Dinner and Two Movies

Friday night, Sabrina and I headed to Dinner and Two Movies, an event put on by Ithaca College's Buzzsaw magazine, which screened two Robert Greenwald films and hosted the executive director, Jim Miller, for a Q & A session afterward. 

I knew a good amount about whistleblowers from my Independent Media class this semester, but for the past year or two, I've realized that I don't know enough about drone warfare and the role my own country plays in it across the world. With some background in hand of what drones were, how they're used, and the argument for anti and pro drone use, I walked into the screening of "Unmanned: America's Drone Wars" without knowing what I'd learn.

Ok, so me crying or getting emotional during movies doesn't really hold a lot of clout because that's how I always am. But this time I wasn't just sad for the people in the movie... I was angry, at myself for not being more aware of this issue, and at my government, for being so reckless and irresponsible in the international community. A government official was cited in the documentary when talking about the positives of drones, saying that their controllers are able to see as close as a license plate number through the satellites. But rather than this being a selling point, I found this to be a scary fact when considering the number of civilian casualties that have come along with remote control warfare. 

One quote from the documentary that struck a chord was when it said "Pakistan doesn't have to train suicide bombers anymore. Drones build suicide bomber factories." While there are positive aspects of keeping our soldiers safe and effectively using technology, policy makers seem to have a complete disregard for the minds of the people whose lives they are affecting. War is heavily a mind game, and in  the eyes of those who we are "helping," we are the villains.

I'm appreciative that I am in a school that encourages its students to expand our knowledge when it comes to issues that are avoided in mainstream media, and I am very grateful to have been able to hear Miller answer questions after the screenings. His insight on the root of the issue reminded me not to sit idly by while our country is conducting its own form of terrorism abroad.

http://www.space4peace.org/uav/obama_using_iran_to_justify_drones.htm