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http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/drones


A Predator drone stands in Kandahar, Afghanistan. A growing fleet of U.S. spy planes and drones in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere allows U.S. Air Force analysts to gather intelligence without ground combat troops.  TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE A Predator drone stands in Kandahar, Afghanistan. A growing fleet of U.S. spy planes and drones in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere allows U.S. Air Force analysts to gather intelligence without ground combat troops.  
Copyright and Picture through TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE 



Drones are illegal. Period. There is no question involved. Each drone kills an average of 50 innocents. Most call this murder. Our drone warfare, militarized borders and 30 unprovoked wars of aggression for extraction, exploitation and extortion are symptoms of a disease.

Find out more about Illegal Drone Warfare: How many innocent victims, including children sleeping in their beds, have died because of these unprincipled attacks:  http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/drones

The cure for unending corporate war, is to shut down the wars and redirect trillions into peace, people and planet... while we have time.

https://thepeaceresource.com/2013/09/15/illegal-drone-warfare-fascism-is-alive-and-well-in-the-usa/

"A Predator drone stands in Kandahar, Afghanistan. A growing fleet of U.S. spy planes and drones in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere allows U.S. Air Force analysts to gather intelligence without ground combat troops. 

As the United States media continues to feed its obsession with President Donald Trump, some of his worst policies remain disturbingly under-reported. One such policy is his increased use of drone strikes in war zones both declared and undeclared.

Former President Barack Obama was known as the drone president and for good reason. The U.S. drone assassination program began under President George W. Bush, but Obama accelerated the pace of drone strikes dramatically, eventually authorizing almost 10 times the number of strikes Bush did.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning, liberal darling Obama fundamentally changed the nature of warfare with his drone policy, making it more covert and geographically unrestrained. Obama’s policy included the practice of so-called “signature strikes" — bombings of groups of apparent military-age men whose identities are unknown to the U.S., simply because their general patterns of behavior are associated with militants.

As much as Trump likes to highlight his differences from Obama, he is similar to Obama insofar as he increased the pace of drone strikes after taking office. The main difference between the two leaders’ approaches to warfare is not the level of brutality but how they describe it rhetorically. Obama hid his brutality behind Orwellian language and claims of restraint, while Trump prefers to brag about his capacity for violating basic human rights.

It’s likely that no matter how much Trump uses drone strikes as part of his national security strategy and/or tough-guy persona, Obama will remain the president most associated with the practice. But it’s crucial that we pay attention to Trump’s drone policy. This is a topic that needs to be brought into the national conversation.

The world caught a glimpse of Trump’s attitude about drones early in his presidency, when the CIA showed him a video of a drone strike in which a suspected militant was bombed as soon as he left the vicinity of his family's home. The Washington Post reported that Trump responded by asking, "Why did you wait?".

As of November 2018, Trump had launched 238 total drone strikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, most of them in 2017. That surpasses Obama's number of 186 in those three countries during his first two years."

https://www.idsnews.com/article/2019/01/opdrones011319 


Killer Drone News Blackout Continues As Mainstream Media Ignore 4 Whistleblowers

4 Drone Whistleblowers

Drone whistleblowers from left: Cian Westmoreland, Michael Haas, Brandon Bryant and Stephen Lewis. Photograph: Simon Leigh for the Guardian

The polls show it and commentators of all political stripes often cite the figures: Killer drone attacks by the U.S. military and the CIA in the Greater Middle East and Africa have strong U.S. public support. According to the Pew Research Center’s most recent poll in May, 58 percent — up slightly from 56 percent in February 2013 — approve of “missile strikes from drones to target extremists in such countries as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.” The numbers of Americans disapproving of drone attacks actually increased from 26 percent to 35 percent over that two-year period — a hopeful sign, but still very much a minority view.

But how well informed can U.S. citizens be on this subject when the major news media time and again ignore or under-report drone-strike stories — as we have discussed here and here in recent weeks? Stories — such as The Intercept’s October series based on a trove of classified materials provided by a national security whistleblower — that would likely raise serious questions about the drone program in many more Americans’ minds if they were actually given the information?

And now, in the latest example of journalistic negligence, The New York Times, Washington Post and other mainstream news organizations in late November continued their apparent policy of no-bad-news-reporting-about-drones.

This time, the major media chose to ignore four former Air Force drone-war personnel who went public with an open letter to President Obama. The letter urged the President to reconsider a program that killed “innocent civilians,” and which “only fueled the feelings of hatred that ignited terrorism and groups like ISIS, while also serving as a fundamental recruiting tool [for extremists] similar to Guantanamo Bay.”

In strong, dramatic language, the four men — in the letter and subsequent press appearances — challenged the official Obama White House/Pentagon/CIA public view that civilians are rarely killed by drones, and that drones make Americans safer and are helping defeat terrorists. Rather, they said that the U.S. drone war plays right into the hands of ISIS and other extremist groups by terrorizing local populations and killing innocent civilians, resulting in heightened anti-U.S. feeling and more recruits for ISIS.

Now it’s not every day that four former drone operators go public with their anguish-filled stories of the drone program killing innocent people and creating blowback against the United States.

In fact, there has not been any day like that. Until now, that has never happened. You would think that this would meet some textbook definition of news — something new, uncommon, dramatic and consequential. When President Obama or a proven liar about the drone program, CIA Director John Brennan, propagandize about drones and how wonderful and precise and well-nigh infallible they are in crushing extremists, not killing civilians and making us safe — that is what the mainstream media dutifully reports as news. But when four drone whistleblowers — who sat at the very heart of the system guiding Hellfire missiles from Predator drones to human targets in Afghanistan and Iraq — come forward to undermine that tidy little story, those same news outlets turn their collective back.

Voicing such sharp criticism of a top-secret program with which they were all involved is an especially risky move given that the Obama administration has shown itself to be the most anti-whistleblower administration ever. Obama’s Justice Department has prosecuted more than twice as many whistleblowers under the Espionage Act as all previous presidents combined since the passage of the law in 1917.

The letter to Obama, also addressed to Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and CIA Director Brennan, said that the Bush and Obama administrations “have built a drone program that is one of the most devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilization around the world.” They expressed guilt, and are experiencing PTSD, as a result of “our roles in facilitating this systematic loss of innocent life.”

In a pointed reference to the Obama administration’s statements in support of the drone program, the letter stated: “We witnessed gross waste, mismanagement, abuses of power, and our country’s leaders lying publicly about the effectiveness of the drone program.”

And, drawing a link between the recent Paris attacks and drone killings creating more terrorists and blowback, the whistleblowers added: “We cannot sit silently by and witness tragedies like the attacks in Paris, knowing the devastating effects the drone program has overseas and at home. Such silence would violate the very oaths we took to support and defend the Constitution.”

These former Air Force personnel — three former Predator sensor operators (Staff Sergeant Brandon Bryant, Senior Airman Stephen Lewis and Senior Airman Michael Haas), and one former drone program infrastructure technician (Senior Airman Cian Westmoreland) — had a combined 20-plus years of remotely operating drone strikes in Afghanistan and Iraq from Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. All had Afghanistan drone experience, and all but Westmoreland also had Iraq experience. This gave them special, first-hand insight into a program whose operators, in Haas’s words, viewed targeted human beings as “ants…just black blobs on a screen” and considered children who came into view on their screens as “fun-sized terrorists.”

Haas and other whistleblowers expanded on the points in their letter in an interview with Guardian reporters, which resulted in two eye-opening articles by Ed Pilkington and Ewen MacAskill. This was followed by a lengthy appearance on Democracy Now! and a news conference in connection with the premiere in New York of a new documentary, “Drone,” in which two of the whistleblowers (Bryant and Haas) make appearances. Agence France-Presse (AFP), Reuters and Newsweek all carried stories, as did The Intercept, Shadowproof and other online news sites.

Did you read about any of that whistleblower criticism in The New York Times or The Washington Post, or see a segment about it on television news? No, you did not. If you know about it at all, it’s probably because of The Guardian, Democracy Now!, and online political and progressive blogs and websites.

This marked the second time in just the last two months that mainstream news outlets have given a thumbs-down to a significant drone story. In October, The Washington Post ignored it and The New York Times ran two paragraphs at the end of a 25-paragraph piece about a series of significant drone articles posted in The Intercept. The articles were derived from documents, referred to as the “Drone Papers,” that were provided to The Intercept by an anonymous intelligence whistleblower. (We wrote about that here.)

As ExposeFacts has previously noted, mainstream news organizations make only occasional forays once or twice a year into reporting that is critical of the drone program (for example, this New York Times article from 2012 and one earlier this year).

What many Americans see or hear most of the time from the self-censoring mainstream media is superficial reporting on the latest drone strike that killed a certain number of what are almost always described in sketchy news stories as militants of one type or another. They also get frequent doses of propaganda and soothing assurances from the President and other Obama administration officials that the program of drones and other aerial bombardments is precise, takes special precaution not to kill civilians, but most importantly is making America safer by killing militants while keeping U.S. troops out of harm’s way.

Typical was Obama’s speech in May 2013 at the National Defense University, where he said this: “And before any [drone] strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured – the highest standard we can set.” He said civilian deaths constituted “a risk that exists in all wars.” But as Commander-in-Chief, he went on, “I must weigh these heartbreaking tragedies against the alternatives. To do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties – not just in our cities at home and facilities abroad, but also in the very places – like Sana’a and Kabul and Mogadishu – where terrorists seek a foothold.”

