(CNN) -- Drones are our latest Frankenstein's monster. But our preoccupation with their novelty -- with the ethical hazards of remote killing and the possible violation, through surveillance, of life and privacy at home -- has obscured their roots in the deadly history of Western aerial control of the Middle East that began in World War I, exactly a century ago. As we recall the myriad ways in which that epochal war remade our world, it is time also to reckon with its unleashing of air power in the Middle East. Air power harks back to Civil War-era hot-air balloons and was used all over the theaters of World War I for reconnaissance, bombardment, and aerial combat. However, its potential was most rigorously tested and developed in the British campaign against the Ottoman Empire during that war.
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Priya Satia: Unleashing of air power in World War I resonates in drone use today
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Remote killing, surveillance used throughout war theater, but mostly by British in Middle East
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Air power gave British access to remote lands; they'd later use it for colonial policing
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Satia: Today's drones are a new chapter in West's efforts to dominate Middle East
Conceiving the region as uniformly flat (despite its marshes, mountains and cities), @placeholder Arabists assumed it afforded no cover.