Drones as war porn

An airman checks a Hellfire missile mounted on a MQ-1B Predator drone.


A ground control station for a MQ-9 Reaper drone. From here, the aircraft is flown by a pilot and a sensor operator.

SPIEGEL - Until recently, people looked at this as something abnormal. But drones and robotic warfare in general are actually the new normal now. We've gone from using a handful of these systems to now having around 7,000 in the air. And the US is not the only country flying them. There are drones from 43 other countries, including Great Britain, Germany and Pakistan.

[..] There are parallels to other historical moments when there was no turning back. The automobile in 1909. Computers before 1980. The nuclear bomb in 1940s. This is much beyond an evolution, it's a revolution. This happens very rarely in history. These developments force us to ask questions of right and wrong we never had to think about before.

[..] For example the question of the public's relationship to war. The drone war is documented, downloaded, accessible for everyone. You can see the videos on YouTube. It's turning war for some into a form of entertainment. The soldiers call that "war porn." We can see more but experience less.

—P.W. Singer, Brookings Institution

A sample video from Iraq:



And here's video of controllers doing a training exercise.