OMNI
DRONE WATCH
DRONE/ASSASSINATION NEWSLETTER # 18, June 10,
2016.
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace and
Justice.
Contents: OMNI
Drone Watch Newsletter #18
Drone Information
Contacting the 188th Wing of the Arkansas Air National Guard
Drone Strike Kills Somalia Shabab Leader (Is it murder by our president
without Declaration of War?)
Drone Crashes (no problem, a grim Reaper costs only $14 mil)
Turse,
Bases Worldwide (there were 60 bases when Turse wrote, an unknown number under
construction, as in Ft. Smite, AR; btw, Turse wrote the book on mass killing in
Vietnam War)
Bureau
of Investigative Journalism (up to date data)
Gusterson,
Remote Control Warfare (the nooks and crannies and many points of view)
Citizen Resistance
Mennonites (reflect at their high school then demonstrate at the drone
command center
Chomsky, Drone Terrorism (C. possesses almost supernatural x-ray
detection of cant)
Opposing
Drones in the Arts: A Poem, Books, Some Quilts, a Film
Poem by Gerry Sloan
VFP: Drones Quilt Project
Feature Film about Drone Pilots and PTSD
Books
The Assassination Complex by Jeremy Scahill & Glenn Greenwald
Gordon, American Nuremberg: The
U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for
Post-9/121 War Crimes
Post-9/121 War Crimes
Derber and Magrass, Bully Nation
More Organizations
and Actions
Know Drones: Las Vegas Symposium,
April 2016
Nick Mottern, Know Drones (looks like a good international drone watch)
Nuclear Resister June 2, 2016 (includes half a dozen articles on
drones)
Former
Drone Pilots Speak Out (revelations from inside damning)
Retirees urge Refuse to Fly, get another job, this one’s illegal
Democracy Now, Bacevich: President Obama’s Drone War and
Middle East War
Moyers & Co., Bacevich: Drone War Unconstitutional
Middle East War
Moyers & Co., Bacevich: Drone War Unconstitutional
National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR), DC Rally Against
Drones
Civil
Disobedience (see Nuclear Resister above)
VFP Members Arrested at Creech April 1, 2016
Drone Information
CONTACTING EBBING AIR NATIONAL GUARD, Ft. Smith, AR, WHERE THE 188TH
WING OF THE AIR NATIONAL GUARD IS BEING DEVELOPED TO CONTROL REMOTELY PILOTED
AIRCRAFT (RPA)
[Major
Heath provided me the following information quickly and in a friendly
manner. –Dick]
Major G. Heath Allen is Executive Officer and Public Relations Officer
for the 188th Wing.
Allen, G HEATH Maj USAF 188 WG (US) gary.h.allen.mil@mail.mil
HEATH ALLEN, Major, AR ANG Air National Guard
Executive Officer, 188th Wing
Office: 479.573.5221
DSN: 778.5221
Cell: 479.871.0771
Office e-mail: gary.h.allen.mil@mail.mil
188th SARC HOTLINE: 479.719.6667
SAFE helpline: 877.995.5247
Website: www.188wg.ang.af.mil
Facebook: www.facebook.com/188thWing
Twitter: www.twitter.com/188thWG
to Dick Bennett 3-21-16
Sir,
Please see the attached mission briefing and info below. This should
provide solid start for your project.
Quick Facts:
- We're not slated to have MQ-9 Reapers at our location. The 188th will
be
flying them remotely in the applicable Area of Responsibility.
- Won't be fully operational in all three primary mission sets until
around
2018.
- The 3 primary mission sets are:
Remotely Piloted Aircraft (MQ-9 Reapers) conducts both kinetic and
non-kinetic missions;
Distributed Common Ground Station (real-time ISR processing,
exploitation, and dissemination of intel products for variety of DoD and
coalition customers);
Targeting (focused on other nation's ground-based space capabilities but
conducts array of targeting missions).
History website:
http://www.188wg.ang.af.mil/history/index.asp
MQ-9 Reaper factsheet:
[As you have just read, the official name of the Pentagon’s unpiloted
aircraft is Remotely Piloted Aircraft, but the plane has been popularly
nicknamed the “drone,” the term in general usage. –D]
US drone strike kills key al-Shabaab leader in Somalia
Pentagon
press secretary said an airstrike conducted on Thursday targeted Hassan Ali
Dhoore, a ‘senior leader’ of the Somali militant group al-Shabaab.
On 5 March US-piloted warplanes and drones attacked a
Somali training camp for al-Shabaab killing a key leader and two others.
The Guardian, Friday 1 April 2016 Last modified on Saturday 2 April
2016
A US drone strike
in Somalia has killed a key leader of the
al-Shabaab militant group who was involved in two attacks in Mogadishu more
than a year ago, killing Americans, several US officials said on Friday.
It was the US
military’s second strike in a month on terrorist
targets in Somalia, a country against
which the US has never declared war.
MORE DRONE
CRASHES. Space Alert! (Winter/Spring
2016), p. 10.
“Washington Post reported…that
a record number of Air Force drones crashed in major accidents last year,”
especially the “advanced ‘hunter-killer- drone, the Reaper, which has become
the Pentagon’s favored weapon” against “militants groups.” Now brace yourself: each Reaper “cost about $14 million each to
replace.” The AF’s “other primary drone
model, the Predator, also suffered heavy casualties.”
·
·
The World Can’t Wait: Stop the Crimes of Your Government http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php/features/covert-drone-war/7447-americas-secret-empire-of-drone-bases
They
increasingly dot the planet. There’s a facility outside Las Vegas where
“pilots” work in climate-controlled trailers, another at a dusty camp in
Africa formerly used by the French Foreign Legion, a third at a big air base in
Afghanistan where Air Force personnel sit in front of multiple computer
screens, and a fourth at an air base in the United Arab Emirates that almost no
one talks about.
And that leaves at least 56 more such
facilities [60 total] to mention in an expanding American empire of unmanned
drone bases being set up worldwide. Despite frequent news reports on the
drone assassination campaign launched in support of America’s ever-widening
undeclared wars and a spate of stories on drone bases in Africa and the Middle
East, most of these facilities have remained unnoted, uncounted, and remarkably
anonymous -- until now.
Run by the military, the Central Intelligence
Agency, and their proxies, these bases -- some little more than desolate
airstrips, others sophisticated command and control centers filled with
computer screens and high-tech electronic equipment -- are the backbone of a new American robotic way of war. They are also
the latest development in a long-evolving saga of American power projection
abroad -- in this case, remote-controlled strikes anywhere on the planet
with a minimal foreign “footprint” and little accountability.
