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Drones

Why There Should Be A Treaty Against The Use Of Weaponized Drones

June 1, 2023 Colonel (Ret) Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. , , ,
Citizen activism to bring about changes in how brutal wars are conducted is extremely difficult, but not impossible.  Citizens have successfully pushed through the United Nations General Assembly treaties to abolish nuclear weapons and to ban the use of landmines and cluster munitions.  Of course, countries that want to continue to use these weapons will not follow the lead of the vast majority of countries in the world and sign those treaties.  The United States and the other eight nuclear armed countries have refused to sign the treaty to abolish nuclear weapons. 

Open Mic Protests Plan For AI-Powered Taser Drones In Schools

April 11, 2023 Open Mic, Popular Resistance. , , ,
In May 2022, the company’s own AI Ethics Board voted against a pilot program with law enforcement due to concerns over surveillance and abuse, particularly against people of color. However, weeks later, in the wake of the Uvalde tragedy, Axon announced its intention to embed Taser-equipped drones in schools to stop mass shootings, using AI surveillance and virtual reality simulations. Nine of the thirteen members of the AI Ethics Board resigned, stating they had "lost faith in Axon's ability to be a responsible partner." Axon shareholders are now requesting that the company discontinue the development and plans for sale of a remotely-operated Taser drone system, which poses serious risks to privacy, racial equity, and physical safety.

Leicester’s Israeli Weapons Factory Issued With Eviction Notice

April 10, 2023 Palestine Action. , , , ,
Activists protesting outside of the UAV Tactical Systems factory in Leicester have issued Elbit with an eviction notice [1] – giving them one month to vacate the drone factory before the Palestine Action ‘siege’ commences on May 1st. The notice, handed to Elbit Systems under the authority of The Court (of Public Opinion), provides 30 days notice before the site will be met by a mass action, as the people of Leicester and groups and individuals from across Britain convene to force the Israeli weapons factory to close. At the same time, protestors gathered in Leicester city centre, publicly exposing Elbit and their activities a few miles away at the UAV Tactical Systems factory, holding banners, flares, flags and leaflets outlining their criminal actions

Three Women Arrested At Creech Drone Base

October 21, 2022 Shut Down Creech, Nuke Resister. , , ,
Las Vegas, Nevada - Anti-drone activists, in Nevada for a week-long protest at a U.S. assassin drone base north of Las Vegas, continued their resistance on Wednesday morning, October 19 with a nonviolent blockade of the entrance road into Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs. After nearly two hours, three protesters were arrested. Dozens – maybe hundreds – of vehicles were stalled on the highway trying to enter the base. Protesters hope to motivate Air Force personnel involved in the U.S. drone program to follow their conscience and no longer participate. Protesters held life-sized cardboard cut-outs of four of the seven children from the Ahmadi family who were killed by a U.S. drone attack in Kabul in August 2021, and held two signs that read:  “A Call To Conscience” and “Can You See, You Are Murdering Me.”

Israel Authorizes Military To Kill Palestinians With Drones In West Bank

October 15, 2022 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , ,
Commanders of the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) have been authorized to use armed drones to kill Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, with the approval of Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi. Hamas called the order “a dangerous step” and urged Palestinians “to continue resisting the Israeli occupation with all means possible until they regain their legitimate rights.” The authorization to expand the use of killer drones coincides with “a significant rise in shooting attacks and massive gunfire during arrest raids, specifically in the northern West Bank cities of Jenin and Nablus,” according to The Jerusalem Post. On September 28, the IOF killed four Palestinians and injured dozens more during protests in Jenin. Since as early as 2008, the Israeli Air Force has been killing Palestinians in Gaza with drones.

Drone Resisters’ Charges Dismissed ‘In The Interest Of Justice’

May 2, 2022 Upstate Drone Action Coalition, Popular Resistance. , , ,
On April 28, 2022, in DeWitt, NY night court, Judge David Gideon presiding, pro se defendants Mark Scibilia-Carver and Tom Joyce of the Ithaca Catholic Worker and the Upstate Drone Action Coalition, had their 2019 violation charges for blocking, with several others, the main entrance of Hancock drone base, home of the 174th Attack Wing of the NYS Air National Guard. dismissed “in the interests of justice.” According to Sujata Gibson, stand-by counsel and Cornell Law School faculty, the dismissal “was significant, not just to this movement but to our collective conversation about the role of non-violent peaceful action in our democracy.” Gibson continued, “It was an honor to witness the thought that Judge Gideon put into his decision and deeply moving to hear the words of those who put themselves on the line to bring attention to these issues.”

Experts Detail Deadly Consequences Of US Drone Strikes To Senate

February 11, 2022 Brett Wilkins, Commondreams. , , ,
Experts on the conduct and consequences of U.S. drone strikes delivered harrowing testimony Wednesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on two decades of aerial bombardment during the so-called War on Terror.  "Our nation is at a turning point," Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said upon opening the hearing. "In the months after 9/11 we strayed from our values, engaging in torture and indefinite detention at Guantánamo, which continues." "We also began conducting lethal strikes in unprecedented ways," he continued, later acknowledging the tens of thousands of men, women, and children killed U.S. airstrikes in at least half a dozen nations over the past 20-plus years. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the committee, was dismissive of the proceeding, instead expressing concern for "the growing spike in violent crime, including murders and attacks on police" in the United States.

Drone Warfare: The World Needs To End US Impunity

December 30, 2021 Abdul Rahman, People's Dispatch. , , ,
A report by The New York Times (NYT) earlier this month revealed that at least 1,400 innocent civilians were killed in numerous airstrikes, mostly drones strikes, carried out by the US forces since 2014 in Afghanistan and some countries in West Asia. The civilian toll of the US drone strikes has already been widely reported, with several other sources such as Airwars citing a larger number of civilian casualties. The NYT report also revealed the extent of the failure of the international community to ensure accountability and justice for the victims of these war crimes. The impunity enjoyed by the US is a key factor in such atrocities continuing to take place.

