Smile or Die

How does technology transform our humanity when killing becomes as simple as pushing a button? In Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, activist Medea Benjamin confronts this sobering question, arguing that drones have revolutionized how—and how easily—nations wage war. She contends that by removing human risk and emotional engagement from combat, drones make killing efficient, detached, and frighteningly routine. Benjamin warns that this ease erodes empathy, accountability, and democratic oversight, creating a world where lethal decisions occur without public debate or moral reflection.

Benjamin’s central claim is clear: drones are seductive precisely because they promise precision and safety, yet they’re reshaping warfare into a detached enterprise that kills civilians, undermines law, and fuels global resentment. The book isn’t only about technology—it’s a moral and political critique of how the United States uses its power. against suspects across borders without trial, oversight, or consequence. Through vivid testimonies, legal analysis, and the voices of activists and victims, Benjamin paints a portrait of war that is distant yet omnipresent—a “death from above” that transforms the skies into fields of fear.

A New Battlefield Without Borders

At the heart of the book lies the notion that drones expand war zones indefinitely. Unlike traditional combat, drone warfare ignores borders, treaties, and declarations. Benjamin highlights the CIA’s covert assassination campaigns in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia—actions justified as “self-defense” despite targeting individuals far removed from any battlefield. The operators sit safely in Nevada or Virginia, thousands of miles from the carnage they cause. This contrast, she argues, makes war invisible for those who wage it and unbearably intimate for those who live beneath it. Even the constant buzzing of drones overhead has become a source of dread for civilians, a reminder that death can strike at any moment.

Technology’s Illusion of Precision

Benjamin dismantles the illusion that drones are surgical tools of justice. While official rhetoric frames them as instruments of precision, firsthand accounts reveal devastating mistakes—families obliterated when missiles hit wedding parties or those mistaken for militants. She recounts the story of Roya, a young Afghan girl who lost her entire family to a U.S. strike that presumed her home was a Taliban compound, and of Karim Khan in Pakistan, a teacher who lost his brother and son to a “targeted” attack. These tragedies underline Benjamin’s thesis that technological distancing doesn’t prevent error—it magnifies indifference.

Legal and Moral Erosion

Benjamin emphasizes the collapse of legal boundaries under drone policy. She explores court decisions that allow presidents to order killings of U.S. citizens like Anwar al-Awlaki without due process, effectively granting the executive branch unilateral power to execute. This, she says, violates both domestic constitutional protections and international humanitarian law. Citing experts such as UN rapporteur Philip Alston and law professor Mary Ellen O’Connell, Benjamin situates drones within a disturbing pattern of normalized illegality—where the language of “national security” eclipses the rule of law.

Resistance from Below

Despite official secrecy, Benjamin dedicates large portions of the book to those pushing back. She chronicles grassroots movements—the Creech 14 and Hancock 38, activists arrested for nonviolent protests at drone bases, and international networks such as Drone Wars UK and Voices for Creative Nonviolence. These groups use theater, art, and civil disobedience to expose what Benjamin calls “remote-control terror.” Their bravery contrasts with the anonymity of drone pilots, whose daily routine oscillates between lethal missions and suburban normalcy—a psychological dissonance explored through stories of burnout and post-traumatic stress among operators.

Why It Matters to You

Benjamin’s urgency lies in connecting global violence with personal responsibility. If drones embody modern detachment, she suggests, they confront each of us with a moral choice: whether to accept a world where state assassination becomes invisible and normalized. Drawing parallels to anti-nuclear efforts and movements that banned landmines, she calls on citizens to reclaim accountability and to demand transparency, diplomacy, and empathy. The book ultimately asks you to imagine what kind of world emerges when killing no longer requires courage or conscience—and whether, in the age of drones, we risk losing both.

Benjamin traces the explosive growth of the drone industry and how profit has quietly replaced ethics as the central driver of warfare. She describes how firms like General Atomics, AeroVironment, Raytheon, and Boeing have built fortunes by making killing efficient, remote, and marketable, turning drones into the Department of Defense’s favorite toy of modern war. By 2011, the Pentagon was spending billions on unmanned systems, even amid budget crises, and global drone spending was predicted to exceed $94 billion in a decade.

From Garage Inventors to Global Merchants of Death

The story begins with Abraham Karem, an Israeli engineer who built early prototypes in his California garage. His Albatross evolved into the Predator, later modified by the CIA with missile capabilities. What started as a surveillance project became a cornerstone of American assassinations. General Atomics, buying Karem’s design, built a business empire supplying hundreds of Predators and Reapers across conflict zones.

Lobbying and Political Capture

Benjamin exposes how political lobbying entrenched the industry. CEOs funded congressional junkets and cultivated defense committees, ensuring lucrative contracts. The military’s praise of drones as cheaper alternatives concealed hidden costs: each flight hour required armies of analysts, technicians, and pilots, often outsourced to private contractors. The result—a revolving door between policy-makers and manufacturers—turned war into permanent business.