Using military documents, press accounts, and
other open source information, an in-depth analysis by TomDispatch has
identified at least 60 bases integral to U.S. military and CIA drone
operations. There may, however, be more, since a cloak of secrecy about
drone warfare leaves the full size and scope of these bases distinctly in the
shadows.
A Galaxy of Bases
Over the last decade, the American use of
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) has expanded
exponentially, as has media coverage of their use. On September 21st,
the Wall Street Journal reported that the military has deployed missile-armed
MQ-9 Reaper drones on the “island nation of Seychelles to intensify attacks on
al Qaeda affiliates, particularly in Somalia.” A day earlier, a Washington Post piece also mentioned the same base
on the tiny Indian Ocean archipelago, as well as one in the African nation of
Djibouti, another under construction in Ethiopia, and a secret CIA airstrip
being built for drones in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. (Some suspect it's
Saudi Arabia.)
Post journalists Greg Miller and Craig Whitlock reported that the “Obama administration is assembling a
constellation of secret drone bases for counterterrorism operations in the Horn
of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as part of a newly aggressive campaign to
attack al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen.” Within days, the Post also reported that a drone from the new CIA base in that
unidentified Middle Eastern country had carried out the assassination of
radical al-Qaeda preacher and American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen.
With the killing of al-Awlaki, the Obama
Administration has expanded its armed drone campaign to no fewer than six
countries, though the CIA, which killed al-Awlaki, refuses to officially acknowledgeits drone assassination program. The Air
Force is less coy about its drone operations, yet there are many aspects of
those, too, that remain in the shadows. Air Force spokesman Lieutenant
Colonel John Haynes recently told TomDispatch that, “for operational security
reasons, we do not discuss worldwide operating locations of Remotely Piloted
Aircraft, to include numbers of locations around the world.”
Still, those 60 military and CIA bases
worldwide, directly connected to the drone program, tell us much about
America’s war-making future. From command and control and piloting to
maintenance and arming, these facilities perform key functions that allow drone
campaigns to continue expanding, as they have for more than a decade.
Other bases are already under construction or in the planning stages. [Ft.
Smith, AR, Ebbington NGAFB, 188th Wing]. When
presented with our list of Air Force sites within America’s galaxy of drone
bases, Lieutenant Colonel Haynes responded, “I have nothing further to add to
what I’ve already said.”
Even in the face of government secrecy,
however, much can be discovered. Here, then, for the record is a
TomDispatch accounting of America’s drone bases in the United States and around
the world. MORE http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php/features/covert-drone-war/7447-americas-secret-empire-of-drone-bases
The Near Abroad
News reports have frequently focused on Creech Air Force Base outside Las Vegas as ground zero in
America’s military drone campaign. Sitting in darkened, air-conditioned
rooms 7,500 miles from Afghanistan, drone pilots dressed in flight suits
remotely control MQ-9 Reapers and their progenitors, the less heavily-armed
MQ-1 Predators. Beside them, sensor operators manipulate the TV camera, infrared
camera, and other high-tech sensors on board the plane. Their faces are
lit up by digital displays showing video feeds from the battle zone. By
squeezing a trigger on a joystick, one of those Air Force “pilots” can loose a
Hellfire missile on a person half a world away.
While Creech gets the lion’s share of media
attention -- it even has its own drones on site -- numerous other bases on U.S.
soil have played critical roles in America’s drone wars. The same
video-game-style warfare is carried out by U.S and British pilots not far away
at Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Base, the home of the Air Force’s 2nd Special
Operations Squadron (SOS). According to a factsheet provided to
TomDispatch by the Air Force, the 2nd SOS and its drone operators are scheduled
to be relocated to the Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field
in Florida in the coming months.
Reapers or Predators are also being flown from
Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri,
March Air Reserve Base in California, Springfield Air National Guard Base in
Ohio, Cannon Air Force Base and Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico,
Ellington Airport in Houston, Texas, the Air National Guard base in Fargo,
North Dakota, Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, and Hancock Field Air
National Guard Base in Syracuse, New York. Recently, it was announced
that Reapers flown by Hancock’s pilots would begin taking off on training
missions from the Army’s Fort Drum, also in New York State.
Meanwhile, at Langley Air Force Base in
Virginia, according to a report by
the New York Times, teams of camouflage-clad Air Force
analysts sit in a secret intelligence and surveillance installation monitoring
cell-phone intercepts, high-altitude photographs, and most notably, multiple
screens of streaming live video from drones in Afghanistan. They call it
“Death TV” and are constantly instant-messaging
with and talking to commanders on the ground in order to supply them with
real-time intelligence on enemy troop movements. Air Force analysts
also closely monitor the battlefield from Air Force Special
Operations Command in Florida and a facility in Terre Haute, Indiana.
CIA drone operators also reportedly pilot
their aircraft from the Agency’s nearby Langley, Virginia headquarters.
It was from here that analysts apparently watched footage of Osama bin Laden’s
compound in Pakistan, for example, thanks to video sent back by the RQ-170
Sentinel, an advanced drone nicknamed the “Beast of Kandahar.” According
to Air Force documents, the Sentinel is flown from both Creech Air Force Base
and Tonopah Test Range in Nevada.
Predators, Reapers, and Sentinels are just
part of the story. At Beale Air Force Base in California, Air Force
personnel pilot the RQ-4 Global Hawk, an unmanned drone used for long-range,
high-altitude surveillance missions, some of them originating from Anderson Air
Force Base in Guam (a staging ground for drone flights over Asia). Other
Global Hawks are stationed at Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, while
the Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio
manages the Global Hawk as well as the Predator and Reaper programs for the Air
Force.
Other bases have been intimately involved in
training drone operators, including Randolph Air Force Base in Texas and New
Mexico’s Kirtland Air Force Base, as is the Army’s Fort Huachuca in Arizona,
which is home to “the world’s largest UAV training center,” according to a
report by National Defense magazine.
There, hundreds of employees of defense giant General Dynamics train military
personnel to fly smaller tactical drones like the Hunter and the Shadow.
The physical testing of drones goes on at adjoining Libby Army Airfield and
“two UAV runways located approximately four miles west of Libby,” according to Global
Security, an on-line clearinghouse for military information.
Additionally, small drone training for the
Army is carried out at Fort Benning in Georgia while at Fort Rucker, Alabama --
“the home of Army aviation” -- the Unmanned Aircraft Systems program
coordinates doctrine, strategy, and concepts pertaining to UAVs.
Recently, Fort Benning also saw the early testing of true robotic drones --
which fly without human guidance or a hand on any joystick. This, wrote the Washington Post, is
considered the next step toward a future in which drones will “hunt, identify,
and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made
by humans.”
