Morality – Pike & Hurricane

Call of Duty: Reality Edition—Is It Easier to Kill with Drones?

Nina Kolarzik — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 13:49:20 +0000

Morality and ethics have always played a major role in human history, especially when it comes to fighting for survival. How far would you go to survive—what actions are justified? The questions remain the same over time, but the emergence of new technologies, such as drones, leads to new ethical considerations in warfare. In medieval times the use of crossbows was banned (against Christians), because it was not considered to be knightly or honourable to kill that easily from a distance. A similar discussion emerged in recent years over the use of drones. An independent researcher and wing commander for the Indian Air Force, Dr. U.C. Jha wrote in his book Drone Wars –The Ethical, Legal and Strategic Implications that, “[the] killing of a selected individual or a group through the use of drones while sitting in a safe zone […] is against the principle of chivalry”.

Multiple Critics of Drones

Drones are seen not only as a big technological step, but also as big change for legal and ethical considerations, as the British academic in security questions, Shima D. Keene, describes in Michelle Holloway’s edited book Drone Warfare: Ethical Explorations. From an ethical perspective, there exist many critical aspects on the use of drones in warfare. Dr. Jha discusses a plenitude of them, including the physical and emotional separation of the operator and the battlefield, the question of responsibility and collateral damage, and the peculiar aspect of drones; the target will never be able to see the operator of the weapon.

Keene describes, how some people make their judgement depending on whether the consequences of using drones are better or worse than with conventional weapons. Others see them as generally bad. One of the main criticisms asserts that the use of drones is morally reprehensible because of the (emotional) distance between the operator and the battlefield. This issue which is surrounded by an international moral and legal debate will be the target of this article and most likely, of many more discussions to come.

Warfare as Video Game?

According to Keene, the critical point is the so-called “push button warfare” or “PlayStation mentality”. It relates to the psychological consideration on how the physical distance from the battlefield influences the operators’ psyche and behaviour. That includes the willingness to take risks but also the making use of the weapons. Some even say, that the mutual threat to the lives of combatants gives them some equality in the use violence. However, this does not exist with drone pilots, as Dr. Jha points out.

The main problem that this article looks at (and that Keene and Dr. Jha dealt with) is how war becomes impersonal: the distance of the operator makes them target an enemy quicker, as it is easier to see the opponents not as humans but only as targets. The drone pilots do not experience the real situation, but rather only have a digital image of it, which can desensitise and physically and emotionally disconnect the pilots from the full impact of their actions.

This disconnection can make violence and moral misjudgements more likely. The operator is in a situation that is too similar to playing a war-themed computer game which is why it is feared that they would also kill as easily as people do in video games. A drone pilot admitted, as cited in Holloway’s book, that hunting of a target with a drone “can get a little bloodthirsty. But it’s … cool.” Other pilots deny strongly that flying a drone would feel like playing a game and say that they are very aware of the impact of their actions.

Dr. Jha mentions another aspect of the problem, in terms of employment: since the most important thing for operating a drone is technical proficiency, it is feared that civilians who are not trained according to the military code which involves moral guidelines, get increasingly employed. They could act in a “PlayStation mentality” manner, as they would not have a soldier’s experience when it comes to the possible impact they may have.

Deadly Consequences

In Pakistan, a giant art installation in the province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa [see the artwork here] attracted attention. The installation portrays a girl from the region, who became an orphan when her parents were killed in a drone attack. It lays on a field to be best seen from an aerial perspective—a perspective through which drone operators see the land, too. The intention behind the artwork is to raise the awareness and empathy of the operators towards all the victims, survivors and the attacked regions. Drone strikes lead to a variety of civilian casualties, many of them avoidable. In Pakistan alone, more than 1000 civilians were killed by drone strikes, over 300 of them were children.

A common critique of drones regarding the morality of their use in warfare is that through the physical distance the drone pilot also develops an emotional distance to the events, as if he or she played a real-life computer game. This affects the pilot’s moral judgement and decision-making. By looking at the long history of warfare, drones can be said to still be a new practice. We will have to see how the discussion develops in time. Some drones are already flying without an operator—not armed ones, but who knows when that time will come. To push this problem off from the wrong course, we need to participate in the moral discussion from today onwards.

By Nina Kolarzik

Photo Credits

Photo 1: Soldiers learning how to operate the Skylark drone, by Cpl. Zev Marmorstein, CC BY-SA 3.0

Photo 2: “Predator Drone”, by Marc Buehler, CC BY-NC 2.0

Photo 3: “Drone-007”, by Ville de Nevers, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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CSI: Crime Scene Incompetence

Julia Glatthaar — Sun, 29 Apr 2018 17:06:46 +0000

Everything wrong with Forensic Science

Imagine yourself in June 2018. You have successfully completed this semester and are in the airport on your way to go on a well deserved holiday! However, when you are going through the passport control, a police officer suddenly shows up and takes you to another room. A few hours later, you find yourself not on a flight to paradise but in an interrogation room being charged with murder.

