Your Soul vs. The System FINAL nine eleven

Drone operator who killed 1626 Doesn't Want To Do It Any More

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A former Air Force drone operator who says he participated in missions that killed more than 1,600 people remembers watching one of the first victims bleed to death Brandon Bryant says he was sitting in a chair at a Nevada Air Force base operating the camera when his team fired two missiles from their drone at three men walking down a road halfway around the world in Afghanistan. The missiles hit all three targets, and Bryant says he could see the aftermath on his computer screen -- including thermal images of a growing puddle of hot blood.

"The guy that was running forward, he's missing his right leg," he recalled. "And I watch this guy bleed out and, I mean, the blood is hot." As the man died his body grew cold, said Bryant, and his thermal image changed until he became the same color as the ground.

"I can see every little pixel," said Bryant, who has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, "if I just close my eyes."

Bryant, now 27, served as a drone operator from 2006 to 2011, at bases in Nevada, New Mexico and in Iraq, guiding unmanned drones over Iraq and Afghanistan and taking part in missions that he was told led to the deaths of an estimated 1,626 individuals. .In an interview with NBC News, he provided a rare first-person glimpse into what it's like to control the controversial machines that have become central to the U.S. effort to kill terrorists.

He says that as an operator he was troubled by the physical disconnect between his daily routine and the violence and power of the faraway drones. "You don't feel the aircraft turn," he said. "You don't feel the hum of the engine. You hear the hum of the computers, but that's definitely not the same thing."

At the same time, the images coming back from the drones were very real and very graphic.

"People say that drone strikes are like mortar attacks," Bryant said. "Well, artillery doesn't see this. Artillery doesn't see the results of their actions. It's really more intimate for us, because we see everything."

A self-described "naïve" kid from a small Montana town, Bryant joined the Air Force in 2005 at age 19. After he scored well on tests, he said a recruiter told him that as a drone operator he would be like the smart guys in the control room in a James Bond movie, the ones who feed the agent the information he needs to complete his mission.

He trained for three and a half months before participating in his first drone mission. Bryant operated the drone's cameras from his perch at Nellis Air Force base in Nevada as the drone rose into the air just north of Baghdad.Bryant and the rest of his team were supposed to use their drone to provide support and protection to patrolling U.S. troops. But he recalls watching helplessly as insurgents buried an IED in a road and a U.S. Humvee drove over it.

"We had no way to warn the troops," he said. He later learned that three soldiers died.

Basic Beijing

Until I came out here, I didn't know that Beijing has some ancient celestial and terrestrial alignment going on its layout, which explains its destiny to rule the entire Universe and beyond for practically ever and ever or at least till the water runs out.

But you don't need to know all that because I'm going to give you a run down of basic Beijing layout. First off, that square in the middle is the forbidden city and as you can see the roads are laid out neat running north, south, east, west except for those ring roads which are like motorways carving through the metropolis (much bigger than the A40M for those inside the M25)

Then as we get closer you can the Forbidden city which has a heavier outline because of the moat that surrounds it, and below that is a star on Tiananmen Square. They say it holds a million people if you want to get some scale of the action that kicked off in 1989. Just a wee bit to the left (or West) is an egg shaped structure which is the National Theater for performing arts I took pictures of over here

Just an inch or so north of Tiananmen Square on the pic below is the famous Chairman Mao portrait.

Yes, I've been playing with Google maps this afternoon and I got bored of checking out the military installations and started sniffing around my neighbourhood. I'm going to have a housewarming party called 'Forbidden City/Naughty Nights' and I've got the invitation card semi thought out already....me being in advertising and all that.

Destination or Journey?

More N95 edited on the fly in-phone


As for the camera I can't push it where I want to. I think Sony or Samsung might be tipping the scales for response, manipulation, speed and resolution in this respect.


Interesting and nice guy. Jewelery and clothes used to mask the scars incurred in Iraq I believe.


I don't feel it's fair to belittle a chap who manages to hobble his way to a Go Go bar on crutches. That takes a fair amount of commitment.


Not sure where to start with this character who sits on Silom, but think about the guy on Oxford Street some years back who warned us all against the perils of protein consumption and its inevitable conclusion of sexual congress.


Anyone for a Cashew?


I always advocate working girls engaging in a bit of Vonnegut before making the rounds. Breakfast of Champions in this instance.


Its all bit William Gibson dystopian on occasions is the city of angels at night. Paradoxically the Skytrain pictured below is a model of harmonious public transport infrastructure during the day. Looks can be deceiving.

I'm convinced Mary Shelley was inspired for her best novel from seeing something akin to this lady who without wishing to be brutal had an aura that the exorcist would have tip-toed around.

Goldfish

So we had this Goldfish in our tank with a propensity for swimming upside down. Now I know that's usually a sign for impending demise but in this instance my colleagues assured me that this was our fish's preferred method for over a year now. Personally I think he liked to show-off but then why not? A Goldfish's life isn't all that remarkable after all. Sadly he got stuck in the water filter later on the day of filming and is now floating in a different celestial current.

Then there was spice

Spice is one of those places where although they play nosebleed Euro Techno that hasn't progressed any further than a Josh Wink 'raised hands' volume platform circa 1995, the DJ's do take pride in their innocent enjoyment of a long dead genre of music and tweak a bit with care. I can't bear it really unless I've sunk a few B52's but I had a funny argument with my partner for the evening debating the merits of Lo-So versus Hi-So and in fairness she won. But only because I waited for the hot pop chicks to do their dance routine and subsequently slowed it down on the N95 while adding something more musically tasteful. Spice can be found in the basement of the Rembrandt Hotel on Soi 11, Sukhumvit and is not to be confused with Spicy in Ruang Muang, Soi 1 which is altogether a much more freakish affair.

Union City Blues

I know I've been a tough critic of the Nokia N95, but over the Chinese New Year I've been giving it some real punishment and putting it through its paces on the multimedia. I'm particularly impressed with the ability to edit in-handset with music, merge, add text, filters and lots of other functions. So here is a taster of my CNY trip to Bangkok. The N95 has a few reboot quirks that are annoying, its still slow, the battery isn't great, but now I've had the chance to explore more of the functions I'm sold on the ability to make engaging media content. But I'll let you decide.

Qik

Some of you have been viewing my Qik videos already, so I thought that now was as good a time as any to introduce them formally. I first came across Qik on Robert Scoble's blog and I thought it was a neat feature having the live video to internet on a Nokia N95 which is the smart phone I'm using. I also thought it would compete with some of the other video to net features like Kyte.tv or Ustream but as I've been using it I've also come to appreciate that its a cinch to use and has one extra feature that gives the broadcasts currency; there is a check box to send a link to my twitter account immediately. So it's kind of fun getting twitters back from friends about what they imagine I'm doing to whom in that hot tub in the second bathroom of the Hutong I'm intending to move into. Evidently my twitter chums have quite vivid imaginations!