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Drones

Anti-drone Protestors Block Entrance To US Assassin Drone Base

October 4, 2020 Shut Down Creech, Popular Resistance. , , ,
A group of 15 peaceful protesters from Nevada, California, and Arizona converged for a weeklong protest at Creech Air Force Base to oppose the remote-controlled killing that takes place in the desert just north of Las Vegas.  Organized by CODEPINK and Veterans For Peace, the bi-annual protest known as “Shut Down Creech” was different due to the concerns and constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic, and especially because many of the regular activists are elders, and are at higher risk of complications and death.

A “Persistent Eye In The Sky” May Be Coming To A City Near You

September 20, 2020 Medea Benjamin and Barry Summers, Information Clearinghouse. , , ,
“Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we’re looking at, and we can see everything.” That same persistent eye in the sky may soon be deployed over U.S. cities. At the time he made that comment about surveillance drones over Afghanistan, Maj. General James Poss was the Air Force’s top intelligence officer. He was preparing to leave the Pentagon, and move over to the Federal Aviation Administration. His job was to begin executing the plan to allow those same surveillance drones to fly over American cities.

US Drone Assassinations Continue Despite German Effort To Restrict Them

June 1, 2020 By Patrick Maynard, Truthout. , , ,
A year after a German court issued a ruling that would have dramatically restricted U.S. drone operations in accordance with international law, no substantive changes have taken place, as the lawsuit that led to the March 2019 ruling is still stuck in the appeals process. The lawsuit, filed by Yemeni engineer Faisal bin Ali Jaber over the killing of two family members, alleges that the German government intentionally ignored U.S. forces’ use of Ramstein Air Base, near Mannheim, as a vital data transfer point in drone assassinations. Those drone operations often kill civilians in areas where the United States has not declared war — a category of attack that has been interpreted as being against international law. According to the human rights organization Reprieve, which also took part in the suit, the two people killed in the 2012 Yemen drone strike were Jaber’s brother-in-law, Salem, and his nephew, Waleed. The family had gathered for a wedding celebration.

The End Of War As We Know It?

May 27, 2020 Danny Sjursen, Tom Dispatch. , , , ,
Covid-19, an ongoing global human tragedy, may have at least one silver lining. It has led millions of people to question America’s most malignant policies at home and abroad. Regarding Washington’s war policies abroad, there’s been speculation that the coronavirus might, in the end, put a dent in such conflicts, if not prove an unintended peacemaker -- and with good reason, since a cash-flush Pentagon has proven impotent as a virus challenger. Meanwhile, it’s become ever more obvious that, had a fraction of “defense” spending been invested in chronically underfunded disease control agencies, this country’s response to the coronavirus crisis might have been so much better. Curiously enough, though, despite President Trump’s periodic complaints about America’s “ridiculous endless wars,” his administration has proven remarkably unwilling to agree to even a modest rollback in U.S. imperial ambitions.

First Somali Congressperson Legitimizes AFRICOM And US Drone War

May 14, 2020 By Tunde Osazua and Netfa Freeman, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
United States representatives, no matter their racial or ethnic backgrounds, appear unable to perceive the inherent white supremacy in the notion that the US has some altruistic responsibility to police the continent of Africa with military troops and supervisors. As a result, "people of color," such as the Somali-"American" Congresswoman IIhan Omar provide political and moral cover to the presence of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and the dubious claims about “US interests” on the continent. Only an erasure of brutal European colonization from history and its “Scramble for Africa” to steal her rich mineral resources and vast tracts of arable land can justify giving heirs of European colonialism a role of benevolence. AFRICOM is the colonization of Africa by the U.S. and constitutes the new scramble for Africa tantamount to when, in the 1800s, the colonial powers fought over which of them would dominate which parts of the resource rich continent. 

US Drone Assassinations Continue Despite German Effort To Restrict Them

March 23, 2020 Patrick Maynard, Truthout.org , , ,
Berlin– A year after a German court issued a ruling that would have dramatically restricted U.S. drone operations in accordance with international law, no substantive changes have taken place, as the lawsuit that led to the March 2019 ruling is still stuck in the appeals process.

US Whistleblower’s Mom Asks For Help To Get Son Released

February 29, 2020 By Vakkas Doğantekin, Aa.com ,
The mother of internationally known whistleblower Brandon Bryant started an online donation campaign to pay for her son's $100,000 bail and get him out of jail. Bryant, 34, an ex-drone pilot for U.S. Air Force who has made global headlines after exposing civilian drone crimes of the U.S. army across the world, was jailed Feb. 11 in his home state of Montana on felony charges of allegedly threatening city council members in Missoula County in a YouTube video posted Dec. 19.

