Drone Warfare Awareness and Resistance Resources
This page is a resource for education and action about the increasing and disturbing use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAVs, Drones) in military and security operations.
Below you will find a list of upcoming actions concerning drones- including protests, mock drone attacks, civil disobedience, and awareness events.
There is also a resource section linking you and your community to relevant articles and studies about the impact of drones.
Upcoming Events
PEACE OUTREACH: GROUND THE DRONES, END THE WARS (Syracuse, NY) Tuesday, February 7, 4-4:45 pm Hancock Airbase, Main Entrance, E. Molloy Rd. map
Our ongoing Peace Outreach happens the 1st Tuesday of every month during the winter. With upcoming Feb. 29 court date of the Hancock 38 Drones resisters, we hope for a strong turnout at this vigil to send a message that our community does not want to play host to drone warfare.
Contact or call 315-472-5478.
MONTHLY PROTEST AGAINST NEW DRONE FACILITY AT CAMP WILLIAMS (Camp Douglas, WI) Pax Christi Madison, Casa Maria Catholic Worker, and the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice are mobilizing vigils on the last Monday or Tuesday of each month at 3:30 to protest the planned $8,000,000 drone facility on Volk Field.
Contact or call 608-250-9240 for more information or to coordinate a ride to Camp Douglas.
MONTHLY DEATH WALK: (Philadelphia, PA) Walk to raise awareness regarding the use of DRONE Warfare in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Yemen. We walk through the streets with black robes and white masks, banners, signs, and leaflets explaining the illegal use of drones by the U.S. military. The walk is on the 1st Saturday of each month from 12 Noon to 1 p.m.
Please contact Marge Van Cleef if you wish to join at or 267-763-1644.
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Resources
Organize a Drone Awareness Action
Download flyers and watch videos of previous actions.
Articles, past actions and news from Voices on drones
Drone Warfare
Ground the Drones
Drone and Clowns Storm the Bastille Bastille Days July 2011
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Now available:
Drones: A Cyber War a tri-fold pamphlet
“Ground the Drones- the trial of the Creech 14”
This 48 page book is redacted and only slightly edited from the original courtroom transcripts of the trial of fourteen activists arrested at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada while protesting the use of robotic “unmanned aerial vehicles,” drones, for extrajudicial executions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Includes testimony from expert witnesses- Former US Attorney General RAMSEY CLARK, Col.ANN WRIGHT, former US State Dept. diplomat, and BILL QUIGLEY, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, in response to questions posed by defendants Kathy Kelly of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and Jesuit priest Steve Kelly and cross-examination by over-zealous deputy district attorneys. Kathy Kelly’s opening statement and Brian Terrell’s closing statement are included, as are the conflicting (and conflicted) orders of Judge William Jansen.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Reports, articles, websites and presentations about drones
Warfare is not a video game. Educate yourself and your community about the dangers of drone warfare. Check out the new publication DRONE- Resisting Sanitized Remote-Control Death written by Dennis Duvall and members of the Creech 14.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Convenient Killing: Armed Drones and the ‘Playstation’ Mentality by:
Chris Cole (Director, FoR 2003 – 2010)
http://www.for.org.uk/files/drones-conv-killing.pdf
The purpose of this briefing is to provide information about
the military use of armed drones and to encourage wider
public debate on the issues that they raise. It is hoped that
this will provoke and motivate others to continue research
in this area, as well as to support the growing campaign to
challenge the use of armed drones.