And who, if they were paying attention at the time, can ever forget major-league truth abuser John Brennan, when he was Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, saying in June 2011 that for almost a year, “there hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities we’ve been able to develop.” In reporting that whopper, The New York Times in August 2011 further reported this: “Other officials say that [Brennan’s] extraordinary claim still holds: since May 2010, C.I.A. officers believe, the drones have killed more than 600 militants – including at least 20 in a strike reported Wednesday – and not a single noncombatant.”

Given the Obama administration’s control of the drone narrative and the paucity of mainstream press coverage, the 35 percent opposition figure shown in the Pew Research Center’s poll in May is a bit surprising for being as high as it is. Especially given that so many Americans buy into the notion that the nation is in a war against terrorism, that drones make us safe, and that killing remotely by drones is preferable to sending U.S. soldiers into combat areas and risking their lives.

Curiously, that same Pew Research Center poll, in addition to showing 35 percent opposition, found that 48 percent said “they are very concerned that U.S. drone strikes endanger the lives of innocent civilians.” This higher figure suggests that even some Americans currently favoring drone attacks have doubts about how well civilians are protected — and thus might be open to opposing drone use if the mainstream media would let them know what the four whistleblowers said.

Or if the mainstream press would let them know what was contained in The Intercept’s “Drone Papers” articles — such as the revelation that during one five-month period of Operation Haymaker in northeastern Afghanistan, “nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets. In Yemen and Somalia where the U.S. has far more limited intelligence capabilities to confirm the people killed are the intended targets, the equivalent ratios may well be much worse.”

It’s worth noting that The Guardian, AFP and Reuters — outlets that did cover the four drone whistleblowers — are all headquartered outside the United States and are not part of the inside-the-Beltway media crowd that influence what is and isn’t news at the national and U.S. governmental level.

Also, because those news outlets all have high levels of newspaper and Internet-based circulation in numerous countries, what they report can make citizens of other countries better informed than Americans about certain aspects of U.S. life. This meant, for example, that Singapore readers of The Straits Times and the Dublin, Ireland readers of TheJournal.ie got to read about the four whistleblowers via an AFP article online. Meanwhile, sadly and ironically, readers of The New York Times and Washington Post were left in the dark.

Across the waters in the drone-deploying United Kingdom, public opinion on drone use appears to be the direct opposite of the United States. A Pew Research Center poll in July 2014 found that the U.K. public opposed the use of drones by a 59-33 percent margin.

With The Guardian and others providing more critical coverage of drones than U.S. mainstream media, and with the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism regularly pumping out information that challenges U.S. government claims about limited civilian drone-strike deaths, it’s a good bet that U.K. citizens are more exposed to criticisms of the drone programs than are their U.S. counterparts.

Additionally, many members of Parliament are much more critical of Britain’s drone policies than are members of Congress critical of U.S. policies, and they are often in the news with their criticisms and concerns. Not so in the United States where, with no serious congressional oversight or debate about drones, there is seldom any anti-drone news generated in the House or Senate — which means citizens hear nothing from the legislative branch to counter the White House views.

As long as major U.S. news organizations continue to ignore, downplay or under-report drone stories, much of the American public will remain under-informed or ill-informed about what our drone strikes are doing to the citizens of many other countries, while at the same time turning ever more people against the United States.

(Disclosure: The four drone whistleblowers are represented by attorney Jesselyn Radack, who is national security and human rights director of the ExposeFacts WHISPeR program.)

About John Hanrahan

John Hanrahan, currently on the editorial board of ExposeFacts, is a former executive director of The Fund for Investigative Journalism and reporter for  The Washington Post,  The Washington Star, UPI and other news organizations. He also has extensive experience as a legal investigator. Hanrahan is the author of  Government by Contract  and co-author of Lost Frontier: The Marketing of Alaska. He wrote extensively for NiemanWatchdog.org, a project of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.

Previously published here: 

https://exposefacts.org/killer-drone-news-blackout-continues-as-mainstream-media-ignore-4-whistleblowers/




THE DRONE PAPERS

peace-conversion-task-force-cartoon-sized-down-adapted-300x235US officials responsible for carrying out drone strikes may have to stand trial for war crimes, says a report by Amnesty International, which lists civilian casualties in the attacks in Pakistan. Human Rights Watch has issued similar report on Yemen.

~That “Drones strikes—which are being conducted in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somlia—are illegal is cut and dry. Article 2 of the U.N. Charter states that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” Under the Charter, there are only two circumstances under which the use of force is legitimate (i.e., not illegal): One, when the use of force is in self-defense against armed aggression, and, two, when the U.N. Security Council has authorized it. These drone strikes are not actions that defend the United States from armed aggression against its borders or sovereignty, and they have not been authorized by the Security Council. Thus, they are incontrovertibly illegal.”


https://thepeaceresource.wordpress.com/2015/10/15/the-drone-papers/


America's Drones Are Still Killing Scores of Innocents

By Alan Grayson and Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films

31 October 14

 Nabila Rehman, 9, was injured by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan. Rehman was picking okra in her family garden last year when missiles from a drone rained down from the sky, killing her grandmother and injuring her and seven other children. (photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
Nabila Rehman, 9, was injured by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan. Rehman was picking okra in her family garden last year when missiles from a drone rained down from the sky, killing her grandmother and injuring her and seven other children. (photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OvhAFyeGk4&

ISIS has revived our dependence on drones. We must not let it.
 

amana Bibi was a 67-year-old Pakistani grandmother and midwife, killed by a U.S. drone strike on October 24, 2012. One year ago, the family of Mamana Bibi came to Washington,, D.C., to share their sad story with Members of Congress.

Mamana's son, Rafiq ur Rehman, is a 39-year-old primary-school teacher. He and his two children, Zubair, 13, and Nabila, 9, were the first family members of a U.S. drone strike victim ever to speak to Members of Congress. Rafiq explained that he and his family were educators, not terrorists. He wanted to know why his family was targeted by the U.S. military. Zubair, a teenager, recalled how he "watched a U.S. drone kill my grandmother." He described why he now fears blue skies: "Because drones do not fly when the skies are gray." Nabila was picking okra with her grandmother for a religious holiday meal, when day became night. "I saw from the sky a drone and I hear a dum-dum noise. Everything was dark and I couldn't see anything, but I heard a scream."

Only five Members of Congress came to hear this family's testimony. Only five listened to the real impact of one of America's most ruthless, extrajudicial, error-laden and enemy-producing war policies. The briefing was organized by both of us, Rep. Alan Grayson, and Director Robert Greenwald. It was part of our effort to change discourse about drone warfare. It also led the release of a new drone documentary, Unmanned: America's Drone Wars. The film told these and other drone victims' stories, focused on the government's shadowy "signature strike" policy allowed spy agencies to target and kill hundreds based on suspicion alone, and posed difficult questions that far too many lawmakers and national security officials still want to duck.

Those questions include: Should America be killing people in other countries with which we are not at war? What constitutional framework allows the President and spy agencies to be judge, jury and executioner? Where only four percent of victims are even "linked" to Al Qaeda, what role are the killings , playing in inciting warfare and making anti-American enemies? Why do national leaders--in the White House, the Pentagon and Congress--believe that so-called military "solutions" are the only way to address global hot spots? And why is it that every time they see something they don't like, they feel the urge to bomb it?


the rest of above story:  http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/323-95/26688-focus-americas-drones-are-still-killing-scores-of-innocents

Activist Strikes Blow Against Drones

Steve Law | Portland Tribune

 

by: TRIBUNE PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER ONSTOTT – Trudy Cooper is one of four Oregonians who recently returned from a one-week peace mission to Pakistan.

Peace activist Trudy Cooper once laid her
body across railroad tracks in a protest.

The 63-year-old from Northeast Portland says she’s unafraid of conflict because she works as a mediator for a living.

But Cooper admits to a bit of nerves when she and three other Oregonians landed in Pakistan Oct. 3 as part of a 31-person peace delegation protesting unmanned drone airplane attacks by their own country.


"There were pieces of my family all over the road": Afghan citizen describes seeing relative's burning bodies after deadly U.S. drone strike

Daily Mail (U.K.), 

 

For residents living in many parts of Afghanistan, U.S. drone strikes have become something of a way of life, but there is no describing the terror felt by those who live under their paths.


US officials responsible for carrying out drone strikes may have to stand trial for war crimes, says a report by Amnesty International, which lists civilian casualties in the attacks in Pakistan. Human Rights Watch has issued similar report on Yemen.

http://on.rt.com/0ytsp9 


The Amnesty International report is based on the investigation of the nine out of 45 drone strikes reported between January 2012 and August 2013 in North Waziristan, the area where the US drone campaign is most intensive. The research is centered on one particular case – that of 68-year-old Mamana Bibi, who was killed by a US drone last October while she was picking vegetables with her grandchildren. 

The report, titled, “Will I be next?” cites the woman’s eight-year-old granddaughter, Nabeela, who was near when the attack occurred, but miraculously survived.

"First it whistled then I heard a "dhummm," Nabeela says. “The first hit us and the second my cousin.”

The report also recounts an incident from July 2012, when 18 laborers, including a 14-year-old, were killed in the village of Zowi Sidgi. The men gathered after work in a tent to have a rest when the first missile hit. The second struck those who tried to help the injured.

