Former Senior Airman Cian Westmoreland discusses why he began to question his work in assisting more than 350 civilian deaths in Afghanistan
Story Transcript
JESSICA DESVARIEUX, PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome to the Real News Network. Iām Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore. Four former Air Force drone war personnel went public with an open letter to President Obama. They are asking him to reconsider a program that killed, quote, innocent civilians, and which only fueled the feelings of hatred that ignited terrorism and groups like ISIS. Now joining us to tell his story is one of those drone war personnel, senior airman Cian Westmoreland. He was in the United States Air Force from 2006-2010, and his unit assisted in 2,400 close air support missions and 200-plus enemy kills. However, the United Nations assistance mission in Afghanistan says that this number included around 359 civilian deaths. Thank you so much for joining us, Cian. CIAN WESTMORELAND: Thank you for having me. DESVARIEUX: So Cian, you enlist back in 2006 and eventually you make your way to Afghanistan. Can you just quickly explain, what exactly were you doing in Afghanistan, and how did it relate to drone warfare? WESTMORELAND: Well, we were setting up a relay station for signals. So of course, the drones themselves donāt fly autonomously yet, so there needs to be a constant, you know, feed happening there. We took a lot of the, the imagery and the video feeds, and we sentāwe brought them all through our site, and we sent them to the combined air operations center in [inaud.] and then to [inaud.]. DESVARIEUX: Okay. So you werenāt actually a drone pilot, but you were a part of, of this whole chain. So nowāso youāre there, youāre working in Afghanistan. But obviously you have a change of heart, or at least you start questioning what youāre doing. What exactly triggered that for you? WESTMORELAND: Well, I think, you know, there was a point in my life where I was religious, and IāI definitely felt strongly about the whole thou shalt not kill, you know, love your enemies, treat others as you would treat yourself. And all those things were kind of in conflict, for me, when I was in the military. I didnāt really know what conscientious objector status was, or how to go about getting it. But I thought, you know, I canāt, I canāt really let my, my team down. So I went to Afghanistan and we, we built this system that enabled, you know, warfare at a distance. And I think the moment that I, that I realized that I was doing something pretty harmful, or what I was doing wasāI actually had a mortar land relatively close to me. And that was quite jarring for me. You know, I was trying to find out what must be going on at the other end. I used to watch these kids outside the fence every day and theyād beg for water. And Iām, Iām just thinking, like, why do we need this sophisticated equipment just to, you know, control this area, or whatever? But the day that my boss told us to come around to the equipment, and then he handed us a headset and said, you know, listen. We listened, and it was an [inaud.] speaking to a [battle] manager. He said, weāre killing bad guys now, boys. And I think just the, the combination of those two things really messed with me. I had traveled after the Air Force. I went through Georgia, I saw where the Russians had bombed Gori and went through Osh in Kyrgyzstan, and I saw where about 2,000 [Uzbeks] according to sources on the ground were massacred. And you know, there was rumors about the, the opium trade that was running through the area of Kyrgyzstan. I guess if you put that together with the opium production, Afghanistan, and kind of see where this is going, you see that thereās like, thereās effects beyond the borders of Afghanistan. This war is affecting, you know, everybodyās life in that region. And I justāit was just a gradual, like, coming to the realization that Iām, you know, Iām partially responsible for all this. DESVARIEUX: I hear you. And you found others that felt the same way. As I mentioned, four of you actually came out and wrote this open letter. So how did you end up finding these other drone war personnel? WESTMORELAND: I found Brandon online. I was struggling with some things. Iād just spoken out, I did a university lecture about what I was doing at my university. And I just kind of went to a bad state of depression. And tried to find someone who might have an understanding of what I was going through. And I reached out to Brandon, and we started aāwe, we had a conference around April 2013, where we showed the drone film for one of the first times in Europe. And yeah, I was up on the panel with him. And from then on, just kind of did networking different places, all over. Thereās a lot of veterans who regret what they do. Not all of them are drone veterans or technicians, or what have you. But thereās quite a sizeable community. DESVARIEUX: Yeah. But Cian, I mean, thereās a lot of support for drone warfare here in America. Iām going to pull up this recent Pew Research poll. About 58 percent of Americans approve of missile strikes from drones to target extremists in such countries as Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia. So thereās a lot of public support. At least the majority, we can say, support this program because they feel that it protects pilots. And you know, what would you say to those people that say, you know, innocent civilians are going to be killed in war? Thatās just the nasty part of war. Whatās your response to that? WESTMORELAND: I would say that, you know, that the argument they put forward, that innocent civilians die in war, thatās just what happens in war, itās really prevalent but itās also, itās kind of just a cop-out. You know, youāre refusing to acknowledge the, the horror of war, and youāre dismissing it and saying that this is what happens anyways. I mean, in any case that should be theāone of the prime, you know, motivations for leadership is to mitigate civilian casualties. You definitely didnāt see that in the beginning of the war, and now drones themselves are being used as a foreign policy tool, just taking out alleged terrorists or conspirators. Justāin a precise way. But thereās always going to be civilian casualties, because theyāre wise enough to realize that they need to meet in places with high amounts of civilians. DESVARIEUX: Yes. So itās not as precise as we like to think it is. WESTMORELAND: Itās precise in the sense that it hits the target. And you have a long loiter time. You know who youāre hitting. But the decisions that are being made, you know, to target a place with one high-profile target and, you know, about 30, say 30 associated people and their families, or something. I mean, itās notā. Itās not necessarily the weapon itself thatās inaccurate. Itās the way itās being used, and the fact that thereās no international laws that are actually governing, you know, how this thing should be used. I meanā. So this is obviously not an American thing anymore. Thereās about 55 countries in the world that are producing drone technology. And theyāre all going to have their own agendas, and theyāre all going to look at how the U.S. used these drones to go into countries that weāre not, or we havenāt formally declared war on. And theyāll use the same justifications. Weāre setting the precedent internationally for how this technology is used, and I donāt think it has been used responsibly. And I think itās been, you know, way too experimental with a problem that isāyou know, theyāre throwing sparks at a powder keg. I mean, itās notā. DESVARIEUX: Okay. Letās pause the conversation here, Cian, because I want to get more into the policy and talk specifically about what you wrote to President Obama in that letter. So Cian, thank you so much for joining us in part one of our talk with you about drone warfare. Thank you for joining us on the Real News Network.
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