The briefing provides information on the background, human cost, production, proliferation, and case studies of effectiveness concerning drones.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2010, The Year of Assassination by Drones: Annual Report on CIA’s Target Killing Campaign in Pakistan’s Tribal Area
Released in January 2011 by the Conflict Monitoring Center:
The Conflict Monitoring Center (CMC), an independent research center focusing on anti-state militancy and related activities in South Asia, has prepared an annual report(2010) on drone attacks inside Pakistani territory. The report is based on the data collected from mainstream national and international media, e.g. CNN, NY Times, Al-Jazeera, Daily Dawn, The News, Daily Times, Geo News, Daily Express, Daily Ummat and other news organizations.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Nevada Desert Experience website on UAVs
http://nevadadesertexperience.org/issues/uavs.htm
NDE has worked closely with Voices in organizing opposition to drone warfare. Members of NDE were part of the Creech 14 trial for civil resistance to drones at Creech Airforce Base. NDE’s website has an extensive collection of drone related material including news articles, reports and coverage of drone resistance actions.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Pakistan Body Count
http://www.pakistanbodycount.org/dattacks.php
This website provides a history and timeline of Suicide Bombing and Drone attacks in Pakistan. Data is collected from media reports, hospitals, and internet. All data is publicly available and there is no classified data. This is an effort to show the world the intensity of Suicide Bombing and Drone attacks in Pakistan.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Flying Blind: U.S. combat drones operate outside international law
by Mary Ellen O’Connell
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=12179&s=2
Mary O’Connell is the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law at Notre Dame, an opponent of the CIA’s drone program, and a strong proponent of international law. She is also the author of The Power and Purpose of International Law. Here is a link to a debate with Lawfare‘s Benjamin Wittes, in which she argues that the drone program violates international law.
Part 1 of 6
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Codepink: Ground the Drones
http://www.womensaynotowar.org/article.php?id=5100
Codepink’s listing on drones includes fact sheets, news articles and videos, and well as information on previous and upcoming drone protests.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan
New America Foundation analysis of drone strikes in Pakistan. Click each pin to see the details of a reported strike. The red border represents the extent of Pakistan’s tribal regions in the northwest of the country.
NOTE: There are two pages, scroll to the bottom to see the most recent strikes.
NOTE: VCNV does not endorse New America Foundation’s analysis of drone strike morality or effectiveness.
View U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan in a larger map
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
War Evolves With Drones, Some Tiny as Bugs
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and THOM SHANKER
Published: June 19, 2011 The New York Times
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio — Two miles from the cow pasture where the Wright Brothers learned to fly the first airplanes, military researchers are at work on another revolution in the air: shrinking unmanned drones, the kind that fire missiles into Pakistan and spy on insurgents in Afghanistan, to the size of insects and birds.
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
War Without Humans: Modern Blood Rites Revisited
by Barbara Ehrenreich
TomDispatch.com
July 12, 2011
For a book about the all-too-human “passions of war,” my 1997 work Blood Rites ended on a strangely inhuman note: I suggested that, whatever distinctly human qualities war calls upon — honor, courage, solidarity, cruelty, and so forth — it might be useful to stop thinking of war in exclusively human terms. After all, certain species of ants wage war and computers can simulate “wars” that play themselves out on-screen without any human involvement.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
US claims of ‘no civilian deaths’ in Pakistan drone strikes is untrue
July 18th, 2011
by Chris Woods
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
A Reaper drone on an airstrip in Kandahar. Library photo/Ministry of Defence.
