Hacker Cinema
Eye in the Sky
2015 · Film · 102 min
Directed by Gavin Hood
A UK-based military officer in command of a top secret drone operation to capture terrorists in Kenya discovers the targets are planning a suicide bombing and the mission escalates from “capture” to “kill.” As American pilot Steve Watts is about to engage, a nine-year old girl enters the kill zone, triggering an international dispute reaching the highest levels of US and British government over the moral, political, and personal implications of modern warfare.
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11 comments on Hacker News
The Constitutionality of the attacks is orthogonal to their status as war crimes. (The Constitution doesn't concern itself with war crimes beyond the fact that they're crimes. Its writing almost predates the concept.)
What Trump can do without Congressional approval is a constitutional question. Whether it's a war crime is a legal one. I'm not sure how much Palantir can help with the first. I'm fairly certain it would be useful with the latter; Helen Mirren starred in a film that was essentially about this [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_in_the_Sky_(2015_film)
Most importantly they finance propaganda films like "eye in the sky" to make it look like they give a shit about not killing civilians.
Videos on wikileaks tell a different story.
I happen to believe it’s true that a best effort is made to minimize civilian death (you can read about the lengths Israel goes to in order to avoid civilian casualties, more than any other country, and to such an extent that Hamas takes advantage of these tactics), but it’s also not as load bearing as you suggest.
There are rules of engagement and tradeoffs in war (Eye In The Sky is a decent film that focuses on this).
There’s still a major distinction between intentionally targeting civilians for torture and death and civilians killed as collateral damage while persuing an enemy combatant.
but those movies (at least the bourne ones, haven't seen eye in the sky) Didn't require a lot of military hardware to make, so they aren't entangled with the propaganda people I would guess.
At the moment there seem to be many more (or at least many) 'anti' government movies around - those portraying the CIA and other organisations as corrupt, self serving or incompetent - the Bourne series etc.
Even "Eye in the Sky" gave me an overwhelming sense that the military use of drones was poorly managed and the decision making process was incompetent.
I strongly recommend reading Ubik. To me it is his strongest and most consistently good book.
I used to love The Three Stigmata too, but when I tried to read it again recently I couldn't get in to it either. I do think you have to be in the right mood to savor a Dick book, so maybe I was in the wrong mood that time.
The other first-tier PKD book for me is Martian Time-Slip.
Second-tier PKD books for me are VALIS and Galactic Pot Healer.
Third-tier are Maze of Death, Eye in the Sky, and Divine Invasion (the 2nd in the VALIS trilogy.. didn't like the 3rd in the series, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer at all).
Many of his other books, like Lies, Inc, also have great parts in them, but are kind of inconsistent.
Some of his short stories are excellent. My favorites:
- Beyond Lies the Wub
- Roog
- The Father Thing
- Faith of Our Fathers
I didn't really like A Scanner Darkly, nor Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep and would consider them of minor import had not movies been made of them. Other books in this category are Now Wait for Last Year (made in to Total Recall) and Time Out of Joint (made in to The Truman Show.. though the book is much darker). The movie Minority Report was based on another minor short story of his, as The Terminator might have been partially based on his story Second Variety.
Virtually all of the movies made from his work only bear only a very slight resemblance to the originals, which tends to be a lot darker, a lot less action-filled, and much more thought-provoking than the Hollywood adaptations.
The movie "Eye in the sky" isn't far from reality where they used a bug-like drone to spy on POI, except its drone's framerate and resolution are exaggerated.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2057392
> New technology, he truly believed was preventing innocent civilians from being killed.
Drones and missiles are definitely a step forward compared to previous technology in many regards, but I can't help but be reminded of people who argued that the development and use of napalm would reduce human suffering by putting an end to the war in Vietnam faster.
For an interesting and rather nuanced (but not 100% realistic) view on drone strikes, I'd recommend giving the 2015 movie Eye in the Sky a watch.
Another issue with drone strikes and missiles is "the bravery of being out of range": it's easier to make the decision to kill someone who you're just watching on a screen than it is to look a person in the eyes and decide to have them killed.
"Eye in the Sky" (2015) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_in_the_Sky_(2015_film) explores this theme as well. A very good film starring Helen Mirren that seems to have slipped under the radar.
I recommend the movie "Eye in the Sky" as a great encapsulation of one aspect of the moral struggles in this area. I wonder if the people who made that movie know that it is being shown at the US Air Force Academy by many of the instructors as part of the required ethics course for cadets.
Not a movie, but "Generation Kill" comes pretty close?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0995832/
As for movies, there's "In The Valley of Elah" comes to mind:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478134/
And more generally, about modern warfare, I suppose "Eye in the Sky" warrants a mention:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2057392/