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Drones

Preventing A Dystopian Future: New Campaign To Ban Killer And Surveillance Drones

August 30, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
Drones are being used as weapons of terror and oppression throughout the world. Not only do they make it possible for the United States to colonize and occupy other countries, but police departments in the US have access to surveillance and weaponized drones to target civilians. As the technology evolves, drones have the potential to lead to greater wars, including a war between major powers. To prevent this dystopian future, anti-drone activists are organizing an international campaign to ban drones. Clearing the FOG speaks with Nick Mottern, one of the founders of the Ban Killer Drones campaign, about the impact of drones on communities and the work to end them.

Biden Vows New Strikes In Retaliation

August 29, 2021 Julia Conley, Commondreams. , , ,
Even as he planned to withdraw all remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan by August 31, President Joe Biden said Saturday that the drone strike that was launched Friday night in retaliation for an attack claimed by ISIS-K "was not the last." "We will continue to hunt down any person involved in that heinous attack and make them pay," the president said in a statement Saturday afternoon. "Whenever anyone seeks to harm the United States or attack our troops, we will respond. That will never be in doubt." The Pentagon said the drone strike killed two "planners and facilitators" of the explosion outside Kabul's airport, but according to The Guardian, in addition to targets related to the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, an elder in Jalalabad reported that three civilians were killed and four were wounded in the U.S. strike.

Biden Admitted War In Afghanistan Is Becoming A Somalia-Like Drone War

August 19, 2021 Morgan Artyukhina, Sputnik News. , , ,
The war in Afghanistan rested on the same legal basis as the rest of the US War on Terror: the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress on September 18, 2001, a week after the terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda that destroyed the World Trade Center skyscrapers in New York and damaged the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, killing roughly 3,000 Americans. The US invasion of Afghanistan followed just weeks later, and while the Taliban government that had harbored al-Qaeda was quickly overthrown, it regrouped in the countryside and launched a new insurgency the following year, which on Sunday finally succeeded after 18 years in seizing Kabul and dispersing the US-backed Afghan government.

Three Activists Arrested After Blockading Drone Factory

August 19, 2021 Palestine Action. , , ,
Palestine Action have returned to Elbit System’s drone factory in Braunstone Town, Leicester, and have once again disrupted the production of killer drones used for repressive purposes by Israeli forces. The factory – ran by Elbit-Thales joint venture UAV Tactical Systems – has been blockaded by Palestine Action activists. Two activists in a ‘lock-on’ and one activist who had D-locked their body to gates have been arrested, after placing their bodies in the way of Elbit’s drone manufacture operations. The previous occupation of the Leicester site – from May 19th-25th – was Palestine Action’s longest continuous action so far, with the action carried on by local residents who turned out in support.

Daniel Hale Receives 45-Month Sentence

July 28, 2021 Kevin Gosztola, Shadow Proof. , , ,
Drone whistleblower Daniel Hale was sentenced to 45 months in federal prison. It was a severe sentence but not the harshest sentence ever issued in an Espionage Act prosecution against a former United States government employee or contractor for the “unauthorized disclosure” of information. The sentence was not what U.S. prosecutors demanded. They wanted Hale to go to prison for nine years, but it is likely Judge Liam O’Grady issued a lower sentence after considering his mental health problems. This case is the first major Espionage Act conviction under President Joe Biden. Hale was a signals intelligence analyst in the U.S. Air Force, who was deployed to Afghanistan and stationed at Bagram Air Base.

Drone War Whistleblower Daniel Hale Remains Steadfast

July 26, 2021 Kevin Reed, WSWS. , , ,
In a 20-page sentencing memorandum in the case of the United States v. Daniel Everette Hale published on July 19, federal prosecutors argue vindictively that the former Air Force analyst stole classified information in order to “ingratiate himself” with journalists and that a “significant sentence is necessary to demonstrate that the unauthorized disclosure of classified information is a serious crime with significant consequences.”

On The Sentencing And Courage Of Daniel Hale

July 16, 2021 Robert Shetterly, Common Dreams. , , ,
My next portrait for the Americans Who Tell the Truth project will be Daniel Hale, the former Air Force analyst and drone whistleblower who released classified documents showing that nearly 90% of the casualties of U.S. drone assassination missions are civilians—children, women, workers, farmers, and other people who show up as shadows on drone pilot computer screens and are subsequently rendered permanent shadows. Hale will be sentenced on July 27 in Alexandria, Virginia for the crime of truth telling. In all likelihood he will receive 10 years in prison—surely sufficient time to reflect on the error of his ways, which is, primarily, having an overactive conscience, believing that killing innocent civilians, no matter what the national security excuse, is murder.

