
We Kill Because We Can: From Soldiering to Assassination in the Drone Age
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $15.59
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Laurie Calhoun
-
By:
-
Laurie Calhoun
About this listen
"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 Patriots have been replaced by mercenaries.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 CalhounListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Anarchist Handbook
- By: Michael Malice
- Narrated by: Michael Malice
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anarchism has been both a vision of a peaceful, cooperative society — and an ideology of revolutionary terror. Since the term itself — anarchism — is a negation, there is a great deal of disagreement on what the positive alternative would look like. The black flag comes in many colors.
-
-
An absolute gem
- By Tim on 12-16-21
By: Michael Malice
-
Manufacturing Consent
- The Political Economy of the Mass Media
- By: Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this pathbreaking work, now with a new introduction, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.
-
-
Eye opening
- By EFM on 03-24-18
By: Edward S. Herman, and others
-
Who Rules the World?
- By: Noam Chomsky
- Narrated by: Brian Jones
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an incisive, thorough analysis of the current international situation, Noam Chomsky argues that the United States, through its military-first policies and its unstinting devotion to maintaining a world-spanning empire, is both risking catastrophe and wrecking the global commons.
-
-
UNLISTENABLE
- By Scott on 10-26-16
By: Noam Chomsky
-
Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan
- By: Scott Horton
- Narrated by: Scott Horton
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"In Fool's Errand, Scott Horton masterfully explains the tragedy of America's longest war and makes the case for immediate withdrawal. I highly recommend this excellent book on America's futile and self-defeating occupation of Afghanistan." - Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower and author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
-
-
Amazing History the Afghanistan War
- By josh on 03-24-18
By: Scott Horton
-
How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything
- Tales from the Pentagon
- By: Rosa Brooks
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, Rosa Brooks - introduction
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once, war was a temporary state of affairs - a violent but brief interlude between times of peace. Today America's wars are everywhere and forever: Our enemies change constantly and rarely wear uniforms, and virtually anything can become a weapon. As war expands, so does the role of the US military. Today military personnel don't just "kill people and break stuff". Instead they analyze computer code, train Afghan judges, build Ebola isolation wards, eavesdrop on electronic communications, develop soap operas, and patrol for pirates.
-
-
A Must-Read for Military and other Govt Leaders
- By bettsgjb on 10-06-16
By: Rosa Brooks
-
Enough Already
- Time to End the War on Terrorism
- By: Scott Horton
- Narrated by: Scott Horton
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism is a masterly history of these chaotic, tragic and above all futile conflicts, ranging with his usual excoriating accuracy from Mali to Pakistan, from Iraq to Yemen by way of Syria and Libya. Millions are dead, disabled or languish desperately far from their homes as the direct result of our blunders, bewilderment and outright malicious stupidity.
-
-
Complete take down of American foreign policy
- By Denise Fisher on 12-22-21
By: Scott Horton
-
The Anarchist Handbook
- By: Michael Malice
- Narrated by: Michael Malice
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anarchism has been both a vision of a peaceful, cooperative society — and an ideology of revolutionary terror. Since the term itself — anarchism — is a negation, there is a great deal of disagreement on what the positive alternative would look like. The black flag comes in many colors.
-
-
An absolute gem
- By Tim on 12-16-21
By: Michael Malice
-
Manufacturing Consent
- The Political Economy of the Mass Media
- By: Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this pathbreaking work, now with a new introduction, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.
-
-
Eye opening
- By EFM on 03-24-18
By: Edward S. Herman, and others
-
Who Rules the World?
- By: Noam Chomsky
- Narrated by: Brian Jones
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an incisive, thorough analysis of the current international situation, Noam Chomsky argues that the United States, through its military-first policies and its unstinting devotion to maintaining a world-spanning empire, is both risking catastrophe and wrecking the global commons.
