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Organizations calling For an End to US Drone Attacks

by Jackie Gillis, published on the Binghamton Homepage, December 28, 2021

BINGHAMTON, NY – Organizations from around Upstate New York are working together to call for a congressional investigation into Twenty years of USA killing of Middle East Civilians.

Veterans for Peace, Peace Action of Broome, Upstate Drone Action, and more met outside the Federal Building, where Senator Chuck Schumer office is located.

These organizations are calling upon Schumer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and President Biden to end sanctions, unfreeze funds of Afghanistan Banks to prevent death and starvation in Afghanistan.

Peace Action Board Member, Jack Gilroy, tells the story about what happened to the Ahamdi family several months ago.

“They were slaughtered by Lockheed Martin Missiles made just fifteen point three miles away from Disney World in Orlando Florida, fired from a reaper drone made by the company known as, General Atomics, which is just eighty-three miles away from Disneyland in California,” he said.

He followed that with saying this was one of thousands of U.S. drone attacks that have killed and terrorized people in the Middle East over the past twenty years.

Gilroy stated that two weeks ago the release of hidden Pentagon Files by the New York Times documented thousands of innocent civilians were killed by precision weapons.

He added that Daniel Hale, a killer drone analyst, has been arrested for getting the truth out there about what the New York Times reported on.

Gilroy and other speakers at the protest are asking the Biden release Hale, end the Pentagon cover-up, and provide reparations to the Ahmadi family.




The Drone Ranger

by Raymond Nat Turner, published on Black Agenda Report, December 1, 2021

The Drone Ranger gallops into Glasgow

“His absence is good company.”

—Scottish saying.

Steve Breen, San Diego Union Tribune, 2-6-13

Overriding The Hague from palatial

$15 million hideout

The Drone Ranger galloped gangsta

style to Glasgow—setting foot in places

war criminals Kissinger, W, Schmuck

Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al., avoided like

vampires avoiding sunlit crucifixes…

 

The Drone Ranger galloped into Glasgow—

saddlebags bulging with Wall Street bullion,

fossil fuel talking points and methane promises

for Pentagon prosperity; Last Days of Pompeo

empire/fossil fuel extractors and emitters

 

The Drone Ranger galloped into Glasgow—

posse of polluters, lynch mob of lobbyists,

fossil fuel filibusters in tow; greenwashing

Corporate climate catastrophe; gaslighting

Negroz and children with giant carbon boot

print—slogging over AFRICOM—

Squishing blood and oil each and every step…

 

The Drone Ranger galloped into Glasgow—

Masked man—masking school busses and

hospitals he hit with Hellfire Missiles as

Commander-in-Chief. Masking Afghan grand-

mothers smoked gardening with grandsons.

Concealing joy he vaporized—

gifting Pakistani wedding parties headless

torsos, carbonized bodies and charred cars…

 

The Drone Ranger galloped into Glasgow—

Negroz and children leaping like lepers to touch

the bloodstained hem of his garment…Before he

crooned like $campaigning for Killary at the Apollo—

going Green (Al Green) on them: “I-I-I’m

so in love with OIL…” And bringing the house down with his

“A-A-A-Amazing GAS…COAL and OIL…” He’s some-

thing of a singing cowboy—General Dynamics’ Gene

Autry; Raytheon#s Roy Rogers…

The Drone Ranger galloped into Glasgow—

Actor with enormous range—pompous professor to

Iceberg Slim—head and shoulders above his hero, B

actor Reagan. Head and shoulders above bumbling W;

and ultra-ignorant rogue state thug, Boss Tweet.

Head and shoulders above Ol’ Schmo, angry boxer

who took punches in bunches—four fights too many.

 

The Drone Ranger galloped into Glasgow—

rogue state rockstar—Fooling some of the

Children some of the time… If he dares canter

to COP 27—police state with pyramids—

babies will bring 365 more days beneath their

belts; greeting him with enhanced interrogation:

 

“How much carbon did each drone strike emit?”

“How many greenhouse gasses were unleashed

destroying Libya?”

“What greenhouse gasses does Guantanamo—torture

chamber you kept open—pump into our atmosphere?”

“How much methane does bullshit emit?”


© 2021. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet;  BAR’s Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can Vote for his work at:  

GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-town-criers-big-tooth-fund

PayPal: paypal.me/towncrierRNT




US Killer Drone Attacks Kill Innocent Civilians

by Larry Gilbert Sr., published AntiWar.com, November, 18, 2021

As a people represented by our government, what gives us the right to go into other countries and indiscriminately assassinate people? Do we think that “American exceptionalism” gives us that right? How would we feel if the roles were reversed? Families around the world are merely trying to live their lives in peace as much as we are here in America.

