During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the military conducted only a handful of drone missions. Today, the Pentagon deploys a fleet of 19,000 drones, relying on them for classified missions that once belonged exclusively to Special Forces units or covert operatives on the ground. American drones have been sent to spy on or kill targets in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Somalia and Libya. Drones routinely patrol the Mexican border, and they provided aerial surveillance over Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In his first three years, Obama has unleashed 268 covert drone strikes, five times the total George W. Bush ordered during his eight years in office. All told, drones have been used to kill more than 3,000 people designated as terrorists, including at least four U.S. citizens. In the process, according to human rights groups, they have also claimed the lives of more than 800 civilians. Obama's drone program, in fact, amounts to the largest unmanned aerial offensive ever conducted in military history; never have so few killed so many by remote control.
So writes Michael Hastings in the latest issue of Rolling Stone ("The Rise of the Killer Drones: How America Goes to War in Secret"). The Drone War, where the whole world can be picked off and killed by remote control. The war that so many want to ignore but so many outside the US don't have the luxury of ignoring.
The government doesn't think it has to answer for the killings and deaths. They aren't just hostile to transparency, they're arrogant. None more so than the wife of neocon Robert Kagan. How does the Iraq War cheerleader and even instigator end up with his wife as spokesperson for the State Department during the Barack Obama administration? Because Barack likes to hang with War Hawks. So the former glorified secretary to Dick Cheney moves to the State Department and makes clear, see February 2nd press breifing (link is text and video), that the US government doesn't feel they owe anyone an answer on their drones.
MS. NULAND: Please. Yeah.
QUESTION: Yes. The drone
controversy, the drone controversy in Iraq?
MS. NULAND: Was there a question there, Said?
QUESTION: Yes. I -- about
the drone controversy, that's my question. The fiery cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr is saying that this is a breach of Iraqi sovereignty, that the
U.S. Embassy is, by doing this spy drone thing, is breaching Iraqi
sovereignty, and he's calling on Iraqis to resist and he's calling on
the Iraqi Government to stop the U.S. Embassy from doing that, and in
fact given you -- gave you a timetable, a deadline timetable. Do you
have any comment on that?
MS.
NULAND: I don't have any comment on that, no.
She doesn't have a comment. She didn't have many comments when she was working with Dick Cheney to start the Iraq War, did she? Now the War Whore was Cheney's Deputy National Security Adviser. And somehow that qualifies her to represent the Obama White House? Or the State Department?
War Whores should be shown the door not given high profile positions.
By making her a part of their administration, the current White House signaled that they were just as much in favor of eternal war as was Bully Boy Bush.
To talk about what Victoria Nuland and the White House doesn't want you to, there's no better place to be next weekend than at the International Drone Summit.
CODEPINK explains:
The peace group CODEPINK and the legal advocacy organizations Reprieve and the Center for Constitutional Rights are hosting the first international drone summit.
On Saturday, April 28, we are bringing together human rights advocates, robotics technology experts, lawyers, journalists and activists for a summit to inform the American public about the widespread and rapidly expanding deployment of both lethal and surveillance drones, including drone use in the United States. Participants will also have the opportunity to listen to the personal stories of Pakistani drone-strike victims.
- Time: 9:00am-9:00pm
- Location: Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, 900 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20001
- Register here!
On Sunday, April 29 we will have a strategy session to network, discuss and plan advocacy efforts focused on various aspects of drones, including surveillance and targeted killings.
- Time: 10:00am-4:00pm
- Location: United Methodist Building, 100 Maryland Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20001
Sunday’s session is for representatives of organizations and individuals who want to be actively involved in this work. If you are interested in attending Sunday’s session, please email Ramah Kudaimi at rkudaimi@gmail.com.
Details:
Topics will include:
- the impact of drones on human lives and prospects for peace
- the lack of transparency and accountability for drone operations, including targeted killings
- disputed legality of drone warfare
- compensation for victims
- the future of domestic drone surveillance
- drone use along U.S. borders.
Speakers will include:
- Jeremy Scahill, award-winning investigative journalist
- Clive Stafford Smith, director of UK legal group Reprieve that represents drone victims
- Medea Benjamin, author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control
- Maria LaHood, attorney with Center for Constitutional Rights
- Shahzad Akbar, attorney with Pakistani Foundation for Fundamental Fights
- Amna Buttar, member of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab in Pakistan
- Rafia Zakaria, Pakistani-American journalist
- Sarah Holewinski, director of Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
- Hina Shamsi, ACLU national security expert
- Jay Stanley, ACLU privacy expert
- Tom Barry, drone border expert with Center for International Policy
- David Glazier, law professor who served 21 years as a US Navy surface warfare officer
- Amie Stepanovich, legal counsel at Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).
- Peter Asaro and Noel Sharkey from the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC).
Join us Friday, April 27 at 6:00pm to hear Medea Benjamin discuss her new groundbreaking book "Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control." She will discuss the menace posed by the proliferation of drones for killing abroad and spying here at home. The United States is the number one user of drones, but now over 50 countries have them, leading us into a world of chaos and lawlessness. The event will take place at Busboys and Poets, 1025 5th Street NW, Washington, DC.
The drone war turns us all into victims. Even those flying them. In March, David Zucchino (Los Angeles Times) reported on a reality that shouldn't be so surprising: even by remote control, murder isn't easy, "Psychologically, they're in the middle of combat. But physically most of them are on another continent, which can lead to a sense of helplessness."