Claims by President Obama’s chief counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan that ‘there hasn’t been a single collateral [civilian] death’ in Pakistan since August 2010 are found to be untrue today, following a major Bureau investigation.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Fiction as Reality: Two Perspectives, Two Drones, One Demonstration, and 37 Bodies
May 1, 2010
This is an anti-drone demonstration video report back from Syracuse, NY. The demo happened on April 22, 2011. Thirty-seven people were arrested for blocking the entrance to Hancock Air National Guard Base after being told to move by sheriffs. Demonstrators were charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration. Now, what else is this video? Aside from the facts, is it fiction or reality? Or perhaps both? Interspersed with the footage of the speakers, demonstrators, and interviewees are cuts from a video of a drone mission being carried out. Eventually, it (hopefully) becomes apparent that the drones portrayed in my video, are going to, and in fact do, attack peaceful protesters at Hancock Field on April 22. After the bomb drops, we see the bodies. In the drone video, all you can hear are the voices of the pilot, sensor, and command. You see them in the cockpits of what seem to be glorified flight simulators. Unlike regular flight simulators though, these are remote cockpits for actual aircraft with a full range of devices to maim and kill people. In fact the video depicts the destruction of a pick-up truck and its passengers. Who were they? Why were they killed? Who or what gave these pilots the “OK” to commit these acts of murder? We don’t know. The video doesn’t tell us. We see what the pilots see; their mission from the cockpit of a sterile environment, where decisions are made that objectify people, which allow the pilots to murder with impunity, all with the aid of an unmanned aerial platform with near omniscient capabilities. All this speaks to the realities of people in places where drones circle above daily as either a menacing panoptic force or a terror that reigns down hellfire and death. Brian Terrell, in relating the words of a drone pilot, gave me chills when he quoted the pilot, “When I’m flying the drones, the war is 7,000 miles away [meaning the distance from Nevada to Afghanistan] and the war is 18 inches away [the distance from his face to the screen].” Over that same weekend, the main supply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan was temporarily closed on Sunday after thousands of people blocked a key highway in Pakistan to protest against U.S. drone strikes, according to Reuters. My intent by mixing both actual news gathering and reporting with a narrative containing elements of fiction (at least for the people in Syracuse on that Friday afternoon) is to bolster the news with moral weight. What’s happening isn’t right and it needs to be stopped. Kathy Kelly, Brian Terrell, Elliott Adams, and Ann Wright were in attendance at the Syracuse demonstration.
Ground the Drones
Drone and Clowns Storm the Bastille Bastille Days July 2011
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Now available:
Drones: A Cyber War a tri-fold pamphlet
“Ground the Drones- the trial of the Creech 14”
This 48 page book is redacted and only slightly edited from the original courtroom transcripts of the trial of fourteen activists arrested at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada while protesting the use of robotic “unmanned aerial vehicles,” drones, for extrajudicial executions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Includes testimony from expert witnesses- Former US Attorney General RAMSEY CLARK, Col.ANN WRIGHT, former US State Dept. diplomat, and BILL QUIGLEY, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, in response to questions posed by defendants Kathy Kelly of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and Jesuit priest Steve Kelly and cross-examination by over-zealous deputy district attorneys. Kathy Kelly’s opening statement and Brian Terrell’s closing statement are included, as are the conflicting (and conflicted) orders of Judge William Jansen.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Reports, articles, websites and presentations about drones
Warfare is not a video game. Educate yourself and your community about the dangers of drone warfare. Check out the new publication DRONE- Resisting Sanitized Remote-Control Death written by Dennis Duvall and members of the Creech 14.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Convenient Killing: Armed Drones and the ‘Playstation’ Mentality by:
Chris Cole (Director, FoR 2003 – 2010)
http://www.for.org.uk/files/drones-conv-killing.pdf
The purpose of this briefing is to provide information about
the military use of armed drones and to encourage wider
public debate on the issues that they raise. It is hoped that
this will provoke and motivate others to continue research
in this area, as well as to support the growing campaign to
challenge the use of armed drones.
The briefing provides information on the background, human cost, production, proliferation, and case studies of effectiveness concerning drones.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2010, The Year of Assassination by Drones: Annual Report on CIA’s Target Killing Campaign in Pakistan’s Tribal Area
Released in January 2011 by the Conflict Monitoring Center:
The Conflict Monitoring Center (CMC), an independent research center focusing on anti-state militancy and related activities in South Asia, has prepared an annual report(2010) on drone attacks inside Pakistani territory. The report is based on the data collected from mainstream national and international media, e.g. CNN, NY Times, Al-Jazeera, Daily Dawn, The News, Daily Times, Geo News, Daily Express, Daily Ummat and other news organizations.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Nevada Desert Experience website on UAVs
http://nevadadesertexperience.org/issues/uavs.htm
NDE has worked closely with Voices in organizing opposition to drone warfare. Members of NDE were part of the Creech 14 trial for civil resistance to drones at Creech Airforce Base. NDE’s website has an extensive collection of drone related material including news articles, reports and coverage of drone resistance actions.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Pakistan Body Count
http://www.pakistanbodycount.org/dattacks.php
This website provides a history and timeline of Suicide Bombing and Drone attacks in Pakistan. Data is collected from media reports, hospitals, and internet. All data is publicly available and there is no classified data. This is an effort to show the world the intensity of Suicide Bombing and Drone attacks in Pakistan.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Flying Blind: U.S. combat drones operate outside international law
by Mary Ellen O’Connell
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=12179&s=2
Mary O’Connell is the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law at Notre Dame, an opponent of the CIA’s drone program, and a strong proponent of international law. She is also the author of The Power and Purpose of International Law. Here is a link to a debate with Lawfare‘s Benjamin Wittes, in which she argues that the drone program violates international law.