NYT Reporting On Airstrikes Should Give Daniel Hale More Credit

December 21, 2021 Sam Carliner, Common Dreams. , , ,
The New York Times recently came through with a display of reporting that should be commended. On December 18, the paper announced its release of hundreds of the Pentagon's confidential reports of civilian casualties caused by U.S. airstrikes in the Middle East. This follows its high profile investigations into the U.S. drone murder of the Ahmadi family during the Afghanistan withdrawal, and an American strike cell in Syria that killed dozens of civilians with airstrikes. Many journalists will, rightfully, praise the New York Times for its reporting on U.S. airstrikes and the civilian cost. Far fewer will point out how the inhumanity of U.S. airstrikes were first revealed in 2013 by whistleblower Daniel Hale.

Grandmother Arrested At Drone Base While Distributing Leaflets With Photos Of Children Killed In Attack

November 25, 2021 ToBlomé, Popular Resistance. , , ,
Marysville, CA - A small group of anti-drone activists, with Codepink, Ban Killer Drones and Veterans For Peace held demonstrations at 2 gates Monday at Beale Air Force Base, a drone base in Marysville, during am and pm commute. Flyers and banners were used to educate military personnel about two critical issues: 1) The August 29th U.S. drone attack that killed 10 members of the Afghan Ahmadi family, all civilians, at their Kabul home, and 2) The U.S. Military’s critical role in the global climate crisis, that leaves a gigantic carbon footprint annually, due to the 800+ foreign bases worldwide, and the ongoing state of “endless wars.” One banner read: "Creechers Say: END WAR, 4 the CLIMATE,” with activists dressed up as and holding puppets of animal creatures, in response to the recent COP 26 global climate conference that excluded the U.S. military’s major role in green house gas emissions in the global solution agreements.

Murder By Any Other Name

November 7, 2021 Scott Ritter, Consortium News. , , ,
On Aug. 29, the United States murdered ten Afghan civilians in a drone strike. The U.S. Air Force Inspector Gen., Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said, was appointed on Sept. 21, to lead an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the attack. On Nov. 3, Gen. Said released the unclassified findings of his investigation, declaring that while the incident was “regrettable,” no crimes were committed by the U.S. forces involved. The reality, however, is that the U.S. military engaged in an act of premeditated murder violative of U.S. laws and policies, as well as international law. Everyone involved, from the president on down committed a war crime. Their indictment is spelled out in the details of what occurred before and during the approximately eight hours a U.S. MQ-9 “Reaper” drone tracked Zemari Ahmadi, an employee of Nutrition and Education International, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that has been operating in Afghanistan since 2003, working to fight malnutrition among women and children who live in high-mortality areas in Afghanistan.

Daniel Hale And America’s Unending Persecution Of Whistleblowers

November 3, 2021 John Kiriakou, Scheer Post. , , ,
Struggling with the moral injury of taking part in America’s expanding drone wars, Daniel Hale took it as his civic duty to tell his fellow Americans the truth about what was being done in their name. In 2014, the former Air Force member and National Security Agency intelligence analyst leaked 17 documents to The Intercept that provided the basis for a series of articles detailing the full scope of the civilian deaths caused by U.S. drone strikes. Despite being billed by President Barack Obama, whose administration greatly expanded the drone wars, as “exceptionally surgical and precise,” what Hale’s leaks revealed was that not only was that not the case, but that what the U.S. was doing in the Middle East amounted to war crimes.

Drone Whistleblower Thrown In Pen With Terrorists

October 20, 2021 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. , , ,
Drone whistleblower Daniel Hale was sent on Sunday to the notorious Communications Management Unit (CMU) at the maximum-security U.S. Penitentiary (USP) at Marion, Illinois to serve a 45-month sentence, rather than to the low-security prison at Butner, North Carolina, where federal Judge Liam O’Grady had recommended he go. Butner is a prison hospital complex, and O’Grady was cognizant of Daniel’s need for psychological therapy to deal with post traumatic stress disorder from his time as a U.S. Air Force drone operator. USP Marion, on the other hand, is a former “Supermax” prison that was built in the early 1960s as a replacement for Alcatraz. It was converted into a CMU to keep terrorists from being in contact with the media.

Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale Imprisoned In Unit For Terrorists

October 19, 2021 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , ,
Drone whistleblower Daniel Hale, who pled guilty to violating the Espionage Act, was transferred from a jail in Virginia to a communication management unit (CMU) at United States Penitentiary Marion in southern Illinois. He is the first person convicted for an unauthorized disclosure of information to the press to be incarcerated in a CMU, which the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) claims is for terrorists and “high-risk inmates.” The decision may effectively cut him off from his entire support network, including friends and fellow whistleblowers who were by his side as federal prosecutors aggressively pursued charges against him.

Jail Killer Drone Operators Instead Of Drone Whistleblowers

September 19, 2021 Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. , , ,
For decades the U.S. has been murdering innocent civilians, including U.S. citizens, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Mali and who knows where else.   Not one person in the military has been held accountable for these criminal acts. Instead, drone whistleblower Daniel Hale is sitting in prison with a 45 month sentence.  The August 29, 2021 deaths of ten innocent civilians, including seven children, in a family compound in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan by a hellfire missile fired from a U.S. military drone has brought the U.S. assassination program into massive public view.   The photos of the blood-stained walls and the mangled white Toyota in the family compound in densely populated Kabul have gotten incredible attention compared to the 15 years of drone strikes in isolated areas in which hundreds of people attending funerals and wedding parties were killed.
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