As a Vietnam War veteran and seeing the ravages of war from that time forward, I have become a member of two organizations, Veterans for Peace and World Beyond War.

At the end of September, I traveled to Indian Springs, Nevada, to join with fellow members as well as members of Code Pink: Women for Peace and other organizations from 12 states. This is where Creech Air Force Base is located – some 50 miles north of Las Vegas.

We spent a week camped out in the desert. We conducted nonviolent protest actions at the entrance to the drone base twice daily, when drone pilots would arrive for work in the morning and leave at the end of their shifts. All the while during the day and night, killer drones were buzzing loudly over us and doing touch and goes on the runway.

The U.S. drone program has been ongoing for some 20 years by the Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency. As a country, we have used killer drones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. The last I knew, we haven’t declared war with these countries, other than Afghanistan and Iraq – our perpetual wars.

Hardly ever have we, the American people, heard of the strikes that are conducted ever so frequently in these countries with no accountability. Thousands of strikes have taken place during these 20 years and thousands of people have been killed, including so many innocent civilians. The civilians killed are merely referred to as “collateral damage.”

The “collateral damage” are families made up of innocent men, women and children.

As a people represented by our government, what gives us the right to go into other countries and indiscriminately assassinate people? Do we think that “American exceptionalism” gives us that right? How would we feel if the roles were reversed? Families around the world are merely trying to live their lives in peace as much as we are here in America.

On Aug. 29 of this year, as we were withdrawing from Afghanistan, the US fired a drone strike where its missile(s) struck a car parked by Zamarai Ahmadi outside his home. The strike slaughtered him and nine members of his family, including seven children, five of whom were younger than 10.

According to the New York Times, “the Pentagon claimed that Ahmadi was a facilitator for the Islamic State and that his car was packed with explosives, posing an imminent threat to US troops guarding the evacuation at the Kabul Airport.”

General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., commander of the US Central Command, said “the drone strike dealt a crushing blow to Islamic State.” General Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, called it a “righteous strike.”

I ask, what is righteous about killing 10 innocent people?

It was only after investigative news reports that there was proof that this was in fact an attack on Zamarai Ahmadi, 45, an engineer for a U.S.-based nonprofit. Generally, most drone strikes have no follow-up investigations.

A recent report of the incident said it was an “honest mistake” and what the drone pilots and their commanders saw was what they call “confirmed bias.” In other words, they saw what they wanted to see.

How often does that happen? I suspect quite often, by those giving the orders to fire the missiles.

Unfortunately, those young Air Force drone pilots have to come into work every morning and fire missiles from drones killing people during the day and go home to their families at the end of their shift, especially after seeing the carnage that they wreaked. I suspect that some of these pilots will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder after a period of time.

How will they and their families’ lives be impacted in the years following? I would encourage those who feel this sense to seek help from organizations such as ours, Veterans For Peace, to assist them.

On another note, the Israeli government flies drones day and night over the Gaza Strip, where Palestinians live in a state of terror that missiles will be fired at them. Aside from that fear, the noise offers another sense of harassment.

It is high time to kill killer drones. Peace and justice.


Larry Gilbert Sr. is a former mayor and police chief of Lewiston, U.S. marshal, and U.S. Army veteran. Distributed by PeaceVoice.




Anti Nuke Activism in the Netherlands

By Ann Wright and Brian Terrell, published on Ann’s FB Page

The great peace and anti-assassin drone activist Brian Terrell is back on the farm in Iowa after three weeks in the Netherlands and Germany. This is a brief report on his trip to bring attention to US nuclear weapons in the Netherlands and assassin drone connections in Germany:

In Brian’s words:

“My first stop was Amsterdam and the Dutch Air Force base at Volkel- along with 7 Dutch friends, we were able to successfully dig a tunnel under the fence and go into the base where a US Air Force squadron keeps a stash of B61 nuclear missiles for Dutch F16s to ‘deliver’ destruction to perceived enemies under a NATO ‘nuclear sharing’ agreement. Held by military and civilian police for 5 hours, we were released and expect charges to be filed.

In Germany, gave talks on banning killer drones and nuclear disarmament at the Catholic Worker communities in Dortmund and Hamburg and Elsa Rassback organized appearances in Berlin, Frankfurt and Cologne. This is a pivotal time, as the question of whether or not to arm the German drone fleet is a big issue for the new coalition of parties that will govern Germany for the near future. The German peace movement is also petitioning the coalition parties on the issues of nuclear sharing with the US and Germany’s failure to ratify and abide by the The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Brian wrote:

“Our digging took place during the NATO exercise, “Steadfast Noon” (a strange name for the annual rehearsal for the end of the world!) and we are pretty sure that we caused the runway to be closed, making the world safer for an hour or so, anyway. It was great fun, lots of young people, singing, laughter when we realized that we were actually going to make it inside! .