The Army has also carried out UAV training
exercises at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah and, earlier this year, the Navy
launched its X-47B, a next-generation semi-autonomous stealth drone, on its
first flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California. That flying robot
-- designed to operate from the decks of aircraft carriers -- has since been
sent on to Maryland’s Naval Air Station Patuxent River for further
testing. At nearby Webster Field, the Navy worked out kinks in its Fire
Scout pilotless helicopter, which has also been tested at Fort Rucker and Yuma
Proving Ground in Arizona, as well as Florida’s Mayport Naval Station and
Jacksonville Naval Air Station. The latter base was also where the Navy’s
Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned aerial system was
developed. It is now based there and at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island
in Washington State.
Foreign Jewels in the Crown
The Navy is actively looking for a suitable
site in the Western Pacific for a BAMS base, and is currently in talks with
several Persian Gulf states about a site in the Middle East. It already
has Global Hawks perched at its base in Sigonella, Italy.
The Air Force is now negotiating with Turkey
to relocate some of the Predator drones still operating in Iraq to the giant
air base at Incirlik next year. Many different UAVs have been based in
Iraq since the American invasion of that country, including small tactical models
like the Raven-B that troops launched by hand from Kirkuk Regional Air Base,
Shadow UAVs that flew from Forward Operating Base Normandy in Baqubah Province,
Predators operating out of Balad Airbase, miniature Desert Hawk drones launched
from Tallil Air Base, and Scan Eagles based at Al Asad Air Base.
Elsewhere in the Greater Middle East,
according to Aviation Week, the military is
launching Global Hawks from Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, piloted by personnel stationed at Naval
Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland, to track “shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf,
Strait of Hormuz, and Arabian Sea.” There are unconfirmed reports that the CIA may be operating drones
from the Emirates as well. In the past, other UAVs have apparently been
flown from Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem Air Base and Al Jaber Air Base, as well as
Seeb Air Base in Oman.
At Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the Air Force runs an air
operations command and control facility, critical to the drone wars in
Afghanistan and Pakistan. The new secret CIA base on the Arabian
peninsula, used to assassinate Anwar al-Awlaki, may or may not be the airstrip
in Saudi Arabiawhose existence a senior U.S. military official
recently confirmed to Fox News. In the past, the CIA has also operated
UAVs out of Tuzel, Uzbekistan.
In neighboring Afghanistan, drones fly from
many bases including Jalalabad Air Base, Kandahar Air Field, the air base at
Bagram, Camp Leatherneck, Camp Dwyer, Combat Outpost Payne, Forward Operating
Base (FOB) Edinburgh and FOB Delaram II, to name a few. Afghan bases are,
however, more than just locations where drones take off and land.
It is a common misconception that U.S.-based operators
are the only ones who “fly” America’s armed drones. In fact, in and
around America’s war zones, UAVs begin and end their flights under the control
of local “pilots.” Take Afghanistan’s massive Bagram Air Base.
After performing preflight checks alongside a technician who focuses on the
drone’s sensors, a local airman sits in front of a Dell computer tower and
multiple monitors, two keyboards, a joystick, a throttle, a rollerball, a
mouse, and various switches, overseeing the plane’s takeoff before handing it
over to a stateside counterpart with a similar electronics set-up. After
the mission is complete, the controls are transferred back to the local
operators for the landing. Additionally, crews in Afghanistan perform
general maintenance and repairs on the drones.
In the wake of a devastating suicide attack by
an al-Qaeda double agent that killed CIA officers and contractors at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan’s eastern
province of Khost in 2009, it came to light that the facility was heavily
involved in target selection for drone strikes across the border in
Pakistan. The drones themselves, as the Washington Post noted
at the time, were “flown from separate bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
Both the Air Force and the CIA have conducted operations in
Pakistani air space, with some missions originating in Afghanistan and others
from inside Pakistan. In 2006, images of what appear to be Predator
drones stationed at Shamsi Air Base in Pakistan's Balochistan province were
found on Google Earth and later published. In 2009, the New York Times reported that
operatives from Xe Services, the company formerly known as Blackwater, had
taken over the task of arming Predator drones at the CIA’s “hidden bases in
Pakistan and Afghanistan.”
Following the May Navy SEAL raid into Pakistan
that killed Osama bin Laden, that country’s leaders reportedly ordered the
United States to leave Shamsi. The Obama administration evidently refused
and word leaked out, according to the Washington Post,
that the base was actually owned and sublet to the U.S. by the United Arab
Emirates, which had built the airfield “as an arrival point for falconry and
other hunting expeditions in Pakistan.”
The U.S. and Pakistani governments have
since claimed that Shamsi is no longer being used for drone
strikes. True or not, the U.S. evidently also uses other Pakistani bases
for its drones, including possibly PAF Base Shahbaz, located near the city of
Jacocobad, and another base located near Ghazi.
The New Scramble for Africa
Recently, the headline story, when it comes to
the expansion of the empire of drone bases, has been Africa. For the last
decade, the U.S. military has been operating out of Camp Lemonier, a former French Foreign Legion base in the tiny
African nation of Djibouti. Not long after the attacks of September 11,
2001, it became a base for Predator drones and has since been used to conduct
missions over neighboring Somalia.
For some time, rumors have also been
circulating about a secret American base in Ethiopia. Recently, a U.S.
official revealed to the Washington Post that
discussions about a drone base there had been underway for up to four years,
“but that plan was delayed because ‘the Ethiopians were not all that jazzed.’”
Now construction is evidently underway, if not complete.
Then, of course, there is that base on the
Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. A small fleet of Navy and Air Force
drones began operating openly there in 2009 to track pirates in the region’s
waters. Classified diplomatic cables obtained by Wikileaks, however,
reveal that those drones have also secretly been used to carry out missions in
Somalia. “Based in a hangar located about a quarter-mile from the main
passenger terminal at the airport,” the Post reports,
the base consists of three or four “Reapers and about 100 U.S. military
personnel and contractors, according to the cables.”
The U.S. has also recently sent four smaller
tactical drones to the African nations of Uganda and Burundi for use by those
countries’ militaries.
New and Old Empires
Even if the Pentagon budget were to begin to shrink, expansion of
America’s empire of drone bases is a sure thing in the years to come.
Drones are now the bedrock of Washington’s future military planning and -- with
counterinsurgency out of favor -- the preferred way of carrying out wars
abroad.
During the eight years of George W. Bush’s
presidency, as the U.S. was building up its drone fleets, the country launched
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and carried out limited strikes in Yemen,
Pakistan, and Somalia, using drones in at least four of those countries.
In less than three years under President Obama, the U.S. has launched drone
strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. It
maintains that it has carte blanche to kill suspected enemies in any nation (or
at least any nation in the global south).
According to a report by the Congressional
Budget Office published earlier this year, “the Department of Defense plans to
purchase about 730 new medium-sized and large unmanned aircraft systems” over
the next decade. In practical terms, this means more drones like the
Reaper.