A Global Market of Militarization

The U.S. isn’t alone. Israel became the world’s leading exporter, selling “battle tested” drones to nations like Russia, India, and Turkey. China and Iran developed their own fleets, and the UK adapted Israel’s Hermes into its Watchkeeper model. Benjamin warns of an impending arms race—a world where surveillance and killing devices proliferate unchecked, reaching autocratic regimes and non-state actors alike. The “democratization” of drone warfare means every government, and possibly militants, could soon enjoy the same power America wields from afar.

From Surveillance to Civilian Spaces

Benjamin also spotlights the creeping domestic expansion: Department of Homeland Security and local police acquiring drones for border patrols and law enforcement. Under the guise of safety, privacy boundaries blur. She cites the rise of Predator patrols along the U.S.-Mexico border and cities like Miami experimenting with drone programs. As the technology grows omnipresent, Benjamin concludes, the line between battlefield and homeland dissolves—surveillance becoming the new normal, and dissent increasingly within sight of machines built for war.

Benjamin urges readers to confront how drones render warfare invisible to the public eye. When no soldiers die and no images of suffering reach our screens, war fades from conscience. Using stories from Pakistan’s tribal regions, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia, she turns statistics into human narratives: the Khan family wiped out in their sleep, the young Roya wandering among rubble, and Karim Khan burying his brother and son after a mistaken strike labeled “successful.”

The Cost of Detachment

Benjamin notes how the rhetoric of precision replaces empathy. Officials call strikes “clean” and “businesslike.” Former CIA counsel John Rizzo described watching executions as “very businesslike,” revealing an alarming moral numbness. Even so-called accurate Hellfire missiles have killed hundreds of noncombatants, with the ACLU confirming that the U.S. doesn’t record civilian casualties at all. This normalization, Benjamin argues, transforms extrajudicial murder into standard policy.

A Legalized System of Domestic Execution

She highlights how drone warfare marks a legal and ethical breakdown. Courts validated executive assassinations of U.S. citizens without trial, giving presidents unchecked authority. Legal rhetoric redefines due process as “due deliberation.” Benjamin quotes attorney Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU: if the court’s ruling stands, any president could kill any American anywhere, based solely on internal judgment—a concept inconsistent with constitutional democracy.

The Psychological Toll on Pilots

The invisibility of victim suffering contrasts sharply with the psychic burden of drone operators. Benjamin recounts soldiers commuting from air-conditioned bases to soccer practice after directing lethal strikes. Some develop post-traumatic stress despite never leaving Nevada. Compartmentalization and moral exhaustion turn “video game war” into a daily trauma. Pilots describe watching people live ordinary lives for days, then pressing a button to kill them. Such detachment, she warns, corrodes the very notion of empathy—and ultimately humanity itself.

Benjamin devotes a major section to dismantling the legal myth that drone strikes constitute legitimate self-defense. Governments claim preemptive rights to kill terrorists before attacks occur, but this reasoning, she shows, violates the principles of imminence and necessity. Drones operate far from active battlefields—and usually on the territories of allies such as Pakistan or Yemen—without formal war declarations or judicial oversight.

Legal Smoke Screens

She explains how the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) became a blanket justification for global assassinations. Harold Koh’s 2010 defense of “lethal operations” expanded this logic internationally. Benjamin cites UN rapporteur Philip Alston, who condemned such practice as nearly always illegal outside combat zones. Together, these cases reveal how legal language morphs into bureaucratic cover for killing without accountability.

When Consent Isn’t Legal

Some defenders argue that host governments gave permission. Benjamin rebuts this with leaked cables: Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh privately promised to claim drone strikes as domestic acts, while Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani admitted he’d “protest publicly and ignore it.” She quotes Professor O’Connell’s assertion that governments cannot waive the rights of their citizens—they cannot consent to unlawful killings.

Setting a Dangerous Precedent

Benjamin warns of future reciprocity: if America can unilaterally kill abroad, others will follow. China might target dissidents in New York; Russia could justify hits in London. The precedent dissolves the very concept of sovereignty. By normalizing extrajudicial killing as “counterterrorism,” Benjamin argues, the U.S. risks eroding the global moral framework painstakingly built after WWII—and replaces it with a world governed by fear and impunity.

Benjamin examines the moral desensitization caused by drone warfare, arguing that it redefines killing as a sterile act free of conscience. Drawing from real testimonies, she contrasts public indifference with the terror experienced by those under constant surveillance. For civilians in Pakistan or Gaza, the buzz of drones overhead is a reminder of imminent death; they cannot know when missiles will fall. For Americans, drones symbolize efficiency and safety—a convenient moral inversion.

