Drone warfare deactivates the democratic critique rooted in exposable lives

Evidence

This citizenship of exposable lives has constituted an important—albeit not the sole—basis for a democratic critique of the power to wage war, not only in the institutional manner forecast by Kant, namely suffrage, but also as a vector of extraparliamentary mobilization in the antiwar movements of the twentieth century, However, the dronization of the armed forces, inasmuch as it reduces the military exposure of national lives to zero, tends to somewhat deactivate that critical attitude. It would nevertheless be a mistake to believe that an “aversion to losses” is the only possible motive and the cost/benefit calculation the only relevant rationality for the development of a critical voice in the face of state violence. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 575 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

According to this view of military morality, to kill while exposing one’s own life is bad; to take lives without ever endangering one’s own is good. That first principle of drone necroethics is, paradoxically, vitalist. And it is in accordance with this logic that the drone can be said to be a “humanitarian” weapon: the humanitarian imperative is to save lives. And the drone does indeed save our lives. It is therefore a humanitarian technology. QED. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 453 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

All that the operators can see are little figures blurred into facelessness. A former CIA officer declares, “You could see these little figures scurrying and the explosion going off and when the smoke cleared, there was just rubble and charred stuff.” This figurative reduction of human targets helps to make the homicide easier: “There’s no flesh on your monitor, just coordinates.” One is never spattered by the adversary’s blood. No doubt the absence of any physical soiling corresponds to less of a sense of moral soiling. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 404 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Drone warfare creates a new ethical-political norm neither war nor peace; Drones deactivate democratic war critique by removing citizens’ exposure to death. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 575; Drone morality inverts ethics to make unendangered killing good — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 453 (+4 more)

Related

• Drones deactivate democratic war critique by removing citizens’ exposure to death. (similarity 0.95)
• The drone state aims to replace mobilized citizen bodies with mechanical agents. (similarity 0.93)
• Drone technology erodes the soldier’s defining scorn of death. (similarity 0.90)
• Drone assassination reframes war as social defense through preventive security measures (similarity 0.89)
• Drones lower political, economic, and ethical costs of war (similarity 0.89)
• Faceless blurry drone imagery reduces moral resistance to killing (similarity 0.88)
• Drone warfare creates a new ethical-political norm neither war nor peace (similarity 0.88)
• Eliminating reciprocal exposure to violence makes drones look like cowardly weapons. (similarity 0.87)
• Drone morality inverts ethics to make unendangered killing good (similarity 0.87)
• Drones’ necroethics embody a nationalism of self-preservation (similarity 0.87)
• Drone warfare establishes a norm neither war nor peace via imperial immunity (similarity 0.86)
• Drones are morally justified by preventing one’s own casualties (similarity 0.85)
• Drone war turns strategic evaluation into disconnected body counts. (similarity 0.85)
• Combat indifference to killing spread to accept civilian deaths by mistake (similarity 0.85)
• Externalizing war costs converts democratic pacifism into democratic militarism. (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Drones deactivate democratic war critique by removing citizens’ exposure to death. #corroborates (0.95) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 575
• Drone morality inverts ethics to make unendangered killing good #corroborates (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 453
• Faceless blurry drone imagery reduces moral resistance to killing #corroborates (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 404