Spotlight: America's murderous drone campaign is fuelling terror by Suemas Milne

"In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason." - Ernest Hemingway

Suemas Milne has given us a chilling look into the new brand of modern warfare, in his piece for the Guardian on Wednesday 29 May 2012.

Milne talks about the U.S. army's use of Hellfire drones and Predator missiles to target terrorists in the Middle East, typically Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan. The campaign, which Barack Obama has called "overseas contingency operations", is brutal and relentless. The Bureau for Investigative Journalism estimates that 2,464 to 3,145 Pakistani people have been killed by drones since 2004. Of that number, up to 828 were civilians: 175 were children. Ironic in a week where the U.S. and other world nations have heavily condemned the massacre of 49 children in the Syrian town of Houla.

The Houla massacre and the U.S. drone killings should not be considered the same: one appears to be the work of a vicious civilian militia whilst the other is a campaign against extremist cells. But it does show the effects of two different types of war. Houla was door-to-door, slitting throats and executing people on the spot. The drone killings are intensely calculated and designed to eliminate targets with a minimum risk to innocents - sometimes not enough.

Warfare has become an exercise in risk management. The use of new technologies and unmanned drones are an effort to make precise killings, to destroy targets in urban centres with the minimum of fuss and to avoid innocent people dying like dogs. Has it worked? To a degree - yes. But if you asked that same question to the families of the 175 children, they would not speak kindly of the missiles raining down on them from a land across the other side of the globe.

This is the view that Milne suggests is growing in these areas. A Ministry of Defence study in 2011 called "The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems" found that:

"The ill-considered use of armed unmanned aircraft offers an adversary a potent propaganda weapon…[enabling] the insurgent to cast himself in the role of the underdog and the West as a cowardly bully - that is unwilling to risk his own troops, but is happy to kill remotely."

Suemas Milne believes that the drone war "is feeding hatred of the U.S. - fuelling terror, not fighting it" and it is a legitimate point. Extremism is often fuelled by a hatred of the state, through their own personal experience. A dead son or daughter or brother at the hands of drone operatives a thousand miles away could push these people further into the arms of extremist groups. Anti-American sentiment could be spreading and the threat grows larger, so Obama authorises the use of more drones to curb this threat - a never-ending cycle with increasingly large death tolls.

But what is the alternative? If unmanned drones are seen as the safest, most efficient method of conducting this campaign, surely the only way is backwards. Men on the ground to eliminate terrorist threats in the same way that Osama Bin Laden was. But this is costly, inaccurate and can be dangerous for both the troops and civilians, who could become caught in the crossfire.

It seems that the nature of war means the innocents will always perish. But the seemingly safe drone war is a dangerous one, that might be causing more problems than it solves.

Spotlight: The soldiers without a safety catch by Giles Fraser

A piece by Giles Fraser in Tuesday 13 March 2012's edition of the Guardian is worthy of a mention on this blog, which I hope to use more often as a way of promoting good, thought-provoking and engaging journalism.

Fraser focuses on the idea that soldiers are "dehumanised" to make them more efficient as killing machines in battle. Elements of their training are scrutinised by Fraser to explore this idea. For example, using realistic figures for shooting practice and the use of violent games and films to remove any sensitivity towards killing.

The piece is a topical one. It comes after the massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by a lone American soldier has sent shockwaves across the world. And personally, Fraser has touched on an area that I have particular interest in. My ambitions to be a war reporter are no secret; I dedicated a post to this after the death of Marie Colvin. The idea of dehumanised soldiers waging a brutal campaign against opponents, with no emotional or moral attachments sounds like the stuff of a grizzly, Orwellian novel. However like most Orwellian-style novels, the reality is a lot closer to the fiction than you think.

I am not suggesting that soldiers have no moral compass. After all they fight because they have morals. The coalition is fighting a war in Afghanistan because they believe in the right for people to live in a fair, free democracy. My criticism of military training is similar to Fraser's: the removal of the "inbuilt safety catch" harms progress in the battlefield, as opposed to aiding it. But the opinions that the Afghan people currently have of our forces tell the story here. After the aforementioned killings in Kandahar, the people asked why a soldier sworn to defend them would murder them. Yes, this was an isolated incident as the politicians and officials keep stressing. But it cannot be denied that there is a vicious undercurrent of brutality against Afghan citizens that threatens to undermine the good.

It is this good that interests me as a journalist. The dynamic between a peacekeeper and those people who they are keeping the peace for is an interesting one. This relationship has been damaged though. Whether this is because of one man with brain damage or a training programme that removes the human element from people and crafts them into soldiers, is a debate to be had. And when that debate does come, Giles Fraser's piece is a great way to get informed.

Marie Colvin's death only strengthens my hope to follow in her footsteps

Marie Colvin's last report from within the besieged city of Homs.

A quick clarification: the title of this blog is not a suggestion that Marie Colvin's death was some kind of martyrdom. I am not saying that I want to be killed in conflict, or glorifying what happened to her, because what happened to her and Remi Ochlik, the French photojournalist, was dreadful.

But it has been my ambition to become a war reporter for several years. One of my journalistic idols is Sky correspondent, Alex Crawford, who I consider to be one of the greatest reporters of her generation. On Tuesday night, I was in attendance when Ms Crawford gave the annual Bob Friend Memorial Lecture at the University of Kent. In it, she said:

"It is necessary for us to be there (Syria), to see what is going on, to witness what is happening and to report live from there. We all feel we have a job to do and an important contribution to make. Women are in the ascendancy in war reporting all over the world. And we shouldn’t even be discussing whether or why. It is important and utterly right."

Marie Colvin was a firm believer in this. She was due to return from Syria in the next few days, but stayed to complete one last story, as she felt there was more for the world to see.

Now the argument being made is that the job is too dangerous. Reporters Sans Frontieres have made the suggestion that women reporters should be withdrawn from Egypt, following incidents of sexual violence and abuse towards them. Ms Crawford made a passionate argument against this, urging journalism not to go back to the attitudes of the 1950's. And she is absolutely right.

The job is dangerous. Colvin herself said this in November 2010, during a speech to service commerating war reporters who had died in the past decade. She said:

"The need for frontline, objective reporting has never been more compelling. Covering a war means going to places torn by chaos, destruction, and death, and trying to bear witness. It means trying to find the truth in a sandstorm of propaganda when armies, tribes or terrorists clash. And yes, it means taking risks, not just for yourself but often for the people who work closely with you."

And this is why I hope to follow in Marie's footsteps, and in Alex's footsteps. Ever since William Howard Russell uncovered the dire state of the British Army during the Crimea War, war reporters have had a great influence on the public sphere. It is their bravery, resilience and fantastic reportage that brings about change. The need to 'bear witness' as Colvin put it, is so important. The world has to know about war. It may not want to, it may not be interested, but people are dying and truth needs to spoken to power. The Times' front page today sums it up brilliantly, better than I ever could: "The price of truth."

Now it seems Colvin's truth could cause the change that she fought for. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, has promised to redouble the efforts to bring down the regime of Assad in Syria. President Sarkozy said that the regime must go. It appears the death of two journalists is the wake-up call the world needed and Assad's house of cards is falling. It is just saddening that it took this long.