Amnesty International is seriously concerned that these and other strikes have resulted in unlawful killings that may constitute extrajudicial executions or war crimes,” the report reads.

Amnesty’s main point is the need for transparency and accountability, something the US has so far been reluctant to offer.

The US must explain why these people have been killed - people who are clearly civilians. It must provide justice to these people, compensation and it must investigate those responsible for those killings,” Mustafa Qadri, the Amnesty researcher who wrote the report, says. 


Spring Days of Action to End Drone Killing, Drone Surveillance, Global Militarization

By davidswanson - Posted on 30 January 2014

Today we issue an international call for Spring Days of Action – 2014, a coordinated campaign in April and May to:



          End Drone Killing, Drone Surveillance and Global Militarization

                   http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/drones

The campaign will focus on drone bases, drone research facilities and test sites and drone manufacturers.

The campaign will provide information on:

1. The suffering of tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Gaza who are under drone attack, documenting the killing, the wounding and the devastating impact of constant drone surveillance on community life.

2. How attack and surveillance drones have become a key element in a massive wave of surveillance, clandestine military attacks and militarization generated by the United States to protect a global system of manufacture and oil and mineral exploitation that is creating unemployment and poverty, accelerating the waste of nonrenewable resources and contributing to environmental destruction and global warming.

In addition to cases in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, we will examine President Obama's "pivot" into the Asia-Pacific, where the United States has already sold and deployed drones in the vanguard of a shift of 60% of its military forces to try to control China and to enforce the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership.  We will show, among other things, how this surge of "pivot" forces, greatly enabled by drones, and supported by the US military-industrial complex, will hit every American community with even deeper cuts in the already fragile social programs on which people rely for survival.  In short, we will connect drones and militarization with "austerity" in America.

3. How drone attacks have effectively destroyed international and domestic legal protection of the rights to life, privacy, freedom of assembly and free speech and have opened the way for new levels of surveillance and repression around the world, and how, in the United States, increasing drone surveillance, added to surveillance by the National Security Agency and police, provides a new weapon to repress black, Hispanic, immigrant and low-income communities and to intimidate Americans who are increasingly unsettled by lack of jobs, economic inequality, corporate control of politics and the prospect of endless war.

We will discuss how the United States government and corporations conspire secretly to monitor US citizens and particularly how the Administration is accelerating drone surveillance operations and surveillance inside the United States with the same disregard for transparency and law that it applies to other countries, all with the cooperation of the Congress.

The campaign will encourage activists around the world to win passage of local laws that prohibit weaponized drones and drone surveillance from being used in their communities as well as seeking national laws to bar the use of weaponized drones and drone surveillance.

The campaign will draw attention to the call for a ban on weaponized drones by RootsAction.org that has generated a petition with over 80,000 signers

http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6180

and to efforts by the Granny Peace Brigade (New York City), KnowDrones.org and others to achieve an international ban on both weaponized drones and drone surveillance.

The campaign will also urge participation in the World Beyond War movement.

The following individuals and organizations endorse this Call:

Lyn Adamson – Co-chair, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace

Dennis Apel – Guadalupe Catholic Worker, California

Judy Bello – Upstate NY Coalition to Ground the Drones & End the Wars

Medea Benjamin – Code Pink

Leah Bolger – Former National President, Veterans for Peace

Canadian Voice of Women for Peace

Sung-Hee Choi – Gangjeong Village International Team, Jeju, Korea

Chelsea C. Faria – Graduate student, Yale  Divinity School; Promoting Enduring Peace

Sandy Fessler – Rochester (NY) Against War

Joy First

Bruce K. Gagnon - Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space

Holly Gwinn Graham – Singer/songwriter, Olympia, WA.

Regina Hagen - Darmstaedter Friedensforum, Germany

Kathy Kelly – Voices for Creative Nonviolence

Malachy Kilbride

Marilyn Levin and Joe Lombardo – Co-Coordinators, United National Antiwar Coalition

Tamara Lorincz – Halifax Peace Coalition, Canada

Nick Mottern – KnowDrones.org

Agneta Norberg – Swedish Peace Council

Pepperwolf – Director, Women Against Military Madness

Lindis Percy, Coordinator, Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases  CAAB UK

Mathias Quackenbush – San Francisco, CA

Lisa Savage – Code Pink, State of Maine

Janice Sevre-Duszynska

Wolfgang Schlupp-Hauck- Friedenswerkstatt Mutlangen, Germany

Cindy Sheehan

Lucia Wilkes Smith – Convener, Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) – Ground Military Drones Committee

David Soumis – Veterans for Peace; No Drones Wisconsin

Debra Sweet – World Can’t Wait

David Swanson - WarisACrime.org

Brian Terrell – Voices for Creative Nonviolence

United National Antiwar Coalition

Veterans for Peace 

Dave Webb – Chair, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK)

Curt Wechsler – Fire John Yoo! (a project of World Can’t Wait) – San Francisco, CA

Paki Wieland, Northampton (MA) Committee to Stop War(s)

Loring Wirbel – Citizens for Peace in Space (Colorado Springs, CO)

Women Against Military Madness

Ann Wright – Retired US Army colonel and former diplomat

Leila Zand - Fellowship of Reconciliation

Tim Flanagan- The Portland Alliance and NAAME NW Alliance for Alternative Media & Education

The Wordsmith Collection:  Peaceresource.org Peaceresource.com

Add your name by emailing it to email: nickmottern@earthlink.net and watch for updates at http://KnowDrones.org



In Pakistan, Rally Protests Drone Strikes

Thousands protested in Peshawar on Saturday against drone strikes and vowed to stop NATO supply trucks unless the attacks ended.

Sen. Wyden: Bring the Drone War Out of the Shadows

By Trudy Cooper (Contact)

To be delivered to: Sen. Ron Wyden (OR-1)

Petition Background

The Administration has claimed that its drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen are legal under U.S. law, but it has never shared with Congress or the American people all of its legal memos purportedly giving legal justification for the policy. The Administration has also not told Congress or the American people who we are at war with - which groups the Administration claims it has the authority to target with drone strikes under U.S. law.

By introducing legislation to compel the Administration to share this information with Congress and the public, Senator Wyden will give Americans concerned about the drone strike policy a way to engage Members of Congress on the issue.

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/sen-wyden-bring-the-drone?source=c.url&r_by=1135580


Horrifyingly, the use of airstrikes to kill rescue workers in a “double tap” when they come for the bodies of drone victims has been repeatedly documented, as well.


Perpetual wars spilling across many borders is now a foregone conclusion. The public pays it little mind. Drones take this even further, targeting individuals determined to be combatants – without a declaration of war against their country and without formal charges, allegations or complaints against those individuals.

Due process is effectively dead. The White House, the Pentagon, and the pilots who operate their predator drones have become judge, jury and executioner while the public isn’t even told who is on their kill list, or why.

Drones are coming home to roost, too. Estimates are that U.S. skies will see some 30,000 drones within the coming decade, and surveillance is not their only purpose. While they may not be equipped with missiles to target suspects, the use of tasers and other less-lethal weaponry for law enforcement and border security functions has already been proposed.

How far will things go? And how far removed will their operators be from the situation? Will they retain the judgement to know when things have gone too far? Or will the lives they hover over become mere blips on a screen?

Aaron Dykes is a co-founder of TruthstreamMedia.com where this article first appeared. As a writer, researcher and video producer who has worked on numerous documentaries and investigative reports, he uses history as a guide to decode current events, uncover obscure agendas and contrast them with the dignity afforded individuals as recognized in documents like the Bill of Rights.

That "Drones strikes—which are being conducted in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somlia—are illegal is cut and dry. Article 2 of the U.N. Charter states that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” Under the Charter, there are only two circumstances under which the use of force is legitimate (i.e., not illegal): One, when the use of force is in self-defense against armed aggression, and, two, when the U.N. Security Council has authorized it. These drone strikes are not actions that defend the United States from armed aggression against its borders or sovereignty, and they have not been authorized by the Security Council. Thus, they are incontrovertibly illegal." 
~Jeremy R. Hammond

The illegal, immoral, and illogical use of drones is based upon the
"Bush Agenda," (the one Sarah Palin could not describe.)
This agenda (of American "Exceptionalism") can be stated in these terms:
Barack Obama, George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Don Rumsfeld agree in claiming the president of the United States has a "right" to target, attack, and murder anyone, anywhere, anytime for any reason or without providing any reason at all. The end result of adopting this blatant fascism as a platform has been the murders of innocents. As long as Obama remains in office these coffins will continue piling up.
The use of drones and the implementation of this "agenda" are war crimes according to US civil law, the US constitution, and international law. It is now our job to remove Mr. Obama from office. We cannot move forward as a nation until we abandon this criminal behavior and begin adhering to the rule of law. Our future hangs in the balance. Obama's current malfeasance and misbehavior in office is a direct attack on and betrayal of everyday people.