Military officials told the Wall Street Journal that the Reaper “can fly 1,150
miles from base, conduct missions, and return home… [T]he time a drone can stay
aloft depends on how heavily armed it is.” According to a drone operator
training document obtained by TomDispatch, at maximum payload, meaning with
3,750 pounds worth of Hellfire missiles and GBU-12 or GBU-30 bombs on board,
the Reaper can remain aloft for 16 to 20 hours.
Even a glance at a world map tells you that,
if the U.S. is to carry out ever more drone strikes across the developing
world, it will need more bases for its future UAVs. As an unnamed senior
military official pointed out to a Washington Post reporter,
speaking of all those new drone bases clustered around the Somali and Yemeni
war zones, “If you look at it geographically, it makes sense -- you get out a
ruler and draw the distances [drones] can fly and where they take off from.”
Earlier this year, an analysis by
TomDispatch determined that there are more than 1,000 U.S. military
bases scattered across the globe -- a shadowy base-world providing plenty of
existing sites that can, and no doubt will, host drones. But facilities
selected for a pre-drone world may not always prove optimal locations for
America’s current and future undeclared wars and assassination campaigns.
So further expansion in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia is a likelihood.
What are the Air Force’s plans in this
regard? Lieutenant Colonel John Haynes was typically circumspect, saying,
“We are constantly evaluating potential operating locations based on evolving
mission needs.” If the last decade is any indication, those “needs” will
only continue to grow.
This article originally appeared on TomDispatch.com.
Nick Turse is a historian, essayist, and
investigative journalist. The associate editor ofTomDispatch.com and a senior editor at
Alternet.org, his latest book is The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Verso Books). This article marks another of Turse’s joint
Alternet/TomDispatch investigative reports on U.S. national security policy and
the American empire.
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Drone: Remote Control Warfare
Overview
Drones are changing the conduct
of war. Deployed at presidential discretion, they can be used in regular war
zones or to kill people in such countries as Yemen and Somalia, where the
United States is not officially at war. Advocates say that drones are more
precise than conventional bombers, allowing warfare with minimal civilian
deaths while keeping American pilots out of harm’s way. Critics say that drones
are cowardly and that they often kill innocent civilians while terrorizing
entire villages on the ground. In this book, Hugh Gusterson explores the
significance of drone warfare from multiple perspectives, drawing on accounts
by drone operators, victims of drone attacks, anti-drone activists, human
rights activists, international lawyers, journalists, military thinkers, and
academic experts.
Gusterson examines the way drone warfare has created commuter warriors and redefined the space of the battlefield. He looks at the paradoxical mix of closeness and distance involved in remote killing: is it easier than killing someone on the physical battlefield if you have to watch onscreen? He suggests a new way of understanding the debate over civilian casualties of drone attacks. He maps “ethical slippage” over time in the Obama administration’s targeting practices. And he contrasts Obama administration officials’ legal justification of drone attacks with arguments by international lawyers and NGOs. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/drone
Gusterson examines the way drone warfare has created commuter warriors and redefined the space of the battlefield. He looks at the paradoxical mix of closeness and distance involved in remote killing: is it easier than killing someone on the physical battlefield if you have to watch onscreen? He suggests a new way of understanding the debate over civilian casualties of drone attacks. He maps “ethical slippage” over time in the Obama administration’s targeting practices. And he contrasts Obama administration officials’ legal justification of drone attacks with arguments by international lawyers and NGOs. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/drone
About the Author
Hugh Gusterson is Professor of Anthropology and International
Affairs at George Washington University. He is the author of Nuclear Rites and People of the Bomb: Portraits of America’s Nuclear Complex.
Citizen Resistance
FAITHFUL WITNESS IN A TIME OF ENDLESS WAR
Drone Warfare and God’s Call to
Peacemaking
Friday, June 24 from 7:00-9:00 Pm; and Saturday, June 25 from 8:00 AM-12:00 PM
Friday, June 24 from 7:00-9:00 Pm; and Saturday, June 25 from 8:00 AM-12:00 PM
Christopher Dock Mennonite High
School, 1000 Forty Foot Road, Lansdale, PA 19446
Culminating with a public
witness/demonstration from 1:00 - 2:30 PM on Saturday, June 25 at the
Horsham Drone Warfare Command Center, County Line & Easton Road, Horsham,
PA 19044.
WHAT DOES DRONE
TERRORISM HAVE TO DO WITH HYPOCRISY?
Published on Monday, January 19, 2015 by Common
Dreams
Noam
Chomsky: Obama's Drone Program 'The Most Extreme Terrorist Campaign of Modern
Times'
Famed linguist takes
aim at western hypocrisy on terrorism.
Noam Chomsky speaking in May, 2014. (Photo: Chatham House/flickr/cc)
World-renowned linguist and scholar Noam
Chomsky has criticized what he sees as Western hypocrisy following the recent
terror attacks in Paris and the idea that there are two kinds of terrorism:
"theirs versus ours."
In an op-ed published Monday at CNN.com, Chomsky notes how the deadly attacks
on Charlie Hebdo and a supermarket last week sparked millions
to demonstrate under the banner "I am Charlie" and prompted inquiries
"into the roots of these shocking assaults in Islamic culture and
exploring ways to counter the murderous wave of Islamic terrorism without sacrificing
our values."
No such inquiry into western culture and
Christianity came from Anders Breivik's 2011 attack in Norway that killed
scores of people.
Nor did NATO's 1999 missile strike on Serbian
state television headquarters that killed 16 journalists spark "Je Suis
Charlie"-like demonstrations. In fact, Chomsky writes, that attack was
lauded by U.S. officials.
That civil rights lawyer Floyd Abrams described the Charlie Hebdo attack
as "the most threatening assault on journalism in living memory," is
not surprising, Chomsky writes, when one understands "'living memory,' a
category carefully constructed to include Their crimes against
us while scrupulously excluding Our crimes against them—the
latter not crimes but noble defense of the highest values, sometimes
inadvertently flawed."
Other omissions of attacks on journalists
noted by Chomsky: Israel's assault on Gaza this summer whose casualties
included many journalists, and the dozens of journalists in Honduras that have
been killed since the coup in 2009.
Offering further proof of what he describes as
western hypocrisy towards terrorism, Chomsky
takes at aim at Obama's drone program, which he describes as "the most
extreme terrorist campaign of modern times."
It "target[s] people suspected of perhaps
intending to harm us some day, and any unfortunates who happen to be
nearby," he writes.
DRONES
IN THE ARTS: Poem, Quilts, Film, Books
THE SEARCH FOR
PHANTOM LIMBS
By Gerald Sloan (April
2016)
Authorized personnel go
over
the bomb site with
flashlight
and tweezers, retrieving
the fragments of bodies.
