Drone

‘We don’t need “Top Gun” pilots. We need “Revenge of the Nerds”.’ That’s an expert talking about the computer-game skills many US Air Force pilots are required to have nowadays. These guys spend their days in windowless rooms in Nevada, remote-controlling pilotless aircraft that drop missiles on targets thousands of miles away.
This doc is a beginner’s guide to the defining weapon in the ‘war on terror’.

The creator of the drone tells us that he invented it to help fishermen find tuna, but he seems happy as a clam with the military contracts rolling in. Less relaxed is former drone operator Brandon Bryant, suffering PTSD and coming to terms with killing men, women and possibly a child. The American government likes drones because they’re cheap and don’t put troops on the ground. Opponents argue that this war-by-computer-game is a recruitment tool for al-Qaeda. Victims in Pakistan, stunned and dazed, wonder how so-called civilised countries can drop bombs out of the sky that blow up children.