From a Soldier's View
The thing that saddens me most, is that among the reviews are teachers showing this to their students. Suffice to say those students are NOT getting the whole story, not even half of it.
I decided to give this a watch because I'm involved thoroughly in the community and I always try to keep current on the different media being put out surrounding Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS, the correct term) aka "Drone" warfare. I have to say I was highly disappointed in this documentary and it serves only one purpose- to put more people in harm's way for no reason at all. Let's be real here, outlawing or banning UAS warfare is only going to result in one thing, and that's putting more soldiers on the ground in harms way directly. Someone has to go in and either capture or kill these high level operatives or provide air cover for troops on the ground conducting missions. UAS provides the perfect platform to do both of those missions, while reducing the number of Americans in harm way AND reducing collateral damage on the backside.
Brandon Bryant has been a spokesman for spreading nothing but lies and doing damage to the UAS community ever since his coming out. I know quite a few men (whom I've literally trusted with my life) who worked with him directly and have spoken numerous times about how nearly everything he's said -including the famed kill-count receipt the Air Force now hands out- is a lie. Being in the Army, we do things a bit differently, but I can assure you no one is receiving any medals for the number of enemies we eliminate from the battlefield. Our success is measured in the lives we save, both of soldiers and civilians, American or otherwise. I'd hoped this documentary would do some justice to the people and the process involved in pulling the trigger but it falls miserably short. There is a chain of command, going kinetic (firing a missile) is HIGHLY scrutinized legally, all aspects of possible collateral damage are assessed, and then a "shift cold" is even in place (a safe area to shift the laser guiding the missile to in the event a child runs into the crosshairs, etc). Every measure of safety and every precaution is taken to ensure there is NO loss of civilian life.
The alternative to this of course is to have troops on the ground to conduct these missions, capturing or killing high level operatives. These missions are incredibly dangerous and pose a much greater risk of loss of life on both fronts, for civilians and soldiers. It's very rare a mission goes down without a shot being fired, and with that, the men we are capturing/killing have no issues with using women or children as shields. I've seen it, many times. Or sending children out to collect the weapons the men dropped while running for their lives after engaging coalition/Afghani forces. These platforms save FAR MORE lives than they're capable of taking, and anyone who honestly believes otherwise just isn't educated on the topic. I encourage anyone who reads this to truly do your research and ask questions if you have them. We aren't mindless pawns following orders, we fight for what we believe in and want desperately to save lives when and where we can. We have consciences, and scrutinize every move we make on the battlefield. We're human beings.
Don't believe every news story you see, or read, or documentary you see, or even discussion board for that matter (you don't have to believe a word of this, either). If you want the truth of it all, ask the men and women who do the job, not the people pushing a political agenda or trying to sway a general public into following theirs.
*forgive me if anything seemed incoherent or rambling. "Dammit Jim I'm a soldier, not a writer!"