How can you bury the
dead
when there is no head?
Can they be
reconstructed
like an archaeological
find
or assembled like a
puzzle
one piece at a time?
Drones Quilt Project
A project to remember the victims of US
combat drones
The idea for the Drones Quilt Project started with a group of
women in the UK who wanted to create what they called “a visual petition” to
present to Parliament. From their
website:
“The quilt is a work of advocacy. It’s a really simple project
designed to raise awareness about drones and remind the government that those
killed by drones are human beings, whose lives are sacred. Each square of the
quilt is made by someone like you, who writes their name and then the name of a
victim on a square of fabric. By doing so you advocate for that person, you put
your name next to theirs as a sign that you stand in solidarity with them. These
are then sewn together to create a visual petition.”
The idea resonated with activists in the U.S., particularly
since it is the U.S. that is responsible for thousands of deaths by combat
drones, and so the U.S. version of the Drones Quilt Project was born.
Since then, dozens of quilt blocks from all over the country have been turned into quilts, and form the basis of the Drones Quilt Project exhibit. Accompanying the quilts are informational posters describing the illegality of the combat drones program as well as the real damage they are causing. A third component of the exhibit is a two-sided handout listing resources as well as suggestions for taking action in opposition to these combat drones.
Since then, dozens of quilt blocks from all over the country have been turned into quilts, and form the basis of the Drones Quilt Project exhibit. Accompanying the quilts are informational posters describing the illegality of the combat drones program as well as the real damage they are causing. A third component of the exhibit is a two-sided handout listing resources as well as suggestions for taking action in opposition to these combat drones.
The quilts measure 66” x 66” and weigh 2.5 lbs each. The posters are 20” x 30” and there are four
of them. There are currently five
completed quilts and we are soliciting more quilt blocks so we may begin the
sixth.
It is our hope that this exhibit will help educate the public
about the illegal and immoral use of combat drones.
www.dronesquiltproject.wordpress.com @dronesquilt FB: Drones Quilt Project
Drones Quilt Project Coordinator: Leah Bolger, leahbolger@comcast.net, 541-207-7761
FILM
‘Good
Kill’: Drone Pilots Get PTSD, Civilians Die Nameless
A new movie from Andrew Niccol stars Ethan Hawke as a pilot fighting
terrorists from the ’burbs of Las Vegas.
US drone pilot
seems counterintuitive. A joystick and some computer screens in a shipping
container–sized office cube outside Las Vegas—it ain’t exactly the stuff of a
Hollywood action thriller. But that’s just the setting director Andrew Niccol
gives us in his new drama Good Kill, which
opened in theaters on Friday.
The
film, written and directed by Niccol, follows Maj. Tommy Egan, an Air Force
pilot who used to fly fighter planes, played by a convincing Ethan Hawke, at
the height of the escalation of the drone war around 2010. Unmanned aerial
vehicles, as drones are properly known, are becoming all the rage. War from a
safe distance—“We’ve got no skin in the game,” Egan complains at one point—has
its obvious appeal, and everyone at the base on the Las Vegas outskirts knows
it. Egan’s commanding officer at one point tells a group of new recruits,
“Drones aren’t going anywhere. In fact they’re going everywhere.”
The increase in
drone attacks coincided with a more active CIA role in the program; in the
film, a disembodied voice referred to only as “Langley” calls in strikes and
communicates with the drone pilots’ cubicle via speakerphone, making repeated
decisions that the “collateral damage”—civilian casualties—is
worth it to blow up some “high-value target” or another. And, with the CIA’s
more prominent role, civilian casualties do indeed climb. “Splash,” the drone
pilots say after each explosion, followed by a less and less enthusiastic echo
of “good kill,” giving the film its title.
The falling
enthusiasm of some, far from all, of the drone operators gives the movie its
tension. Though not a typical war movie—the explosions happen, without any
audio, on a screen within a screen—Good Kill does
explore what has become a common theme of today’s war films: post-traumatic
stress disorder. This, like the civilian casualties, which are ripped right
from headlines, is a real phenomenon: A 2013 study found
drone pilots are just as likely as pilots in manned aircraft to suffer
PTSD. MORE http://www.thenation.com/article/good-kill-drone-pilots-get-ptsd-civilians-die-nameless/
BOOKS
Democracy
Now! Daily
Digest May 3, 2016
As the Obama administration prepares to release for the first
time the number of people it believes it has killed in drone strikes in
countries that lie outside of conventional ... Read More →
"This Isn't a War on Leaks, It's a War on Whistleblowers":
Snowden Pens Foreword to New Scahill Book
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden wrote the foreword for the new
book by Jeremy Scahill and the staff of The Intercept, The
Assassination Complex: Inside the ... Read More →
American
Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes by Rebecca Gordon. 2016.
·
Details
No subject is more hotly debated than the extreme measures that
our government has taken after 9/11 in the name of national security. Torture,
extraordinary rendition, drone assassinations, secret detention centers (or
“black sites”), massive surveillance of citizens. But while the press
occasionally exposes the dark side of the war on terror and congressional
investigators sometimes raise alarms about the abuses committed by U.S.
intelligence agencies and armed forces, no
high U.S. official has been prosecuted for these violations – which many legal
observers around the world consider war crimes.
The United States helped establish the international principles guiding the prosecution of war crimes – starting with the Nuremberg tribunal following World War II, when Nazi officials were held accountable for their crimes against humanity. But the American government and legal system have consistently refused to apply these same principles to our own officials. Now Rebecca Gordon takes on the explosive task of “indicting” the officials who – in a just society – should be put on trial for war crimes. Some might dismiss this as a symbolic exercise. But what is at stake here is the very soul of the nation. (from the book)
The United States helped establish the international principles guiding the prosecution of war crimes – starting with the Nuremberg tribunal following World War II, when Nazi officials were held accountable for their crimes against humanity. But the American government and legal system have consistently refused to apply these same principles to our own officials. Now Rebecca Gordon takes on the explosive task of “indicting” the officials who – in a just society – should be put on trial for war crimes. Some might dismiss this as a symbolic exercise. But what is at stake here is the very soul of the nation. (from the book)
[Considerable attention is given to “drone assassination”: 3, 29, 120, 164-75 and more. –Dick]
Another new book arrived today 6-10
Charles Derber & Yale Magrass. Bully
Nation:
How the American Establishment Creates a Bullying Society. 2016. Related? The entire chain of Drone command projects
domination..
