# Should drone pilots face homicide charges **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 10, 2012, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283 "2012-10-10T04:29:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/141 "2012-10-11T18:19:28Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > It would have been better if the OP had done that in this debate. The OP presumes that drone strikes are a formal crime, and hasn’t paid attention to the overwhelming evidence that it isn’t. I don’t disagree with any of the above. My apologies if I am mistaken, but you appear to be one who is rather supportive of this policy. Perhaps you would be so kind as to join the discussion in the other thread, as well. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/142 "2012-10-11T18:23:38Z")
> [@Fuji](#): > > I don’t disagree with any of the above. > > My apologies if I am mistaken, but you appear to be one who is rather supportive of this policy. Perhaps you would be so kind as to join the discussion in the other thread, as well. Done so. I am supportive of the legality of the policy, but as I’ll add in the other thread, that doesn’t mean I support the actual drone strikes that have been conducted. Good policies can be misused. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/143 "2012-10-11T18:40:17Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > His “cite” didn’t claim what he said it claimed. I asked him again to produce a credible one that verifies the claims he made and he’s now admitting, in post 122, that he can’t. > > That’s not hand waving. The Wikipedia cite CLEARLY stated that adult males were forced to stay in the city. All you got is armwaving. Blah, blah, blah, yada yada yada. Sorry, no creds for YOU! ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/144 "2012-10-11T18:41:51Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > What I see people saying is that because they are not formally illegal, the pilots cannot be charged with murder. “Peachy,” I’m not seeing. Kinda makes you wonder just how evil you gotta be in the US to get charged with anything. Not peachy, not peachy at all. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/145 "2012-10-11T18:45:42Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > His “cite” didn’t claim what he said it claimed. I asked him again to produce a credible one that verifies the claims he made and he’s now admitting, in post 122, that he can’t. > > That’s not hand waving. The Wikipedia cite CLEARLY stated that adult males were forced to stay in the city. All you got is armwaving. Blah, blah, blah, yada yada yada. Sorry, no creds for YOU! See, the way it works here is, if you call for a cite and then you get one, then you have to put up or shut up … find a cite of your own that opposes what his cite said, or demonstrate through logic that it is incorrect. Otherwise, there would be no point in posting cites … people with an opposing viewpoint could simply shout “Not credible” for any cite. Which is kinda what you’re doing … ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/146 "2012-10-11T18:50:16Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > The Wikipedia cite CLEARLY stated that adult males were forced to stay in the city. All you got is armwaving. Blah, blah, blah, yada yada yada. Sorry, no creds for YOU! Except that Der Trihs claimed that ten year olds, not “adult males” were forced to stay in Fallujah. Next time I recommend reading statements you’re trying to defend before shooting off your mouth and hitting yourself in the foot. You’ll also avoid embarrassing yourself when you attempt to insult others as you just did. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/147 "2012-10-11T18:53:26Z")
I do think it’s telling the Evil felt the need to respond to the same comment of mine twice but apparently couldn’t be bothered even once to read Der Trihs’ initial claim. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/148 "2012-10-11T19:05:19Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Kinda makes you wonder just how evil you gotta be in the US to get charged with anything. Not peachy, not peachy at all. For some strange reason, Western cultures tend not to have morals police that throw people in jail for things that offend some people, but aren’t actually against the law. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/149 "2012-10-11T19:24:37Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > I do think it’s telling the Evil felt the need to respond to the same comment of mine twice but apparently couldn’t be bothered even once to read Der Trihs’ initial claim. Oh, I DID read it. The quote in Wikipedia said: > [@](#): > > The occupying force on April 9 allowed more than 70,000 women, children and elderly residents to leave the besieged city. Now, you subtract those groups, who are you left with? Adult males. Did not say a THING about adult males being allowed to leave, did it? I wonder why that was? The reason I responded twice was that I was not fast enough on edit to specify the exact reason why I consider your response to Der Trihs invalid, so you would have to either deal with my reasoning or give it up. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/150 "2012-10-11T19:28:11Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > For some strange reason, Western cultures tend not to have morals police that throw people in jail for things that offend some people, but aren’t actually against the law. Well we DO on occasion translate our moral beliefs into law. Frex, most people have moral issues with killing, rape and having sex with kids, so they are illegal. I am having all kinds of trouble with drone strikes on a moral level. Slaughter of the innocents seems all kinds of wrong to me. Maybe you are OK with that, I dunno. Outlawing them or at LEAST getting some kind of objective oversight on them to ENSURE that the death of innocents is minimized would be a good thing, I believe. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/151 "2012-10-11T19:48:56Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Oh, I DID read it. The quote in Wikipedia said: > > Now, you subtract those groups, who are you left with? Adult males. Did not say a THING about adult males being allowed to leave, did it? I wonder why that was? > > The reason I responded twice was that I was not fast enough on edit to specify the exact reason why I consider your response to Der Trihs invalid, so you would have to either deal with my reasoning or give it up. And if Der Trihs had claimed that “adult males” weren’t allowed to leave you’d have a leg to stand on, but he didn’t so you don’t. Der Trihs specifically claimed that ten-year-old boys weren’t allowed to leave and were then deliberately murdered. Once more, I recommend reading what Der Trihs actually wrote instead of pretending he wrote something else. At this point all you’re doing is admitting that the cite Der Trihs linked to doesn’t support his claim about ten-year old boys not being allowed to leave Fallujah and then being deliberately murdered by the US military, but your too stubborn to admit you backed the losing horse. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/152 "2012-10-11T21:20:28Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > And if Der Trihs had claimed that “adult males” weren’t allowed to leave you’d have a leg to stand on, but he didn’t so you don’t. > > Der Trihs specifically claimed that ten-year-old boys weren’t allowed to leave and were then deliberately murdered. > > Once more, I recommend reading what Der Trihs actually wrote instead of pretending he wrote something else. > > At this point all you’re doing is admitting that the cite Der Trihs linked to doesn’t support his claim about ten-year old boys not being allowed to leave Fallujah and then being deliberately murdered by the US military, but your too stubborn to admit you backed the losing horse. You’re right, Trihs’ cite does not make any claim about the age level that divided adult males from children, and he DID say 10 years “or so.” However, at no point did you specify that the age level was your sticking point, until this post. You merely said he needed to verify “his claim” without specifying which part of “his claim” he needed to verify. So … shifting the goalposts, Ibn. Naughty, naughty. His source did verify all of the rest of “his claim.” ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/153 "2012-10-11T21:42:37Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > So … shifting the goalposts, Ibn. Naughty, naughty. In other words, he correctly identified several problems with that cite not backing up **Der Trihs** ’ claims, but you’re accusing him of shifting the goalposts for not specifying soon enough? Please. **Der Trihs** leveled an allegation of something approaching mass murder: > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Like in Fallujah, where we forbade any male over ten or so to leave, then slaughtered people indiscriminately with the excuse that if they were there, they were terrorists/insurgents. Including, yes, people who came out of cover to help someone else we’d shot, along with the occasional fleeing family. And that’s hardly the only case where we’ve killed “first responders”. And the source does not back it up: the one interviewee says the soldiers were told everyone “walking around” was an enemy combatant and was a target, and he says the army changed the “standard for male combat ages” from “like 18” and that under the new standard “any male with an AK-47 or a gun or whatever was a military target.” And he immediately adds there were “many times” that “children as young as 10 were fighting.” He says the battle looked like “a mass killing of Arabs.” Read that or watch the clip again and count all the ways it doesn’t substantiate what **Der Trihs** wrote. **Der Trihs** already acknowledged the same. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/154 "2012-10-11T22:18:39Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > You’re right, Trihs’ cite does not make any claim about the age level that divided adult males from children, and he DID say 10 years “or so.” However, at no point did you specify that the age level was your sticking point, until this post. That is not remotely true and once again, you’re demonstrating that either you’re deliberately misrepresenting others or you’re attacking posters without reading what they say. Here is post #136, where I respond to Der Trihs. > [@](#): > > You made an extremely reckless charge(that the US military refused to allow ten and eleven year old children to leave Fallujah and then deliberately murdered them)that you’re now conceding that you can’t provide a reputable cite for your claim. > > In short, until you can provide compelling evidence for it, we should assume your claim was bullshit. > > Obviously, that does not mean that you’re lying, but more likely that you have some vague memory of something from 8 years ago which is not what most of us would consider terribly credible. And of course, in post #146, in responding to your rather attack on me in wich you foolishly insisted that Wikipedia backed up Der Trihs claims, I said: > [@](#): > > Except that Der Trihs claimed that ten year olds, not “adult males” were forced to stay in Fallujah. > > Next time I recommend reading statements you’re trying to defend before shooting off your mouth and hitting yourself in the foot. I’m not sure why you chosen this hill to die on since even Der Trihs has backed off and admitted he was wrong, but it seems to me that you didn’t read Der Trihs posts or my subsesquent ones and are now too angry and too proud to back down. I recommend just admitting you made a mistake and move on. We all make them and we all let our tempers get the better of us on occasion. FWIW, I was probably a bit rougher on you than I needed to be. I don’t always respond to insults the way I should. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/155 "2012-10-12T03:45:07Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I don’t “make things up”. I’m looking, but no; finding a “reputable cite” about something that happened 8 years ago is _not_ easy. This is one of the most bizarre claims I’ve read in all of my years here. There’s nothing remotely hard about finding reputable cites for something that happened as short as 8 years ago; there’s nothing hard about finding reputable cites about events that happened centuries ago. The only thing that would make it hard to produce a reputable cite is if any cites for said claim are from less than reputable sources. ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/156 "2012-10-12T17:30:08Z")