As long as our rights remain under attack, we are obligated to stand up and fight back!
No fear, no compromise, and no surrender!     Tim Flanagan, contributing editor
"Imagine, if you can, an alternate universe. Imagine that in this alternate universe, a foreign military power begins flying remote-controlled warplanes over your town, using onboard missiles to kill hundreds of your innocent neighbors.Now imagine that when you read the newspaper about this ongoing bloodbath, you learn that the foreign nation’s top general is nonchalantly telling reporters that his troops are also killing “an amazing number” of your cultural brethren in an adjacent country. Imagine further learning that this foreign power is expanding the drone attacks on your community despite the attacks’ well-known record of killing innocents. And finally, imagine that when you turn on your television, you see the perpetrator nation’s tuxedo-clad leader cracking stand-up comedy jokes about drone strikes—jokes that prompt guffaws from an audience of that nation’s elite.Ask yourself: How would you and your fellow citizens respond? Would you call homegrown militias mounting a defense “patriots” or would you call them “terrorists”? Would you agree with your leaders when they angrily tell reporters that violent defiance should be expected?Fortunately, most Americans don’t have to worry about these queries in their own lives. But how we answer them in a hypothetical thought experiment provides us insight into how Pakistanis are likely to be feeling right now. Why? Because thanks to our continued drone assaults on their country, Pakistanis now confront these issues every day. And if they answer these questions as many of us undoubtedly would in a similar situation—well, that should trouble every American in this age of asymmetrical warfare.Though we don’t like to call it mass murder, the U.S. government’s undeclared drone war in Pakistan is devolving into just that. As noted by a former counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus and a former Army officer in Afghanistan, the operation has become a haphazard massacre.“Press reports suggest that over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders,” David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum wrote in 2009. “But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed.”Making matters worse, Gen. Stanley McChrystal has, indeed, told journalists that in Afghanistan, U.S. troops have “shot an amazing number of people” and “none has proven to have been a real threat.” Meanwhile, President Barack Obama used his internationally televised speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner to jest about drone warfare—and the assembled Washington glitterati did, in fact, reward him with approving laughs.By eerie coincidence, that latter display of monstrous insouciance occurred on the same night as the failed effort to raze Times Square. Though America reacted to that despicable terrorism attempt with its routine spasms of cartoonish shock (why do they hate us?!), the assailant’s motive was anything but baffling. As law enforcement officials soon reported, the accused bomber was probably trained and inspired by Pakistani groups seeking revenge for U.S. drone strikes.“This is a blowback,” said Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi. “This is a reaction. And you could expect that ... let’s not be naive.”Obviously, regardless of rationale, a “reaction” that involves trying to incinerate civilians in Manhattan is abhorrent and unacceptable. But so is Obama’s move to intensify drone assaults that we know are regularly incinerating innocent civilians in Pakistan. And while Qureshi’s statement about “expecting” blowback seems radical, he’s merely echoing the CIA’s reminder that “possibilities of blowback” arise when we conduct martial operations abroad.We might remember that somehow-forgotten warning come the next terrorist assault. No matter how surprised we may feel after that inevitable (and inevitably deplorable) attack, the fact remains that until we halt our own indiscriminately violent actions, we ought to expect equally indiscriminate and equally violent reactions."http://tinyurl.com/d5xvvnx"Out of all the excuses perpetuated by supporters of U.S. imperialist aggression, the defense of "drones save American lives" is perhaps the most popular, yet least accurate.On the surface, sure: drones make it easier for the U.S. to conduct airstrikes in countries without any risk to those responsible. Drones also make it easier to start wars without declaring them as such. Without U.S. casualties, for the most part, the U.S. public doesn't seem to care much. Drones keep U.S. lives out of harm's way, at least, in an immediate sense.But there's a term I'd like to introduce the drone-loving warmongers to: "blowback". Ever hear of it? Wikipedia defines it as the "unintended consequences of a covert operation that are suffered by the civilian population of the aggressor government." The attacks of 9/11 are often considered to be "blowback" for U.S. foreign policy, yet clearly, we learned nothing from what happened that day (which is hardly surprising considering the shameful trainwreck that was the "9/11 Commission", but that's another story).Nonetheless, since 9/11, thousands of innocents have been slaughtered in Afghanistan and Iraq. The potential "blowback" from these invasions and subsequent occupations should be startling enough. Yet if one factors in the +170 butchered children via drone attacks in Pakistan, plus the innocent men and women; and then if one factors in all the dead innocents in other places where drone wars have been started (Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya) the potential for blowback grows even higher. Add in the blatant marginalization of these deaths by U.S. news media networks, and a U.S. government which has only really started to even acknowledge them as fact and you have a recipe for some pretty pissed off people across the world.Of course, these murders don't even highlight other brutal aspects of the drone wars, as mentioned in a newly released report by NYU and Stanford, which depicts practices such as targeting rescuers who show up after drone strikes, and even targeting funerals.Is it really surprising that world opinion of the U.S. has plummeted as a result of the drones? Reported Pew Global in June of 2012: "In predominantly Muslim nations, American anti-terrorism efforts are still widely unpopular. And in nearly all countries, there is considerable opposition to a major component of the Obama administration’s anti-terrorism policy: drone strikes. In 17 of 20 countries, more than half disapprove of U.S. drone attacks targeting extremist leaders and groups in nations such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Americans are the clear outliers on this issue – 62% approve of the drone campaign, including most Republicans (74%), independents (60%) and Democrats (58%)."And, following the release of information about a "secret" U.S. drone base located in Saudi Arabia, Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlanic wrote in February 2013:"Osama bin Laden began his jihad against the United States largely because he was incensed that American troops were stationed in his homeland, Saudi Arabia, proximate to Islamic holy sites. The U.S. troop presence began during the Gulf War, when Americans led a coalition to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. "Bin Laden -- like many Muslims -- considers the continued presence of these armed infidels in Saudi Arabia the greatest possible desecration of the holy land," David Plotz explained in a Slate article published on September 14, 2001. "That is why he sponsored bombings of the American military facilities in Saudi Arabia, why he has tried to destabilize the Saudi government, and why the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed on August 7, 1998 -- eight years to the day after the first American troops were dispatched to Saudi Arabia."In 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, the United States announced that it would pull its troops out of Saudia Arabia, though some remain there. In a January 2009 Gallup poll, 60 percent of Egyptians said their opinion of the United States would significantly improve if it moved all military bases out of Saudia Arabia. Forty percent of Syrians, 39 percent of Jordanians, 52 percent of Saudis, 40 percent of Palestinians, 55 percent of Tunisians, 40 percent of Lebanese people, and 30 percent of Algerians agreed. How many millions of people is that?"How many people in the Middle East and Africa know someone at this point who has been impacted not just by the U.S. occupations of various countries in these locations, but by the deadly drones which now regularly fly overhead and launch missiles down at the population? How many people are being motivated to launch attacks against the U.S. as a result of the needless expansion of the so-called "War on Terror"? The NYU and Stanford report mentioned above notes "evidence suggests that U.S. strikes have facilitated recruitment to violent non-state armed groups, and motivated further violent attacks. As the New York Times has reported, "drones have replaced Guantánamo as the recruiting tool of choice for militants.""If civilian casualties create new enemies, and drones are well-known for civilian casualties, how exactly do drones "save American lives" when American lives are more at risk now for a terror attack than they were before 9/11?"http://tinyurl.com/cmhmmgo
‎"Imagine, if you can, an alternate universe. 

Imagine that in this alternate universe, a foreign military power begins flying remote-controlled warplanes over your town, using onboard missiles to kill hundreds of your innocent neighbors.

Now imagine that when you read the newspaper about this ongoing bloodbath, you learn that the foreign nation’s top general is nonchalantly telling reporters that his troops are also killing “an amazing number” of your cultural brethren in an adjacent country. Imagine further learning that this foreign power is expanding the drone attacks on your c
‎"Imagine, if you can, an alternate universe.

Imagine that in this alternate universe, a foreign military power begins flying remote-controlled warplanes over your town, using onboard missiles to kill hundreds of your innocent neighbors.

Now imagine that when you read the newspaper about this ongoing bloodbath, you learn that the foreign nation’s top general is nonchalantly telling reporters that his troops are also killing “an amazing number” of your cultural brethren in an adjacent country. Imagine further learning that this foreign power is expanding the drone attacks on your community despite the attacks’ well-known record of killing innocents. And finally, imagine that when you turn on your television, you see the perpetrator nation’s tuxedo-clad leader cracking stand-up comedy jokes about drone strikes—jokes that prompt guffaws from an audience of that nation’s elite.

Ask yourself: How would you and your fellow citizens respond? Would you call homegrown militias mounting a defense “patriots” or would you call them “terrorists”? Would you agree with your leaders when they angrily tell reporters that violent defiance should be expected?

Fortunately, most Americans don’t have to worry about these queries in their own lives. But how we answer them in a hypothetical thought experiment provides us insight into how Pakistanis are likely to be feeling right now. Why? Because thanks to our continued drone assaults on their country, Pakistanis now confront these issues every day. And if they answer these questions as many of us undoubtedly would in a similar situation—well, that should trouble every American in this age of asymmetrical warfare.

Though we don’t like to call it mass murder, the U.S. government’s undeclared drone war in Pakistan is devolving into just that. As noted by a former counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus and a former Army officer in Afghanistan, the operation has become a haphazard massacre.

“Press reports suggest that over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders,” David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum wrote in 2009. “But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed.”

Making matters worse, Gen. Stanley McChrystal has, indeed, told journalists that in Afghanistan, U.S. troops have “shot an amazing number of people” and “none has proven to have been a real threat.” Meanwhile, President Barack Obama used his internationally televised speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner to jest about drone warfare—and the assembled Washington glitterati did, in fact, reward him with approving laughs.

