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Speaker 1

00:00

-♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ Drones. They're the third most annoying thing in the sky after mosquitoes and plastic bags caught in the breeze. They are not gorgeous, weird kid from American Beauty. They're trash, and they kill sea turtles.

Speaker 1

00:16

You got turtle blood on your hands. But all of a sudden, drones are everywhere. We even use them to shoot romantic wedding videos. And what could possibly go wrong with that?

Speaker 1

00:31

-♪♪ -♪♪ He's fine. He's fine. He's probably fine. I don't know if he's fine.

Speaker 1

00:38

It's funny whether he's fine or not. But look, overseas, drones are a slightly more serious matter. For instance, this week, we reportedly launched deadly drone strikes in both Waziristan and Yemen. You probably didn't hear about them on the news unless you were watching this.

Speaker 2

00:55

The U.S. Has carried out another drone attack in Pakistan's rest of tribal areas, killing at least 8 people.

Speaker 1

01:02

That's the only footage reporting either strike that we could find, and it's from the Iranian government's English language TV station. That channel is buried deep in your cable package. I think it's actually somewhere between C-Span Jr.

Speaker 1

01:16

And Can, the Kirstie Alley Network. But there is... There is something strange about the fact that we launched deadly drone strikes in 2 sovereign nations that almost no 1 here heard about. But then again, Why would it make the news?

Speaker 1

01:31

We use drones all the time. Hard numbers are very difficult to come by for reasons that we'll get into, but by 1 estimate, during the Obama administration, we've launched 8 times the number of drone strikes than we did under his predecessor. And while they've declined a bit recently, drone strikes will be as much a characteristic of the Obama presidency as Obamacare or receiving racist email forwards from distant relatives. And it's easy to see why drones are so popular.

Speaker 1

02:00

They cost less than manned planes and they kill a lot of terrorists. Their slogan should really be, appealingly cheap and incredibly deadly, but unfortunately, that's already been taken by Hardee's. And... And...

Speaker 1

02:12

And they're... And they're not just popular with the White House. Surveys consistently show a majority of Americans approve of our use of drone strikes to fight extremists abroad. In fact, we're so comfortable with them, nobody blinked an eye when the president said this.

Speaker 2

02:29

The Jonas Brothers are here.

Speaker 1

02:31

--Yeah! --Yeah!

Speaker 2

02:33

They're out there somewhere. Sasha and Malia are huge fans. But, boys don't get any ideas.

Speaker 2

02:42

I have 2 words for you. Predator drones. -...you will never see it coming. -...you will never see it coming.

Speaker 1

02:51

You'll lie there, your aortas riddled with shrapnel fired from the sky, gurgling your last blood-soaked breaths. It's funny, because it's possible I could do that. That's something I could do.

Speaker 1

03:03

But while our drone program is widely accepted, we really know relatively little about it. We spent a lot of time this week trying to find some concrete answers to basic questions, and it's surprisingly difficult. For instance, how do we decide when to use a drone strike? Now, on the surface, the Obama administration's answer seems straightforward.

Speaker 3

03:23

We only take these kinds of actions when, there's an imminent threat, when capture is not feasible, and when we are confident that we're doing so in a way that's consistent with federal and international law.

Speaker 1

03:35

Okay, that sounds reassuring until you look closer at it. Because our rules for drone strikes are a little like Harvey Keitel's balls. We've all seen them in the piano, bad lieutenant, or on Snapchat.

Speaker 1

03:48

And from a distance, you think, well, I understand the contours of those. But if you were to really examine them, you'd discover that they're actually lost in a haze of fuzziness and gray areas. Much like The rules for our drone strikes. As Eric Holder just said, drone strikes are justified if you can show an imminent threat.

Speaker 1

04:07

Now, that sounds clear. There's not much of

Speaker 4

04:09

a linguistic loophole there, unless you make 1. NBC News has obtained this confidential, 16-page Justice Department memo. It says an imminent threat does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S.