MORE
ORGANIZATIONS AND ACTIONS
KNOW DRONES: WHAT
YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WAR DRONES, WHAT YOU CAN DOCheck this website: http://www.knowdrones.com/
“Inside Drone Warfare” – The Las Vegas
Symposium Tapes
Thanks to the financial contributions by many
of you who are reading this, the “Inside Drone Warfare” symposium was held at
the University of Nevada/Las Vegas School of Law on March 30, 2016 - in the
shadow of Creech AFB, the largest drone control and training center in the U.S.
The entire symposium was videotaped and
divided into five parts, linked below. These tapes will give you a profound
emotional as well as informational understanding of the impact of the U.S.
drone war program on the drone operators and their victims, all of whom have
been abandoned by the U.S. legal system.
Please remember that the seriousness and
emotion evinced by the drone whistleblowers comes not only from their
experiences in the drone program but because they constantly face the threat of
government reprisal.
Here are links to press coverage of the event:
If you would like a DVD of these tapes to use in study groups, to send to public
officials or for other purposes, please contact nickmottern@gmail.com. There
will be a slight cost, yet to be determined.
Part 1 https://youtu.be/eDsMR4qJ3Zw
·
Ann Wright introduces the symposium.
·
Whistle-blowers’ lawyer Jesselyn Radack speaks about common problems among drone
operators and observes: “most of the people in the program definitely have
struggles of conscience”.
·
Former drone operator Cian Westmoreland describes experiences in the drone program
after saying that what bothered him the most was the “diffusion of
responsibility” within the drone program; and he speaks of the “civility” of
the killing. He also talks about the impact of war on children.
Part 2 https://youtu.be/_PUsDCig7i8
·
Former CIA counter-terrorism officer Chris
Aaron concludes after his
experience in the drone program that: “We absolutely are sowing the seeds for
the next round of people to hate us.” There is “a lot of guess work” involved
in drone targeting he says, and he believes that “we are essentially setting
ourselves up for what we would have to call a perpetual war.”
·
Universalist Unitarian Minister and Reserve
Army Chaplain Chris Antal
tells about being kicked out of Afghanistan by the Army after giving a sermon
critical of U.S. military involvement there, including drone warfare.
Part 3 https://youtu.be/jE824m_S9sA
·
Reprieve lawyer Shelby Sullivan-Bennis discusses Reprieve’s work in representing the
families of drone victims and says
that “U.S. courts are kangaroo courts with respect to national security.” She
says Reprieve brings cases in the U.S. not with any expectation of winning but
in the hope that press coverage of the cases will educate the U.S. public about
drone war. ”This is very much a war of public opinion,” she says.
·
Shelby follows up her
presentation by presenting an extremely moving video interview with a Yemeni man whose brother-in-law was killed
by U.S. drones. Describing the impact of drone attacks on a Yemeni town, he
says that “for the people killing has become normal…” They say: “maybe the
bombs will fall on us, it doesn’t matter. We’ll die; it doesn’t matter to
us.…It’s become all the same whether you’re with Al Qaeda or a normal peaceful
citizen you are going to get killed all the same. It’s all the same. You might
be alive today and dead tomorrow.”
Part 4 https://youtu.be/qMu0-N3y7yo
·
Marjorie Cohn, human rights lawyer, professor at Thomas
Jefferson School of Law and editor of “Drones and Targeted Killing”, outlines
how drone war violates international law and discusses how American
exceptionalism provides an emotional underpinning for drone attacks which leads
to the kind of thinking that “it’s preferable that foreign little girls get
killed as opposed to U.S., American little girls.” She also says that the
Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Nuremberg Principles establish…a duty
to disobey unlawful orders, and “it is my feeling that this defense could also
be used for drone pilots who refuse to carry out orders, direct orders really,
to kill people with drones.”
Part 5 ttps://youtu.be/5jcVuT4jRkc
·
Brian Terrell, Co-coordinator of Voices for Creative
Nonviolence, delivers a timeless, must-see commentary on the philosophical
basis for drone war protest and war protest generally in which he says, “when
we go to Creech and places like it … we cannot be there to blame other people…”
·
A brief question and
answer session that includes commentary on the drone war movies “The Good Kill”
and “Eye in the Sky”, ways of supporting whistleblowers and protest messaging
at drone bases.
PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS SPECIAL BULLETIN FAR AND
WIDE, TWEET TO IT AND POST IT ON FACEBOOK.
THANK YOU TO ALL WHO, THROUGH YOUR
CONTRIBUTIONS, ENABLED THIS SYMPOSIUM TO HAPPEN.
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NUCLEAR RESISTER (June 2,
2016)
Page 1, “Shut Down Creech!
Drone War Resistance in Nevada”
“The 65-mile Sacred Peace Walk from Las Vegas to the Nevada
nuclear weapons test site, sponsored annually by the Nevada Desert Experience,
stopped at Creech as they passed by on March 23,” the first day of the annual
peace camp, multiple protests and arrests.
P. 5 gives report of arrests at the test site.
Page 3, “New York Drone
Resister Out on Appeal.” Faulty title; article pertains to two
resisters.
Mary
Anne Grady Flores out on bail while she challenges validity of a protection
order granted to Col. Evans of the Hancock Air National Guard Base 174th
Attack Wing. She needs financial help,
see p. 7.
Three days after she was released Nazareth
College Professor of Sociology Harry
Murray was in court for sentencing for his trespass at Hancock in
2013. Murray had filed a 3,300 word
memorandum with the court regarding civil disobedience against drones.
Page 4, “Feds Dismiss
Drone Protesters Yet Again.”
P. 5, “Peace Drone Flies
at Air Show.”
FORMER DRONE PILOTS
SPEAK OUT. Space Alert! (Winter/Spring
2016), p. 11.
The FreeThoughtProject.com reported that former drone operators in the U.S.
Air Force “have gone public with detailed accounts of the widespread corruption
and institutionalized indifference to civilian casualties that characterized
the program.” In response, the Air Force
has tried to silence the former airmen.
From Drone Watch #17
Retired
and Former U.S. Military Personnel Urge Drone Operators to Refuse to Fly
Missions. Veterans for Peace E-News,
June 5, 2015. 
Several VFP members have signed onto to a letter
urging United States drone pilots, sensor operators and support teams to
refuse to play any role in drone surveillance or assassination missions.
<Letter>
Several VFP members have signed onto to a letter
urging United States drone pilots, sensor operators and support teams to
refuse to play any role in drone surveillance or assassination missions.
<Letter>
n a letter released
by KnowDrones.com, 44
former members of the US Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines whose ranks range
from private to colonel and whose military service spans 60 years, “urge United
States drone pilots, sensor operators and support teams to refuse to play any role
in drone surveillance/ assassination missions. <Signators of the Letter> From Veterans for Peace Weekly E-News, June
19, 2015.