The Moral Cost of Convenience

Benjamin recounts conversations with State Department officials who described drones as “precise and humane.” They argued drones reduce risk to soldiers and avoid collateral damage. She counters with evidence that easy killing breeds complacency: if no Americans die, war feels harmless. The 83% public approval for drone use in a 2012 poll reflects this passive acceptance, not moral reasoning.

Religion and Ethics

Religious thinkers, Benjamin notes, are among the few calling for reflection. The Christian Century argued that just war principles require risking one’s soldiers rather than targeting civilians. Paul Zahl wrote that drones “emasculate the enemy,” removing dignity and inviting endless revenge. When killing becomes faceless, compassion dies—echoing philosopher Peter Singer’s warning that technology lowers the cost of war but also our moral threshold.

Machines Without Conscience

The final moral frontier, Benjamin warns, is automation. Future drones may kill autonomously, deciding targets without human input. Engineers propose “ethical governors” to ensure compliance, but ethicists like Noel Sharkey argue that robots lack judgment. Without empathy or accountability, autonomous drones could treat humans as mere “bugsplat”—a military slang for victims rendered as digital dots. Benjamin foresees a chilling world where law, empathy, and humanity are coded out of existence—and reminds you that silence helps build that world.

Benjamin dedicates substantial attention to the activists resisting drone warfare worldwide. Their actions, often symbolic yet courageous, illustrate how conscience fights back against mechanized murder. These movements—religious, secular, and international—echo earlier campaigns against landmines and nuclear tests, combining protest, education, and litigation.

From Creech to Hancock: Civil Disobedience at Home

At Creech Air Force Base, the “Creech 14” trespassed on holy ground of drone operations. Arrested for peaceful protest, their trial invoked the Nuremberg principles: citizens have a duty to resist crimes against humanity. Similarly, the “Hancock 38” staged a dramatic “die-in” in New York, representing civilians killed in strikes. Judges admitted protesters had achieved their aim—forcing public attention on hidden wars.

Faith and Moral Witness

Religious activists, many from Catholic Worker communities, frame resistance as sacred duty. Priests, nuns, and theologians echo the Star Trek quote Benjamin cites: humanity must choose not to kill today. Their vigils outside drone bases and manufacturers—often met with jail time—symbolize spiritual defiance against state violence.

Global Networks and Legal Challenges

European and Asian activists joined the movement, opposing their countries’ complicity. In the UK, Drone Wars UK and Fellowship of Reconciliation demand transparency on civilian casualties. In Sweden, Women for Peace protest military training with Israeli UAVs. Legal groups like Reprieve and the ACLU bring lawsuits challenging extrajudicial assassinations and secrecy. Though courts often dismiss these cases, each filing chips away at impunity.

Building Toward a Treaty

Benjamin connects these efforts to historic victories like the Mine Ban Treaty. She envisions future bans on autonomous weapons—echoed by Nobel laureate Jody Williams, who warns drones are harder to confront because they’re profitable. Still, Benjamin believes alliances of activists, academics, and citizens can stigmatize robotic killing as humanity once rejected landmines. For readers, she offers an invitation: protest, educate, refuse silence. Moral progress, she insists, begins with visible dissent.

Benjamin’s conclusion situates drone warfare within a broader decline of diplomacy and civic engagement. She laments that politics now equates security with surveillance and assassination. Quotes from officials like Leon Panetta, calling drones “the only game in town,” reveal how killing supplants conversation. Diplomacy has been marginalized; embassies host armed guards, and even the State Department operates drones. The result: negotiation replaced by remote execution.

The Illusion of Safety

Benjamin compares defense spending on counterterrorism—$20 million per terrorist per year—with public apathy toward domestic dangers like crime or accidents. The imbalance fosters fear, sustaining the military-industrial complex. Citizens seldom see drone victims, as media prioritize celebrity news over foreign suffering. She asks readers to imagine if foreign drones bombed Florida: outrage would be universal. So why tolerate it abroad?

Normalizing a Technological Empire

Benjamin emphasizes how the lack of casualties on the U.S. side reinforces militarism. Drones let presidents wage secret wars without political cost or public protest. She likens this “war without body bags” to the erosion of democracy itself—citizens no longer consent; they’re simply uninformed. Corporations, meanwhile, dominate Congress through the Unmanned Systems Caucus, ensuring that “robots have representation,” as she sardonically notes.

Imagining a Human Alternative

Benjamin doesn’t end in despair. She acknowledges drones’ potential for humanitarian use—disaster rescue, wildlife monitoring—but insists we must draw ethical boundaries. Her final call is civic and moral: reclaim democracy by demanding transparent limits, citizen oversight, and peace through dialogue rather than domination. The future of drones, Benjamin warns, will determine the future of freedom, privacy, and compassion itself. Whether we ground them or not will define what it means to be human in an age of mechanical death.