We Kill Because We Can: From Soldiering to Assassination in the Drone Age

By: Laurie Calhoun

Narrated by: Laurie Calhoun

"Last resort has become first resort. Courage has become cowardice. Black ops have become standard operating procedure. An intelligence agency is now a killing machine. Self-defense has become naked aggression. Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt has become possible future potential for guilt. Voices of dissent have been irrevocably silenced. Patriots have been replaced by mercenaries. Human rights have been eclipsed by concern with the protection of soldiers’ lives. The US war on terrorism has been carried out using terrorist tactics, with formal military states emulating asymmetrical factional killers. Wars of necessity have been supplanted by ever-proliferating wars of choice."

In We Kill Because We Can: From Soldiering to Assassination in the Drone Age, Laurie Calhoun examines the 21st-century practice of remote-control killing of suspects located in third-world countries and challenges listeners to reflect upon the long-range implications - moral, political, psychological, and cultural - of this new form of "warfare". Through the use of provocative analogies and examples, We Kill Because We Can clarifies and criticizes targeted killing as incompatible with the values and principles of modern Western democratic societies.

Table of contents:

Foreword to the Paperback edition (2016)
Preface
Introduction

Part I: Find
Chapter 1: Drone Nation
Chapter 2: From Black-Ops to Standard Operating Procedure
Chapter 3: The Logic of Targeted Killing
Chapter 4: Lethal Creep

Part II: Fix
Chapter 5: Strike First, Suppress Questions Later
Chapter 6: The New Banality of Killing
Chapter 7: The Operators
Chapter 8: From Conscience to Oblivion

Part III: Finish
Chapter 9: Death and Politics
Chapter 10: Death and Taxes
Chapter 11: The Death of Military Virtue
Chapter 12: Tyrants Are as Tyrants Do

Conclusion
Postface
Appendix: Drone Killing and Just War Theory Index

Note: An audiobook supplement containing all notes and reference sources is provided in PDF format.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2015, 2016 Laurie Calhoun (P)2019 Laurie Calhoun