Friday, April 14, 2017

Scahill, Jeremy (2016): The Assassination Complex - Inside the Government’s Secret Drone Warfare Program

What is it about?

The book describes how the U.S. government employs so-called drones, or unmanned combat aerial vehicles, in various countries to eliminate - kill - people deemed dangerous to the USA or, quite vaguely, its interests.

Instead of a start-to-finish narrative, the book is a compilation of articles written by different authors, some of whom remain anonymous.

Apparently quite a bit of the contents of the book is based on leaked government/military documents, including some released to the public by Wikileaks.

Was it good?

The book is highly fascinating. The book quite naturally describes how the drones are technically used (e.g. how cellular telephone identities, signals and location data is highly important for target identification and missile guidance; how a satellite relay station in Germany is evidently a crucial data transmission link between the drones in Africa and the Middle East and their operators in mainland USA).

However, in addition the book includes quite illuminating discussions about the legal status of and issues involved in using drones in areas which are not designated war zones, and their use to basically assassin people without any legal process (e.g., a president's order suffices).

The main take-away for me?

The main take-away for me was a greatly heightened understanding of how drones are being used in a technical sense and an appreciation of all the questions, problems, gray areas (and black) and so on which essentially remain unresolved and to a degree undiscussed by the public at large.

Who should read the book?

I am quite confident that anyone with any interest in international or U.S. politics should read the book. Moreover, the book is bound to make one think also more broadly about how efficiently and effectively people - we - can be monitored through the the technology we use every day.

The book on Amazon.com: The Assassination Complex

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