somalia that targeted the al-Qaeda-linked group al-Shabaab. The attack reportedly killed 150 people.

The Canadian Forces deployed unarmed drones during the mission in Afghanistan with mixed results. The military has for years been looking at options for more modern UAVs through its Joint Unmanned Surveillance and Target Acquisition Project, known in military circles as JUSTAS.

*Vance said the JUSTAS project remains active. "I am working on it," he assured senators. "I have increased the priority on this."
*
The general's spirited pitch for armed drones appears to strike a different tone than the one set by the Liberal government.

In their 2015 election platform, the Liberals pledged to make long-range surveillance UAVs one of their top equipment priorities. The platform, however, made no mention of arming them.

And while Vance used the fight against the so-called Islamic State as an example of a potential mission for armed UAVs, the government has ended the military's bombing mission against the militant group to focus instead on humanitarian assistance and training local forces.
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1.  If we need to 'find and then strike', why did we just pull out the only asset we had that could find and then strike?

2.  Why are we not making all of our ISR assets 'find/strike' assets?  The French are doing it...

French Navy ATL2 MPA Can Now Self Designate GBU-12 Laser-Guided Bombs With MX-20 System

First Air Strike with GBU-12 Against ISIL in Iraq for French Navy ATL2 Maritime Patrol Aircraft 

3.  I see some 'left, right, left, left right' happening here.  Things do not seem in step to me...


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## The Bread Guy (9 Mar 2016)

Eye In The Sky said:
			
		

> ... 1.  If we need to 'find and then strike', why did we just pull out the only asset we had that could find and then strike? ...


Because politicians saying, "in this task, we'll stop using tool x" is different than the CDS saying, "it sure would be handy if Canada had tool y in the toolbelt"?



			
				Eye In The Sky said:
			
		

> ... 3.  I see some 'left, right, left, left right' happening here.  Things do not seem in step to me...


Zacly!


> Canada's defence minister says it's too early to say whether the Canadian Forces should be equipped with armed drones.
> 
> Harjit Sajjan was responding to comments made yesterday by the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance.
> 
> ...


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## Eye In The Sky (9 Mar 2016)

milnews.ca said:
			
		

> Because politicians saying, "in this task, we'll stop using tool x" is different than the CDS saying, "it sure would be handy if Canada had tool y in the toolbelt"?



Perhaps, but what I really noticed were these parts...



> "If we are in operations against a force like ISIS, the surveillance piece is important but we also want to contribute to the strike," Vance said.



The Liberal government 'we' seems to saying quite the opposite, not just with words but with the removal of the CF-18s who were doing the only striking while leaving the ISR assets in place.



> "In my view there's little point to having a UAV that can see a danger but can't strike it if it needs to."



Then what is the rationale to have the current ISR asset able to see but not strike?  It can be done, ref the links to the ATL 2s in my earlier post.  UAVs with ord on them can do strikes, sometimes you would need something quicker on it's feet, like a MPA or other manned ISR asset.  Can't say more than that without being sure I am not crossing a line or one sort or another, but I know there are times that is the case.



> And while Vance used the fight against the so-called Islamic State as an example of a potential mission for armed UAVs, the government has ended the military's bombing mission against the militant group to focus instead on humanitarian assistance and training local forces.



but...



> "_*If *_  we are in operations against a force like ISIS, the surveillance piece is important but we also want to contribute to the strike," Vance said.



Here is part of the 'left, right, left, left, right'; there is no "if".  We_*are*_ in operations against ISIS.


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## Journeyman (9 Mar 2016)

Eye In The Sky said:
			
		

> > "If we are in operations against a force like ISIS, the surveillance piece is important but we also want to contribute to the strike," Vance said.
> 
> 
> 
> Here is part of the 'left, right, left, left, right'; there is no "if".  We_*are*_ in operations against ISIS.


I believe that the CDS is setting parameters to pre-empt a counter-argument.  In saying  "...a force _*like*_  ISIS....", he's making it clear (to some) that such a capability is not JUST for this current operation; it will have utility in numerous other conflicts.  This way, the nay-sayers cannot argue that this is "just more money down the tube on a fool's errand; we should pull completely out now" -- as many are already saying.