This is not the introduction to a horror or science fiction story that I came up with but a very real situation that has already happened. It is part of a large collection of stories about people like Brandon Mayfield who will be discussed later on. And forensic science has everything to do with them.

Am I Really Unique?

I always thought that my DNA and fingerprints are unique and cannot be found on any other person in the world. However, during the past decades, experts have increasingly pointed out that there is no scientific proof of such uniqueness, and up to now there has been no initiative to conduct studies of large populations to establish the uniqueness of marks or features.The assumption of uniqueness underlies all areas of forensic evidence.

However, the even bigger problem lies within the “overtaxed, inconsistent, and underressourced forensic science infrastructure” and how forensic evidence is collected, examined and interpreted.

Forensic Science in Court

Forensic evidence is used and accepted by courts all over the world to help the jury with convictions of cases concerning, for instance, attempted murder, child abuse or burglary. Forensic science practices include pattern or experience evidence, such as fingerprints, firearms examination, toolmarks, impressions (for instance, footwear), bloodstain pattern analysis, handwriting, hair and bite marks, as well as analytical evidence like DNA, coatings (for instance, paint), fluids, fire and explosive analysis. and chemicals and materials (for example, drugs). Some of these practices, such as nuclear DNA analysis, are laboratory-based while other practices rely on experts to observe patterns among fingerprints or bite marks.

While these practices, in particular DNA analysis, have helped identify convicts and solve crimes, it has also been revealed that faulty forensic science has also contributed to wrongful convictions of innocents. Between 1989 and 2008, 223 people were imprisoned in the US, and later exonerated (proven innocent) by post-conviction DNA testing. And with false positive rates among the more scientific sound forensics, such as fingerprint analysis, being estimated as high as 1 out of 18, the dark figure of wrongful convictions is much greater than what we expect.

Unreliable and Invalid Forensic Evidence

We are in 2009, in Germany, where a murderer is haunting the people of Heilbronn. The police has found common DNA traces in all the crime scenes and are now searching for the convict. However, this common DNA trace then suddenly turns out to be a contamination on the cotton swabs that have been used.

However, even when high quality evidence and tools of analysis are available, there is a large room for errors when it comes to the system and human factors in forensic science.

In the US nearly “anyone with a garage and some capital” can theoretically open a forensics laboratory and start offering services to court since no official certifications are required. Moreover, even laboratories offering excellent services are constantly under the constraints of major limitations in time and resources.

Another factor is that forensic laboratories seldomly are individual institutions, but are run by government or the police. This often results in a subjectification of data, due to the scientists who unintentionally let their access to irrelevant case information limit their ability to perform objective analysis.

It is important to understand that forensic sciences often do not meet the fundamental requirements of science but are still perceived by most people, even those who are considered experts in the field, as being bulletproof.

Why is this Important?

All of this talk about the faults of forensic science is important because we constantly overestimate the validity of the conclusions that are based upon the analysis of forensic evidence. And this can have serious consequences.

Let us have a closer look at the case of US lawyer Brandon Mayfield who was arrested in connection with the train bombings in Madrid in March 2004. An FBI expert had testified that, to a certainty of 100 percent, Mayfields fingerprints were matching those that had been found on a bag in Spain containing detonation devices similar to those used in the bombings. However, shortly after, three further matches were identified and led to the exoneration of Mayfield. Whilst Mayfield had been imprisoned only for two weeks, he described the time as follows: “[t]he days, weeks and months following my arrest, […] were some of the darkest we have had to endure. I personally was subject to lockdown, strip searches, sleep deprivation, unsanitary living conditions, shackles and chains, threats, physical pain and humiliation.”

Fingerprint analysis seems to be very accurate, yet prints found in crime scenes are often of poor quality and therefore increase the chances of errors occurring. Moreover, there is no centralized system matching fingerprints to people. Therefore, depending on where you run a fingerprint through the system, you will get different results.

Imagine how somebody suffers, who is not “only” imprisoned for a few weeks, but for decades before being exonerated. Imagine the suffering of the people and their families in cases when the truth does not surface in time and death sentences are carried out due to wrong forensic evidence. One example would be Santae Tribble who spent 26 years in prison for murder after an FBI analyst testified that hair from the crime scene “matched [Tribble] in all microscopic characteristics”. Tribble was exonerated when DNA testing revealed that none of the 13 hairs belonged to him, with one hair being identified as originating from a dog. Or look at Keith Harward who was wrongly convicted of a rape and murder and spent more than half of his life in prison due to the false analysis of his bite marks by six different experts.

The tragedy here goes beyond the suffering inflicted upon these innocent people. Hair analysis, which the FBI revealed to be flawed in 95 percent of all cases, as well as bite mark analysis, which is among the most unscientific, unreliable and flawed practices in forensic science, are still being used in court.

So, What do we Learn from This?