I never saw police or soldiers so chill anywhere-I think that they were amused. In the US we might have been shot or jailed for years. I think that it was important for one US citizen to be in the group and I am glad that I was there. I am hoping to be invited back to the Netherlands for a trial.

We were held for 5 hours, I was interrogated about the number of Afghan visas in my passport, “Do you want to talk about why you visited Afghanistan so many times?” I was asked. No, I did not. The issue dropped there. Privilege of being a white man with a US passport, someone else might have disappeared.”

Media accounts of the action:

“The Royal Military Police has arrested eight activists who had penetrated into the military airport of Volkel on Wednesday afternoon. The eight had gained access by digging a hole under the fence surrounding the military airport, reported the military police after reports by DTV News.

According to a spokesman for the military police, the action was peaceful.

“We knew about the demonstration,” he said. “We already suspected that a number of people would try to get on the premises. They made a hole under the fence, and once at the airport we stopped them. They didn’t resist. It all went off peacefully.”

Nuclear weapons

They were activists from Peace Creation who came to demonstrate against nuclear weapons. The activists fear that a new generation of nuclear bombs will come to the Netherlands next year. The action was organized at the head of the runway. This “to advocate that the old nuclear bombs be removed and the CO2 emissions of the armed forces be counted in the climate targets and to protest against the arrival of new nuclear bombs.”

Fifteen to twenty American B61 atomic bombs have been stored at Volkel Air Force Base since the early 1960s. The Zembla broadcast Target Volkel (2019) shows how the Netherlands has not enforced a veto on the deployment of American nuclear weapons from the airbase. At the moment it is decided to carry out a nuclear attack, Dutch pilots must drop the bombs.

The broadcast also shows that the 15 to 20 American free-fall bombs are outdated and will soon be replaced. The new model, the B61-12, will have steerable tail fins and will therefore be much more precise and deployable. The bombs also have a facility with which the explosive force can be set from 1 to 50 kilotons. That is more than three times the power of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.

The House of Representatives is not informed about the modernization of the B61. The government will not even confirm that there are atomic bombs in the Netherlands: that is a state secret. Yet Zembla discovered in old parliamentary archives that the then Minister of Defense acknowledged as early as 1960 that the Netherlands was home to American atomic bombs.

They also disagree with the deployment of F-16s and other aircraft, which, according to the protesters, “emit tons of CO2.”

*Featured Image: US anti-assassin drone activist Brian Terrell with Dutch colleagues tunneling under a fence at a Dutch air force base where US nuclear weapons are available for Dutch pilots to drop on the world!!!!  


Ann Wright is a retired US Army Reserve Colonel and a former US diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the weapons of mass destruction lies of the Bush administration for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. She is the co-author of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”

Brian Terrell is a longtime activist and lives on a Catholic Worker Farm in Maloy, Iowa.   Brian is a founding member of the Ban Killer Drones Network. He has traveled to Afghanistan several times and been arrested numerous times in civil resistance actions opposing drone warfare.

 




Ban Killer Drones Calls for Release of Kabul Drone Attack Files

Press Release from Ban Killer Drones

The Pentagon must be called upon by people around the world and by the U.S. Congress to make public all of the communications and logs, including communications with the White House, pertaining to the August 29, 2021 drone attack that killed 10 members of the Ahmadi family in Kabul, including seven children, say representatives of the anti-drone war organization BanKillerDrones.org.

“The Pentagon’s assertion that no one did anything illegal to cause the drone deaths of the Ahmadi family members is a shameful side-stepping and a further cover-up of who made what decisions and why in this horrible slaughter,”

said Nick Mottern, a co-coordinator of BanKillerDrones.org.

“We need to see all the records surrounding this incident, including those that may help us to know the role of President Biden, if any.”

Kathy Kelly, a peace advocate who has visited Afghanistan 28 times since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and also a co-coordinator of BanKillerDrones.org, said:

“By recommending against any disciplinary action following the slaughter of 10 civilians, seven of whom were children, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is endorsing reckless cruelty waged through ghastly drone attacks.”

Mottern noted that a wide array of international human rights law experts have asserted that U.S. drone attacks violate international law and principles of war, so the use of an armed drone on August 29h was illegal.  Further, he said, Air Force veteran Daniel Hale was sent to federal prison in July at the hands of the Biden Administration for releasing government documents that addressed precisely the faulty intelligence and other problems with the U.S. drone program that led to the August 29th drone attack.  “The use of weaponized drones should have been shelved years ago,” Mottern said.

