NPR recently aired an hour long interview with Marc Garlasco, who was formerly the Chief of High Value Targeting at the Pentagon. The discussion between Terry Gross and Mr. Garlasco is fascinating, particularly since he’s been on the inside, and because his role was pivotal in the early stages of both the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. While working for the Department of Defense, his job was to select targets based on intelligence provided by various agencies, supervise “smart bomb” aerial attacks in real time, and conduct damage assessment (remotely, of course) after the attacks were completed.

Whether from an attack of conscience or for a better paycheck, Garlasco left the Pentagon awhile back and joined Human Rights Watch (in the NPR interview, there was no substative discussion of why Garlasco left his DOD position). His job at HRW is to conduct “on ground” battle damage assessments of the same type of attacks that he used to direct. During the course of the interview, his nonchalance in discussing both his prior and present jobs was quite striking, and by the time the interview was completed, I wondered how he could wake up in the morning and look at himself in a mirror.

As he described peering into bomb craters and coming to an understanding of the collateral damage and deaths for which he was directly responsible in his prior position, the term “cognitive dissonance” came to mind.

Garlasco’s story prompted me to think about a trend in military operations that is becoming more frequent. In recent months, an increasing number of reports have surfaced regarding the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in attacks and bombings of alleged militia positions in Baghdad’s Sadr City and other locations around Iraq. Originally, unmanned aerial vehicles were designed for surveillance and reconnaissance. Newer generations of the airborne drones, though, are very deadly.

The drones are flown by a pilot (yes, a real pilot) controlling a joystick at a base back in Nevada. A target is identified from several thousand feet in the air, and in this high tech video game, the controller pushes a button on his joystick back in Nevada to fire a wing-mounted missile in the skies of Iraq, and - KABOOM - a building is blown up halfway around the world.

The concept of “war by remote control” is troubling from a moral perspective. Many would argue that this method of conducting war actually does has some morality attached, because it doesn’t put any of America’s own troops in harms way. That’s a good thing, I suppose, but morality (even in war) is not one dimensional. War is, by definition, supposed to be a very personal thing. Kill or be killed. By waging a killing operation from thousands of miles away, the human element of the horror of war has been totally removed (except for those killed by the missiles remotely fired from Nevada). The person who pushed the button sits back, opens another 20 ounce Mountain Dew, and at the end of his/her shift, heads out to Olive Garden for dinner.

There is something inherently troubling with this picture. When the human element is disconnected from war making, the war making becomes very inhumane. As I’m sure that any returning veteran of the ground war in Iraq can tell you, battle changes a person - sometimes for better, most times for worse. But at least a close up and personal involvement in fighting brings a human dimension to a conflict which is just not possible from the confines of an air conditioned “war room” continents removed from the scene of the action.

In 2004, during the swiftboating of John Kerry by TeamBush, I wrote the following:

“Going Upriver” drives home the stark differences between John Kerry and George Bush more than any words can convey. One man served, and learned the horrific reality of war by actually getting his hands bloody. One man took the easy (though legal) way out, and even in taking the easy way out shirked his duty. George Bush has never seen the reality in the killing fields of war - experienced a “free fire” zone - gazed upon another human being ripped to shreds with the mask of death on a face that no longer exists…

George Bush was never within 5000 miles of the action during the Vietnam war. Yet, somehow he managed to bamboozle the country that he was a better warlord than John Kerry would be, and this bamboozlement was, in large part, the reason for Bush’s narrow re-election victory. Bush has still not (to the best of my knowledge) been to one funeral of a service person killed in Iraq. The point is: Bush never had any personal skin in waging war - and therefore, the personal toll on other people (both in America and in Iraq) is completely meaningless to him. He sleeps as well at night as the guy firing the Hellfire missiles into an Iraqi house from Nevada.

Marc Garlasco was also conducting “war by remote control”, and admitted that, until he left his controller’s position in the Pentagon, he never thought he’d ever set foot on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan. With HRW, he’s actually been to both locations. He now understands the collateral destruction, pain and suffering that he caused innocent civilians while doing his previous job. But listening to the NPR interview with him, it’s apparent that Garlasco still doesn’t really “get it” - there wasn’t an ounce of remorse in his voice - and he probably sleeps well, too.

And the young man operating the joystick back in Nevada? He’ll never see the lifeless child, limbs torn asunder, who was blown apart as a result of the “video game” he played. To this young patriot, Iraq might as well be situated in a distant galaxy. Each missile loosed is just another notch in his joystick.

Are there ethics in the conduct of war? Some would argue that when people are killing (or intent on killing) one another in combat, the concept of fair play isn’t operative. Kill or be killed. But when the only risk in conducting war is the soda machine running out of Mountain Dew before the operation is completed, there’s something inherently unethical in the end result, whether the victims on the recieving end of a remotely launched Hellfire missile are true enemies or innocent bystanders.

The common thread between George Bush, Marc Garlasco, and the Air Force pilot controlling a drone from Nevada? In conducting war by remote control, those who pull the trigger from thousands of miles away lose the most basic component of ethical war conduct: empathy.