Or his intention was simply slighting you personally.   :dunno:


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## Eye In The Sky (9 Mar 2016)

Not me personally, I was thinking it leaned more to "I don't necessarily completely agree with the decision to stop striking ISIL.  What is the point of finding but not striking?"...but in a roundabout way.


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## The Bread Guy (9 Mar 2016)

Eye In The Sky said:
			
		

> Not me personally, I was thinking it leaned more to "I don't necessarily completely agree with the decision to stop striking ISIL.  What is the point of finding but not striking?"...but in a roundabout way.


That _may_ be one way of looking at it, but unless there's a coup d'état***, elected "will haves" trump CDS/DM/bureaucrat "would likes" - even if I think some of the CDS's preferences may be better than some of the elected choices.

*** - _Not_ suggesting members of the CF would be disloyal in _any_ way, just a rhetorical device.  ;D


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## Eye In The Sky (9 Mar 2016)

I was wondering if I was 'misreading' or seeing it the wrong way.  Glad stuff like this confirms I'm just a dumb operator.   ;D


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## Colin Parkinson (9 Mar 2016)

Slippery slope, first you use armed drones, then they want functioning artillery in the form of SPG's and MRLS's, then IFV to follow the tanks, and then mortars and ATGM's for the infantry, it's all so war like.......


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## PuckChaser (9 Mar 2016)

Just tell Trudeau we can use the drones to drop parkas. Then we'll get what we need, instead of having to IOR everything like the last shooting match we got into.


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## dapaterson (9 Mar 2016)

It's not just UAVs - it's the backend data feeds, it's the limited satellite coverage in the north, it's the increased demand for analysts to review data... there's a lot of moving pieces needed to make an effective capability.


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## The Bread Guy (9 Mar 2016)

Eye In The Sky said:
			
		

> I was wondering if I was 'misreading' or seeing it the wrong way.  Glad stuff like this confirms I'm just a dumb operator.   ;D


Not at all - I like hearing from others what they read into tea leaves, too, in case I'm missing something - which I often do.  ;D


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## Sub_Guy (9 Mar 2016)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> It's not just UAVs - it's the backend data feeds, it's the limited satellite coverage in the north, it's the increased demand for analysts to review data... there's a lot of moving pieces needed to make an effective capability.



Don't forget about the ice.  Most don't have the capability to deal with icing.


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## George Wallace (9 Mar 2016)

Dolphin_Hunter said:
			
		

> Don't forget about the ice.  Most don't have the capability to deal with icing.



As with every other military purchase of equipment, we would most (highly) likely request hundreds of "Canadian" modifications to be made to the item (drone).     >


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## Eye In The Sky (9 Mar 2016)

Call me cynical, but I think if the RCAF was to actually get a UAS, I think we'd see systems like:

this with the 'capability to carry weapons' [ much like the Aurora 'can carry SAMs on the wings...but doesn't... ]







before we'd ever see anything like this






Why?  Too many people actually believe in Skynet...   ;D


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## daftandbarmy (9 Mar 2016)

I'd prefer armed drones over armed helicopters. 

Fewer 'flight suit dandies' is always a good goal, right?


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## Good2Golf (9 Mar 2016)

EITS, I have been a long-time believer that those hard points in the 140 should have something like SLAM-ER on them, to round out the SGOD's repertoire. :nod:

AUAVs and UCAVs would be more tools in the tool box.  We just have to make sure the cost of all the tools that go in the tool box are properly and fully identified, validated and assessed for affordability of all components (acquisition, in-service support and O&M).  Although gradually getting better (usually), we don't do that as well as we could/should.

:2c:

Regards
G2G


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## George Wallace (9 Mar 2016)

daftandbarmy said:
			
		

> I'd prefer armed drones over armed helicopters.
> 
> Fewer 'flight suit dandies' is always a good goal, right?



 >

Not really.  All you will have done is move those "flight suit dandies" out of armed helicopters and into "flight suit dandies" flying soft, ergonomic, five wheeled, office chairs with video screens and computers.   [


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## ModlrMike (9 Mar 2016)

Controversial... only because the author says they are.