By eerie coincidence, that latter display of monstrous insouciance occurred on the same night as the failed effort to raze Times Square. Though America reacted to that despicable terrorism attempt with its routine spasms of cartoonish shock (why do they hate us?!), the assailant’s motive was anything but baffling. As law enforcement officials soon reported, the accused bomber was probably trained and inspired by Pakistani groups seeking revenge for U.S. drone strikes.

“This is a blowback,” said Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi. “This is a reaction. And you could expect that ... let’s not be naive.”

Obviously, regardless of rationale, a “reaction” that involves trying to incinerate civilians in Manhattan is abhorrent and unacceptable. But so is Obama’s move to intensify drone assaults that we know are regularly incinerating innocent civilians in Pakistan. And while Qureshi’s statement about “expecting” blowback seems radical, he’s merely echoing the CIA’s reminder that “possibilities of blowback” arise when we conduct martial operations abroad.

We might remember that somehow-forgotten warning come the next terrorist assault. No matter how surprised we may feel after that inevitable (and inevitably deplorable) attack, the fact remains that until we halt our own indiscriminately violent actions, we ought to expect equally indiscriminate and equally violent reactions."

http://tinyurl.com/d5xvvnx

"Out of all the excuses perpetuated by supporters of U.S. imperialist aggression, the defense of "drones save American lives" is perhaps the most popular, yet least accurate.

On the surface, sure: drones make it easier for the U.S. to conduct airstrikes in countries without any risk to those responsible. Drones also make it easier to start wars without declaring them as such. Without U.S. casualties, for the most part, the U.S. public doesn't seem to care much. Drones keep U.S. lives out of harm's way, at least, in an immediate sense.

But there's a term I'd like to introduce the drone-loving warmongers to: "blowback". Ever hear of it? Wikipedia defines it as the "unintended consequences of a covert operation that are suffered by the civilian population of the aggressor government." The attacks of 9/11 are often considered to be "blowback" for U.S. foreign policy, yet clearly, we learned nothing from what happened that day (which is hardly surprising considering the shameful trainwreck that was the "9/11 Commission", but that's another story).

Nonetheless, since 9/11, thousands of innocents have been slaughtered in Afghanistan and Iraq. The potential "blowback" from these invasions and subsequent occupations should be startling enough. Yet if one factors in the +170 butchered children via drone attacks in Pakistan, plus the innocent men and women; and then if one factors in all the dead innocents in other places where drone wars have been started (Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya) the potential for blowback grows even higher. Add in the blatant marginalization of these deaths by U.S. news media networks, and a U.S. government which has only really started to even acknowledge them as fact and you have a recipe for some pretty pissed off people across the world.

Of course, these murders don't even highlight other brutal aspects of the drone wars, as mentioned in a newly released report by NYU and Stanford, which depicts practices such as targeting rescuers who show up after drone strikes, and even targeting funerals.

Is it really surprising that world opinion of the U.S. has plummeted as a result of the drones? Reported Pew Global in June of 2012: "In predominantly Muslim nations, American anti-terrorism efforts are still widely unpopular. And in nearly all countries, there is considerable opposition to a major component of the Obama administration’s anti-terrorism policy: drone strikes. In 17 of 20 countries, more than half disapprove of U.S. drone attacks targeting extremist leaders and groups in nations such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Americans are the clear outliers on this issue – 62% approve of the drone campaign, including most Republicans (74%), independents (60%) and Democrats (58%)."

And, following the release of information about a "secret" U.S. drone base located in Saudi Arabia, Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlanic wrote in February 2013:

"Osama bin Laden began his jihad against the United States largely because he was incensed that A
‎"Imagine, if you can, an alternate universe.

Imagine that in this alternate universe, a foreign military power begins flying remote-controlled warplanes over your town, using onboard missiles to kill hundreds of your innocent neighbors.

Now imagine that when you read the newspaper about this ongoing bloodbath, you learn that the foreign nation’s top general is nonchalantly telling reporters that his troops are also killing “an amazing number” of your cultural brethren in an adjacent country. Imagine further learning that this foreign power is expanding the drone attacks on your community despite the attacks’ well-known record of killing innocents. And finally, imagine that when you turn on your television, you see the perpetrator nation’s tuxedo-clad leader cracking stand-up comedy jokes about drone strikes—jokes that prompt guffaws from an audience of that nation’s elite.

Ask yourself: How would you and your fellow citizens respond? Would you call homegrown militias mounting a defense “patriots” or would you call them “terrorists”? Would you agree with your leaders when they angrily tell reporters that violent defiance should be expected?

Fortunately, most Americans don’t have to worry about these queries in their own lives. But how we answer them in a hypothetical thought experiment provides us insight into how Pakistanis are likely to be feeling right now. Why? Because thanks to our continued drone assaults on their country, Pakistanis now confront these issues every day. And if they answer these questions as many of us undoubtedly would in a similar situation—well, that should trouble every American in this age of asymmetrical warfare.

Though we don’t like to call it mass murder, the U.S. government’s undeclared drone war in Pakistan is devolving into just that. As noted by a former counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus and a former Army officer in Afghanistan, the operation has become a haphazard massacre.

“Press reports suggest that over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders,” David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum wrote in 2009. “But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed.”

Making matters worse, Gen. Stanley McChrystal has, indeed, told journalists that in Afghanistan, U.S. troops have “shot an amazing number of people” and “none has proven to have been a real threat.” Meanwhile, President Barack Obama used his internationally televised speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner to jest about drone warfare—and the assembled Washington glitterati did, in fact, reward him with approving laughs.

By eerie coincidence, that latter display of monstrous insouciance occurred on the same night as the failed effort to raze Times Square. Though America reacted to that despicable terrorism attempt with its routine spasms of cartoonish shock (why do they hate us?!), the assailant’s motive was anything but baffling. As law enforcement officials soon reported, the accused bomber was probably trained and inspired by Pakistani groups seeking revenge for U.S. drone strikes.

“This is a blowback,” said Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi. “This is a reaction. And you could expect that ... let’s not be naive.”

Obviously, regardless of rationale, a “reaction” that involves trying to incinerate civilians in Manhattan is abhorrent and unacceptable. But so is Obama’s move to intensify drone assaults that we know are regularly incinerating innocent civilians in Pakistan. And while Qureshi’s statement about “expecting” blowback seems radical, he’s merely echoing the CIA’s reminder that “possibilities of blowback” arise when we conduct martial operations abroad.

We might remember that somehow-forgotten warning come the next terrorist assault. No matter how surprised we may feel after that inevitable (and inevitably deplorable) attack, the fact remains that until we halt our own indiscriminately violent actions, we ought to expect equally indiscriminate and equally violent reactions."

http://tinyurl.com/d5xvvnx

"Out of all the excuses perpetuated by supporters of U.S. imperialist aggression, the defense of "drones save American lives" is perhaps the most popular, yet least accurate.

On the surface, sure: drones make it easier for the U.S. to conduct airstrikes in countries without any risk to those responsible. Drones also make it easier to start wars without declaring them as such. Without U.S. casualties, for the most part, the U.S. public doesn't seem to care much. Drones keep U.S. lives out of harm's way, at least, in an immediate sense.

But there's a term I'd like to introduce the drone-loving warmongers to: "blowback". Ever hear of it? Wikipedia defines it as the "unintended consequences of a covert operation that are suffered by the civilian population of the aggressor government." The attacks of 9/11 are often considered to be "blowback" for U.S. foreign policy, yet clearly, we learned nothing from what happened that day (which is hardly surprising considering the shameful trainwreck that was the "9/11 Commission", but that's another story).

Nonetheless, since 9/11, thousands of innocents have been slaughtered in Afghanistan and Iraq. The potential "blowback" from these invasions and subsequent occupations should be startling enough. Yet if one factors in the +170 butchered children via drone attacks in Pakistan, plus the innocent men and women; and then if one factors in all the dead innocents in other places where drone wars have been started (Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya) the potential for blowback grows even higher. Add in the blatant marginalization of these deaths by U.S. news media networks, and a U.S. government which has only really started to even acknowledge them as fact and you have a recipe for some pretty pissed off people across the world.

Of course, these murders don't even highlight other brutal aspects of the drone wars, as mentioned in a newly released report by NYU and Stanford, which depicts practices such as targeting rescuers who show up after drone strikes, and even targeting funerals.

Is it really surprising that world opinion of the U.S. has plummeted as a result of the drones? Reported Pew Global in June of 2012: "In predominantly Muslim nations, American anti-terrorism efforts are still widely unpopular. And in nearly all countries, there is considerable opposition to a major component of the Obama administration’s anti-terrorism policy: drone strikes. In 17 of 20 countries, more than half disapprove of U.S. drone attacks targeting extremist leaders and groups in nations such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Americans are the clear outliers on this issue – 62% approve of the drone campaign, including most Republicans (74%), independents (60%) and Democrats (58%)."

And, following the release of information about a "secret" U.S. drone base located in Saudi Arabia, Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlanic wrote in February 2013:

"Osama bin Laden began his jihad against the United States largely because he was incensed that American troops were stationed in his homeland, Saudi Arabia, proximate to Islamic holy sites. The U.S. troop presence began during the Gulf War, when Americans led a coalition to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. "Bin Laden -- like many Muslims -- considers the continued presence of these armed infidels in Saudi Arabia the greatest possible desecration of the holy land," David Plotz explained in a Slate article published on September 14, 2001. "That is why he sponsored bombings of the American military facilities in Saudi Arabia, why he has tried to destabilize the Saudi government, and why the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed on August 7, 1998 -- eight years to the day after the first American troops were dispatched to Saudi Arabia."