He and Kelly said also: “It is beyond outrageous that the Pentagon has yet to provide full reparations for the killing of Ahmadi family members and has failed to meet their need for speedy passage to the United States.”  BanKillerDrones.org has called for reparations of $3 million for each of the 10 Ahmadi family members killed.  The Washington Post reported that the Obama administration paid “nearly $3 million” to the family of Giovanni Lo Porto, who was mistakenly killed in a U.S. drone attack in Pakistan in 2015.

The U.S. ought to be aiding all the hundreds of thousands of Afghans suffering in the wreckage of the U.S. invasion and occupation,” they said, “rather than trying to shrug off the August 29th drone atrocity.”

The Ban Killer Drones network is comprised of concerned citizens, in local and national peace and justice organizations, many of them in communities in which there are killer drone control bases. Together they are organizing to achieve a United Nations conference to adopt and ratify an international treaty to ban weaponized drones and military and police drone surveillance.

 

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U.S. Group Opposing Drone Attacks Demands Reparations for Afghan Family

by PCIM, published on The Edge, October 20, 2021

On August 29, after hours of surveillance on what it believed to be a vehicle containing an ISIS bomb, the U.S. military fired a drone strike on civilian driver Zemari Ahmadi in Kabul, Afghanistan. The military stated the strike may have killed three civilians, though reporting by the New York Times showed it killed 10, including seven children, of the Ahmadi family.

As the Times explained, “the people who rode with Mr. Ahmadi that day said that what the military interpreted as a series of suspicious moves was simply a normal day at work.” And while the military claimed a second explosion after the drone strike indicated that there were explosives in the vehicle, the Times found no evidence to suggest this.

Ahmadi Family from NY Times Video

Ban Killer Drones, a national network resisting the use of drone attacks, is calling for reparations to the Ahmadi family, saying thousands of others killed by U.S. drones deserve similar payments, which should be made under the oversight of Congress’ Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.

The $3 million U.S. payment to the family of Giovanni Lo Porto when he was killed by a U.S. drone in Pakistan in 2015 sets the minimum standard that the U.S. must meet in compensating families of civilians who are killed by U.S. drones,” said Nick Mottern of the Ban Killer Drones network.

Our concern goes beyond the tragic deaths within the Ahmadi family to the thousands of victims of U.S. drone attacks,” said Brian Terrell, also a member of the Ban Killer Drones network, “most of whom were not those targeted and none of whom were found guilty in any court. Justice demands that compensation be paid to all their families.”

Photo of family members of victims of drone strikes in Pakistan, taken at a meeting in Islamabad in 2012, ~Judy Bello

These reparations payments obviously cannot bring back these precious lives,” Mottern said, “but they can communicate a respectful recognition by the U.S. military of the widespread, devastating, unacceptable harm that is being inflicted by U.S. drone attacks, on individuals, families, and entire communities — communities that also must receive compensation.”

Ban Killer Drones has issued a list of demands concerning the U.S. military’s drone program and reparations to its victims:

1. An official apology by President Biden, as commander in chief of the U.S. military, to the Ahmadi family for the deaths of their family members.

2. Reparations of $3 million minimum for each of the 10 Ahmadi family members killed in the strike.

3. An immediate report from the Department of Defense detailing who in the chain of command was responsible for the drone attack on the Ahmadis. This includes the release of all communications and logs related to the attack from the White House down to the operator who pressed the button to launch the attack, and a report on whether and what charges are to be brought against those responsible for the killings.

4. That the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the U.S. Congress:

1)  Investigate all U.S. drone attacks since 2001 pursuant to identifying all civilian and non-combatant victims;

2)  Oversee the disbursement of reparations to their families;

3)  Receive petitions and claims of victims of U.S. drone attacks and take actions as required to satisfy these petitions and claims;

4)  Seek the appropriation of sufficient funds to compensate families of non-combatant drone attack victims at the level of $3 million for each victim;

5)  And  provide compensation to communities that have suffered U.S. drone attacks.

5. An immediate halt to all U.S. drone attacks and an end to U.S. plans and taxpayer support for weaponizing drones of all types.


The Ban Killer Drones network is comprised of concerned citizens, in local and national peace and justice organizations, many of them in communities in which there are killer drone control bases. Together they are organizing to achieve a United Nations conference to adopt and ratify an international treaty to ban weaponized drones and military and police drone surveillance.