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## OldSolduer (9 Mar 2016)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> As with every other military purchase of equipment, we would most (highly) likely request hundreds of "Canadian" modifications to be made to the item (drone).     >



In which case it wouldn't work half as well as intended.


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## dimsum (9 Mar 2016)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> >
> 
> Not really.  All you will have done is move those "flight suit dandies" out of armed helicopters and into "flight suit dandies" flying soft, ergonomic, five wheeled, office chairs with video screens and computers.   [



Wheeled office chairs?  Pffft.


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## daftandbarmy (10 Mar 2016)

Dimsum said:
			
		

> Wheeled office chairs?  Pffft.



Do they pipe in airplane sounds to make them feel more at home?


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## Eye In The Sky (17 Mar 2016)

Article Link

The Drone And The Damage Done: How Canada’s UAV Operation Wounded Its Own

Part 1

_As the Canadian military argues it needs to buy armed drones, former operators are speaking out for the first time about their work with Canada’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Afghanistan, offering unprecedented insight into a secretive operation that was more aggressive than the military publicly let on. _

Rose stood in her unfinished basement, took a swig of rum and Coke, and prepared to hang herself.

As she readied the noose, fashioned from a belt wrapped around an exposed floor joist, she thought of that day in Afghanistan, two years earlier. She remembered seeing two men praying for their lives.

She remembered how the pair, kneeling next to a field, frantically bowed as an American fighter jet soared overhead.

Rose had watched that day through the electronic eyes of a drone. Inside a faraway, hot metal box next to a Kandahar Airfield runway, she stared at the video screen, angry and horrified, as the jet homed in on its prey.

Her training had told her none of it was right. The men were too far away. They weren’t the insurgents she had spotted burying explosives in a field 20 minutes earlier, the ones who had escaped the first round of fire on foot. These guys were innocent, she told her superiors.

But her warnings went unheeded. The jet fired a precision-guided munition on one man, blowing him to pieces. The other man, now on the other side of a road, began praying even faster. A second quick blast and he was dead, too.

The two-year-old memory remained seared bright into Rose’s mind. It played incessantly, accompanied by looped images of other horrors: The bright white glow of phosphorous rounds, burning bodies, and an insurgent crawling with his torso fully severed.

Back in her apartment on an Ontario military base, Rose wished she had never come home.

Below the noose, a chair sat on the concrete floor. She looked at it, imagining the liquor would numb the pain, as it had done many mornings since returning to Canada. She took her last sips of rum.

Then the phone rang.


*“You don’t know until you actually do it”*

Bobby, a longtime artilleryman, was excited to try something new. The Newfoundland and Labrador native joined the military in 1999 and served as a peacekeeper in Bosnia. Canada’s unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operation, officially dubbed Operation Noctua, was a chance to get out of the country again and make some money.

The Canadian Armed Forces had previously used the French-built Sperwer UAV in Afghanistan, but it was nothing like the newly leased Heron, a quieter, long-endurance drone with cameras that could read a licence plate from kilometres away.

Bobby met Rose at the military’s intelligence school in Kingston, Ontario, in 2008. Their job would be to watch the high-resolution video footage captured by the Heron and identify insurgents.

The rookie intelligence operators learned about Afghan culture, about walking patterns and clothing particular to the Taliban, how to spot improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and more. They also learned a magic three-letter acronym: PID, or positive identification. It meant they had found an enemy.

They spent their days simulating the work they would be doing in Afghanistan with video footage from overseas. Rose’s trainers emphasized the good she would be doing for both the Afghan people and her comrades on the ground.

The military made similar public statements. “We’re absolutely confident that the Heron is going to increase safety for our soldiers out there working in the battlefield,” Col. Christopher Coates told the Edmonton Journal in 2008.

Rose, who had previously worked as a clerk on a military base, was proud to be in a position to save lives.

Still, there were warnings the job could get ugly, Bobby says. “They said in our intelligence course, ‘If you have a problem with killing someone, then this isn’t for you’.” He calls it meaningless guidance, though. “You don’t know until you actually do it.”

Jim, unlike Rose and Bobby — whose names have been changed — initially had no interest in the drone program. He joined the military right out of high school and worked in intelligence for the navy. Jim was trying to get his foot in the door with the Military Police. He had his orders, though.

