In the sights of a joystick killing machine

About 8,000 miles away, someone at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada could look at me through the Predator's zoom lens and determine whether I should live or die. I could not see the Predator or hear it, but I could imagine how it must feel in the control box at Nellis when a high-value target is in their sights.

"The heart beats faster and the concentration levels really kick in," said Capt. Jon Songer, the squadron leader of the 62nd Expeditionary Reconnaissance Flight.

The unsuspecting target has no clue that once the Predator locks on, the final moments of life are upon you. Nothing is seen, nothing is usually heard. It's a clinical, surreal form of destroying a target.

The Predator is the U.S. military's most sophisticated killing machine in the war on terror -- a flying assassin constantly searching for Osama bin Laden and other top al Qaeda members. In one successful strike in Yemen in late 2002, a CIA Predator killed six suspected al Qaeda members, including a former bin Laden security guard who was suspected of playing a key role in the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors.

"This is the way of the future," Songer said. "Just the ability from the other side of the world to locate and destroy enemy targets is incredible, unbelievable -- to be able to do this from Vegas and destroy high value targets, perhaps bin Laden himself one day."

In the sights of a joystick killing machine