Washington experts regularly claim that the surgical elimination of top al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Yemen has reduced terror in these communities, but actual studies on the ground suggest that the very opposite is true.
Last month, Alkarama (the name means "dignity") -- a Geneva based human rights organization that specializes in the Arab world -- published "Traumatizing Skies," a special report on the impact of drones in Yemen. One hundred participants were interviewed from the villages of Qawl and al-Sirin between July and September last year and evaluated using the same American Psychiatric Association standards for PTSD that Chappelle's team used on drone analysts.
"An overwhelming majority of adult respondents are seen to be suffering from numerous drone-inflicted symptoms of PTSD, which are even more prevalent amongst children," writes Radidja Nemar, Alkarama's regional legal officer for the Gulf countries. "The situation has transcended the question about whether or not an individual has lost a family member to a drone attack, simply because trauma has become pervasive in a society living constantly under the fear of drones."
Their situation differs from that of the pilots or analysts who can and do quit their jobs when they begin to suffer. The victims have no such options. They can't escape the drones regularly buzzing overhead. "The common denominator in most of the cases is the feeling that life has no value and that death could happen at any moment and without apparent reason," wrote one of the Yemeni survey researchers. "This shared feeling hinders most everyday activities in the villages and results in constant anxiety and fear. The deterioration of the living conditions in general, as added to the lack of healthcare services and the mental suffering of the populations, are aggravating their general feeling of hopelessness, frustration, and anxiety."
The most distressed respondents were women, partly because they felt the drones violated their modesty. Girls reported the highest percentage of sleeplessness and nightmares. Not least was the impact on women's daily lives, already far more restricted than those of men. Atiqa, a 55-year-old mother of three, for instance, explained that her blood pressure problems had become more severe, forcing her to stay in bed for several days at a time. Fatima, a 40-year-old mother of five, reported that women like her were unable to enjoy the few opportunities where they could meet other women, like weddings, for fear that such gatherings would act like drone magnets.
Similar reports have emerged from Pakistan, says Dr. Mukhtar-ul-Haq, the head of the psychiatry department at Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital. He has studied the impact of the drone war on Waziristan, a tribal borderland near Afghanistan. "The vast majority of people report being perpetually scared of drone attacks day and night," Dr. Haq said in a video conference call held by Alkarama to mark the release of its Yemen report. "The constant noise makes them experience bouts of emotional trauma and symptoms of anxiety. They often manifest themselves in the form of physical illness, heart attacks, and even suicide."
Joining the Alkarama conference call was Brandon Bryant, a former Air Force sensor operator, who has experienced PTSD, thanks to his work with drones. He has become one of the most outspoken critics of Washington's killing program. "The leadership only looks at this program as a numbers-based thing" how many people were killed," says Bryant whose unit took part in 2,300 kills. He estimates that he personally killed 13 people with Hellfire missiles. "They don't care about the human beings doing the job or the human beings affected by the job."
Although they never served together, Bryant and Westmoreland recently discovered each other's work at a screening of the film Drone by Norwegian filmmaker Tonje Schei. The two Air Force veterans have now joined forces to seek justice for affected communities. They have set up an online organization of national security whistleblowers and their supporters, giving it the symbolically bloody name of Project Red Hand. Through it they are calling for others from the drone program to join them in speaking out.
"Many of us are people who looked down one day to see our hands painted red," they write in the organization's mission statement. "To those [to] whom we direct our words, we are not your adversaries. We are only a mirror. Through our crimson hands we only seek to show you your reflection. We believe that truth deserves its own narrative. We hope that people like you will also stand up and join us in our efforts. We are also living proof that there is life after this, and if you trust us, we will show you a better world."
In bucking the military system and Washington's cherished drone war program, perhaps Bryant and Westmoreland are themselves the ones who are taking on the classic Wild West roles of the Lone Ranger and Tonto. They have ridden into the badlands of the national security state to challenge the injustice of an outlaw system of killing that extends across significant parts of the planet. In the face of such an implacable program, one can only hope that they will find their silver bullets.
Pratap Chatterjee, a TomDispatch regular, is executive director of CorpWatch. He is the author of Halliburton's Army: How A Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War. His next book, Verax, a graphic novel about whistleblowers and mass surveillance co-authored by Khalil Bendib, will be published by Metropolitan Books in 2016.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse's Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.
Copyright 2015 Pratap Chatterjee
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