A new report by the law schools of Stanford and NYU, says that the US drone program is "counterproductive" and is "terrorizing" civilians in Pakistan.
“Drones hover twenty-four hours a day over communities in northwest
Pakistan, striking homes, vehicles, and public spaces without warning.
Their presence terrorizes men, women, and children, giving rise to
anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities. Those
living under drones have to face the constant worry that a deadly strike
may be fired at any moment, and the knowledge that they are powerless
to protect themselves. These fears have affected behavior.”
The report goes on to say that some children have stopped going to school for fear of being killed by a drone strike.
The NY Times reported recently that "Drones have replaced Guantánamo as the recruiting tool of choice for militants."
In addition to making us less safe on an international scale, 56 domestic government agencies, mostly law enforcement, have been authorized by the FAA to fly drones in US airspace. One of the drone manufacturers, Vanguard Defense Industries, touts their ability to weaponize drones for local police departments. They can be equipped not only with warrantless spying technology (Boeing calls their Inceptor drone "an eye in the sky") but they can also deploy tear gas, tasar technology, rubber bullets and more.
Drones represent the murder of innocents, war without time or geographical limits, illegal targeted assassinations, a permanent war economy and the end of freedom as we have known it.
Is this the world we want? Time to raise our voices to ban weaponized drones. Watch this video, then please sign the petition to Ground Drones and join us October 13 in New Paltz.
Thank you, Barb, for taking this on. Drones are activated brain power without heart. We do need to take a stance against this latest technological "wonder" turned against all humanity.
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ReplyDeleteAs a fellow activist and writer, I am glad to see that the drone "war" is finally starting to get the attention it deserves at both the local and federal level.
ReplyDeleteThese aerial death machines allow for wars to be waged in secret, without oversight, and without loss of life on our side, the latter point being the most dangerous of all. When there are no casualties on our side, there's no interest from the public, which leads to no interest from the news media (where ratings always supersede truth).
War is being made far too easy and innocent people are paying the price for it, all with your tax dollars. Since we're all indirectly responsible for what's happening, don't we have a direct responsibility to do something?
"In warfare, man against man, it is common for each side to dehumanize the other so that there will be none of the natural misgivings that a human being has at slaughtering another. The Nazis achieved this goal comprehensively by declaring whole peoples untermenschen, subhumans. It was then permissible, after such reclassification, to deprive these peoples of civil liberties, enslave them, and murder them. The Nazis are the most monstrous, but not the most recent, example. Many other cases could be quoted. For Americans, covert reclassifications of other peoples as untermenschen has been the lubricant of military involvements, where other human beings, military adversaries but inheritors of an ancient culture, are decried as gooks, slopeheads, slanteyes, and so on—a litany of dehumanization—until our soldiers and airmen could feel comfortable at slaughtering them. Automated warfare and aerial destruction of unseen targets make such dehumanization all the easier. It increases the 'efficiency' of warfare because it undercuts our sympathies with our fellow creatures. If we do not see whom we kill, we feel not nearly so bad about murder. And if we can so easily rationalize the slaughter of others of our own species, how much more difficult will it be to have reverence for intelligent individuals of different species?"
-- Carl Sagan
Thank you Monika and Jonathon. Carl Sagan's quote is so timely- wish he were still with us. I think progressives are going to make ending drone warfare a real priority. We all need to do our part! Jonathon did you see the video of our protest? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl110JD2uaU
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