Our absolutized aversion to dealing with any kind of tragedy imposed from without has truly dark applications. It is precisely this existential-dread level of ass-covering and risk-management that informs the American security state’s adoption of the drone “signature strike,” in which men and perhaps some bystanders near are killed by drone attack even if we have no idea who they are. Their “pattern of life” in Yemen is just deemed too risky for their existence to be endured by the American military. Fire away.
—Michael Brendan Dougherty
He tried to call his cousin
Now everybody’s dead
American murder bird
Flying overhead
Such a lovely wedding
Did you give your mom a hug
Before the murder bird
Squished you like a bug?
The pattern of your life
Gave us cause to worry
Dispatching murder birds
Who needs judge and jury?
Courageous first-responders
Are likely to get zapped
Ignore the murder bird
And feel its double tap
by Richard W. Bray
Tags: drone warfare, drones, living under drones, Michael Brendan Dougherty, Poetry, signature strike
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