In 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, the United States announced that it would pull its troops out of Saudia Arabia, though some remain there. In a January 2009 Gallup poll, 60 percent of Egyptians said their opinion of the United States would significantly improve if it moved all military bases out of Saudia Arabia. Forty percent of Syrians, 39 percent of Jordanians, 52 percent of Saudis, 40 percent of Palestinians, 55 percent of Tunisians, 40 percent of Lebanese people, and 30 percent of Algerians agreed. How many millions of people is that?"

How many people in the Middle East and Africa know someone at this point who has been impacted not just by the U.S. occupations of various countries in these locations, but by the deadly drones which now regularly fly overhead and launch missiles down at the population? How many people are being motivated to launch attacks against the U.S. as a result of the needless expansion of the so-called "War on Terror"?

The NYU and Stanford report mentioned above notes "evidence suggests that U.S. strikes have facilitated recruitment to violent non-state armed groups, and motivated further violent attacks. As the New York Times has reported, "drones have replaced Guantánamo as the recruiting tool of choice for militants.""

If civilian casualties create new enemies, and drones are well-known for civilian casualties, how exactly do drones "save American lives" when American lives are more at risk now for a terror attack than they were before 9/11?"

http://tinyurl.com/cmhmmgomerican troops were stationed in his homeland, Saudi Arabia, proximate to Islamic holy sites. The U.S. troop presence began during the Gulf War, when Americans led a coalition to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. "Bin Laden -- like many Muslims -- considers the continued presence of these armed infidels in Saudi Arabia the greatest possible desecration of the holy land," David Plotz explained in a Slate article published on September 14, 2001. "That is why he sponsored bombings of the American military facilities in Saudi Arabia, why he has tried to destabilize the Saudi government, and why the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed on August 7, 1998 -- eight years to the day after the first American troops were dispatched to Saudi Arabia."

In 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, the United States announced that it would pull its troops out of Saudia Arabia, though some remain there. In a January 2009 Gallup poll, 60 percent of Egyptians said their opinion of the United States would significantly improve if it moved all military bases out of Saudia Arabia. Forty percent of Syrians, 39 percent of Jordanians, 52 percent of Saudis, 40 percent of Palestinians, 55 percent of Tunisians, 40 percent of Lebanese people, and 30 percent of Algerians agreed. How many millions of people is that?"

How many people in the Middle East and Africa know someone at this point who has been impacted not just by the U.S. occupations of various countries in these locations, but by the deadly drones which now regularly fly overhead and launch missiles down at the population? How many people are being motivated to launch attacks against the U.S. as a result of the needless expansion of the so-called "War on Terror"?

The NYU and Stanford report mentioned above notes "evidence suggests that U.S. strikes have facilitated recruitment to violent non-state armed groups, and motivated further violent attacks. As the New York Times has reported, "drones have replaced Guantánamo as the recruiting tool of choice for militants.""

If civilian casualties create new enemies, and drones are well-known for civilian casualties, how exactly do drones "save American lives" when American lives are more at risk now for a terror attack than they were before 9/11?"

http://tinyurl.com/cmhmmgoommunity despite the attacks’ well-known record of killing innocents. And finally, imagine that when you turn on your television, you see the perpetrator nation’s tuxedo-clad leader cracking stand-up comedy jokes about drone strikes—jokes that prompt guffaws from an audience of that nation’s elite.

Ask yourself: How would you and your fellow citizens respond? Would you call homegrown militias mounting a defense “patriots” or would you call them “terrorists”? Would you agree with your leaders when they angrily tell reporters that violent defiance should be expected?

Fortunately, most Americans don’t have to worry about these queries in their own lives. But how we answer them in a hypothetical thought experiment provides us insight into how Pakistanis are likely to be feeling right now. Why? Because thanks to our continued drone assaults on their country, Pakistanis now confront these issues every day. And if they answer these questions as many of us undoubtedly would in a similar situation—well, that should trouble every American in this age of asymmetrical warfare.

Though we don’t like to call it mass murder, the U.S. government’s undeclared drone war in Pakistan is devolving into just that. As noted by a former counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus and a former Army officer in Afghanistan, the operation has become a haphazard massacre.

“Press reports suggest that over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders,” David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum wrote in 2009. “But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed.”

Making matters worse, Gen. Stanley McChrystal has, indeed, told journalists that in Afghanistan, U.S. troops have “shot an amazing number of people” and “none has proven to have been a real threat.” Meanwhile, President Barack Obama used his internationally televised speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner to jest about drone warfare—and the assembled Washington glitterati did, in fact, reward him with approving laughs.

‎"Imagine, if you can, an alternate universe.

Imagine that in this alternate universe, a foreign military power begins flying remote-controlled warplanes over your town, using onboard missiles to kill hundreds of your innocent neighbors.

Now imagine that when you read the newspaper about this ongoing bloodbath, you learn that the foreign nation’s top general is nonchalantly telling reporters that his troops are also killing “an amazing number” of your cultural brethren in an adjacent country. Imagine further learning that this foreign power is expanding the drone attacks on your community despite the attacks’ well-known record of killing innocents. And finally, imagine that when you turn on your television, you see the perpetrator nation’s tuxedo-clad leader cracking stand-up comedy jokes about drone strikes—jokes that prompt guffaws from an audience of that nation’s elite.

Ask yourself: How would you and your fellow citizens respond? Would you call homegrown militias mounting a defense “patriots” or would you call them “terrorists”? Would you agree with your leaders when they angrily tell reporters that violent defiance should be expected?

Fortunately, most Americans don’t have to worry about these queries in their own lives. But how we answer them in a hypothetical thought experiment provides us insight into how Pakistanis are likely to be feeling right now. Why? Because thanks to our continued drone assaults on their country, Pakistanis now confront these issues every day. And if they answer these questions as many of us undoubtedly would in a similar situation—well, that should trouble every American in this age of asymmetrical warfare.

Though we don’t like to call it mass murder, the U.S. government’s undeclared drone war in Pakistan is devolving into just that. As noted by a former counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus and a former Army officer in Afghanistan, the operation has become a haphazard massacre.

“Press reports suggest that over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders,” David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum wrote in 2009. “But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed.”

Making matters worse, Gen. Stanley McChrystal has, indeed, told journalists that in Afghanistan, U.S. troops have “shot an amazing number of people” and “none has proven to have been a real threat.” Meanwhile, President Barack Obama used his internationally televised speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner to jest about drone warfare—and the assembled Washington glitterati did, in fact, reward him with approving laughs.

By eerie coincidence, that latter display of monstrous insouciance occurred on the same night as the failed effort to raze Times Square. Though America reacted to that despicable terrorism attempt with its routine spasms of cartoonish shock (why do they hate us?!), the assailant’s motive was anything but baffling. As law enforcement officials soon reported, the accused bomber was probably trained and inspired by Pakistani groups seeking revenge for U.S. drone strikes.

“This is a blowback,” said Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi. “This is a reaction. And you could expect that ... let’s not be naive.”

Obviously, regardless of rationale, a “reaction” that involves trying to incinerate civilians in Manhattan is abhorrent and unacceptable. But so is Obama’s move to intensify drone assaults that we know are regularly incinerating innocent civilians in Pakistan. And while Qureshi’s statement about “expecting” blowback seems radical, he’s merely echoing the CIA’s reminder that “possibilities of blowback” arise when we conduct martial operations abroad.

We might remember that somehow-forgotten warning come the next terrorist assault. No matter how surprised we may feel after that inevitable (and inevitably deplorable) attack, the fact remains that until we halt our own indiscriminately violent actions, we ought to expect equally indiscriminate and equally violent reactions."

http://tinyurl.com/d5xvvnx

"Out of all the excuses perpetuated by supporters of U.S. imperialist aggression, the defense of "drones save American lives" is perhaps the most popular, yet least accurate.

On the surface, sure: drones make it easier for the U.S. to conduct airstrikes in countries without any risk to those responsible. Drones also make it easier to start wars without declaring them as such. Without U.S. casualties, for the most part, the U.S. public doesn't seem to care much. Drones keep U.S. lives out of harm's way, at least, in an immediate sense.

But there's a term I'd like to introduce the drone-loving warmongers to: "blowback". Ever hear of it? Wikipedia defines it as the "unintended consequences of a covert operation that are suffered by the civilian population of the aggressor government." The attacks of 9/11 are often considered to be "blowback" for U.S. foreign policy, yet clearly, we learned nothing from what happened that day (which is hardly surprising considering the shameful trainwreck that was the "9/11 Commission", but that's another story).

Nonetheless, since 9/11, thousands of innocents have been slaughtered in Afghanistan and Iraq. The potential "blowback" from these invasions and subsequent occupations should be startling enough. Yet if one factors in the +170 butchered children via drone attacks in Pakistan, plus the innocent men and women; and then if one factors in all the dead innocents in other places where drone wars have been started (Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya) the potential for blowback grows even higher. Add in the blatant marginalization of these deaths by U.S. news media networks, and a U.S. government which has only really started to even acknowledge them as fact and you have a recipe for some pretty pissed off people across the world.