Press Release for Day of Atonement Actions

Ban Killer Drones, Upstate Drone Action, October 3, 2021

Just two weeks ago, several online journals published an article by Brian Terrell, a Catholic Worker from Maloy, Iowa, entitled  “No, the Longest War in U.S. History is Not Over“.  In it, Brian pointed out the significance of October 7, 2001. On this day, in 2001, the United States began a 20-year long war against Afghanistan and initiated the so-called U.S. global “War on Terror“.

Brian believes that October 7th needs to be remembered especially in light of President Biden’s pledge to hunt down people anywhere in the world who are viewed by the U.S. government as threats. Biden said: “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay“.  His threat is based on the U.S. use of weaponized drones to kill anyone, at anytime, anywhere in the world.

We, as members of the Ban Killer Drones network, propose to observe October 7, 2021 as a “A Day of Atonement“, a day to repent for the war crimes of our government and military in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere around the world.

Emblematic of those crimes is the August 29th U.S. revenge drone attack in Kabul that killed ten civilians.

As U.S. citizens whose tax dollars went into buying the MQ-9 Reaper drone that made that attack, and the missile it fired, the blood of Zemari Ahmadi and his three children, Zamir, 20, Faisal, 16, and Farzad, 10; Ahmadi’s cousin Naser, 30; the children of Ahmadi’s brother Romal: Arwin, 7, Benyamin, 6, and Hayat, 2; and two 3-year-old girls, Malika and Somaya is on our hands.

On Thursday, October 7th, we will gather, and we urge all those reading this to gather, at places of worship at 11am to call for a real end to the 20 years of U.S. terror against the people of Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. We urge a ban on weaponized drones and an end to any “Over the Horizon” airstrikes  against  Afghanistan and any other country. We will also call on our religious leaders to speak out clearly for peace, ending what has too often been a tragic, enabling silence from faith leaders over the 20 years.

Organize as best you can on such short notice.  Having talking points for the media is key to any action. Call the press multiple times before the date. Television staffs need to get their copy edited for the evening sound bites. Help them succeed. Thank them.

Here are some talking points:

1) 10/7 was the start of 20 years of U.S. terror against the people of Afghanistan and the Middle East and elsewhere.

2) The fiasco of the 20-year occupation of Afghanistan that was exposed with the U.S. departure from that tortured nation has also exposed the mistake religious leaders made in supporting the war and “supporting the troops”.

3) President Biden has vowed to continue drone attacks under the banner of “Over the Horizon”—continued illegal immoral assassinations and more generalized attacks. It appears that possibly 90% of those killed by weaponized drones have been other than those who were targeted. We urge religious leaders to call for an end to the use of weaponized drones, the illegal “Over the Horizon” and the U.S. vigilantism that it represents.

5) U.S. military contractors are eager to make China our enemy. Now is the time for religious leaders not to be silent. It is time for them to call for diplomatic responses to China and to oppose a U.S. military build-up in Asia.

Bring signs and flyers, and, if possible, posters showing the photos and the names of the members of the Ahmadi family killed by the August 29 U.S. drone attack, to places of worship in your community.

See this video: In Memory of the victims of the U.S. Drone Strike in Kabul, September 29, 2021

Read Jack Gilroy’s article on Covert Action: Blessed be the Warmakers? Why Post-9/11 American Religious Leaders Must Atone

ATTACHMENTS:

Day of Atonement Letter to Pastors

Day of Atonement Planned Actions

 

 

 




Letter to Clerics On the Anniversary of the Afghan War

Dear (Pastor, Rev. Father, Rabbi)

We are at your place of worship, today, October 7, 2021, not to demean you or your house of worship. We are here in remembrance of the 20th anniversary of the start of the war on Afghanistan. The war on Afghanistan expanded to Iraq and made the date 10/7 of far greater horror than 9/11.

In the past twenty years, approximately a million people have died in the Middle East in wars generated by the United States starting on 10/7. Additionally, 9 million people have become refugees in Iraq alone, with countless houses, apartment buildings, and businesses devastated. The crime of 9/11 with 3,000 dead and two skyscrapers destroyed pales in comparison.

Those of us here today represent various peace and justice groups and respectfully request your vocal objection to more war-making and fear-producing. The near silence of religious denominations at the start of 10/7 and the 20-year war that followed is, to us, shocking. Praying for the troops was a mantra of all religious groups and music to the ears of the Pentagon and its war contractors. It enables the war-makers to do their business blessed by the moral arbiters of America– religious communities.

We ask you, we implore you, to vocally object to existing plans for more drone warfare. We urge you to call for an end of the Over the Horizon drone attack plan of our United States government. We ask as well that you speak out in opposition to the political, military, and corporate fear-making depicting China as our new enemy–a fear that is already generating great financial benefit to the Pentagon war contractors.

