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Facing Years in Prison, Daniel Hale Makes Case Against U.S. Drone Program

Rejected submission by upstart at 2021-07-26 11:04:25
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Facing Years in Prison, Daniel Hale Makes Case Against U.S. Drone Program [theintercept.com]:

War for Profit

In the government’s view, Hale’s principal interest was reckless self-aggrandizement. “Hale’s vanity overrode the commitments he made to his country,” the prosecution said in its sentencing memo. The letter Hale wrote to the court paints a starkly different picture, however, one of a young man scarred by his role in the nation’s longest war.

Hale describes, in vivid terms, his struggles with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and how his decision to share classified information with a journalist was motivated by an irrepressible sense of obligation.

“To say that the period of my life spent serving in the United States Air Force had an impression on me would be an understatement,” Hale wrote in his letter to O’Grady, dated July 18. “It’s more accurate to say that it irreversibly transformed my identity as an American.”

Hale told the judge about the first drone strike he witnessed, days after he first deployed to Afghanistan. The operation was conducted before sunrise, targeting a group of armed men brewing tea around a campfire in the mountains of Paktika province.

That they carried weapons with them would not have been considered out of the ordinary in the place I grew up, much less within the virtually lawless tribal territories outside the control of the Afghan authorities. Except that among them was a suspected member of the Taliban, given away by the targeted cellphone device in his pocket. As for the remaining individuals, to be armed, of military age, and sitting in the presence of an alleged enemy combatant was enough evidence to place them under suspicion as well. Despite having peacefully assembled, posing no threat, the fate of the now tea drinking men had all but been fulfilled. I could only look on as I sat by and watched through a computer monitor when a sudden, terrifying flurry of Hellfire missiles came crashing down, splattering purple-colored crystal guts on the side of the morning mountain.

Since that time and to this day, I continue to recall several such scenes of graphic violence carried out from the cold comfort of a computer chair. Not a day goes by that I don’t question the justification of my actions. By the rules of engagement, it may have been permissible for me to have helped kill those men — whose language I did not speak, customs I did not understand, and crimes I could not identify — in the gruesome manner that I did. Watch them die. But how could it be considered honorable of me to continuously have laid in wait for the next opportunity to kill unsuspecting persons, who, more often than not, are posing no danger to me or any other person at the time. Never mind honorable, how could it be that any thinking person continued to believe that it was necessary for the protection of the United States to be in Afghanistan and killing people, not one of whom present was responsible for the September 11th attacks on our nation. Notwithstanding in 2012, a full year after the demise of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. I was part of killing misguided young men who were but mere children on the day of 9/11.

Nevertheless, Hale wrote, he kept his head down and continued his work identifying targets for American drones. Along the way, the profit motives embedded in the war on terror became increasingly apparent.

The evidence of this fact was laid bare all around me. In the longest and most technologically advanced war in American history, contract mercenaries outnumbered uniform wearing soldiers 2 to 1 and earned as much as 10 times their salary. Meanwhile, it did not matter whether it was, as I had seen, an Afghan farmer blown in half, yet miraculously conscious and pointlessly trying to scoop his insides off the ground, or whether it was an American flag-draped coffin lowered into Arlington National Cemetery to the sound of a 21-gun salute. Bang. Bang. Bang. Both served to justify the easy flow of capital at the cost of blood — theirs and ours. When I think about this I am grief-stricken and ashamed of myself for the things that I’ve done to support it.

Hale described for the court the “most harrowing day” of his deployment, “when a routine surveillance mission turned into disaster.” For weeks the Americans had been tracking a group of car bomb manufacturers based in the Jalalabad area. “It was a windy and clouded afternoon when one of the suspects had been discovered heading east at a high rate of speed,” Hale recalled. His supervisors believed that the driver may have been making a run for the Pakistan border. “A drone strike was our only chance and already it began lining up to take the shot,” Hale wrote. The clouds and wind derailed the strike, with the missile missing its target by a matter of a few meters.

The vehicle continued on for a while before coming to stop. Hale described watching as a man stepped out and “checked himself as though he could not believe he was still alive.” Then, to Hale’s astonishment, a woman got out of the car as well and walked to the trunk. Hale later learned that there were two young children huddled inside. They were ages three and five. A unit of Afghan soldiers found them in a dumpster the following day. The younger of the two “was alive but severely dehydrated,” Hale recalled. “The eldest was found dead due to unspecified wounds caused by shrapnel that pierced her body.”

“Whenever I encounter an individual who thinks that drone warfare is justified and reliably keeps America safe,” Hale wrote, “I remember that time and ask myself how could I possibly continue to believe that I am a good person, deserving of my life and the right to pursue happiness.”


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