> [@Naive\_Evian](#): > > I watched a 60 Minutes program about drone pilots. These pilots worked in a base located in the US (Nevada, I think), and piloted missions where people were killed in other countries. **Could a local prosecutor bring them up on charges?** It is clear that the pilots are killing people, and we do not know the procedures that they go through. I think a prosecutor should charge everyone on the base with conspiracy to commit homicide, and if the defendants want to raise an affirmative defense, they can bring forth their evidence. > > **I don’t know if the prosecutors have jurisdiction over the base, but from the 60 Minutes program, the pilots live off base, so they just need to find one act that a person involved committed that furthered the conspiracy that happened in the prosecutor’s jurisdiction**. > > There also might be federal preemption issue. > > But this is such an important issue, we need a brave prosecutor to bring these charges and then deal with any issues that come up. [I bolded some of your OP] Not sure how this got to four pages. Could a local prosecutor (i assume you mean for the State) charge a serviceman for this, sure, why not, they have great discretion to charge. Would it survive a simple jurisdiction argument, absolutely not. End of thread. Basically, Someone acting within their role in the military (a drone pilot looking for terrorists to kill), or just on a military base is only going to be subject to basically two statutes; of which, the Dep’t of Defense (most normal crimes and war crimes) and/or Dep’t of Justice (for embezzlement or fraud, ect) will control. Not a State or State law. It doesn’t matter if you arrest him off base. In this case, it’s the Dep’t of Defense. If a drone pilot goes off his rocker and starts intentionally killing civilians in Afghanistan/Pakistan/Yemen then they would investigate and charge the pilot with a war crime in a courts-martial. If a drone pilot goes off his rocker and flies over to England and intentionally targets a civilian and kills them, then that’s probably good ole fashioned murder. Also a crime under the UCMJ and the pilot would be court-martialed. It wouldn’t be a war crime though because it did not occur in a war (similar to that guy who stole a tank and went joy riding through neighborhoods/freeways and destroyed a bunch of property - not a war crime). Either way, DoD has jurisdiction. With all that said, a _federal_ prosecutor (DoJ) can charge US military members with war crimes under the War Crimes Act (a third statute that applies to servicemen/Gov) - this act gives the feds the ability to prosecute the military for grave breaches (murder, serious bodily harm, ect) of the Geneva Convention. So now we’re getting close to your OP scenario. But it’s a crime like any other and they have to prove it. A drone pilot killing someone in Afghanistan is not going to raise ears at the DoJ. Everything fails in these situations with the word “intentional.” War Crimes are intentional crimes. The drone pilot has to be intentionally _looking for civilians_ to kill and then kill them - it’s not enough to look for and kill terrorists who actually end up being just civilians; or to target and shoot at terrorists and collaterally kill civilians. Those aren’t war crimes. If the drone pilot reasonably believes (though mistaken) he’s acting legally, then it’s not a crime. So how do we know what’s going on? The military/DoD is the one watching and making sure their soldiers are acting within the scope of the law (Jag officers tailoring Rules of Engagements to fit within the law - ROE’s are always, always, tighter than the law would allow). There are layers of people/oversight involved before someone is killed (to comply with the law). Outside the military, if you want to force the military to hand over info, then Congress can always start an investigation. And as I said, the Feds can prosecute if they want. So it’s not about a local prosecutor being brave, it’s just not something they can do. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/157 "2012-10-14T00:57:17Z")
You can’t fight wars without killing people. It seems to be geting to the stage where some people think that they can. Countrys go to war, not just armies, and not just wicked individuals. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283/158 "2012-10-14T13:22:10Z")
> [@Naive\_Evian](#): > > I know people question whether race and nationality have anything to with the blank check people are willing to give the government, but I guarantee if there were a drone strike against a white family in America there would a huge outcry. The brown people in other countries are every bit as human as white Americans, and the outrage should be the same. [ol] [li]We never had any problem killing White people in Germany, during WW2, so the “brown people” thing is a loser from the beginning.[/li][li]There **was** a “drone strike” of a kind. Two airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center. You may have heard of this, there were one or two mentions in the back pages of the larger newspapers.[/li][li]Hi, **Opal**.[/li][li]You seem to belong to the _“Americans Are Evil Because They Fight Back”_ school of thought, if it can be so called. Have you ever in your life actually gone back and read how disconnected your Worldview is?[/li] [/ol] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-drone-pilots-face-homicide-charges/637283.md?page=7)