Part 1 of 6
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Codepink: Ground the Drones
http://www.womensaynotowar.org/article.php?id=5100
Codepink’s listing on drones includes fact sheets, news articles and videos, and well as information on previous and upcoming drone protests.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan
New America Foundation analysis of drone strikes in Pakistan. Click each pin to see the details of a reported strike. The red border represents the extent of Pakistan’s tribal regions in the northwest of the country.
NOTE: There are two pages, scroll to the bottom to see the most recent strikes.
NOTE: VCNV does not endorse New America Foundation’s analysis of drone strike morality or effectiveness.
View U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan in a larger map
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
War Evolves With Drones, Some Tiny as Bugs
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and THOM SHANKER
Published: June 19, 2011 The New York Times
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio — Two miles from the cow pasture where the Wright Brothers learned to fly the first airplanes, military researchers are at work on another revolution in the air: shrinking unmanned drones, the kind that fire missiles into Pakistan and spy on insurgents in Afghanistan, to the size of insects and birds.
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
War Without Humans: Modern Blood Rites Revisited
by Barbara Ehrenreich
TomDispatch.com
July 12, 2011
For a book about the all-too-human “passions of war,” my 1997 work Blood Rites ended on a strangely inhuman note: I suggested that, whatever distinctly human qualities war calls upon — honor, courage, solidarity, cruelty, and so forth — it might be useful to stop thinking of war in exclusively human terms. After all, certain species of ants wage war and computers can simulate “wars” that play themselves out on-screen without any human involvement.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
US claims of ‘no civilian deaths’ in Pakistan drone strikes is untrue
July 18th, 2011
by Chris Woods
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
A Reaper drone on an airstrip in Kandahar. Library photo/Ministry of Defence.
Claims by President Obama’s chief counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan that ‘there hasn’t been a single collateral [civilian] death’ in Pakistan since August 2010 are found to be untrue today, following a major Bureau investigation.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Fiction as Reality: Two Perspectives, Two Drones, One Demonstration, and 37 Bodies
May 1, 2010
This is an anti-drone demonstration video report back from Syracuse, NY. The demo happened on April 22, 2011. Thirty-seven people were arrested for blocking the entrance to Hancock Air National Guard Base after being told to move by sheriffs. Demonstrators were charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration. Now, what else is this video? Aside from the facts, is it fiction or reality? Or perhaps both? Interspersed with the footage of the speakers, demonstrators, and interviewees are cuts from a video of a drone mission being carried out. Eventually, it (hopefully) becomes apparent that the drones portrayed in my video, are going to, and in fact do, attack peaceful protesters at Hancock Field on April 22. After the bomb drops, we see the bodies. In the drone video, all you can hear are the voices of the pilot, sensor, and command. You see them in the cockpits of what seem to be glorified flight simulators. Unlike regular flight simulators though, these are remote cockpits for actual aircraft with a full range of devices to maim and kill people. In fact the video depicts the destruction of a pick-up truck and its passengers. Who were they? Why were they killed? Who or what gave these pilots the “OK” to commit these acts of murder? We don’t know. The video doesn’t tell us. We see what the pilots see; their mission from the cockpit of a sterile environment, where decisions are made that objectify people, which allow the pilots to murder with impunity, all with the aid of an unmanned aerial platform with near omniscient capabilities. All this speaks to the realities of people in places where drones circle above daily as either a menacing panoptic force or a terror that reigns down hellfire and death. Brian Terrell, in relating the words of a drone pilot, gave me chills when he quoted the pilot, “When I’m flying the drones, the war is 7,000 miles away [meaning the distance from Nevada to Afghanistan] and the war is 18 inches away [the distance from his face to the screen].” Over that same weekend, the main supply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan was temporarily closed on Sunday after thousands of people blocked a key highway in Pakistan to protest against U.S. drone strikes, according to Reuters. My intent by mixing both actual news gathering and reporting with a narrative containing elements of fiction (at least for the people in Syracuse on that Friday afternoon) is to bolster the news with moral weight. What’s happening isn’t right and it needs to be stopped. Kathy Kelly, Brian Terrell, Elliott Adams, and Ann Wright were in attendance at the Syracuse demonstration.