Former US Drone Operator Says US Military ‘Worse Than The Nazis’

February 9, 2020 Graig Griosi, The Independent. , , ,
A former US drone operator is speaking out against the atrocities he says he was forced to inflict during his time in the armed forces and says the American military as ‘worse than the Nazis’.  Brandon Bryant was enlisted in the US Air Force for six years. During his time with the military, he operated Predator drones, remotely firing missiles at targets more than 7,000 miles away from the small room containing his workspace near Las Vegas, Nevada. Mr Bryant says he reached his breaking point with the US military after killing a child in Afghanistan that his superiors told him was “a dog.” Mr Bryant recalls the moment: After firing a Hellfire missile at a building containing his target, he saw a child exit the building just as the missile struck. When he alerted his superiors about the situation after reviewing the tape, he was told “it was a f***ing dog, drop it.”

From Obama To Trump, The Escalation Of Drone Warfare

February 8, 2020 By Allegra Harpootlian, Tomdispatch.com , ,
We’re only a few days into the new decade and it’s somehow already a bigger dumpster fire than the last. On January 2nd, President Trump decided to order what one expert called “the most important decapitation strike America has ever launched." This one took out not some nameless terrorist in a distant land or a group of civilians who happened to get in the way...

Large Military-Grade Drones Could Soon Be Flying Over Your Backyard

January 18, 2020 Candice Bernd, Truthout.org ,
As the U.S. military and defense contractors eye a potential drone war with Iran as tensions with the country remain elevated, the defense industry is also preparing to test-fly domestic versions of its combat drones over major American cities in an effort to fully integrate military-grade drones into civil airspace alongside commercial air traffic in the coming years. That’s right, those robotic killing machines used for counterterrorism strikes in the Middle East are coming home — and could eventually be used to surveil large protests and communities of color throughout the U.S.

How The President Became A Drone Operator

January 14, 2020 By Allegra Harpootlian, Tomdispatch.com , ,
We’re only a few days into the new decade and it’s somehow already a bigger dumpster fire than the last. On January 2nd, President Trump decided to order what one expert called “the most important decapitation strike America has ever launched." This one took out not some nameless terrorist in a distant land or a group of civilians who happened to get in the way, but Major General Qassem Suleimani, the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force and the mastermind of its military operations across the Middle East.

Why We Persist: Activists Have Protested US Drone Base For Over A Decade

December 31, 2019 Ed Kinane, Vcnv.org , ,
“All human beings possess the basic right under international law to engage in non-violent civil resistance activities for the purpose of preventing, impeding, or terminating the ongoing commission of [international crime].” — International law expert Francis Boyle. Nonviolent civil resistance against international crime is about effectiveness and persistence. Or as Dorothy Day might say, faithfulness. We sow seeds — awakening the cogs in the machine of imperial crime and informing those who, with their federal taxes, help finance that crime.

Seven Activists Arrested Mourning Children Killed By Drones

November 15, 2019 Staff, Wnpj.org , ,
Seven peace activists walked onto the base at Volk Field today, wearing black veils, carrying limp dolls and posters of children killed by drones, and reading a statement. They were arrested by Juneau County officers, handcuffed and taken to the station in Mauston, where they were cited for trespassing and released. The action was organized by the Wisconsin Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars. This group of dedicated activists have been vigiling monthly at the gates of Volk Field since 2011.

Seven Arrested Mourning Children Killed By Drones

November 12, 2019 Joy First, Popular Resistance. , ,
Wisconsin - Seven peace activists walked onto the base at Volk Field today, wearing black veils, carrying limp dolls and posters of children killed by drones, and reading a statement.  They were arrested by Juneau County officers, handcuffed and taken to the station in Mauston, where they were cited for trespassing and released. The action was organized by the Wisconsin Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars.  This group of dedicated activists has been vigiling monthly at the gates of Volk Field since 2011.  This is the sixth action leading to arrests at the base. Volk Field is an Air National Guard base that trains personnel to operate the RQ-7 Shadow Drone, which is an integral part of the United States drone program and used for reconnaissance, surveillance, and acquisition. 

Report Back: Shut Down Creech Fall Action

October 25, 2019 Eleanor Levine and ToBlomé, Shut Down Creech. , ,
In all, 10 Creechers were arrested and ultimately charged with “failure to disperse.”  (Arrestees included Toby Blomé, Norie Clarke, Don Cunning, Maggie Huntington, Michael Kerr, Don Kimball, George Killingsworth, Eleanor Levine, Denny Riley, and Susan Witka) All were released with citations later that day, though 4 women were held 5 hours longer because they refused to be scanned by the newly installed full-body micro-scanner. They were individually interrogated and intimidated, but all held strong to their positions.  As a result, they were isolated together in a separate cell for hours, to eliminate the risk of “contaminating” the other inmates, according to the guards. These four middle-aged white women found creative ways to use up the “punishment time” together, such as dancing, laughing, and good storytelling, and were often greeted with looks of dismay, smiles and laughs from some of the prisoners and guards that passed their cell windows.  
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