Forensics is a hugely complex subject, and this article has merely scratched the surface of this fascinating area. With this article, I want to highlight some of the dangers following the increased and uninformed use of forensic science in court. That being said, it is important to remember that forensic science also is a great accomplishment and has helped to solve cases which, a few decades ago, would have been unsolvable. Nuclear DNA testing, in particular, is very accurate and has been an immense help in exonerating falsely convicted people.

As always, with the good there comes the bad, so my final message is that one must be aware that humans are not perfect, and that the crime scenes we see in CSI Miami or The Bridge do not accurately reflect reality. So, when you come across a report about infallible forensics, or read about somebody being convicted due to fingerprints or other DNA samples found at the crime scene, take a step back and remember that not every conviction means justice.

By Julia Glatthaar

Photo Credit:

Picture 1: West Midlands Police, Day 329 – West Midlands Police – Spit Kits to tacke anti-social behaviour, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Picture 2: Jan Kaláb, Fingerprint, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Picture 3: Kaleb Fulgham, Teeth X-Ray, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

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Masters of War—Bypassing Morality

Merle Emrich — Sun, 29 Apr 2018 08:25:47 +0000

Rheinmetall—a German arms producer, bound by regulations of the German state and international agreements. In theory, arms deals and moral values are balanced out. Yet, the devil is in the details.

Built to Destroy

Let us leave aside the question if military production and arms deals can ever be morally right. Let us assume that a balance between humanitarian values and arms deals can be achieved through (inter)national regulations, and that that is as good as it gets. Now, let us take a look at Rheinmetall and how these regulations are supposed to work.

Rheinmetall is a German, internationally active company which, aside from car parts, produces military equipment. In Germany, arms exports need to be permitted by the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA), and in special political cases even by the Federal Security Council, which limits Rheinmetall’s export options. Usually, weapon exports to countries that are involved in conflict, or that are likely to be involved in a conflict soon, will not be approved. Through these regulations exports, especially to countries in the Middle East, are supposed to be limited if not prevented entirely. But how come bombs produced by Rheinmetall are used in Yemen’s civil war? How come the UN had to stop a Rheinmetall export to Iran?

Running Gun Blues

What would a regulation be without any loopholes to bypass that very regulation? In the case of Rheinmetall, the loophole takes on the form of production abroad. Having production locations in, for example, Italy (RWM Italia) and South Africa (Rheinmetall Denel Munition), allows Rheinmetall to sell military equipment to countries that the German government does not permit exports to.

In regions with high unemployment rates, such as Domusnovas on Sardinia, Rheinmetall’s subsidiary company RWM Italia is a welcomed source of employment irrespective of possible moral considerations. In October 2016, organisations, such as Human Rights Watch, reported that Saudi Arabia had used MK 83 bombs in Yemen. These bombs had been produced in Italy by RWM Italia. Even though it is questionable whether the export of bombs to Saudi Arabia is reconcilable with Italian law, RWM Italia was able to go through with the deal due to an unclear allocation of responsibility. While Germany sees the responsibility for export controls on Italy as it is the country of production, the Italians argue that RWM Italia is Germany’s responsibility since it is part of Rheinmetall, a German company.

In South Africa, the situation is a similar one. Since 2008, Rheinmetall has a joint venture (RDM) with Denel, a South African aerospace and defence technology company. Rheinmetall profits from South Africa’s less strict export regulations and can thus bypass German export controls. In 2017, Denel planned to sell surface-to-air missiles to Iran that supports the opposition fighting Yemen’s government which is supported by Saudi Arabia. The propelling charges for these missiles are produced by RDM. Had the UN Security Council not stopped the export, Rheinmetall would have been part of arms deals with two opposing parties in the civil war in Yemen.

Through subsidiary companies and joint ventures abroad, Rheinmetall is able to bypass German regulations on arms exports. This way, military equipment produced in, for instance, Italy or South Africa reappears in countries such as Saudi Arabia which is involved in the civil war in Yemen. It is thus not merely national restrictions that are bypassed, but regulations that have a specific, and very important, purpose: the prevention of weapons being delivered to conflict zones and to governments with a disregard for human rights. All legal considerations aside, this is a matter which is highly morally questionable.

A Matter of Habit

Arms production and the following arms deals always drag along moral questions. They are a balancing act on a thin rope between humanitarian values and profit, and not only profit of the weapons producer but in form of increasing employment through arms companies. Countries such as Germany try not to fall off this metaphorical rope by placing restrictions on military exports—even though some decisions regarding arms deals remain controversial. And yet, companies such as Rheinmetall are able to bypass these regulations—to bypass morality, one might say—by moving production locations abroad where there are less restrictions or where responsibilities are not clearly defined. Thereby, they turn the moral balancing act into a one-legged spectacle that, while being profitable, is hardly going to de-escalate conflicts.

By Merle Emrich

Photo Credit:

Panzerhaubitze 2000, Tobias Nordhausen CC BY 2.0

Child in Ruins, Felton Davis CC BY 2.0

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