Speaker 4

04:24

Persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.

Speaker 1

04:29

What? But an imminent threat does have to take place in the immediate future, because that's what the f-ing word imminent means. When someone says, I'm going to have a baby imminently, it doesn't mean I may or may not have a baby at some point in the future, it means, get your f-ing car keys, my water just broke. -...

Speaker 1

04:47

And it turns out imminent isn't the only word with a surprisingly fluid definition when it comes to drone strikes. What defines a civilian when it comes to civilian casualties has also allegedly been open to interpretation.

Speaker 5

05:01

There's also been some dispute over the way civilian casualties are counted. The CIA often counts able-bodied males, military-age males who are killed in strikes as militants unless they have concrete evidence to, sort of prove them innocent.

Speaker 1

05:20

Hold on. If it's assumed you're with the terrorists, if you're in the same vicinity and around the same age as them, then by that standard, as a British man in my 30s, whenever I go home to London, I'm a member of Coldplay. And...

Speaker 1

05:34

That's offensive to me. That's offensive. I've not been in that band for years. We consciously uncoupled a long time ago.

Speaker 1

05:43

Perhaps the most incredible thing about our drone program, which again, a majority of us support, is not how little we know about who the government is killing, but how little they themselves seem to know.

Speaker 6

05:55

NBC News has examined classified documents detailing 114 drone strikes. They also reveal what U.S. Officials don't know, like how many killed.

Speaker 6

06:06

Between 7 and 10 in 1 strike, 20 to 22 in another. It suggests U.S. Officials don't always know exactly how many or who they're killing.

Speaker 1

06:16

That is a little disturbing. Because the question, how many people have you killed in drone strikes, is not 1 of those questions where it's okay to say, I don't know. It's not like asking someone, who was the voice of Disney's Aladdin, or what are Skittles made from?

Speaker 1

06:30

It's different. It's different than that. And the crazy thing is, it has literally always been like this. The very first CIA drone strike back in 2002 killed 3 men, reportedly because they thought 1 of them might have been Bin Laden, in part, and this is true, due to his height.

Speaker 1

06:48

And under that rationale, it's kind of remarkable that we didn't take out Jeff Goldblum at some point over the years. Now, reports later indicated the victim was actually an innocent man who was collecting scrap metal. And look how the Pentagon immediately set the template for every discussion we've had about drone strikes since.

Speaker 2

07:07

You said you don't know who was killed in this attack, whether it's civilians, Taliban or... I'm sorry. We don't know exactly who it was.

Speaker 5

07:14

We don't know the identities of the individuals involved.

Speaker 2

07:17

But you're convinced they're Taliban?

Speaker 5

07:19

We're convinced that,

Speaker 7

07:22

We're convinced it was an appropriate target. Based on

Speaker 2

07:25

the observation, based on the information, that

Speaker 7

07:26

it was an appropriate target. We do

Speaker 2

07:28

not know yet exactly who it was.

Speaker 1

07:31

It's never a good idea to make a major decision about someone when you can't even say exactly who they are. Hey, guys, I got married last night. Oh, really?

Speaker 1

07:40

Who is he? I don't know exactly at this time, but I'm convinced he's an appropriate husband based on his height. And yet, we have consistently let the government get away with answers like that. Because drone strikes are 1 of those things that it's really convenient not to think about that much.

Speaker 1

07:59

Like the daily life of a circus elephant, or the fact that Beck is a Scientologist. You really don't want people reminding you about those kind of things. But if you happen to live underneath drones, not thinking about them is not an option. Having drones hovering above you is bound to mess with your head.

Speaker 1

08:17

Especially because you might not even be able to see them.

Speaker 8

08:20

Even though I know there's a predator directly overhead, I still can't hear a thing. And if you look up to the exact spot where we're being told the predator is flying right now, there's nothing but clouds and blue sky.