-
-
UNLISTENABLE
- By Scott on 10-26-16
By: Noam Chomsky
-
Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan
- By: Scott Horton
- Narrated by: Scott Horton
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"In Fool's Errand, Scott Horton masterfully explains the tragedy of America's longest war and makes the case for immediate withdrawal. I highly recommend this excellent book on America's futile and self-defeating occupation of Afghanistan." - Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower and author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
-
-
Amazing History the Afghanistan War
- By josh on 03-24-18
By: Scott Horton
-
How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything
- Tales from the Pentagon
- By: Rosa Brooks
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, Rosa Brooks - introduction
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once, war was a temporary state of affairs - a violent but brief interlude between times of peace. Today America's wars are everywhere and forever: Our enemies change constantly and rarely wear uniforms, and virtually anything can become a weapon. As war expands, so does the role of the US military. Today military personnel don't just "kill people and break stuff". Instead they analyze computer code, train Afghan judges, build Ebola isolation wards, eavesdrop on electronic communications, develop soap operas, and patrol for pirates.
-
-
A Must-Read for Military and other Govt Leaders
- By bettsgjb on 10-06-16
By: Rosa Brooks
-
Enough Already
- Time to End the War on Terrorism
- By: Scott Horton
- Narrated by: Scott Horton
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism is a masterly history of these chaotic, tragic and above all futile conflicts, ranging with his usual excoriating accuracy from Mali to Pakistan, from Iraq to Yemen by way of Syria and Libya. Millions are dead, disabled or languish desperately far from their homes as the direct result of our blunders, bewilderment and outright malicious stupidity.
-
-
Complete take down of American foreign policy
- By Denise Fisher on 12-22-21
By: Scott Horton
-
America's Secret War
- Inside the Struggle Between the United States and Its Enemies
- By: George Friedman
- Narrated by: Brian Emerson
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dubbed by Barron's as "The Shadow CIA", Stratfor, George Friedman's global intelligence company, has provided analysis to Fortune 500 companies, news outlets, and even the U.S. government. Now Friedman delivers the geopolitical story that the mainstream media has been unable to uncover, the startling truth behind America's foreign policy and war effort in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond.
-
-
Outstanding book, answers so many questions.
- By Steve on 01-02-05
By: George Friedman
-
Hegemony or Survival
- America's Quest for Global Dominance
- By: Noam Chomsky
- Narrated by: Brian Jones, Noam Chomsky
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than half a century, the United States has been pursuing a grand imperial strategy with the aim of staking out the globe. Our leaders have shown themselves willing, as in the Cuban missile crisis, to follow the dream of dominance no matter how high the risks. Now the Bush administration is intensifying this process, driving us toward the final frontiers of imperial control, toward a choice between the prerogatives of power and a livable Earth.
-
-
Read and open your mind
- By Rupert on 01-15-04
By: Noam Chomsky
-
Only the Strong
- Reversing the Left's Plot to Sabotage American Power
- By: Tom Cotton
- Narrated by: Tony Messano, Tom Cotton
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If it seems to you that Barack Obama and Joe Biden have weakened America and emboldened our enemies, you’re not alone. But Senator Cotton explains that their failures aren’t just incompetence or bad luck—it’s decline by design. Only the Strong reveals the untold inside story of how progressive ideologues and Democratic politicians abandoned the American tradition of strength, pride, and honor.
-
-
Tom Cotton is a hero
- By Amazon Customer on 06-26-24
By: Tom Cotton
-
Defeating Jihad
- The Winnable War
- By: Dr. Sebastian Gorka
- Narrated by: Russell Wade, Sebastian Gorka - prologue
- Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America's fight against radical Islam could soon be over, and a top secret plan from the Cold War is the key to our victory. Dr. Sebastian Gorka, counterinsurgency expert and Distinguished Chair of Military Theory at Marine Corps University, explains how America can win the war on terror quickly and decisively by delegitimizing the enemy in the eyes of its followers - a strategy that won the Cold War and would end the era of Jihad forever.
-
-
Now is the time to implement Dr. Gorka's jihad solution
- By Desiree on 04-23-16
-
Feardom
- How Politicians Exploit Your Emotions and What You Can Do to Stop Them
- By: Connor Boyack
- Narrated by: Connor Boyack
- Length: 3 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Manufactured fear, with its negative impact on liberty, is a societal plague. There have been widespread casualties. We need an antidote. Feardom offers its readers a much-needed immunization.
-
-
Fantastic explanation of how fear kills freedom!
- By Jeffrey West on 12-13-14
By: Connor Boyack
-
On Power and Ideology
- The Managua Lectures
- By: Noam Chomsky
- Narrated by: Brian Jones
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The arguments are concise, and the information is overwhelming. The first two lectures examine the persistent and largely invariant features of foreign policy, the overall framework of order. The third discusses Central America and its foreign policy pattern. The fourth looks at national security and the arms race. And the fifth examines US domestic policy.
-
-
Eye opening
- By Alex on 08-22-15
By: Noam Chomsky
-
The New Rules of War
- Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder
- By: Sean McFate
- Narrated by: Joe Knezevich
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is the future of war? How can we survive? If Americans are drawn into major armed conflict, can we win? McFate calls upon the legends of military study Carl von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and others, as well as his own experience, and carefully constructs the new rules for the future of military engagement, the ways we can fight and win in an age of entropy: one where corporations, mercenaries, and rogue states have more power and ‘nation states’ have less.
-
-
Refutes Himself Repeatedly...And Never Notices
- By Brian on 01-06-21
By: Sean McFate
-
The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism
- The Political Economy of Human Rights - Volume I
- By: Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman
- Narrated by: Brian Jones
- Length: 15 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A brilliant, shattering, and convincing account of United States-backed suppression of political and human rights in the Third World... It relentlessly dissects the official views of Establishment scholars and their journals. The "best and brightest" pundits of the status quo emerge from this audiobook thoroughly denuded of their credibility.
-
-
must listen
- By Amazon Customer on 09-14-20
By: Noam Chomsky, and others
-
Defending Israel
- The Story of My Relationship with My Most Challenging Client
- By: Alan M. Dershowitz
- Narrated by: Alan M. Dershowitz, Fred Berman
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alan Dershowitz has spent years advocating for his "most challenging client" - the state of Israel - both publicly and in private meetings with high-level international figures, including every US president and Israeli leader of the past 40 years. Replete with personal insights and unreported details, Defending Israel offers a comprehensive history of modern Israel from the perspective of one of the country's most important supporters. Listeners are given a rare front-row seat to the high-profile controversies and debates that Dershowitz was involved in over the years.
-
-
Worst propaganda i have ever read in my life!
- By Anonymous User on 01-24-20
-
Losing Military Supremacy
- The Myopia of American Strategic Planning
- By: Andrei Martyanov
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book explores the dramatic difference between the Russian and US approach to warfare, which manifests itself across the whole spectrum of activities from art and the economy to the respective national cultures; illustrates the fact that Russian economic, military, and cultural realities and power are no longer what American "elites" think they are by addressing Russia's new and elevated capacities in the areas of traditional warfare, as well as cyberwarfare and space; and studies several ways in-depth in which the US can simply stumble into conflict with Russia and what must be done to avoid it.
-
-
Mixes Truth with Propoganda
- By Gavin on 02-08-21
By: Andrei Martyanov
-
The Structure of Power in America
- By: Milton William Cooper
- Narrated by: Chris Buchanan
- Length: 2 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook includes information about the power structure in America. The chapters and topics covered in this audiobook include: The Balance of Power, Stormy Weather, Opposing Forces, Maladies Galore, Militias and the Sheople, The Revolution Will Be Dramatized, and Ask a Lithuanian.
-
-
Bill's predictions coming to pass.
- By Wes Sonmore on 08-13-24
-
Why We Fight
- Defeating America's Enemies - with No Apologies
- By: Sebastian Gorka
- Narrated by: Sebastian Gorka
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
WAR. It will happen again. We must be ready. Sober words from Dr. Sebastian Gorka, a man who has made the unvarnished truth his specialty. And there’s one eternal truth that Americans are in danger of forgetting: the most important weapon in any geopolitical conflict is the will to win. And we must win. In this powerful manifesto, Dr. Gorka explains the basic principles that have guided strategists since Sun Tzu penned The Art of War in the sixth century BC. To defeat your enemy, you must know him. But that’s the last thing liberal elites are interested in.
-
-
Extremely informative and educational
- By Kami on 10-16-18
By: Sebastian Gorka