National Bird

National Bird profiles three young Americans who have spoken out publicly about the US use of drones to conduct reconnaissance and assassinations in Afghanistan, and follows one woman to Afghanistan to meet with the survivors of drone attacks. The film details the PTSD suffered by the three subjects, the fear of indictment for espionage as a result of speaking out, and the disconnect between the reality of the drone program and the video game face put on it by US Air Force recruitment material.

I saw the movie in San Francisco on the second night of its national opening. There were perhaps twenty people in a small theater, and I think most of us were old enough to be parents of two of the three drone program participants in the film as well as of its two producers. I'd gone to see the film thinking its subject was the program by which the US assassinates Iraqi, Afghani, Pakistani and US citizens abroad, using missiles launched from aircraft piloted by youthful operators in the Nevada desert. National Bird instead seems largely about the young US personnel who are rightfully traumatized by the murder of people based on often faulty intelligence as well as the murder of those who happen to be near the target of US assassinations. I thought the trauma suffered by the two young women came across very effectively. The young man, Daniel, seemed pretty matter of fact about his involvement and was being interviewed while he continued to work in an intelligence role for a US military contractor. While Heather and Lisa spoke at length about the emotional toll their actions took on them, Daniel seemed to speak largely to the fear of prosecution for speaking about the drone assassination program and the experience of some thirty men raiding his home with guns drawn. Those of us who are saddened and angered by the killings done in our name or who have had agents of the US state point guns at us will be moved by the PTSD and fear suffered by those who might be our children. Interviews with Heather's mother and grandfather competently support this.

There is a curious parity in National Bird between Heather and Lisa's psychological trauma and the trauma of Afghani drone attack survivors. A woman sits in a family group and tells how her husband was killed trying to save their children, two of whom were killed. Her son, not yet a teenager, sits next to her. He is missing a leg. An Afghani man who had hoped to study medicine tells of being in a drone attack and it is only towards the end of his testimony that we realize he too has had a leg blasted off. It was unclear to me, however, who had been more victimized. There was such a focus on Heather, Lisa, and Daniel's situations that the Afghani portion of the film seemed almost to be saying the Afghanis had suffered as well. Heather and her family speak movingly about her suffering from guilt. Afghani families speak of, and the viewer is shown, the burnt blasted corpses of women and children.

National Bird's protagonists are shown repeatedly speaking of their being described as similar to Edward Snowden in revealing truths about the US intelligence apparatus, yet there is nothing mentioned in the film which has not been copiously documented elsewhere, if one is interested in looking for it. This flirting with danger about revealing secrets, and the fear of being indicted for espionage, was curious. Daniel's eyes light when he mentions some aspect of the drone operation which he says is quite obvious and mundane yet kept top secret and I found myself wondering why the viewer should care. We are being shown a film documenting how the US kills people around the globe who are merely suspected of sympathizing with groups the US declares political enemies, with no semblance of legality, no rules of war, no courts or tribunals, just the hunches of some bureaucrats in the White House based on intelligence vetted at one level by twenty-somethings who seem they would be as at home in the local mall as in a command and control bunker. Is this not enough? Why the inclusion of the frisson around classified material?

National Bird is certainly worth seeing for its depiction of the effects of drone killing involvement on young military personnel. For the drone war viewers will likely be more interested in Jeremy Scahill's The Assassination Complex.

The folks that are highlighted in this movie are simply very weak souls, who never should have had that level of clearance. It's teuly not their fault, as there is nothing they can do about their weakness. Clearly the people who conducted the psych interviews failed.

The bad guys killed by the drone program were surveilled for hours, if not days. Needless to say, they died horrible deaths but the overwhelming majority of those killed, had murdered coalition troops and many of their own countrymen. They got exactly what they deserved. As for the collateral damage, the innocents were killed due to our enemies using thir countrymen /women as shields.

One easily notices that a lot of effort went into the production of this masterpiece. The American military tries hard to dehumanise their folks and this film succeeds to show what tremendous impact the drone program has on a personal level.

Truly touching and frightening. Please spread the awareness!

we were in Berlinale Film festival in Feb and was emotionally overwhelmed with this documentary film. We were shocked to know that such Things are really happening. We have sympathy for the innocent victims. This is really an eyes opening for all of us living in Europe It is good to know that there are brave citizens who risk their families and lives coming out and telling the world their stories. This will encourage more people to come out and protest on the unnecessary killing.

This is not a Cyber games! Many innocent people for no reason got killed. The world have to know what is happening in Afghanistan and the neighboring Countries.

We support this film and it should be shown everywhere round the world. I am glad that I had the chance to see the film.

In this eye-opening documentary, we are introduced to several former drone operators and the individuals who make that job possible. You can safely ignore the "reviews" which claim to "debunk" the material based on semantics, unclear statements and somewhat badly formulated interview questions. The fact is that this film documents the horrible personal and sociological effects felt here at home by those who were participants in the mostly secret or intentionally obscured from the public drone wars under Bush, but then on steroids under Obama and Trump (and likely continuing w/ Biden).

Whether one of these individuals actually pulled the trigger or was, rather, a cog in the machine which comprises the drone war program(s) is immaterial to the filmmaker's points and the psychological impact felt by those who learned they were, as often as not, participating in the cold blooded remote murders of innocent men, women, children and infants in places far, far away (in most cases, some drones are operated from OCONUS military installations). If you're a part of the operation, directly participate in surveillance, targeting or image analysis, you're as guilty as the "pilots" (really more akin to a video game or remote controlled model plane w/ munitions) are and the subjects of this documentary recognize and acknowledge it.

To the content of the movie itself, it's essentially what you might think it is. A long hard look at what this kind of warfare and the shattered and maimed lives it leaves behind abroad does to those who carry it out. And to the would-be critics leaving IMDB reviews, especially the ones invoking the God fearing "democracy" that is allegedly the USA and the innate trust in their government which has lied to them countless times, if this program is so successful in its *stated* aims, why the dark, impenetrable curtain of secrecy? Why the million-person long lists, accessible mainly to those with high level security clearances, without any transparency whatsoever? Why are "we" still there in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other places which pose absolutely zero threat to any American civilian at home or abroad?

The answers, partially documented here, are actually quite simple and they all tie back to the intense secrecy surrounding not only the drone program(s), but many, many other policies and actions carried out in far flung countries of the Global South. It's all about the Benjamins, and anything - including exposure of its existence, the telling of the horrible psychological toll it puts on the participants, and even more so, the loss of too many innocent lives to really fathom - will be attacked from every angle possible rather than simply explained, justified and debated. To continue along that thread - and following the one this film lays out - I would argue that anyone attempting to discredit this film or discourage others from watching it are nearly as guilty as the untouchable policy makers and politicians whose military-industrial-complex constituencies they serve over the actual people in their districts and states.

9/10 with a single star deducted for some editing and in the formulation of interview questions which would have precluded several of the negative "debunking" comments based only on semantics and a claimed true understanding of this awful system.