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ABSTRACT
This article builds on the recent and growing scholarship on the negative effects of the drone programme. Current literature has shown that the drone programme terrorises the civilian population that it keeps under surveillance. Furthermore, it has articulated the drone programme’s violence as biopolitical and its surveillance as a necropolitical technology of distinction. It is argued in this article that the Orientalist attitudes and logic necessary for drone targeting form the basis for the biopolitical and necropolitical component of the drone programme. This article explores the Orientalism that suffuses the US drone programme in order to juxtapose it with governmental discourses that characterise the drone programme and its surveillance as neutral and humane – demonstrating the gap between government discourses of modernity and the actual drone programme. The necropolitical logic of distinction used for targeting leads to the assimilation of those under the drone’s gaze to a population that can be put to death, leading the drone programme to operate indiscriminately. The biopolitical logic is visible in the US practices, which I argue constitutes terrorism with the corroboration of civilian testimonies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. See Dexter (Citation2012) and Coll (Citation2014) for a problematising of the concepts of “non-combatant” and “combatant”.
2. Both Gregory and Allinson give an analysis of the February 21, 2010 attack in the village of Khud in Afghanistan. A Predator drone crew, which was on heightened alert since it was protecting Special Forces on the ground, spotted three vehicles moving down a dirt road. The crew wanted to fire on the vehicles and due to impatience it attacked. After the attack, subsequent reports revealed all 23 persons killed were civilians mistakenly construed as enemies. Allinson demonstrates how the necropolitical logic of the programme led US operators to ascribe guilt and treachery on to all of the people under their gaze – even children – rendering them all enemies and putting them to death.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Marina Espinoza
Marina Espinoza is a PhD student at the University of Brighton. Her research focuses on applying philosophical and ethical theory to current US social and political issues.