The international community is outraged over the careless devastation and lack of accountability of the U.S.’s drone program. At least part of this uproar results from the institutionalized mystery surrounding these flying killing machines. However, one former member of the U.S. military knows the drone program all too well… and he’s harshly critical of it, too.

According to an NPR report, Brandon Bryant joined the military fresh out of college in 2006 so that he could pay back his student loans. The U.S. Air Force assigned Bryant to its Predator program where he was a sensor operator. Rather than piloting traditional jets, however, Bryant captained drones.

Yes, you read that right: drones DO have pilots. While no one is actually inside a drone, the technology is not yet so advanced that it can carry out actions entirely by itself. As a result, Bryant found himself taking the helms – from a computer located in a trailer in Las Vegas.

During his first mission, Bryant witnessed American troops dying via the drone’s camera. He was helpless to do anything from his remote location, in part due to the combatants’ proximity to U.S. soldiers. Instead, he was instructed to fire a missile on a group of men away from the fighting.

“After the smoke clears, there’s a crater there and you can see body parts from the people,” explained Bryant. And as powerful as the drone’s weaponry is, death is not always instantaneous for its targets. “[One] guy… his left leg had been taken off above the knee, and I watched him bleed out.”

Worst still, Bryant suspected these deaths were unnecessary. Although the men were armed, their inactivity in the local fight led him to believe they had weapons to defend themselves while living in a warzone. “These guys had no hostile intent,” Bryant said. “In Montana, everyone has a gun. These guys could have been local people that had to protect themselves. I think we jumped the gun.” He noted that the official report later labeled these men as “enemy combatants.”

When Bryant attempted to talk about what he experienced, he was met with silence. In general, he reported, drone operators avoid discussing their work even with each other.

The second time Bryant manned a drone attack, he fired on a house with militants inside. As the missile cruised toward its target, Bryant watched a child run next to the house. After the impact, Bryant saw no sign of the child. This time, instead of getting emotional about his part in the casualties, he went numb.

This numbness persisted for his remaining years of service. Bryant detached himself from his work, adopting a perspective that, in warfare, “good guys can die, bad guys can die, and innocents can die.”

Finally recognizing his unhealthy attitude toward killing, Bryant opted to quit the Air Force. “I couldn’t do it anymore,” he said. “I stopped myself, and I said that’s not me. I was taught to respect life, even if in the realities of war we have to take it, it should be done with respect.”

Alas, the drone program has only grown since Bryant’s resignation. Obama’s onetime counterterrorism adviser Michael Boyle recently suggested that the administration may favor drone strikes over detention centers given the controversies surrounding places like Guantanamo Bay. Of course, the U.S. government has got to be kidding itself if it thinks critics’ objections to torturing and holding potential terrorists indefinitely without trial are assuaged by just outright killing suspects (and innocent bystanders) with no questions asked. The only reason drone usage has not turned into the full-scale scandal of Guantanamo Bay is due to the relative lack of information.

As for Bryant, he is now a member of a veterans’ group where he says he is finally experiencing the camaraderie he hoped the military would offer but was unattainable in a Las Vegas trailer. Like many veterans, Bryant is currently undergoing treatment for PTSD. Also like many veterans, Bryant is still waiting to receive his benefits to cover this treatment.

Read more: afghanistan, drone, drone warfare, drones, guantanamo bay, military, politics

Photo: Steve Rhodes/flickr

NEW YORK—Two threatening letters mailed to Mayor Michael Bloomberg and opened last week have tested positive for ricin, the New York Police Department said Wednesday.

The letters, first reported by The New York Times, were addressed to Bloomberg and mailed to a municipal building in New York City that houses the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and to the Washington, D.C., office of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an advocacy group Bloomberg founded to lobby for stricter gun laws.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said in a statement that the letters contained threats against Bloomberg and referenced the nation’s gun control debate.

Bloomberg never came in contact with the letters. While those who opened the letters were uninjured, the NYPD said members of its Emergency Service Unit, which responded to the letter found in Manhattan, exhibited symptoms of ricin exposure on Saturday and were treated.

Marc LaVorgna, a spokesman for Bloomberg, declined to comment on the letters. The NYPD said it is continuing to investigate the matter along with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. Two unnamed sources told the Times they believe the letters came from the same person.

The Bloomberg letters come just over a month after letters that tested positive for ricin were mailed to President Barack Obama and Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker. A suspect in that case is currently being held without bail.

New virus called ‘threat to the entire world’

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The first person to fall ill in France from a new strain of coronavirus has died from the virus that has already claimed 22 lives worldwide. Lindsey Parietti reports.
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ST. LOUIS (AP) — A southwestern Illinois judge whose colleague died of a cocaine overdose while the two were on a hunting trip resigned Wednesday, days after he was charged with federal heroin and gun offenses in the widening courthouse drug scandal.

St. Clair County Circuit Judge Michael Cook announced he was stepping down in a brief letter to the county's chief judge, John Baricevic. No reason for Cook's departure was stated in the letter, delivered on his behalf by one of his attorneys because Cook is in rehab, Baricevic said.

Federal prosecutors on Friday charged Cook, 43, with possessing heroin and having a gun while illegally using controlled substances. Cook, whom the criminal complaint accuses of being an addict, has pleaded not guilty and is free on bond.

Those charges came just hours after revelations by the coroner in western Illinois' Pike County that a fellow St. Clair County judge, Joe Christ, died in March of a cocaine overdose while staying with Cook at the Cook family's hunting cabin.

Christ, a 49-year-old father of six, was a former longtime prosecutor who died a little more than a week after being sworn in as an associate judge.

Baricevic said he had expected Cook to resign.

"I'm not surprised under the circumstances," he said. "In one sense, it was a formality, but a very important one. Disciplinary procedures seeking him removed could have taken a very long time.

"He has accepted responsibility, and that has allowed us to move ahead," Baricevic said.

It is up to the Illinois Supreme Court to accept Cook's resignation and fill the vacancy, though spokesman Joe Tybor said the high court faces no time constraints to do so.

Cook has not been charged in Christ's death, and a federal investigation continues.

Federal authorities also snared a St. Clair County probation officer who an FBI agent said admitted providing cocaine to Cook and Christ on several occasions, including on the eve of the judges' ill-fated hunting trip.

James Fogarty said he snorted cocaine with the two judges at his home, during golf trips and at the Cook family's lodge where Christ later died, FBI Special Agent Joseph Murphy wrote in an affidavit. The three used cocaine together the day before Cook and Christ left for the hunting trip from which Christ would not return alive, Murphy wrote.

The criminal complaint accuses Fogarty of cocaine distribution and possession.

Cook became an associate circuit judge in 2007 and was appointed a circuit judge in 2010, then won a six-year term later that year. Baricevic last week reassigned all of Cook's pending cases to Circuit Judge Robert Haida.

Cook "was out of business at that point," Baricevic said.