Drone and Clowns Storm the Bastille Bastille Days July 2011
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Now available:
Drones: A Cyber War a tri-fold pamphlet
“Ground the Drones- the trial of the Creech 14”
This 48 page book is redacted and only slightly edited from the original courtroom transcripts of the trial of fourteen activists arrested at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada while protesting the use of robotic “unmanned aerial vehicles,” drones, for extrajudicial executions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Includes testimony from expert witnesses- Former US Attorney General RAMSEY CLARK, Col.ANN WRIGHT, former US State Dept. diplomat, and BILL QUIGLEY, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, in response to questions posed by defendants Kathy Kelly of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and Jesuit priest Steve Kelly and cross-examination by over-zealous deputy district attorneys. Kathy Kelly’s opening statement and Brian Terrell’s closing statement are included, as are the conflicting (and conflicted) orders of Judge William Jansen.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Reports, articles, websites and presentations about drones
Warfare is not a video game. Educate yourself and your community about the dangers of drone warfare. Check out the new publication DRONE- Resisting Sanitized Remote-Control Death written by Dennis Duvall and members of the Creech 14.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Convenient Killing: Armed Drones and the ‘Playstation’ Mentality by:
Chris Cole (Director, FoR 2003 – 2010)
http://www.for.org.uk/files/drones-conv-killing.pdf
The purpose of this briefing is to provide information about
the military use of armed drones and to encourage wider
public debate on the issues that they raise. It is hoped that
this will provoke and motivate others to continue research
in this area, as well as to support the growing campaign to
challenge the use of armed drones.
The briefing provides information on the background, human cost, production, proliferation, and case studies of effectiveness concerning drones.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2010, The Year of Assassination by Drones: Annual Report on CIA’s Target Killing Campaign in Pakistan’s Tribal Area
Released in January 2011 by the Conflict Monitoring Center:
The Conflict Monitoring Center (CMC), an independent research center focusing on anti-state militancy and related activities in South Asia, has prepared an annual report(2010) on drone attacks inside Pakistani territory. The report is based on the data collected from mainstream national and international media, e.g. CNN, NY Times, Al-Jazeera, Daily Dawn, The News, Daily Times, Geo News, Daily Express, Daily Ummat and other news organizations.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Nevada Desert Experience website on UAVs
http://nevadadesertexperience.org/issues/uavs.htm
NDE has worked closely with Voices in organizing opposition to drone warfare. Members of NDE were part of the Creech 14 trial for civil resistance to drones at Creech Airforce Base. NDE’s website has an extensive collection of drone related material including news articles, reports and coverage of drone resistance actions.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Pakistan Body Count
http://www.pakistanbodycount.org/dattacks.php
This website provides a history and timeline of Suicide Bombing and Drone attacks in Pakistan. Data is collected from media reports, hospitals, and internet. All data is publicly available and there is no classified data. This is an effort to show the world the intensity of Suicide Bombing and Drone attacks in Pakistan.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Flying Blind: U.S. combat drones operate outside international law
by Mary Ellen O’Connell
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=12179&s=2
Mary O’Connell is the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law at Notre Dame, an opponent of the CIA’s drone program, and a strong proponent of international law. She is also the author of The Power and Purpose of International Law. Here is a link to a debate with Lawfare‘s Benjamin Wittes, in which she argues that the drone program violates international law.