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S
DRONE WAR IN FUTILE MIDDLE EAST CONQUEST
Andrew Bacevich:
America's War for the Greater Middle East Cannot Be Won. Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, APRIL
08, 2016. STORY. WATCH FULL SHOW
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Andrew
Bacevich. He has written a new book called America’s
War for the Greater Middle East. I wanted to turn to Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights Watch is reiterating its call for the United States to stop
selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, after the group said it found evidence the
Saudi-led coalition used U.S.-supplied
bombs in the deadly airstrikes on a crowded market in Yemen last month. The
strikes killed at least 97 civilians, including 25 children. Medical clinic
worker Othman Saleh spoke out about the aftermath of the attack.
OTHMAN SALEH: [translated] We received
44 wounded in total, including women, children and elders. Of those 44, two
people died. Three others were in critical condition. They had to be taken to
the ICU.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Yemen, the ongoing drone strikes there.
In just our headlines today, speaking of drone strikes, Afghan officials saying
at least 17 civilians killed in U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan on
Wednesday—first strike reportedly hitting a truck of a local elder going to
resolve a land dispute, killing the elder and 11 others; the second drone
reportedly striking and killing two people going to collect the bodies; and a
third strike reportedly killing three men who went to see what happened. This expanded drone war, which is President
Obama’s?
ANDREW BACEVICH: There’s no question
about it. I mean, and it has to be one of the most disappointing parts of his
legacy, I think. You know, the president—we elected the president because he
said that he was going to end the Iraq War responsibly. Sadly, he also said
that he was going to escalate the Afghanistan War. He did that, without any
particular success. My assessment of the president is that he understands that
invading and occupying countries in the Islamic world basically doesn’t work,
and so he is—he is refraining from trying to repeat that mistake. Alas, he has
now turned to other methods of employing American military power, with
missile-firing UAVs one very good example. And there is little evidence that
those alternatives are all that much more effective, albeit, at least from a
U.S. point of view—a U.S. point of view only—they aren’t as costly.
For some reason, I mean—I’m with
Clausewitz: War is the continuation of politics by other means. War makes sense
only if you are able to achieve your political purposes at some reasonable
cost. And we have been fighting a war in the Greater Middle East without
achieving, in any conclusive sense, any positive political outcomes. And yet
the tendency is to evaluate our conduct there in operational military concerns,
of winning fights as opposed to accomplishing political objectives. And that’s
yet another problem. MORE (see link
above).
BACEVICH ON UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF DRONES
“Writing a Blank Check
on War for the President”
How
the United States became a prisoner of war and Congress went MIA. BY ANDREW
BACEVICH. mOYERS & cO., APRIL 6, 2016.
A US Navy seaman fires a shot line in March of
2016 from the guided-missile destroyer USS Gonzalez, which is supporting
Operation Inherent Resolve in the Arabian Gulf. (Photo: Department of Defense)
This post originally
appeared at TomDispatch.
Let’s face it: in times of war, the Constitution tends to take a beating. With the
safety or survival of the nation said to be at risk, the basic law of the land
— otherwise considered sacrosanct — becomes nonbinding, subject to being waived
at the whim of government authorities who are impatient, scared, panicky or
just plain pissed off.
The examples are legion. . . . [For Bacevich’s
historical survey presidential usurpation of the authority to go to war, click
on TomDispatch above.]
To leap almost four decades ahead, think of
the Authorization to Use Military Force
(AUMF) that was passed by Congress in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 as
the grandchild of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. This document required (directed,
called upon, requested, invited, urged) President George W. Bush “to use all
necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons
he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks
that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons,
in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the
United States by such nations, organizations or persons.” In plain
language: here’s a blank check; feel
free to fill it in any way you like.
Forever War
As a practical matter, one specific individual
— Osama bin Laden — had hatched the 9/11 plot. A single organization —
al-Qaeda — had conspired to pull it off. And just one nation — backward,
Taliban-controlled Afghanistan — had provided assistance, offering sanctuary to
bin Laden and his henchmen. Yet nearly 15 years later, the AUMF remains operative and has
become the basis for military actions against innumerable individuals,
organizations and nations with no involvement whatsoever in the murderous
events of September 11, 2001.
Consider the following less than comprehensive
list of four developments, all of which occurred just within the last month and
a half:
*In Yemen, a US airstrike killed at least 50
individuals, said to be members of an Islamist organization that did not exist
on 9/11.
*In Somalia, another US airstrike killed a reported 150 militants,
reputedly members of al-Shabab, a very nasty outfit, even if one with no real
agenda beyond Somalia itself.
*In Syria, pursuant to the campaign of
assassination that is the latest spin-off of the Iraq War, US special
operations forces bumped off the
reputed “finance minister” of the Islamic State, another terror group that
didn’t even exist in September 2001.
*In Libya, according to press reports, the
Pentagon is again gearing up for
“decisive military action” — that is, a new round of air strikes and special
operations attacks to quell the disorder resulting from the US-orchestrated air
campaign that in 2011 destabilized that country. An airstrike conducted in late
February gave a hint of what is to come: it killed approximately
50 Islamic State militants (and possibly two
Serbian diplomatic captives).
Yemen, Somalia, Syria and Libya share at least
this in common: none of them, nor any of the groups targeted, had a hand in the
9/11 attacks.
Imagine if, within a matter of weeks, China
were to launch raids into Vietnam, Thailand and Taiwan, with punitive action
against the Philippines in the offing. Or if Russia, having given a swift
kick to Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan, leaked its plans to teach Poland a
lesson for mismanaging its internal affairs. Were Chinese President Xi Jinping
or Russian President Vladimir Putin to order such actions, the halls of
Congress would ring with fierce denunciations. Members of both houses would
jostle for places in front of the TV cameras to condemn the perpetrators for
recklessly violating international law and undermining the prospects for world
peace. Having no jurisdiction over the actions of other sovereign states,
senators and representatives would break down the doors to seize the
opportunity to get in their two cents worth. No one would be able to stop
them. Who does Xi think he is! How dare Putin!
When Obama in 2015 went so far as to ask Congress to pass a new AUMF addressing the specific threat posed by the Islamic State — that is, essentially rubberstamping the war he had already launched on his own in Syria and Iraq — the Republican leadership took no action.
Yet when an American president undertakes
analogous actions over which the legislative branch does have
jurisdiction, members of Congress either yawn or avert their eyes.
In this regard, Republicans are especially egregious offenders. On matters where
President Obama is clearly acting in accordance with the Constitution — for example,
in nominating someone to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court — they spare no
effort to thwart him, concocting bizarre arguments
nowhere found in the Constitution to justify their obstructionism. Yet when
this same president cites the 2001 AUMF as the basis for initiating hostilities
hither and yon, something that is on the face of it not legal but ludicrous,
they passively assent.