Signed

ENDORSERS OF OCT. 7 DAY OF ATONEMENT STATEMENT

Baltimore Phil Berrigan Chapter, Veterans For Peace

Ellen Barfield, Baltimore, MD

Mickie Lynn, member of Women Against War, Delmar, NY

The Drone Death Walk, Philadelphia, PA

Marie Dennis, Co-President (2007-2019) Pax Christi International

Marge Van Cleef, Philadelphia, PA

Pax Christi, Greenburg, PA

Kathy Kelly, To End All Wars

Des Moines Catholic Worker

Des Moines Chapter, Veterans For Peace

Ann Tiffany, Upstate Drone Action (NY)

Ed Kinane, Upstate Drone Action (NY)

Upstate Drone Action (NY)

Father Tim Taugher, Binghamton, NY

John Heagle, Chair, Gospel Nonviolent Working Group, AUSCP (Association of United States Catholic Priests

Stephen V. Kobasa, for Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice, New Haven, CT

BanKillerDrones.org

Nick Mottern – Co-coordinator BanKillerDrones.org

Peace Network of Western New York

Vicki Ross, Peace Network of Western New York

Johnny Zokovitch, Executive Director – Pax Christi USA

Interfaith Peace Network

NYC War Resisters League

Paki Weiland, CODEPINK

Brian Terrell, Catholic Worker, Maloy, Iowa

Fr. Bernard Survil, Priest of the Diocese of Greenburg, PA

Peace and Justice Works, Portland, OR

New York City Catholic Worker Community

Broome County, NY Peace Action

Broome County, NY Chapter 90, Veterans for Peace

Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, Washington, DC




Why was Daniel Hale Silenced? Daniel Hale Must be Pardoned!

Statement by Ban Killer Drones Coalition

We raise our voice in deep concern on the silencing and imprisonment of Daniel Hale. Daniel Hale did not commit a crime.

It is outrageous that Daniel Hale was charged, prosecuted and sentenced to 45 months in Federal prison for exposing a criminal program. Daniel Hale should be pardoned!

Daniel Hale leaked documents that revealed extremely high civilian death rates in U.S. drone attacks. The 33-year-old Air Force veteran first spoke out publicly against drone warfare in 2013. Daniel Hale’s whistleblowing also uncovered secret U.S. watch lists, Presidential drone kill lists, and other criminal and unethical aspects of the U.S. deployment of killer drones.

Since the Nuremberg Tribunal we have been taught that “just following orders” is not a defense. Soldiers, even in time of war, have a moral obligation to oppose illegal orders in every possible way, especially the killing, for any reason, of non-combatants.

Daniel Hale revealed that a U.S. government “kill chain” targeted its victims for extrajudicial execution based on minimal evidence and that, in one 5 month period in Afghanistan, 90% of the people killed in drone attacks were not the intended targets. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden explained that that showed that the majority of those killed were “innocents, bystanders, or not the intended target. We couldn’t have established that without Daniel Hale’s voice.” Daniel Hale felt a responsibility to oppose these criminal acts.

With much publicity we are told that U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq are withdrawing. But attacks on defenseless civilians through U.S. drone wars and economic sanctions are intensifying.

Daniel Hale felt deeply that the people in the U.S. have a right to know the crimes committed in their names.

We also have a responsibility to raise our voices in opposition to these continuing wars and to the sentencing of Daniel Hale.

The war criminals who authorize the use of thousands of drone strikes and other criminal killings should be prosecuted.

Sign the Petition for a pardon for Daniel Hale:

https://www.codepink.org/danielhale

Initial signers of the above statement:

  • CODEPINK
  • Ban Killer Drones
  • International Action Center
  • Peace Action New York State
  • “Rising Together!”
  • Upstate NY Coalition to End the Wars and Ground the Drones
  • Wisconsin Coalition to End the Wars and Ground the Drones
  • Brandywine Peace Community, Philadelphia
  • Occupy Beale Air Force Base
  • The Nuclear Resister
  • Fellowship of Reconciliation USA
  • Veterans for Peace New York City Chapter 34
  • United National Antiwar Coalition

 




Drone Whistleblower Gets 45 Months in Prison for Revealing Ongoing US War Crimes

by Marjorie Cohn, published on Truthout, July 28, 2021

On July 27, a federal district court judge in Alexandria, Virginia, sentenced former U.S. Air Force intelligence analyst Daniel Hale to 45 months in prison for revealing evidence of U.S. war crimes.

In 2015, Hale, whose job involved identifying targets for drone strikes, provided journalist Jeremy Scahill with secret military documents and slides that exposed shocking details about the U.S. drone program. Hale’s revelations became the basis of “The Drone Papers,” which was published on October 15, 2015, by The Intercept.