Part 1 of 6
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Codepink: Ground the Drones
http://www.womensaynotowar.org/article.php?id=5100
Codepink’s listing on drones includes fact sheets, news articles and videos, and well as information on previous and upcoming drone protests.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan
New America Foundation analysis of drone strikes in Pakistan. Click each pin to see the details of a reported strike. The red border represents the extent of Pakistan’s tribal regions in the northwest of the country.
NOTE: There are two pages, scroll to the bottom to see the most recent strikes.
NOTE: VCNV does not endorse New America Foundation’s analysis of drone strike morality or effectiveness.
View U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan in a larger map
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
War Evolves With Drones, Some Tiny as Bugs
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and THOM SHANKER
Published: June 19, 2011 The New York Times
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio — Two miles from the cow pasture where the Wright Brothers learned to fly the first airplanes, military researchers are at work on another revolution in the air: shrinking unmanned drones, the kind that fire missiles into Pakistan and spy on insurgents in Afghanistan, to the size of insects and birds.
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
War Without Humans: Modern Blood Rites Revisited
by Barbara Ehrenreich
TomDispatch.com
July 12, 2011
For a book about the all-too-human “passions of war,” my 1997 work Blood Rites ended on a strangely inhuman note: I suggested that, whatever distinctly human qualities war calls upon — honor, courage, solidarity, cruelty, and so forth — it might be useful to stop thinking of war in exclusively human terms. After all, certain species of ants wage war and computers can simulate “wars” that play themselves out on-screen without any human involvement.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
US claims of ‘no civilian deaths’ in Pakistan drone strikes is untrue
July 18th, 2011
by Chris Woods
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
A Reaper drone on an airstrip in Kandahar. Library photo/Ministry of Defence.
Claims by President Obama’s chief counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan that ‘there hasn’t been a single collateral [civilian] death’ in Pakistan since August 2010 are found to be untrue today, following a major Bureau investigation.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Fiction as Reality: Two Perspectives, Two Drones, One Demonstration, and 37 Bodies
May 1, 2010
This is an anti-drone demonstration video report back from Syracuse, NY. The demo happened on April 22, 2011. Thirty-seven people were arrested for blocking the entrance to Hancock Air National Guard Base after being told to move by sheriffs. Demonstrators were charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration. Now, what else is this video? Aside from the facts, is it fiction or reality? Or perhaps both? Interspersed with the footage of the speakers, demonstrators, and interviewees are cuts from a video of a drone mission being carried out. Eventually, it (hopefully) becomes apparent that the drones portrayed in my video, are going to, and in fact do, attack peaceful protesters at Hancock Field on April 22. After the bomb drops, we see the bodies. In the drone video, all you can hear are the voices of the pilot, sensor, and command. You see them in the cockpits of what seem to be glorified flight simulators. Unlike regular flight simulators though, these are remote cockpits for actual aircraft with a full range of devices to maim and kill people. In fact the video depicts the destruction of a pick-up truck and its passengers. Who were they? Why were they killed? Who or what gave these pilots the “OK” to commit these acts of murder? We don’t know. The video doesn’t tell us. We see what the pilots see; their mission from the cockpit of a sterile environment, where decisions are made that objectify people, which allow the pilots to murder with impunity, all with the aid of an unmanned aerial platform with near omniscient capabilities. All this speaks to the realities of people in places where drones circle above daily as either a menacing panoptic force or a terror that reigns down hellfire and death. Brian Terrell, in relating the words of a drone pilot, gave me chills when he quoted the pilot, “When I’m flying the drones, the war is 7,000 miles away [meaning the distance from Nevada to Afghanistan] and the war is 18 inches away [the distance from his face to the screen].” Over that same weekend, the main supply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan was temporarily closed on Sunday after thousands of people blocked a key highway in Pakistan to protest against U.S. drone strikes, according to Reuters. My intent by mixing both actual news gathering and reporting with a narrative containing elements of fiction (at least for the people in Syracuse on that Friday afternoon) is to bolster the news with moral weight. What’s happening isn’t right and it needs to be stopped. Kathy Kelly, Brian Terrell, Elliott Adams, and Ann Wright were in attendance at the Syracuse demonstration.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Now available:
Drones: A Cyber War a tri-fold pamphlet
“Ground the Drones- the trial of the Creech 14”
This 48 page book is redacted and only slightly edited from the original courtroom transcripts of the trial of fourteen activists arrested at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada while protesting the use of robotic “unmanned aerial vehicles,” drones, for extrajudicial executions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Includes testimony from expert witnesses- Former US Attorney General RAMSEY CLARK, Col.ANN WRIGHT, former US State Dept. diplomat, and BILL QUIGLEY, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, in response to questions posed by defendants Kathy Kelly of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and Jesuit priest Steve Kelly and cross-examination by over-zealous deputy district attorneys. Kathy Kelly’s opening statement and Brian Terrell’s closing statement are included, as are the conflicting (and conflicted) orders of Judge William Jansen.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Reports, articles, websites and presentations about drones
Warfare is not a video game. Educate yourself and your community about the dangers of drone warfare. Check out the new publication DRONE- Resisting Sanitized Remote-Control Death written by Dennis Duvall and members of the Creech 14.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Convenient Killing: Armed Drones and the ‘Playstation’ Mentality by:
Chris Cole (Director, FoR 2003 – 2010)
http://www.for.org.uk/files/drones-conv-killing.pdf
The purpose of this briefing is to provide information about
the military use of armed drones and to encourage wider
public debate on the issues that they raise. It is hoped that
this will provoke and motivate others to continue research
in this area, as well as to support the growing campaign to
challenge the use of armed drones.
The briefing provides information on the background, human cost, production, proliferation, and case studies of effectiveness concerning drones.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2010, The Year of Assassination by Drones: Annual Report on CIA’s Target Killing Campaign in Pakistan’s Tribal Area
Released in January 2011 by the Conflict Monitoring Center:
The Conflict Monitoring Center (CMC), an independent research center focusing on anti-state militancy and related activities in South Asia, has prepared an annual report(2010) on drone attacks inside Pakistani territory. The report is based on the data collected from mainstream national and international media, e.g. CNN, NY Times, Al-Jazeera, Daily Dawn, The News, Daily Times, Geo News, Daily Express, Daily Ummat and other news organizations.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Nevada Desert Experience website on UAVs
http://nevadadesertexperience.org/issues/uavs.htm
NDE has worked closely with Voices in organizing opposition to drone warfare. Members of NDE were part of the Creech 14 trial for civil resistance to drones at Creech Airforce Base. NDE’s website has an extensive collection of drone related material including news articles, reports and coverage of drone resistance actions.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Pakistan Body Count
http://www.pakistanbodycount.org/dattacks.php
This website provides a history and timeline of Suicide Bombing and Drone attacks in Pakistan. Data is collected from media reports, hospitals, and internet. All data is publicly available and there is no classified data. This is an effort to show the world the intensity of Suicide Bombing and Drone attacks in Pakistan.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Flying Blind: U.S. combat drones operate outside international law
by Mary Ellen O’Connell
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=12179&s=2
Mary O’Connell is the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law at Notre Dame, an opponent of the CIA’s drone program, and a strong proponent of international law. She is also the author of The Power and Purpose of International Law. Here is a link to a debate with Lawfare‘s Benjamin Wittes, in which she argues that the drone program violates international law.
Part 1 of 6
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Codepink: Ground the Drones
http://www.womensaynotowar.org/article.php?id=5100
Codepink’s listing on drones includes fact sheets, news articles and videos, and well as information on previous and upcoming drone protests.
