War by Remote Control

2010 - Volume 13 Number 1

We may be wired for war but are we wired for weighing the consequences? What happens when science fictions becomes battlefield reality?

There are philosophical and ethical questions when a soldier thousands of kilometres away can, as if playing a video game, sit in a control room before a computer and obliterate an Afghan or Pakistani village or Taliban hideout by remote control then sign off, go home for dinner with his family and play with his/her children. It is war by remote control. It is also ‘execution without trial’. The use of drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) will not make the world safe and will lead us to lose trace of the morals of armed conflict?

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