Eye in the Sky – PLSC 359: Global Governance

Over finals week I became aware of a movie that just came out in limited theater release that almost entirely mimics the theme simulation that we did in class. The movie Eye in the Sky starring Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman is about a British security team tasked with taking out a high profile terrorist who is planning a suicide mission. They have all the capabilities and have drones ready to strike and destroy the terrorist and his home. The catch? There is a little girl selling bread outside the house that would be killed in the attack if the drone were to fire on the compound.

The presence of this little girl sends into a motion a wave of bureaucratic decisions, which argue over the morality of killing this one little girl for good of many more. Political figures keep pushing off responsibility because they know this will be a disastrous move in the public eye. One of the advisors to the general urges them not to kill the girl because it would create propaganda material for terrorist groups.

The pilot of the drone absolutely refuses to strike the compound with the girl present and so the council tries many elaborate ways to get the girl to leave. They send in a spy to buy the girl’s bread in hopes that she will pack up and leave, but that fails when the spy is recognized and must run for his life. Not realizing that the council already had approved the missile he sends a local boy back in to buy the bread, but as the boy runs back with the bread and the girl is cleaning up preparing to leave the area SPOILER ALERT the missile hits the compound.

Everyone on the mission is devastated by the loss of the girl. Yet, just like we were analyzing the value of that one captive’s life, they ultimately decided that they had to stop further suicide attacks from occurring even if that meant compromising morality. This demonstrates the lengths states must go to, to ensure security. It was extremely interesting to see this tough decision play out and made me reflect on our decision to not use enhanced interrogation techniques.