Indeed, when Obama in 2015 went so far as to
ask Congress to pass a new AUMF addressing the specific threat posed by the
Islamic State — that is, essentially rubberstamping the war he had already launched on
his own in Syria and Iraq — the Republican leadership took no action. Looking
forward to the day when Obama departs office, Senator Mitch McConnell with his
trademark hypocrisy worried aloud that
a new AUMF might constrain his successor. The next president will “have to
clean up this mess, created by all of this passivity over the last eight
years,” the majority leader remarked. In that regard, “an authorization to use
military force that ties the president’s hands behind his back is not something
I would want to do.” The proper role of Congress was to get out of the way and
give this commander-in-chief carte blanche so that the next one would enjoy
comparably unlimited prerogatives.
Collaborating with a president they roundly
despise — implicitly concurring in Obama’s questionable claim that “existing
statutes [already] provide me with the authority I need” to make war on ISIS —
the GOP-controlled Congress thereby transformed the post-9/11 AUMF into what
has now become, in effect, a writ of
permanent and limitless armed conflict. In Iraq and Syria, for instance,
what began as a limited but open-ended campaign of air strikes authorized by
President Obama in August 2014 has expanded to include an ever-larger
contingent of US trainers and advisers for the Iraqi military, special operations forces conducting raids in both Iraq
and Syria, the first new all – US forward fire base in
Iraq, and at least 5,000 US military
personnel now on the ground, a number that continues to grow incrementally.
BY
BILLMOYERS.COM STAFF |
MARCH 14, 2012
Remember Barack Obama campaigning back in 2008
and solemnly pledging to end the Iraq War? What he neglected to mention at
the time was that he was retaining the prerogative to plunge the country into
another Iraq War on his own ticket. So has he now done, with members of
Congress passively assenting and the country essentially a POW.
By now, through its inaction, the legislative
branch has, in fact, surrendered the final remnant of authority it retained on
matters relating to whether, when, against whom and for what purpose the United
States should go to war. Nothing now remains but to pay the bills, which
Congress routinely does, citing a solemn obligation to “support the troops.” In this way does the performance of lesser
duties provide an excuse for shirking far greater ones.
In military circles, there is a term to
describe this type of behavior. It’s called cowardice.
ANDREW BACEVICH Andrew Bacevich is
a professor of history and international relations at Boston University. A
graduate of the US Military Academy, he received his PhD in American diplomatic
history from Princeton University. Bacevich is also the author of the new
released book America’s War for the
Greater Middle East
National
Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR),
The Real State of the
Union Protest – January 12, 2016
Please do your utmost to participate in this
extremely important protest in Washington, DC, organized by the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance
(NCNR), that embody the first mass
response to the dramatic spread of the U.S. drone assassination campaign as
well as the expansion of bombing and introduction of special operations units
in the Middle East and Libya.
Here is the NCNR call for the protest:
Join the National
Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance and friends for
THE REAL STATE OF THE UNION
January 12, 2016 1:30 pm
On the sidewalk in front of the Supreme Court building, across from the Capitol
THE REAL STATE OF THE UNION
January 12, 2016 1:30 pm
On the sidewalk in front of the Supreme Court building, across from the Capitol
Because of the wars:
- We are making enemies across the globe.
- We have no money left to help those who are struggling and living in poverty.
- Our Mother Earth is dying and the climate is in crisis.
- Violence is escalating here at home, especially against people of color.
- We are making enemies across the globe.
- We have no money left to help those who are struggling and living in poverty.
- Our Mother Earth is dying and the climate is in crisis.
- Violence is escalating here at home, especially against people of color.
As Obama delivers his final State of the Union
address, we call on him to speak the truth. The Union, and indeed the
whole world, is ravaged after years of endless war.
What can we do? Join us on January
12 for a peaceful rally and hear inspiring speakers with real solutions.
Bring signs and banners, and materials to share with others in making
signs. If you are considering risking arrest in an action of nonviolent
civil resistance, contact joyfirst5@gmail.com
Here is the schedule for the day:
11:00 a.m. - People can begin gathering
at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation, 212 East Captiol St. NE, for
networking and making signs.
11:30-12:30 – Those risking arrest will
meet at the church for final planning of action.
12:30-1:30 - Open mic giving activists an
opportunity to share information on their group and what they are doing in
working for peace and justice.
1:30 – Rally, with signs and banners,
speakers and reading of the Real State of the Union petition (See below) on the
sidewalk in front of the Supreme Court, 1 First Street, NE, across the street
from the Capitol.
Sometime
around 2:30 or 3:00 - Those risking arrest will attempt to
deliver the petition to Congress and the President in an action of nonviolent
civil resistance. If you are planning to risk arrest or want to find out
more, contact joyfirst5@gmail.com
Note: Protests are also being planned at
Creech AFB, Las Vegas, and Beale AFB, Marysville CA. For more information
contact Toby Blome – ratherbenyckeling@comcast.net
Veterans and Activists
Arrested Protesting Drone Terror at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. VFP Weekly E-News, April 1, 2016.
Veterans For Peace national President Barry
Ladendorf, Board member Tarak Kauff, and Advisory Board member Ann Wright were among eight peace activists who were arrested
early Thursday morning ]3-31], after physically blocking the main
gate to Creech Air Force Base near Las Vegas, Nevada.
Also arrested were VFP members Barry Binks (long time, often arrested drone protester), Ken Mayers, Chris Kundson and Leslie Harris, along with Joan Pleume of the New York Granny Peace Brigade.
Also arrested were VFP members Barry Binks (long time, often arrested drone protester), Ken Mayers, Chris Kundson and Leslie Harris, along with Joan Pleume of the New York Granny Peace Brigade.
Contents: OMNI
Drone Watch Newsletter #17
Drone Information
New Drone Command Center Under Construction at
Ebbing Air National Guard Base, Ft. Smith, AR
Global Drone Bases, More Under Construction, More Planned
Facts About the MQ-9 Reaper
Normalizing Drones, Capitalism Will Commodify Everything
Moyers & Co., Drone Wars Documents Leaked
Film, Eye In the Sky: Step by
Step with Helen Mirren
Pentagon’s War Planning:
Increasing the Drones
Obama’s War
Dick: News Reporting as Inadvertent Editorial Writing
Resistance
3 types
VFP Drone Quilts at OMNI
Appeals to Drone “Pilots” to Walk Away
Protesters at Battle Creek Drone Center.
Civil Disobedience
12 Arrested at Hancock AFB Drone Command
Code Pink Members Arrested at Creech AFB
2 Arrested at Volk Field Air National Guard Base
Dick,
War of Terror
Dick,
Wars and Warming
Contents
Drone Newsletter #15 and #16 at end
END DRONE NEWSLETTER #18
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