Bless The Traitors

July 13, 2021 Chris Hedges, ScheerPost.com. , , ,
Daniel Hale, an active-duty Air Force intelligence analyst, stood in the Occupy encampment in Zuccotti Park in October 2011 in his military uniform. He held up a sign that read “Free Bradley Manning,” who had not yet announced her transition. It was a singular act of conscience few in uniform had the strength to replicate. He had taken a week off from his job to join the protestors in the park. He was present at 6:00 am on October 14 when Mayor Michael Bloomberg made his first attempt to clear the park. He stood in solidarity with thousands of protestors, including many unionized transit workers, teachers, Teamsters and communications workers, who formed a ring around the park.

Groups Demand End To ‘Unlawful’ US Airstrikes And Drone Attacks

July 5, 2021 People's Dispatch. , , ,
On Wednesday, June 30, rights groups in a letter to president Joe Biden demanded that the US end all “unlawful” airstrikes, including drone attacks. The letter, signed by 113 organizations from across the world, including countries affected by US airstrikes, called such strikes against racial justice as the majority of its victims are Muslims, Brown and Black people.

Duping A Whistleblower

May 23, 2021 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. , ,
What has happened to whistleblower Daniel Hale is very troubling. A former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer,  he was arrested on May 4 in advance of his July 13 sentencing for blowing the whistle on the U.S. government’s deadly and illegal drone program. Justice Department prosecutors maintain that Hale had “violated the terms of his bail.”  In court, his attorneys maintained “there were no violations committed by the defendant as alleged.”  They’re right.  The government is lying.  Daniel explained what happened to me in a phone call from jail.  And what happened is yet another injustice against this hero.  For the record, Daniel is permitting me to make these details public. Like any whistleblower facing years, or possibly decades, in prison, he is depressed. 

Art Against Drones

May 21, 2021 Kathy Kelly, Toward Freedom , ,
At the High Line, a popular tourist attraction in New York City, visitors to the West side of Lower Manhattan ascend above street level to what was once an elevated freight train line and is now a tranquil and architecturally intriguing promenade. Here walkers enjoy a park-like openness; with fellow strollers they experience urban beauty, art and the wonder of comradeship.

Support Jailed Whistleblower Daniel Hale

May 16, 2021 Stand With Daniel Hale. , ,
Hale is a veteran of the US Air Force. During his military service from 2009 to 2013, he participated in the US drone program, working with both the National Security Agency and the Joint Special Operations Task Force at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. After leaving the Air Force, Hale became an outspoken opponent of the US targeted killings program, US foreign policy more generally, and a supporter of whistleblowers. He publicly spoke out at conferences, forums, and public panels. He was featured prominently in the award-winning documentary National Bird, a film about whistleblowers in the US drone program who suffered from moral injury and PTSD. Hale based his criticisms on his own participation in the drone program, which included helping to select targets based on faulty criteria and attacks on unarmed innocent civilians....

Drone Whistleblower Jailed Ahead Of July Sentencing

May 5, 2021 Kevin Gosztola, Shadowproof.com. , ,
A federal judge ordered drone whistleblower Daniel Hale’s arrest, and United States authorities took him into custody. On April 23, Judge Liam O’Grady signed an order suggesting Hale violated the terms of his supervised release. An arrest warrant was issued, and on April 28, he was jailed.  Judge Theresa Carroll Buchanan, a different judge than the one who has presided over his case, held a hearing on the alleged “pretrial release violation.” Hale maintained no violation had occurred, yet the court scheduled a bond revocation and detention hearing for May 4. The chain of events came after a “special condition” was added to Hale’s conditions of release—that he submit to “substance abuse testing and/or treatment as directed by pretrial services.”

Whistleblower Daniel Hale, The Drone Program And The War On Our Right To Know

May 3, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , ,
The United States' drone assassination program is illegal under international law, but the whistleblower who exposed it, Daniel Hale, is being prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Chip Gibbons of Defending Rights and Dissent describes who Daniel Hale is and why his act of leaking information about the program to a journalist is akin to Daniel Ellsberg leaking the Pentagon Papers. Gibbons also places Hale's action in the broader context of FBI surveillance, the war on whistleblowers and other truthtellers, such as Julian Assange, and the assault on our right to know.

Report On Shut Down Creech Actions

April 9, 2021 ToBlomé, Popular Resistance. , , ,
Las Vegas/Creech Air ForceBase – Demonstrators - after blocking two entrances to the drone base here Monday - will hold a "DRONE MASSACRE MEMORIAL TUESDAY FROM 6:30 A.M. TO 8:30 A.M. - Activists, will display a long series of banners, stretched along the highway, each highlighting details of past U.S. drone massacres, including statistics on civilian deaths.  Anti-drone protestors used large banners in the early morning Monday/4-5-21 to nonviolently block two entrances into Creech Air Force Base, a key U.S. Drone Base.  It was the first day of a weeklong protest to oppose the illegal U.S. remote targeted killing program.    All of the participants participated in the first blockade at the main gate, impeding dozens of cars, while continuously chanting:   “Arrest Col. Jones for War Crimes, Not Daniel Hale for Whistleblowing.”
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