Of course, these murders don't even highlight other brutal aspects of the drone wars, as mentioned in a newly released report by NYU and Stanford, which depicts practices such as targeting rescuers who show up after drone strikes, and even targeting funerals.

Is it really surprising that world opinion of the U.S. has plummeted as a result of the drones? Reported Pew Global in June of 2012: "In predominantly Muslim nations, American anti-terrorism efforts are still widely unpopular. And in nearly all countries, there is considerable opposition to a major component of the Obama administration’s anti-terrorism policy: drone strikes. In 17 of 20 countries, more than half disapprove of U.S. drone attacks targeting extremist leaders and groups in nations such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Americans are the clear outliers on this issue – 62% approve of the drone campaign, including most Republicans (74%), independents (60%) and Democrats (58%)."

And, following the release of information about a "secret" U.S. drone base located in Saudi Arabia, Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlanic wrote in February 2013:

"Osama bin Laden began his jihad against the United States largely because he was incensed that American troops were stationed in his homeland, Saudi Arabia, proximate to Islamic holy sites. The U.S. troop presence began during the Gulf War, when Americans led a coalition to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. "Bin Laden -- like many Muslims -- considers the continued presence of these armed infidels in Saudi Arabia the greatest possible desecration of the holy land," David Plotz explained in a Slate article published on September 14, 2001. "That is why he sponsored bombings of the American military facilities in Saudi Arabia, why he has tried to destabilize the Saudi government, and why the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed on August 7, 1998 -- eight years to the day after the first American troops were dispatched to Saudi Arabia."

In 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, the United States announced that it would pull its troops out of Saudia Arabia, though some remain there. In a January 2009 Gallup poll, 60 percent of Egyptians said their opinion of the United States would significantly improve if it moved all military bases out of Saudia Arabia. Forty percent of Syrians, 39 percent of Jordanians, 52 percent of Saudis, 40 percent of Palestinians, 55 percent of Tunisians, 40 percent of Lebanese people, and 30 percent of Algerians agreed. How many millions of people is that?"

How many people in the Middle East and Africa know someone at this point who has been impacted not just by the U.S. occupations of various countries in these locations, but by the deadly drones which now regularly fly overhead and launch missiles down at the population? How many people are being motivated to launch attacks against the U.S. as a result of the needless expansion of the so-called "War on Terror"?

The NYU and Stanford report mentioned above notes "evidence suggests that U.S. strikes have facilitated recruitment to violent non-state armed groups, and motivated further violent attacks. As the New York Times has reported, "drones have replaced Guantánamo as the recruiting tool of choice for militants.""

If civilian casualties create new enemies, and drones are well-known for civilian casualties, how exactly do drones "save American lives" when American lives are more at risk now for a terror attack than they were before 9/11?"

http://tinyurl.com/cmhmmgo
By eerie coincidence, that latter display of monstrous insouciance occurred on the same night as the failed effort to raze Times Square. Though America reacted to that despicable terrorism attempt with its routine spasms of cartoonish shock (why do they hate us?!), the assailant’s motive was anything but baffling. As law enforcement officials soon reported, the accused bomber was probably trained and inspired by Pakistani groups seeking revenge for U.S. drone strikes.

“This is a blowback,” said Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi. “This is a reaction. And you could expect that ... let’s not be naive.”

Obviously, regardless of rationale, a “reaction” that involves trying to incinerate civilians in Manhattan is abhorrent and unacceptable. But so is Obama’s move to intensify drone assaults that we know are regularly incinerating innocent civilians in Pakistan. And while Qureshi’s statement about “expecting” blowback seems radical, he’s merely echoing the CIA’s reminder that “possibilities of blowback” arise when we conduct martial operations abroad.

We might remember that somehow-forgotten warning come the next terrorist assault. No matter how surprised we may feel after that inevitable (and inevitably deplorable) attack, the fact remains that until we halt our own indiscriminately violent actions, we ought to expect equally indiscriminate and equally violent reactions."

http://tinyurl.com/d5xvvnx

"Out of all the excuses perpetuated by supporters of U.S. imperialist aggression, the defense of "drones save American lives" is perhaps the most popular, yet least accurate.

On the surface, sure: drones make it easier for the U.S. to conduct airstrikes in countries without any risk to those responsible. Drones also make it easier to start wars without declaring them as such. Without U.S. casualties, for the most part, the U.S. public doesn't seem to care much. Drones keep U.S. lives out of harm's way, at least, in an immediate sense.

But there's a term I'd like to introduce the drone-loving warmongers to: "blowback". Ever hear of it? Wikipedia defines it as the "unintended consequences of a covert operation that are suffered by the civilian population of the aggressor government." The attacks of 9/11 are often considered to be "blowback" for U.S. foreign policy, yet clearly, we learned nothing from what happened that day (which is hardly surprising considering the shameful trainwreck that was the "9/11 Commission", but that's another story).

Nonetheless, since 9/11, thousands of innocents have been slaughtered in Afghanistan and Iraq. The potential "blowback" from these invasions and subsequent occupations should be startling enough. Yet if one factors in the +170 butchered children via drone attacks in Pakistan, plus the innocent men and women; and then if one factors in all the dead innocents in other places where drone wars have been started (Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya) the potential for blowback grows even higher. Add in the blatant marginalization of these deaths by U.S. news media networks, and a U.S. government which has only really started to even acknowledge them as fact and you have a recipe for some pretty pissed off people across the world.

Of course, these murders don't even highlight other brutal aspects of the drone wars, as mentioned in a newly released report by NYU and Stanford, which depicts practices such as targeting rescuers who show up after drone strikes, and even targeting funerals.

Is it really surprising that world opinion of the U.S. has plummeted as a result of the drones? Reported Pew Global in June of 2012: "In predominantly Muslim nations, American anti-terrorism efforts are still widely unpopular. And in nearly all countries, there is considerable opposition to a major component of the Obama administration’s anti-terrorism policy: drone strikes. In 17 of 20 countries, more than half disapprove of U.S. drone attacks targeting extremist leaders and groups in nations such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Americans are the clear outliers on this issue – 62% approve of the drone campaign, including most Republicans (74%), independents (60%) and Democrats (58%)."

And, following the release of information about a "secret" U.S. drone base located in Saudi Arabia, Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlanic wrote in February 2013:

"Osama bin Laden began his jihad against the United States largely because he was incensed that American troops were stationed in his homeland, Saudi Arabia, proximate to Islamic holy sites. The U.S. troop presence began during the Gulf War, when Americans led a coalition to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. "Bin Laden -- like many Muslims -- considers the continued presence of these armed infidels in Saudi Arabia the greatest possible desecration of the holy land," David Plotz explained in a Slate article published on September 14, 2001. "That is why he sponsored bombings of the American military facilities in Saudi Arabia, why he has tried to destabilize the Saudi government, and why the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed on August 7, 1998 -- eight years to the day after the first American troops were dispatched to Saudi Arabia."

In 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, the United States announced that it would pull its troops out of Saudia Arabia, though some remain there. In a January 2009 Gallup poll, 60 percent of Egyptians said their opinion of the United States would significantly improve if it moved all military bases out of Saudia Arabia. Forty percent of Syrians, 39 percent of Jordanians, 52 percent of Saudis, 40 percent of Palestinians, 55 percent of Tunisians, 40 percent of Lebanese people, and 30 percent of Algerians agreed. How many millions of people is that?"

How many people in the Middle East and Africa know someone at this point who has been impacted not just by the U.S. occupations of various countries in these locations, but by the deadly drones which now regularly fly overhead and launch missiles down at the population? How many people are being motivated to launch attacks against the U.S. as a result of the needless expansion of the so-called "War on Terror"? 

The NYU and Stanford report mentioned above notes "evidence suggests that U.S. strikes have facilitated recruitment to violent non-state armed groups, and motivated further violent attacks. As the New York Times has reported, "drones have replaced Guantánamo as the recruiting tool of choice for militants.""

If civilian casualties create new enemies, and drones are well-known for civilian casualties, how exactly do drones "save American lives" when American lives are more at risk now for a terror attack than they were before 9/11?"

http://tinyurl.com/cmhmmgo
 
 
Obama, drones, and the blissful ignorance of Americans
When it comes to the war on terror, most Americans rather
conveniently employ an out-of-sight, out-mind attitude
By Matt K. Lewis | 9:15am EST
  
Matt K. Lewis
A leaked Department of Justice memo outlining the legal rationale for President Obama's aggressive drone policy has sparked a heated debate — much of it centered on President Obama's apparent hypocrisy.

After all, Obama spent much of the 2008 campaign criticizing George W. Bush's policies on Guantanamo Bay and the waterboarding of three terrorists. And now he's okay with killing al-Qaeda-affiliated U.S. citizens without due process?

During one drone strike, a 16-year-old American was killed. You may write this off as collateral damage, but had this happened on George W. Bush's watch, you can bet it would have dominated headlines for days, if not weeks or months. So far, Obama hasn't even had to answer a question about it, and liberals who would have demanded Bush's impeachment have collectively yawned.

Still, in my estimation, President Obama has been consistent in practicing what I call "politically correct warfare" — which is to say that for most Americans, these drone strikes are out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

And here's the ugly truth: Obama is giving us what we want.

We have an unspoken agreement with the president. Obama never promised America he wouldn't kill people more aggressively than his predecessor. But with a wink and a nod, he gave us plausible deniability.

