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"Eye in the Sky" raises troubling questions

Friday, April 1, 2016 - 05:00 By Joan Hennessy

Helen Mirren is a determined military officer in "Eye in the Sky."

Image: Bleecker Street films.

Top brass call the shots not from the battlefield but from a conference room. Pilots sit in trailers on one continent and operate unmanned aircraft in another.

    But moral and ethical dilemmas surround the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) -- drones -- and questions about high-tech warfare form the center of a riveting movie, Eye in the Sky.
    With a thoroughly convincing cast led by Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman, the story follows characters through what begins as an attempt to capture terrorists in Kenya and escalates to a drone strike in an impoverished and heavily populated area. The movie would be worth seeing simply for Rickman's final, flawless performance (he died in January), or to watch Mirren at the top of her game. But it is also a must-see for anyone who has thought about the impact of modern warfare.
     The film depicts politicians, policymakers and military personnel as they make life-and-death decisions while pursuing terrorists halfway across the globe. Here are a few of the issues brought forward, along with clips from the movie. (Warning: Spoilers!)

1. How can we rationalize the use of drone strikes, knowing that they create conditions of perpetual insecurity, and possibly more terrorists, in struggling third world countries?

Early in the film, U.S. airmen operating surveillance equipment notice a girl playing with a homemade Hula Hoop. Nearby, the girl’s father is working in a repair business; her mother bakes bread. To be sure, this is a neighborhood inhabited by armed extremists. It is fundamentally insecure. But it is also a busy place in which people are going about their lives. A drone strike will kill terrorists but it will also devastate the lives of innocent bystanders, leaving them angry and confused. The trailer (immediately below), gives a sense of this debate, as military planners and politicians, knowing a terrorist attack is imminent, weigh the consequences of a drone strike.

2. Should military leaders or politicians make the final decision to drop a bomb on a residential area?

In the story, the attack is led by British military with politicians observing from a conference room. The drones are operated by Americans. Mirren's character, Col. Katherine Powell, who knows the terrorists are actively planning an attack, wants to launch a drone strike. In this clip, another officer tells Mirren to "refer up" -- get permission from higher ups -- for a final decision before launching the attack.

3. Drone strikes allow superpowers to wage remote-control warfare that does not directly put service members at immediate risk. In the movie, elected officials worry that they will be held accountable. But, in reality, will they? (At times, these strikes get only a passing mention in the news.)

In the film, the decision to bomb the house falls hardest on the youthful shoulders of the two U.S. airmen operating the drone. But first, Rickman's character, Lt. Gen. Frank Benson, must convince politicians to make a decision they know could come back to haunt them. In this clip (below) Rickman and Mirren discuss killing the terrorists as opposed to capturing them.

4. Under what conditions is it acceptable to launch a drone strike, particularly when these weapons threaten noncombatants?

Much of the dramatic action in the film revolves around this question. The same young girl spotted playing with a hoop is later seen selling bread on a table just outside the house military planners wish to bomb. While U.S. airmen operating the drone are reluctant (indeed, they effectively stall the action), American politicians are certain that the strike is warranted. British politicians, watching from a situation room in London, are more hesitant and debate the ramifications: If a drone strike kills this little girl, they will lose the propaganda war but potentially save the lives of an estimated 80 people who could be killed during the suicide attack. Mirren’s character, who has been tracking one of the terrorists for years, is anxious to put a Hellfire missile through the roof. In the final clip below, she discusses the collateral damage estimation (CDE) -- a calculation of how many people around the blast could be killed.

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