Former Air Force Drone Operator Speaks Out Against US Atrocities
February 8, 2020 in News by RBN Staff
source: original.antiwar.com
A former Air Force drone operator-turned-whistleblower is once again speaking out against the atrocities he committed while serving in a military he describes as “worse than the Nazis.”
Brandon Bryant was a sensor operator of USAF unmanned aerial drones from 2006 to 2011. His job was targeted killing – remotely firing missiles at targets 7,000 miles (11,000 km) away from an air-conditioned command center near Las Vegas, Nevada. During his Air Force tenure, Bryant says his squadron engaged 1,626 targets, including women and children. He estimates that he is personally responsible for the deaths of 13 people.
Bryant told Britain’s Independent that he reached his breaking point after accidentally killing a child in Afghanistan. He had just fired a Hellfire missile at a building containing an enemy target when he saw a child leave the building. Bryant reported the incident to his superiors. “It was a fucking dog,” he was told. “Drop it.” But he couldn’t drop it. “When the missile struck, I knew in my soul I had become a murderer,” he said.
Earlier, after his first kill, other airmen in his squadron congratulated Bryant on “popping his cherry.” He told Roots Action Network in 2017 that drone operators were told their job was “killing people and breaking things.” This “went against everything that I had ever learned about honor and justice and training,” he said. Bryant said his superiors punished and mocked him to keep him in line. He called the US military “worse than the Nazis” because “we should know better.”
