The farther we are from the target the better? Not necessarily.

When a movie begins with a girl playing with a hula-hoop that her dad fashioned for her, can you guess that things are not likely to go well for said girl? Eye in the Sky, an intense re-creation of a drone attack on a group of terrorists holed up in a small house near Nairobi, is a great examination of the ambiguities and moral dilemmas of contemporary warfare. In this case, the authorities have to decide whether to attack the building and wipe out several terrorists who seemingly are about to don suicide vests and explode in a local, crowded market - even though attacking the terrorists will create "collateral damage," that is, the injury of death of nearby, innocent civilians. The incident becomes personal and emotional (for us) as we focus on young Kenyon girl who is selling goods from a stand near the house that will be attacked: Should they risk killing this girl? If put off the mission to spare this child, hundreds may be killed by the terrorists. We see the decision played out in several venues, as this drone attack involves a team of Kenyan soldiers, two Kenyans who are apparently civilians and are experts in the use of drones, a team of English soldiers in a war room near London (led by the ubiquitous Helen Mirren), a British Cabinet meeting (the late Alan Rickman represents the military), a team of American soldiers in (I think) Nevada, two American drone "pilots" (Aaron Paul is one), and someone in Hawaii - and honestly I have no idea what she was doing. (You can guess who's the most vulnerable and expendable in this plan.) It's never clear to me why so many are involved or why an American drone pilot would take direct orders from the UK military  - and in fact the many locations make the move too diffuse and confusing - it would have been more powerful to focus on a small group intensely involved (and more typical as well of this type of movie, an attack on the ground managed from afar). The catch in this film is the use of drones, and part of the strength is that it helps us understand how these "pilots" suffer trauma and guilt - they can see so closely and vividly their targets and the ruins that their bombing creates. It sort of blows apart the myth that drone attacks are any better or more humane or even more safe (for the pilot) than attacks from fighter jets and bombers. We have always had the sense that the farther removed our soldiers are from the target, the better (for us). Not necessarily, however.