Speaker 1

08:33

Congratulations, everyone. We did it. We managed to make 1 of the last remaining universal symbols of pleasantness, blue sky, completely f-cking terrifying.

Speaker 1

08:43

We did it! Woo! -♪ Woo! Woo!

Speaker 1

08:46

Woo! ♪ -And look... While we may not spend much time thinking about our drone strikes here, in countries like Pakistan, where they actually happen, they have to deal with them so much, there are even weird satirical cartoons featuring an American drone and his friend, a dengue fever carrying mosquito.

Speaker 2

09:06

Okay, forget about all this. Tell me, what do you think of Pakistan? What do I think?

Speaker 2

09:11

I have invited the whole family here. So, has the government done anything against you? They have only given statements so far.

Speaker 1

09:17

I have

Speaker 2

09:18

also been hearing this for many years. That's why we are having fun in Pakistan. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Speaker 1

09:24

To be fair, that would be a lot funnier if you spoke Urdu and lived in constant fear of being murdered by a drone. If you did, that's basically who's on first. In fact, drone strikes are such a routine feature of life in Pakistan.

Speaker 1

09:39

This is how news networks present statistics about them.

Speaker 9

09:42

-...Pakistani... ...41% of people agreed with this opinion and said that America...

Speaker 1

09:49

Drones have their own graphics package. You do not invest in top quality graphics like those unless you know you're gonna get a lot of use out of them. It's like Las Vegas local news having white tiger mauling graphics.

Speaker 1

10:02

They're going to get their money's worth. But to really understand the psychological impact of living underneath drones, listen to this Yemeni man. A man who loves America, addressing Congress last year, only a week after his village was struck by a drone.

Speaker 9

10:17

I spent a year living with an American family and attended an American high school. That was 1 of the best years of my life. The friendships and values I experienced and described to the villagers helped them understand the America that I know and that I love.

Speaker 9

10:33

Now, however, when they think of America, they think of the terror they feel from the drones that hover over their heads, ready to fire missiles at any time. The drone strikes are the face of America to many Yemenis.

Speaker 1

10:49

And that kind of makes sense. Because think about it this way, if there were Italian armed drones hanging over your head right now, it would probably affect the way you think about Italy. In word association, your first answer for Italy would not be lasagna, it would be specter of imminent death, or, more likely, specter of the imminent death, huh?

Speaker 1

11:07

--FOLLOWED BY LAUGHTER --Followed by lasagna. Look... If you grow up underneath drones, it's going to affect the way you see the world. Listen to this 13-year-old Pakistani boy whose grandmother was killed in a drone strike.

Speaker 2

11:22

I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer gray skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are gray.

Speaker 2

11:30

And for a short period of time, the mental tension and fear eases.

Speaker 1

11:35

Look, it is completely natural for us not to want to think about the consequences of our drone program. But when children from other countries are telling us that we've made them fear the sky, it might be time to ask some hard questions. The problem is, after a week of looking at this, it seems there are shockingly few available answers.

Speaker 1

11:53

In fact, the best summation we could find of the framework we use to authorize and justify drone strikes is from this former Defense Department advisor.

Speaker 10

12:02

Right now we have the executive branch making a claim that it has the right to kill anyone, anywhere on Earth, at any time, for secret reasons based on secret evidence in a secret process undertaken by unidentified officials. That frightens me.

Speaker 1

12:18

Yeah. It probably does frighten you, because what you just described sounds fucking terrifying. And look, any counter-terrorism effort will always require an element of secrecy. But with our drone program, not only do we not know who we've killed, the legal guidelines have loopholes large enough to drive a flying death robot through.

Speaker 1

12:38

And after a week spent trying to comprehend the rationales, legality, and broader consequences of our drone policy, I am starting to understand how this guy feels. -♪ 00000... -♪ Aw! -♪ Aw, 000000000...

Speaker 1

12:52

Exactly.