Although the government admitted it had no evidence that direct harm resulted from Hale’s revelations, in 2019, the Trump administration charged Hale with four counts of violating the Espionage Act and one count of theft of government property. Facing up to 50 years in prison, Hale pled guilty to one count that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

The leaked documents disclosed the “kill chain” the Obama administration used to determine whom to target. Countless civilians were killed using “signals intelligence” in undeclared war zones: Targeting decisions were made by following cell phones that might not be carried by suspected terrorists. The Drone Papers divulged that half of the intelligence used to identify potential targets in Yemen and Somalia was based on signals intelligence.

During one five-month period during January 2012 to February 2013, nearly 90 percent of those killed by drone strikes were not the intended target, according to The Drone Papers. But civilian bystanders were nonetheless classified as “enemies killed in action” unless proven otherwise.

Hale said, “It’s stunning the number of instances when selectors [used to identify “terrorist” targets] are misattributed to certain people.” Calling a missile fired at a target in a group of people a “leap of faith,” he noted, “it’s a phenomenal gamble.” Hale added, “Anyone caught in the vicinity is guilty by association.”

The Drone Papers reveal that reliance on drones actually undermines U.S. intelligence gathering. Drones terrorize communities, breeding resentment against Americans and making the United States more vulnerable to violence. Indeed, Hale wrote in his 11-page pre-sentencing letter, “the war had very little to do with preventing terror from coming into the United States and a lot more to do with protecting the profits of weapons manufacturers and so-called defense contractors.”

Drone strikes shield U.S. military members from harm in order to minimize Americans’ opposition to war. But drone operators who make or carry out remote targeting decisions nevertheless suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

At his sentencing hearing, Hale told U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady, “I believe that it is wrong to kill, but it is especially wrong to kill the defenseless.” Hale said he revealed what “was necessary to dispel the lie that drone warfare keeps us safe, that our lives are worth more than theirs.

You had to kill part of your conscience to keep doing your job,” Hale added.

In November 2013, I participated in a panel on the illegality of drones and targeted killing at a drone summit in Washington, D.C. Hale also spoke on a panel at that conference. He described how he located a man riding a motorcycle in the mountains who then met up with four other people and they sat around a campfire, drinking tea. Hale relayed information that resulted in a drone strike, killing all five men. He said he realized that he “was no longer part of something moral or sane or rational.” He had heard someone say that “terrorists are cowards” because they used improvised explosive devices (IEDs). “What was different,” Hale asked, “between that and the little red joystick that pushes a button thousands of miles away?”

Hale told the sentencing judge about this incident in his pre-sentencing letter, writing,

“Despite having peacefully assembled, posing no threat, the fate of the now tea drinking men had all but been fulfilled. I could only look on as I sat by and watched through a computer monitor when a sudden, terrifying flurry of hellfire missiles came crashing down, splattering purple-colored crystal guts on the side of the morning mountain.”

Hale’s revelations did not pose a threat to national security, even by traditional interpretations. Harry P. Cooper, a former senior CIA official, wrote in a declaration in Hale’s case that

“the disclosure of [the Drone Papers], at the time they were disclosed and made public, did not present any substantial risk of harm to the United States or to national security.”

Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden have used armed drones to drop bombs on other countries in violation of international law. All four administrations have killed and are still killing untold numbers of civilians.

It is estimated that U.S. military and CIA drone operations have killed 9,000 to 17,000 people since 2004, including 2,200 children and many U.S. citizens. But those numbers are likely low because the U.S. military labels all individuals killed in those operations as presumptive “enemies killed in action.”

Bush authorized about 50 drone strikes that killed 296 alleged “terrorists” and 195 civilians in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Obama vastly increased the number of people killed with drones.

Obama presided over 10 times more drone strikes than his predecessor. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, during his two terms in office, Obama carried out 563 strikes — largely with drones — in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, killing between 384 and 807 civilians.

Obama’s 18-page Presidential Policy Guidance (PPG) was made public after a Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU and resulting court order. It purported to outline targeting procedures for the use of lethal force outside “areas of active hostilities.” The PPG required that a target pose a “continuing imminent threat.” But a secret 2011 Justice Department white paper leaked in 2013 permitted the killing of a U.S. citizen even without “clear evidence that a specific attack on US persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.” The bar was presumably lower for non-U.S. citizens.

Obama’s PPG also mandated that there be “near certainty that an identified HVT [high-value terrorist] or other lawful terror target” is present before lethal force could be used against him. But the Obama administration mounted “signature strikes” that didn’t necessarily target individuals, but rather men of military age who were present in an area of suspicious activity.

