THE FIGHTING CONGRESSMAN:

Fighting the Taliban from half a world away (BORYS KRAWCZENIUk, November 16, 2009, Times Tribune)

U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, also known as Navy Reserve Cmdr. Chris Carney, is one of the military's remote operators of unmanned Predator, Reaper and Global Hawk drones that fly and spy over the Middle East countries.

"I want to be on the cutting edge of our national defense and our defense technology," Mr. Carney said. "And this is it."

The drones look like smaller, thinner planes.

From thousands of feet in the air, they often just hover a day or more without refueling. Their high-resolution cameras silently send live video to their U.S. military operators who warn ground troops in Afghanistan and Iraq about the presence of enemy combatants who could be planting improvised explosive devices, known as IEDs.

Operators such as Mr. Carney manage them through remote controls from thousands of miles away in a room at Langley Air Force Base in Langley, Va. These remote controls are far more sophisticated than but not entirely unlike the push-button devices a pro football fan uses to switch between games on a Sunday afternoon.

The difference is changing channels never killed anyone.

Predators and Reapers sometimes fire deadly missiles at enemy combatants or terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq and sometimes Pakistan. In August, a CIA drone killed Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban there and a major suspect in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Commander Carney was not in on that one, but he has been in on a few kills.