Daily Times

Last week, I saw an extraordinary documentary, National Bird, in Washington DC. Sonia Kennebeck’s film has been getting rave reviews at film festivals and in top newspapers. It presents one of the most haunting and striking portrayals of the effects of the American drone warfare programme on both those who operate it and their targets. It, thus, raises deep moral and philosophical questions about the increasing use of remote weaponry in modern warfare.

An alumna of American University in Washington, DC, and a Malaysian native Kennebeck, profiles three Air Force veterans — Heather, Daniel, and Lisa — as they grapple with the death and devastation they witnessed first-hand working in the drone programme. Heather is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Daniel is being investigated for a potential violation of the US Espionage Act, and Lisa is grappling with how to atone to her Afghan victims for her role as a technical sergeant within the drone programme. The filmmaker also profiles an Afghan family which was devastated by a drone attack in 2010 while returning home from the funeral of a village elder.

This tragic 2010 attack in the Oruzgan district of southern Afghanistan, just north of Kandahar, was reenacted in the film with a declassified transcript of the drone operators. We hear the operators dismiss warnings from their trained image specialists about children’s presence in the area, and proceed with the attack anyway.

The attack killed 23 civilians, including young children, and left many others permanently injured, some limbless. One man, who prior to the attack had aspired to become a doctor, lost a leg and at least two of his children. He reflected on camera that he forgives the Americans for the attack on his family and all he pleads is for the Americans to stop attacking them.

This film also portrayed the strong response to this vicious attack from General Stanley McChrystal, then the Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan. He ordered an investigation and even went on Afghan TV to issue a sincere statement of apology to the Afghan people. Unfortunately, most innocent victims of drone warfare never receive such an apology.

Following the screening, I had the privilege of speaking on a panel with Kennebeck chaired by the Dean of the American University School of International Service, James Goldgeier, a leading expert in American foreign policy. Kennebeck told us about her difficult search for information on this secretive programme. She recounted her discoveries which revealed that contrary to the arguments of the US military that drone warfare is much safer for soldiers both physically and psychologically than active combat, many were suffering from PTSD and even committing suicide. Yet, their stories were swept under the secretive carpet of the drone warfare programme.

Following Kennebeck’s remarks, I voiced my concerns with the on-going war in Afghanistan, noting that the US has been involved for nearly 16 years already, but there is little to show for it but death and destruction. This film, I noted, reflects many of the concerns I had raised in my most recent book, The Thistle and the Drone: How America’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam (Brookings Press, 2013) — about soldiers working in the American drone programme and how the programme subjects these soldiers to great psychological trauma, while destroying the lives of countless tribesmen and their families in the Muslim world. I also asked the audience to think about the big picture of drone warfare. What are the moral, philosophical, and existential consequences of this programme? What humanity is there in killing people from thousands of miles away with a joystick? The scariest part is that the technology is only expanding and spreading around the world.

The audience was visibly moved by the film, with many saying it needs to be shared widely. Kennebeck explained that it was intended to force American viewers to put themselves in the shoes of individuals living under the bird’s eye view of drones in the Muslim world on a daily basis, while pushing Americans to think about how they would respond if the tables were turned and their neighbourhoods were suddenly the spontaneous targets of drone warfare.

I regret to say that films like National Bird remain all too relevant to the debate in Washington and around the world. When The Thistle and the Drone was released in 2013, details about the Obama Administration’s secretive drone warfare programme, particularly in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, were still scarce, but Americans were suddenly clamouring for answers about the programme. Less than a year after Obama ceased the drone warfare programme in Pakistan, Trump has renewed it.

What may be even more alarming, though, is that a few weeks back, aided by drones, the US dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb yet, a bomb aptly called Massive Ordnance Air Blast or “Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB). The bomb, exploding across a radius of more than one mile, killed about a hundred individuals, whom the US reported to be militants, in an operation to target ISIS fighters. Given the uncertainty surrounding the Trump administration’s foreign policy, such warfare could suddenly turn up on this side of the Pakistan border. We should all be prepared for this eventuality. More death and destruction will follow. I weep for humanity.

The writer is an author, poet, filmmaker, playwright, and is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University in Washington, D.C. He formerly served as the Pakistani High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland. He tweets @AskAkbar