It was also necessary to have “near certainty that non-combatants [civilians] would not be injured or killed.” But the revelations of The Drone Papers call into question the Obama administration’s compliance with that requirement as well. Plus, activists have emphasized that “near certainty” is a dangerous barometer when it comes to the decision of whether to take a human life.

Trump lowered the bar even further for drone strikes. His administration reduced the requisite level of confidence that a target was present in a strike zone from “near certainty” to “reasonable certainty.” Under Trump, targets were not limited to “high-value terrorists” but could include foot soldiers. Whereas decisions about drone bombings had been made at the highest levels of government — with Obama having the final say about who would be targeted — Trump allowed commanders in the field to make targeting decisions. Trump gave increased authority to the Pentagon and CIA to conduct drone strikes. He weakened the targeting rules in large areas of Somalia and Yemen by designating them as “areas of active hostilities.” And Trump eliminated the government’s commitment to report on civilian casualties.

During his first two years in office, Trump launched 2,243 drone strikes, compared to 1,878 in Obama’s eight years in office.

Biden Continues Drone Bombings

In March, Biden secretly set temporary limits on drone strikes outside of recognized battlefields. He has ordered a comprehensive review of whether to keep Trump’s relaxed rules in place, or return to Obama-era rules, or impose some middle ground. In any event, it is doubtful that Biden would comply any better than Obama did with the tighter rules.

Meanwhile, the United States conducted a drone strike against Shabab “militants” in Somalia on July 20. The White House had rejected some requests by the U.S. military’s Africa Command to conduct drone strikes against Shabab targets in Somalia because they didn’t meet the new rules. However, White House approval was considered unnecessary here because the Africa Command has authority to carry out strikes in support of allied forces under what the military calls “collective self-defense.” But that does not constitute lawful collective self-defense under the United Nations Charter.

Although Biden is withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, he is continuing to launch airstrikes, including drone strikes, there. “We’ve been doing it where and when feasible, and we’ll keep doing it where and when feasible,” an official involved in operational planning said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Gen. Kenneth E. McKenzie Jr., the top U.S. general in charge of Afghanistan, refused to say whether airstrikes would continue past the cutoff date of August 31.

The Air Force is requesting $10 billion to perpetuate the U.S. imperial footprint in South Asia and the Middle East.

On June 30, 113 organizations, including Veterans for Peace, wrote a letter to Biden, “to demand an end to the unlawful program of lethal strikes outside any recognized battlefield, including through the use of drones.”

Drone Strikes Violate International Law

The UN Charter requires that international disputes be settled peacefully. It allows a country to use military force only in self-defense after an armed attack or with the consent of the UN Security Council. Neither the U.S. war in Iraq nor in Afghanistan complied with the Charter’s mandates.

Outside the context of active hostilities, the use of drones or other means for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal,” Agnès Callamard, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, tweeted. She added that “intentionally lethal or potentially lethal force can only be used where strictly necessary to protect against an imminent threat to life.” Thus, Callamard said, the United States would need to demonstrate that the target “constituted an imminent threat to others.”

Targeted or political assassinations — also known as extrajudicial executions — violate international law. Willful killing is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and is punishable as a war crime under the U.S. War Crimes Act. Civilians must never be the target of military strikes. A targeted killing is only lawful if it is deemed necessary to protect life, and no other means — including capture or nonlethal incapacitation — is available to protect life.

Yet the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations have all prosecuted whistleblowers for revealing evidence of U.S. war crimes. In addition to Hale, those courageous folks include Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and John Kiriakou, who revealed that CIA officials used waterboarding, which constitutes the war crime of torture.

Misuse of the Espionage Act

The Espionage Act of 1917 was enacted to prosecute foreign spies. It was never intended for use against whistleblowers. Nevertheless, Obama charged eight whistleblowers with violating the act, more than all prior presidents combined.

But although Obama refrained from indicting Assange for publishing evidence of U.S. war crimes (for fear of setting a dangerous precedent), Trump indicted Assange for 17 charges under the Espionage Act. Assange now faces 175 years in prison. A British judge denied Trump’s request that Assange be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial for those charges. But Biden has continued Trump’s appeal of the denial of extradition, notwithstanding the grave threat Assange’s prosecution poses to the First Amendment right to freedom of the press.

Hale is the first person sentenced under the Espionage Act during the Biden administration and he probably won’t be the last.

Ironically, Hale told the sentencing judge that he was a descendent of Nathan Hale, who was executed by the British for spying during the Revolutionary War. “I have but this one life to give in service of my country,” Hale said, quoting his ancestor.

Copyright, Truthout.org. Reprinted with permission.


Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues