The Case and the Movement Against Armed Drones

Unmanned killer robot planes have convinced certain people that there is a better way of waging war.

Wednesday, 05 December 2012 12:46By David Swanson, War is a Crime | Op-Ed

But these drones have now made the United States as unpopular in places like Pakistan and Yemen as any nation has ever been in another.  Making our nation hated does not make us safer.  It endangers us.
These drone wars are not a reduction in war-making but an expansion.  They’re underway in nations the United States was not previously at war with.  They’re beginning to result in the addition of ground troops, the opposite result of the image we have in our heads of drones taking the place of ground troops.
Drone pilots in Afghanistan have been targeted and killed.  Drone pilots in the United States suffer PTSD at higher rates than real pilots.
Drone victims are 98% innocent civilians according to a recent Stanford/NYU study.  The other 2% are targeted victims of murder without charge, trial, due process, or in many cases even knowledge of the target’s name.
Drones buzzing over houses traumatize children before they kill them. That those children are (in most cases) not American hardly diminishes the immorality.
Drones are rapidly being developed and deployed by other nations.  It is time for Americans to ask themselves: Do I support the equal right of other nations to kill with drones in the United States?  And if not, why not?  And how can I apply a different standard to my own government?
Did you know that the White House has refused to allow Congress, the institution charged by the U.S. Constitution with making every law, to see its legal reasoning that supposedly justifies killing men, women, children, Americans, and non-Americans anywhere on earth without any charge or trial?
Did you know that even the current president believes no Republican president should ever be allowed the powers he has himself created?
The following organizations have decided to do something about this:
Antiwar.com
Arlington Green Party 
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Code Pink
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace
Jeannette Rankin Peace Center
KnowDrones.com
LA Laborfest
The Northampton Committee to Stop War
RootsAction.org
Sitkans for Peace and Justice 
Veterans For Peace
Veterans For Peace Chapter 27
Voices for Creative Nonviolence
WarIsACrime.org
Women Standing
These groups have decided to urge:

• the United Nations Secretary General to investigate the concerns of Navi Pillay, the U.N.’s top human rights official, that drone attacks violate international law — and to ultimately pursue sanctions against nations using, possessing, or manufacturing weaponized drones;
• the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to investigate grounds for the criminal prosecution of those responsible for drone attacks;
• the U.S. Secretary of State, and the ambassadors to the United States from the nations of the world, to ratify a treaty forbidding the possession or use of weaponized drones;
• President Barack Obama, to abandon the use of weaponized drones, and to abandon his “kill list” program regardless of the technology employed;
• the Majority and Minority Leaders of the U.S. House and Senate, to ban the use or sale of weaponized drones.

You can join this movement and put your name on the petition being delivered to those authorities.  It will take you 10 seconds or so, right here:
http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6180
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.  http://truth-out.org/speakout/item/13161-the-case-and-the-movement-against-armed-drones

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