Far away from the war zones in the Middle East, analysts from a national guard intelligence reconnaissance surveillance group sit in Kansas and watch live drone surveillance video coming in. These people don’t fly drones or fire the missiles. But during combat, the analysts become part of a “kill chain” — analyzing live drone video and communicating what they see to jet fighter pilots, operators of armed Predator and Reaper drones, and ground troops. The work they do, according to them, helps kill terrorists, including those from ISIS. The air base this group works at is surrounded by flat cow pastures and soybean fields in the middle of America. The work is top secret and they say they see things in those drone images that no one wants to see: terrorists beheading civilians or civilians dying accidentally in missions that the Kansas team helped coordinate. According to The Guardian, drone war critics describe it as depersonalized killing, done with unknown collateral costs. Airwars.org says that 2017 was the “worst year for civilians in the fight against ISIS.” But the Kansas airmen say they save civilians and soldiers. They “fight the terrorists who want to come here.”
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