Some in the U.S. military would like to begin using drones that launch missiles without any human involvement, but in both moral and propaganda terms we’re already there: the orders to fire are mindlessly obeyed (here’s a video of former drone “pilot” Brandon Bryant recounting having killed a child), and when the military is compelled to “investigate” itself, as with the strike on Kabul, it concludes that no human being is to blame. The Pentagon made false claims about the Kabul strike — even calling it “righteous” — until after the New York Times report, then “investigated” itself and found everyone involved blameless. We’re so far removed from transparent self-governance, that the possibility of making the drone videos public and allowing us to do our own “investigations” of them isn’t even raised.

Thus far, 113,000 people have signed this petition:

“We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, urge

• the United Nations Secretary General to investigate the concerns of Navi Pillay, the U.N.’s top human rights official, that drone attacks violate international law — and to ultimately pursue sanctions against nations using, possessing, or manufacturing weaponized drones;
• the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to investigate grounds for the criminal prosecution of those responsible for drone attacks;
• the U.S. Secretary of State, and the ambassadors to the United States from the nations of the world, to support a treaty forbidding the possession or use of weaponized drones;
• President Joe Biden to abandon the use of weaponized drones, and to abandon the ‘kill list’ program regardless of the technology employed;
• the Majority and Minority Leaders of the U.S. House and Senate, to ban the use or sale of weaponized drones;
• the governments of each of our nations around the world, to ban the use or sale of weaponized drones.”