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U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan
New America Foundation analysis of drone strikes in Pakistan. Click each pin to see the details of a reported strike. The red border represents the extent of Pakistan’s tribal regions in the northwest of the country.
NOTE: There are two pages, scroll to the bottom to see the most recent strikes.
NOTE: VCNV does not endorse New America Foundation’s analysis of drone strike morality or effectiveness.
View U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan in a larger map
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War Evolves With Drones, Some Tiny as Bugs
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and THOM SHANKER
Published: June 19, 2011 The New York Times
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio — Two miles from the cow pasture where the Wright Brothers learned to fly the first airplanes, military researchers are at work on another revolution in the air: shrinking unmanned drones, the kind that fire missiles into Pakistan and spy on insurgents in Afghanistan, to the size of insects and birds.
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
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War Without Humans: Modern Blood Rites Revisited
by Barbara Ehrenreich
TomDispatch.com
July 12, 2011
For a book about the all-too-human “passions of war,” my 1997 work Blood Rites ended on a strangely inhuman note: I suggested that, whatever distinctly human qualities war calls upon — honor, courage, solidarity, cruelty, and so forth — it might be useful to stop thinking of war in exclusively human terms. After all, certain species of ants wage war and computers can simulate “wars” that play themselves out on-screen without any human involvement.
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US claims of ‘no civilian deaths’ in Pakistan drone strikes is untrue
July 18th, 2011
by Chris Woods
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
A Reaper drone on an airstrip in Kandahar. Library photo/Ministry of Defence.
Claims by President Obama’s chief counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan that ‘there hasn’t been a single collateral [civilian] death’ in Pakistan since August 2010 are found to be untrue today, following a major Bureau investigation.
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Fiction as Reality: Two Perspectives, Two Drones, One Demonstration, and 37 Bodies
May 1, 2010
This is an anti-drone demonstration video report back from Syracuse, NY. The demo happened on April 22, 2011. Thirty-seven people were arrested for blocking the entrance to Hancock Air National Guard Base after being told to move by sheriffs. Demonstrators were charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration. Now, what else is this video? Aside from the facts, is it fiction or reality? Or perhaps both? Interspersed with the footage of the speakers, demonstrators, and interviewees are cuts from a video of a drone mission being carried out. Eventually, it (hopefully) becomes apparent that the drones portrayed in my video, are going to, and in fact do, attack peaceful protesters at Hancock Field on April 22. After the bomb drops, we see the bodies. In the drone video, all you can hear are the voices of the pilot, sensor, and command. You see them in the cockpits of what seem to be glorified flight simulators. Unlike regular flight simulators though, these are remote cockpits for actual aircraft with a full range of devices to maim and kill people. In fact the video depicts the destruction of a pick-up truck and its passengers. Who were they? Why were they killed? Who or what gave these pilots the “OK” to commit these acts of murder? We don’t know. The video doesn’t tell us. We see what the pilots see; their mission from the cockpit of a sterile environment, where decisions are made that objectify people, which allow the pilots to murder with impunity, all with the aid of an unmanned aerial platform with near omniscient capabilities. All this speaks to the realities of people in places where drones circle above daily as either a menacing panoptic force or a terror that reigns down hellfire and death. Brian Terrell, in relating the words of a drone pilot, gave me chills when he quoted the pilot, “When I’m flying the drones, the war is 7,000 miles away [meaning the distance from Nevada to Afghanistan] and the war is 18 inches away [the distance from his face to the screen].” Over that same weekend, the main supply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan was temporarily closed on Sunday after thousands of people blocked a key highway in Pakistan to protest against U.S. drone strikes, according to Reuters. My intent by mixing both actual news gathering and reporting with a narrative containing elements of fiction (at least for the people in Syracuse on that Friday afternoon) is to bolster the news with moral weight. What’s happening isn’t right and it needs to be stopped. Kathy Kelly, Brian Terrell, Elliott Adams, and Ann Wright were in attendance at the Syracuse demonstration.
