Death From the Skies

I am troubled by the increasing reliance on drones to attack America's enmies. There is no honor in killing a foe by remote control, plus it sets a dangerous precedent, for there is nothing to stop our enemies from employing the same tactics against us. Future wars will be fought by machines, and many civilians will be collateral damage in such a scenario. This should be stopped, but there is no discernible opposition to drone warfare. Our society is complacent about how immoral this is, employing the same mindset Americans had after dropping the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki: if doing something horrible prevents a longer war, then that is good. But I contend that it is a fate worse than death. Instead of ending the second World War with honor, of men fighting for every inch of ground, we ended it by killing civilians in such a horrible way that Japan surrendered, shocked by such savagery on our part that it was apparent that honor no longer had a place among the merchants of death. War is meant to be a cruel, nasty business. That's why people want to avoid it. Now it seems that America wants to make war a cold, clinical act without risks, aside from losing some easily replaceable machines. Soon, if not now, people will think nothing about inflicting death upon others, for the field of battle won't be filled with people, but with machines. Of course, such machines can easily be turned against civilians, which is a war crime, pure and simple. Had there been any true justice after World War Two, then not only the Nazis would have been punished, but also those who ordered the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden. The USA should have invaded Japan instead of dropping those horrible bombs, even if that would have meant my father would have died and I never would've been born. As the victor, we can pretend that what America did was right, but wrong is wrong, no matter how one seeks to justify the terrible act. Besides, I don't think it's a good idea to get machines to kill. As our mechanical creations begin to attain sentience, we should have them trained to nurture life, not to destroy it in a methodical fashion. In 20 years, that could be the end of civilization: having gained the ability to reproduce themslves and to make plans without human input, there's nothing to stop machines from annilhating every Killer Ape in the world. It would be just like the Terminator movies, without any impossible time travel scenario to save us from our folly. It's hard to get a firm grasp on this concept in a few paragraphs, but I fear that I am right, and don't be surprised if some writer, at some future date, expands on this hypothesis with 500 pages of analysis to prove the simple fact that we have fucked ourselves over totally.