Americans, it turns out, don't really have the stomach for the unseemly business of taking prisoners, extracting information from prisoners, and then (maybe) going through the emotional, time consuming, and costly business of a trial.

American citizens want someone who will make the big, bad world disappear. Problems only exist if we have to confront them. Obama has made warfare more convenient for us — and less emotionally taxing. We should thank him.

This dynamic helps explain why some other liberal policies become popular. Ignorance is bliss. It's why many people believe that adults have more rights than the unborn (after all, we can see them, hear them complain. Likewise, an unborn baby cannot talk. The unborn can't hire a lobby.) The same could be said about spending. The notion of debt surpassing trillions of dollars is so ethereal as to be incomprehensible. See no evil, hear no evil...

And so, we appreciate Obama. With Bush, we had to see pictures of inmates. Yes, it's possible that some of the information extracted might have led us to bin Laden — but it still makes us feel bad. And we had to hear about waterboarding. How barbaric! It is far better to simply cause your enemies to evaporate. It's like pulling a band-aid off all at once. It's so much tidier — so much more sophisticated.

Dead men tell no tales.


Matt K. Lewis writes for The Daily Caller and co-hosts The DMZ on Bloggingheads.tv. Follow him on Twitter: @mattklewis.


 http://www.portlandonline.com/

Make Portland A "NO DRONE ZONE"

Progressive Party August 22nd Protest to Make Portland A "NO DRONE ZONE"
Protest against Surveillance Drones in Portland Airspace
Wednesday August 22, 8:30AM
Portland City Hall  http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/drones

On Wednesday, August 22, at 8:30 am the Oregon Progressive Party will lead a demonstration outside of Portland City Hall to announce a draft City Resolution banning the use of surveillance drones in Portland airspace and demanding the the Portland City Council adopt such a resolution to protect the Constitutional rights of its citizens.

Since the FAA began issuing certificates earlier this year for public and private entities to fly unmanned drones in U.S. airspace, hundreds of cities and towns have seen local police and sheriff departments request the use of drones.

Not only are drones being used to bomb and murder civilians in our unending and illegal wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, they are being actively pursued by local governments and federal entities to be used for police purposes.

Just as with the Old Town Spy Cams, we are asking the Portland City Council to ban the use of surveillance drones in Portland airspace to prevent Portland from becoming a Surveillance State and protecting our 1st and 4th Amendments rights.

Come to City Hall at 8:30am on Wednesday August 22 to let your voice be heard.
Bring flying toys! We plan to have our own airborne fleet of Fun Drones.

NO DRONES IN PORTLAND!
Help us make Portland the first major American city to ban drones. Similar efforts are underway in other cities, including Buffalo and Baltimore.

If your group or organization would like to participate in this demo or join our effort, please send an email to  info@progparty.org


Oregon Progressive Party | 320 S.W. Stark Street | Suite 202 | Portland | Oregon 97204 | USA |  info@progparty.org | www.progparty.org


With shift to drones, war is often waged from home

null
A student pilot and sensor operator man the controls of a MQ-9 Reaper in a ground-based cockpit during a training mission flown from Hancock Field Air National Guard Base, Syracuse, New York.
Ricky Best/New York Air National Guard
By Brian Bennett
Los Angeles Times
Published: July 29, 2012
An MQ-9 Reaper takes off at Wheeler-Sack Army Air Field in Fort Drum New York, Feb. 14. The MQ-9 is from the 174th Fighter Wing who launches and recovers the air craft at WSAAF. Ricky Best/New York Air National Guard
An MQ-9 Reaper takes off at Wheeler-Sack Army Air Field in Fort Drum New York, Feb. 14. The MQ-9 is from the 174th Fighter Wing who launches and recovers the air craft at WSAAF.
Ricky Best/New York Air National Guard
A student pilot and sensor operator man the controls of a MQ-9 Reaper in a ground-based cockpit during a training mission flown from Hancock Field Air National Guard Base, Syracuse, New York. New York Air National Guard
A student pilot and sensor operator man the controls of a MQ-9 Reaper in a ground-based cockpit during a training mission flown from Hancock Field Air National Guard Base, Syracuse, New York.
New York Air National Guard

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Strapped into the cockpit of an F-16 jet fighter, Air Force Col. Scott Brenton has dropped bombs over Bosnia, screamed over the desert in Iraq and strafed Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. But on a recent morning, Brenton flew his combat mission from a leather easy chair in a low-slung cinder block building on the edge of Syracuse.

Brenton's unit, the 174th Fighter Wing of the New York Air National Guard, traded in its fleet of F-16s for unmanned Reaper drones two years ago. Since then, the reserve pilots have been flying nearly around-the-clock combat operations over Afghanistan from a base about five miles from this city's nearest Wal-Mart.

This is what the future of air power looks like.

The Air Force is pulling jet fighters from the flight lines by the hundreds and replacing them with Predators, Reapers and Global Hawks, all piloted from cockpits bolted firmly to the ground. As a result, more and more of war is being waged from home — thousands of miles from the snap of gunfire, shock waves and shrapnel.

"Ultimately, it is conceivable that the majority of aviators in our Air Force will be remotely piloted aircraft operators," Gen. Norton Schwartz, chief of staff of the Air Force, told reporters last week.

Critics say the shift blurs the boundaries of the battlefield and makes it too easy to decide to drop a bomb.

...

***...Last year, the Air Force trained more drone pilots than the total number of conventional bomber and fighter pilots combined. In the last decade, the Air Force has pulled more than 250 manned fighters off the flight line and plans to retire 123 more next year. During that time, the Air Force drone fleet has ballooned from 39 Predators, Reapers and Global Hawks to 280. When small drones in use by Army scouts and other services are included, the tally of unmanned aircraft in the military shoots to more than 7,000.

...

But the new mission at Hancock Field has riled a small and vocal community of antiwar activists in upstate New York. Over the last two years, protesters have barricaded the base's security checkpoint, staged gruesome human tableaus meant to depict Afghan civilians killed by an airstrike, dressed in black-hooded Grim Reaper costumes, and delivered fake war crime indictments to the pilots flying the Reaper missions.

"Jobs have become a justification for anything and everything," said Rae Kramer, a 65-year-old former healthcare administrator, standing at a busy intersection in Syracuse last week with 10 other protesters. She was shaking a piece of white poster board that read: "Drones murder civilians."

(The above excerpt is from Stars and Stripes..© 2012 Stars and Stripes. All Rights Reserved.)
Drones
*Excellent* video Khan made for the recent Bradford Rally. Please share, and help get the secret drone war in the public eye... help tell the stories of regular people who live under the constant threat of death, expose the lie that this is a weapon that targets only militants. only with awareness can we put pressure on UK & US governments to stop drone attacks.
Imran Khan's Message Bradford DRONE Protest Friday 14th September 2012
www.youtube.com
Imran Khan's Message centenary Square Bradford DRONE Protest Friday 14th September 2012. Insaf Creat...

Stories from N. Waziristan...
Trudy Ann 4:35pm Sep 22
Stories from N. Waziristan...
Drone victims and their stories | Rights Advocacy
www.rightsadvocacy.org
It was after dinnertime. Three men were chatting and sipping ‘kehwa’ (local/tribal version of green
We must say to our elected officials, "No drones over Portland!"
I love this logo
       I love this logo
This is important stuff, we are now at the beginning of the end of our privacy, spy drones over our city should make you nervous. We know that our police love to spy on us when we demonstrate, when we use our constitutional rights, drones makes that much easier for the authorities to spy on us. Come join the Progressive Party and Individuals For Justice in demanding the council say:"We will not allow drones over our city."

Can't go? Call City Hall starting at 0900 and leave a message that you do not want the city to allow drones over Portland. Here are the numbers:

General Information /  Elected Officials / Bureau & Department Listings
General Information
Phone: (503) 823-4000
City/County Information Center
City Hall @ 1221 SW 4th Avenue Room 110, 97204
TTY: (503) 823-6868
E-mail:  cityinfo@portlandoregon.gov
City/County Information Pocket Phone Directory pdf document 149 KB
Elected Officials

Elected Officials Portfolios and Liaison Responsibilities

Sam Adams, Mayor
Commissioner of Finance and Administration
City Hall @ 1221 SW 4th Avenue, Room 340, 97204
Phone: (503) 823-4120

E-mail:  mayorsam@portlandoregon.gov

Amanda Fritz

Commissioner of Public Utilities, Position Number 1
City Hall @ 1221 SW 4th Avenue, Room 220, 97204
Phone: (503) 823-3008
E-mail:  amanda@portlandoregon.gov

Nick Fish

Commissioner of Public Works, Position Number 2
City Hall @ 1221 SW 4th Ave, Room 240, 97204
(503) 823-3589
e-mail:  Nick@portlandoregon.gov

Randy Leonard
Commissioner of Public Safety, Position Number 4
City Hall @ 1221 SW 4th Avenue, Room 210, 97204
Phone: (503) 823-4682
E-mail:  randy@portlandoregon.gov

Dan Saltzman
Commissioner of Public Affairs, Position Number 3
City Hall @ 1221 SW 4th Avenue, Room 230, 97204
Phone: (503) 823-4151
E-mail:  dan@portlandoregon.gov

LaVonne Griffin-Valade
City Auditor
City Hall @ 1221 SW 4th Avenue, Room 140, 97204
Phone: (503) 823-4078
E-mail:  LaVonne@portlandoregon.gov
 
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