His training took him to Fort Irwin, California, where he worked with an actual Heron surveilling actors in a mock village. Munitions were replaced with lasers. It was fun, like a game.

By March 2010, Jim felt confident and eager to serve his country overseas. The first leg of the his trip to Afghanistan was a long flight from Ottawa to a base in the United Arab Emirates aboard the prime minister’s plane. He was accompanied by “Team Canada”: stars such as Lanny McDonald, Arlene Dickinson, and Dallas Smith tasked with boosting the troops’ morale.

For his final flight to Kandahar, Jim boarded a cramped and aging Hercules, but the party wasn’t over yet: Out from the cockpit came a small man with white gloves, who pulled the Stanley Cup out of a box. Jim’s smile stretched ear to ear as he put his arm around the trophy and someone snapped a photo.

Then the fun stopped. The aircraft made a stomach-dropping descent to Kandahar Airfield while people shouted orders.

As the doors opened, Jim was hit with bright light and the smell of human feces from the base’s wastewater pit. As he dragged his belongings away from the plane and his rifle rattled on his back, a siren warning of another round of the “Taliban lottery” — a randomly aimed rocket attack — pierced the dry air.

From then on, it was mission mode.


_*Enough blood*_

Bobby saw his first kill less than a month into his eight-month deployment. Two image analysts worked shifts of 8 to 12 hours at a time, alongside those who piloted the drone and controlled its cameras. Once he called PID, the ambushers were taken out.

PID, the drone operators quickly learned, often meant death, and the threat of getting it wrong weighed heavy on their minds.

“Some of it can be pretty gruesome,” Bobby says. “All in all, I was probably a part of 40 to 50 guys getting killed.” He shut his mind to the possibility of processing any emotions while overseas. “It’s the only way to get through anything,” he says.

The rotations of drone operators deploying to and leaving Kandahar were overlapped to ensure a smooth hand-off. When she arrived in Afghanistan, an eager Rose was confronted with an intense argument over a kill in the previous rotation.

It was the first indication that something was off.

For Jim, the reality of his task hit him after his first kill. He had served overseas in the navy, but had never been responsible for taking a life.

The drone operators’ task, once PID was called, was to hover overhead, watch what happened next, and report back. It meant staring at mangled bodies as the blood pooled around them, sometimes for hours, or watching legless men try to crawl away from the carnage.

Then came the second-guessing, the guilt, and wondering who these dead men really were. Jim had read the stories about extremists taking over villages and forcing men to join. What if the bloodied bodies on his screen were fathers, or husbands, or brothers who had joined the Taliban to protect their families from persecution?

By the halfway point in his tour, Jim had had enough blood on his hands. His team had found men digging to plant explosives. But he hesitated to call PID, and instead issued a different acronym: WAC, or women and children.

The team stood down. The Heron’s eyes followed the men to a compound where they were eventually detained. No one was hurt, the insurgents had been stopped, and coalition forces seized mounds of ammunition and weaponry from inside the building. It was a different way of doing things.


*“Who are you here for?”*

Bobby says his team was lucky in Kandahar to have a supportive warrant officer who offered to provide guidance if the image analysts were unsure about calling PID.

Rose and Jim, who deployed later, were less fortunate. Jim’s superiors questioned him when he failed to call PID. “Who are you here for?” they would ask.

One day, Jim and his colleagues spotted insurgent activity. A superior wanted to take the enemies out, but Jim wanted to keep watching and gathering intelligence. Another officer, watching the live feed from a command centre, came into the box and leaned over Jim’s shoulder, instructing him to type those three magic letters.

He couldn’t do it. He rose from his chair, walked to the door, and stepped outside the box. Suddenly, his body began to seize, and he blacked out, falling to the ground.

He was rushed to the hospital, where medical staff plied Jim with medication to calm him down.

About 10 hours later, officers spoke with the doctor outside Jim’s room. “When can he come back to being on duty? We’re short,” Jim heard them ask.

He was given a day to recuperate. By then, a painful rumour had spread around the intelligence team that he wasn’t capable of doing his job.

He walked to an isolated area on the base and removed his gun from its holster. There, he thought of the bloodshed. He had helped take lives and seen countless other people — allies and Taliban — injured or killed. He wanted the death and suffering to stop.

He pulled the trigger. The gun clicked.

The chamber was empty, but Jim needed to feel what it would be like to end it all.


*What could have been
*
Rose was assigned to the night shift. In February 2010, near the beginning of her tour, she found men burying an IED in the shrubs alongside a road. She called PID, but the men weren’t killed immediately — weaponry was likely unavailable. She filed a report noting the location of the IED for follow-up.

Four days later, two Canadian soldiers were injured by an explosive device in the same spot. She didn’t know what had happened, only that their injuries were severe enough for them to be flown out.

It’s a war, she was told. These things happen.

Furious, Rose tried to find out more about her wounded comrades afterward, to no avail. After the incident, she made sure her reports were read in the morning. Many times they hadn’t been reviewed.

Jim, on the other hand, felt he could have saved two Canadians, but wasn’t allowed. It was summer, and Jim and the drone crew were on an uneventful mission mapping human activity in a town.

Then, in a military chat room on the computer next to him, an intelligence report came in. Typically, translators monitoring cell phones and radio transmissions would intercept messages about insurgents watching American convoys. This time, it was a Canadian convoy.

Jim knew the Heron was only five minutes away from the convoy. The UAV’s cameras, infrared equipment, and the operators’ training were so advanced that they could easily spot any IEDs or insurgents nearby.

He asked if they could deviate. They were told no.

Ten minutes went by and another tipper report, as they were called, came in. “We need to go now,” Jim said. Once again, the request was denied by an authority somewhere else. They were told to stay on mission.

Another 10 or so minutes went by. Then a nine-line medical report came in announcing the convoy had been attacked. It was a well-known Taliban tactic: Hit one vehicle in the convoy with an IED to force everyone out, then ambush them with dozens of shooters.

The two Canadians, who are not named here at the request of family, were in the vehicle that was hit.

As their coffins, draped in red and white, were loaded onto the plane that would bring them home, Jim — who had ended up, by chance, in the front row for the ceremony — looked on as an injured colleague of the deceased watched from a wheelchair.

“I took that hard because here we are calling PID on these insurgents and we’ve got no problem taking them out,” Jim says, his voice beginning to rise. “But when we’re on a mission where nothing’s happening, […] why we could not deviate and change our mission for 25 minutes, half an hour, whatever, to provide assistance?”

He still replays in detail what might have happened had they been given approval to help. They could have seen a spotter on a roof, perhaps, or a triggerman, or maybe an anomaly in the ground indicating an IED was below. It could have been different, he thinks.


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## Eye In The Sky (17 Mar 2016)

Part 2

*“They’re still someone’s child”*

“The hardest was when we came back,” Bobby says. He returned to Canadian Forces Base Greenwood in Nova Scotia in April 2010. With his family in another province and no spouse, he had only his dog to keep him company during the first half of his post-deployment leave. He says he drank a 24-pack of beer per day for three weeks straight.

“Then I started thinking at the same time about what I did over there, which made me drink more,” he says. Knowing that those he helped kill were Taliban didn’t change how he felt. “They’re still someone’s child,” he says.

Rose, who had been responsible for the deaths of more than 100 people during her seven-month tour, returned to Greenwood in July. Like Bobby, she had never abused alcohol, but soon enough, she was drunk by 9 a.m. some mornings.

She was angry all the time and couldn’t sleep. When she did, the dreams were horrifying flashbacks to the death she had witnessed overseas.

Months later, it was Jim’s turn to come home, and he was grateful. A navy medical officer had helped him get through the gun incident in Kandahar. Soon, though, the longtime seaman frequently found himself crying, panicked, and breathless.

“I had an idea why, but I didn’t really fully understand what was happening to me,” he says.

The military’s post-deployment screening landed Rose and Bobby in the care of a psychologist in Greenwood who would not diagnose them with PTSD, despite having exhibited the symptoms. The psychologist told Rose she was fine.

By 2011, the war was winding down and the drone operation was over. Being cleared of major medical issues, Rose and Jim were sent to Winnipeg, where the team would reassemble to work for the project to buy Canada a permanent fleet of drones. They were reunited with the small, once-tight-knit team, but anger now permeated the office.

Eventually, Jim put himself under the care of the Joint Personnel Support Unit, the Canadian military’s network of health centres for ill or injured soldiers. It wasn’t easy — he says his warrant officer tried to hijack one of his meetings with a counselor — but he was finally getting help.

The support unit puts people on one of two paths, depending on their condition: rehabilitation with the goal of going back to work, or medical release from the military.

Jim says reaching out for help amid the fear of losing his career and a tough-guy military culture that stigmatized mental illness was the hardest part. “You’re scared out of your mind,” he says.

Meanwhile, Bobby remained at CFB Greenwood. He wouldn’t be diagnosed with PTSD until he saw a psychiatrist — at his own request — in Halifax nearly a year after returning from Afghanistan.

He says he felt increasingly ostracized by his colleagues in the intelligence branch. “As soon as someone’s diagnosed with it, they get shunned,” he says. “You know, you’re treated differently. And I was, I know I was.”

He says many of his colleagues were hiding their own issues to protect their careers. “They didn’t want their mental status affecting it,” he says.

Rose was assigned to monitor Canadian airspace for a while, then participated in a simulation at CFB Petawawa, near Ottawa. There she performed the same task she had in Afghanistan, using actual video footage from the war.

She returned to Winnipeg feeling drained and was given a break. But something about a March 2012 awards ceremony that followed — the irony of a commander giving a speech in which he emphasized getting rest, despite having called Rose off leave to attend the event, or the fact that she and her colleagues were winning accolades when everyone knew, or should have known, that their hyper-vigilance and unprecedented work ethic was a symptom of PTSD — set Rose off.

Jim was riding a tractor when he saw Rose exit the building where they had worked. Now on his way out of the military, Jim had been assigned to work on roads and grounds at the base.

“She looked like a ghost,” he remembers. “She looked worse than I’ve ever seen anybody.”

He asked her what was wrong and she broke into hysterical tears. She didn’t know, she said. He told her to get medical help immediately. Instead, she went home and headed to the basement, where she began to drink a numbing mix of rum and Coke.

She looked through a box of her things from Afghanistan — T-shirts and other mementos — and the memories grew more vivid.

As she prepared to end the gruesome flashbacks, the anger, and the sleeplessness, the phone rang.

It was Jim, checking up on her.

*
The birds on the wire*

A painted nautical star adorns the white floor of the art room in Rose’s Ontario home. Above, bright orange walls are contrasted by the black silhouettes of small birds perched on a power line.

“You ever drive down an old country road and you see all the birds on the wire?” asks Rose’s husband, a burly man with black hair. “All is good in the world when the birds are on the wire.”

“That’s how he asks me if I’m OK,” Rose adds. “‘Are all the birds on the wire?’ If there’s any birds falling then I’m not OK.”

Since her medical discharge from the military, Rose has been to in-patient programs paid for by the military and Veterans Affairs Canada, and she has seen multiple doctors. At one point, she tried to go back to school to become a welder. At the same time, a doctor suggested she reduce her medication to “feel” more and process emotions.

One morning, Rose collected the pills the doctor had told her to stop taking, drove to the LCBO, and waited in the parking lot until the liquor store opened. She bought a mickey of vodka, returned to her car, and used it to wash down the 96 lorazepam tablets.

She sent Facebook messages to her son and husband saying she was sorry, and then passed out.

Rose’s husband, who’s been with her every step of the way, rushed home to find the Ontario Provincial Police and an ambulance were already there, but Rose wasn’t.

The police used Rose’s cell phone to trace her location. They found her in the parking lot and rushed her to the hospital.

Now, Rose finds relief through art. “I’m really ashamed at some of the things I’ve had to do,” she says. She is still heavily medicated, is unable to work or go to school, and rarely leaves the house alone, but she has found a psychologist she likes.

“I lost my job. I lost my career. I lost my sense of self, put a lot of pressure on my husband, lost my identity, lost my family pretty much because the military was my family, lost hope for the future,” Rose says. “Nowhere to go, nothing to do.”

Every day is a struggle, Rose and her husband say. “And I feel guilty as hell,” she says.

“But I don’t sit and cry anymore,” her husband says, forcing a smile through his thick beard.


*“There are so many damaged people”*

“As far as the drone program goes, there are so many damaged people from it,” Rose says. “I’m really surprised that they haven’t looked into it a little more, seen what it’s done to their troops, and realized, wait a minute, something’s not quite right here.”

After her initial breakdown, Rose says an officer within the drone program in Winnipeg conducted an informal poll to see how many people had PTSD. The officer found it was 30%. “And that’s not including the guys that never got help,” she says.

Bobby, who wasn’t counted in that poll, says he thinks the rate of PTSD among the approximately 100 drone operators — including image analysts, pilots, and sensor operators — is closer to 60% or 70%. “No one really understands how much impact it actually does to someone,” he says.

The rate of PTSD for all Canadian veterans of the Afghanistan war is about 10%.

The Department of National Defence refused an interview request for this story and did not answer questions about the rate of PTSD among Canadian drone operators. In response to a list of allegations made by the drone operators, spokesperson Dan Le Bouthillier provided a written statement listing the military’s current mental health services.

“While CAF members have access to a comprehensive, evidence-based, interdisciplinary mental health system, more remains to be done in terms of educating our members and increasing awareness of the programs in place,” the statement said, adding that the military has made “significant investment and commitment” in mental health awareness programs.

“Caring for CAF members is a priority,” the statement read.

Countries with more advanced UAV programs are just beginning to appreciate the prevalence of mental health issues among pilots and analysts. Last year, British aviation expert Peter Gray said drone operators can suffer higher rates of PTSD than other air force members.

“They follow the pattern of life in a target environment, and they get so used to that, living day in, day out with these people, that when an attack has to be made, they feel it every bit as much as a pilot of a fast jet who just drops the bomb,” Gray said.

Similar concerns have been raised in the United States, which operates a massive, often controversial armed drone program. Hollywood has jumped on the issue as well, with the 2014 film Good Kill featuring Ethan Hawke as a conflicted drone pilot who suffers a mental breakdown.

Dr. Jakov Shlik, clinical director of the the operational stress injury clinic at The Royal mental health hospital in Ottawa, says drone operators could be at increased risk for developing PTSD because their job requires strong visual skills and memory. “For traumatic memories, it becomes a handicap, unfortunately,” he says.

He says the support people receive after traumatic events can sometimes determine whether they develop PTSD as well. The drone operators say they never had the time or opportunity to talk things out after a gruesome kill.

For drone operators, who work from the safety of a remote location, there’s no discharge of the energy and stress they accumulate either, Shlik points out. “It might start boiling up and piling up,” he says.

He says that in the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, the description of traumatic events now includes exposure to details of traumatic events, witnessed via media — especially if the person watching was responsible for what was happening onscreen.

Although Bobby masks his pain to others, the intrusive visual memories are haunting, he says. “I know what a Hellfire missile does to a person,” he says. “So, you know, that’s something that I get to live with for the rest of my life, watching that.”

Bobby eventually found a psychologist 45 minutes away from Greenwood who helped him begin to heal. He worked in the northernmost parts of the country that year, but the regular medical appointments meant Bobby couldn’t deploy overseas. The military’s serviceability policy requires that members be able to deploy anywhere at any time.

“I felt like I was forced out,” Bobby says. He was medically discharged from the military in October 2014.

Now, Bobby takes a daily antidepressant and is going to school for business management thanks to funding from the military’s insurer.

Jim, meanwhile, is now self-employed and recently had his first child. He found closure by getting a tattoo on his forearm. It shows a cross, adorned with ribbon and a poppy, on which are carved the the initials of the two Canadians who never came home.

When people ask about the initials, Jim emphasizes their bravery and dedication. “It allows me to help their legacy live on,” he says.


*“I am not God; I am not the Grim Reaper”*

Despite their mental scars, all three image analysts say they stand behind the potential benefits of UAVs for the Canadian military. They provided a strong tactical advantage in Afghanistan, they say, and could be used at home for border patrol and search and rescue. “They are an amazing tool, if used appropriately,” Jim says.

In the years to come, the Canadian military wants the government to spend up to $1.5 billion on a fleet of drones — and it wants them to be able to drop bombs. “There’s little point in having a UAV that can see a danger but can’t strike it if it needs to,” Gen. Jonathan Vance told a committee last week.

But Jim and Rose say the drones should not be armed. “Putting weapons on them now, that’s just ridiculous,” Jim says. “I joined Canada’s military back when I was 17 to be a peacekeeper.”

Jim says recent killing missions, such as the bombing campaigns in Libya, Syria, and Iraq, are not the Canadian way.

“That’s not who we are,” he says, “and to put weapons on these drones and […] getting people like us to sit in that seat and call PID to activate that firing sequence is just wrong. You know, it’s a God role.”


“I am not God,” he says. “I am not the Grim Reaper.”

Bobby disagrees. He doesn’t see the difference between calling PID and waiting for another armed aircraft to do the deed, and having the Canadian drone operators do it themselves.

All three drone operators agree that whatever happens, the Canadian military needs to seriously rethink the way it recruits, trains, and treats drone operators — and whom it puts in charge — before making any purchases.

Rose hopes the new Liberal government will listen. “I have a lot of faith in them,” Rose says. “I hope they look into the past and see what happened, and see if they can make things a little better for the next group that has to do the same job.”
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				Eye In The Sky said:
			
		

> c. looking at stuff you see 'thru the straw' on a screen orbiting above a point/target/whatever or on a screen XXXX km's away thru a feed is likely not all that different.  Watching _stuff on a screen _is _watching stuff on a screen_.  It will take whatever toll it takes, regardless of if it's from a manned or unmanned platform.
> 
> d.  not to discount the knowledge of professionals in their fields, the professors in the article, etc, but until they find themselves actual 'links of the chain' involved in targeting and striking, it is (IMO) hard for them to know what it actually feels like to be a link in that chain.  I can tell you how awesome the strawberry ice cream I had at supper was, but you won't really get it until you eat that ice cream yourself.  You might find it tastes horrible compared to what you imagined it would...never know until you take a bite.


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## SeaKingTacco (18 Mar 2016)

So how is this different than any of the rest of us who are equipped with advanced EO-IR gear?

Or those of us who carry stored kills? I have to mentally prepare myself for (remote possibility, to be sure) killing a hundred people at once as they try to evade, underwater.

I am not so sure the issue is one of UAVs. I think the issue is the proper mental and emotional preparation for what you are about to see and do.


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## Eye In The Sky (18 Mar 2016)

SeaKingTacco said:
			
		

> So how is this different than any of the rest of us who are equipped with advanced EO-IR gear?



Overland ISR is a little different than Maritime ISR.  You have lots of tools to confirm who is who in Maritime (relatively speaking0; overland it is harder to 'know' who is who, what is what.  Enemy mixed in with the locals, condensed built up areas, all that kind of stuff.  And, it's day, after day, after day.  Cumulative effect perhaps?

I wasn't a CHUD type, but that's just a few thoughts from my experience.  I am also not overly conversant with PTSD either.  



> Or those of us who carry stored kills? I have to mentally prepare myself for (remote possibility, to be sure) killing a hundred people at once as they try to evade, underwater.



Yup.  I guess in that circumstance, though, you 'know' it is a legit target.  Killing is killing, but less concerns about locals, mistaking friendly or neutral for enemy.  



> I am not so sure the issue is one of UAVs. I think the issue is the proper mental and emotional preparation for what you are about to see and do.



Agreed.  Even going out on a SAR, not everyone is always going to make it out of the situation.  This is also partially what I meant in the 'watching stuff on a screen is watching stuff on a screen' comment; some people are going to have a harder time dealing with the job than others, and I don't think it would make much difference where the screen is located.

Personally, I think it would be less stressful in a GCS than orbiting.  Your not actually hanging your arse out the door in a GCS.  But I've only done the orbiting stuff, not the GCS stuff.


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## Good2Golf (18 Mar 2016)

SeaKingTacco said:
			
		

> ...I think the issue is the proper mental and emotional preparation for what you are about to see and do.



^ This.  :nod:


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