Sacred Peace Walk / Dronewatch

A drone at the size of a Boeing 737 crashing

2012-02-02T00:29:00.000-08:00

A huge Israeli Heron TP drone that is the size of a Boeing 737 and can fly as far as Iran has crashed on a routine experimental flight. The Heron TP drone is also known locally as the Eitan. It has a wingspan of 86 feet, making it the size of a Boeing 737 passenger jet. It is the largest unmanned aircraft in Israel's military arsenal.

No injuries were reported in the accident. Israel's military is understood to be launching an investigation into the crash.

Further reading.

Divine injustice

2012-01-31T00:34:00.000-08:00

George Monbiot on drone warfare ("The cowards' war").

Automatically refueling killing machine

2012-01-27T03:18:00.000-08:00

The Navy’s X-47B killer drone is about to get a lot more lethal. Nine months after the 38-foot-long, bat-shaped flying robot took off from Edwards Air Force Base in California for its very first flight, the Navy has announced it will add an aerial refueling capability to at least one of the two X-47 prototypes sometime in 2014.

The decision to add refueling software and equipment was published on the federal government’s business opportunity website and first reported by InsideDefense. (Alas, the piece is behind a firewall.)

How big a deal is this? In a word, very.

Further reading.

Lost drones

2011-12-20T13:06:00.000-08:00

It’s 10 pm. Do you know where your drone is?

Oh, the confusion of it all! The U.S. military now insists it was deeply befuddled when it claimed that a super-secret advanced RQ-170 Sentinel drone (aka "the beast of Kandahar") which fell into Iranian hands on December 4th -- evidently while surveying suspected nuclear sites -- was lost patrolling the Afghan border. The military, said a spokesman, "did not have a good understanding of what was going on because it was a CIA mission."

Whatever happened, that lost drone story hit the headlines in a way that allowed everyone their Warholian 15 minutes of fame. Dick Cheney went on the air to insist that President Obama should have sent Air Force planes into Iran to blow the grounded Sentinel to bits. (Who cares about sparking off hostilities or sending global oil prices skyrocketing?) President Obama formally asked for the plane’s return, but somehow didn’t have high hopes that the Iranians would comply. (Check out Gary Powers and the downing of his U-2 spy plane over Russia in 1960 for a precedent.) Defense Secretary Leon Panetta swore we would never stop our Afghan-based drone surveillance of Iran. Afghan President Hamid Karzai asked that his country be kept out of any “adversarial relations between Iran and the United States.” (Fat chance!) The Iranians, who displayed the plane, insisted proudly that they had hacked into it, “spoofed” its navigational controls, and brought it in for a relatively soft landing. And Kim Kardashian... oops, wrong story.

Further reading.

HRW: Letter to President Obama: Targeted Killings by the US Government

2011-12-19T09:09:00.000-08:00

December 16, 2011
From: Human Rights Watch:

Dear President Obama,

We previously wrote to you on December 7, 2010, to express our concerns regarding the US targeted killing program. We made recommendations that would minimize harm to civilians and ensure US policies and practices were in line with the country’s international legal obligations. Since then, the use by the United States of Unmanned Combat Aircraft Systems (drones) to conduct targeted killings has expanded rapidly in Pakistan and other countries. Yet, your administration has taken few steps to provide greater transparency and accountability in conducting targeted killings, intensifying concerns both in the US and abroad about the lawfulness of these attacks.

Human Rights Watch recognizes that the US government has a responsibility to address threats to national security. The deliberate use of lethal force against a specific target can be legal in operations against a combatant on a genuine battlefield, or in a law enforcement situation in which there is an imminent threat to life and there is no reasonable alternative. We also recognize the challenges faced in trying to address potential threats that are not in a traditional conflict zone yet are also beyond the reach of any law enforcement.

We have read the statements from administration officials – most recently the September talk at Harvard University by counterterrorism advisor John Brennan – which posits the legal basis for the overall use of force but do not clearly provide one for conducting specific targeted killings and the legal limits on such strikes. Among the questions raised:

Where does your administration draw the line between lawful and unlawful targeted killings? Are international human rights law considerations taken into account?

John Brennan has argued for a more flexible definition of “imminence” to justify the use of force. Is this in the context of self-defense as provided under the United Nations Charter [article 51] or in the law enforcement context, which requires an imminent threat to life for lethal force to be used?

The administration suggests that targeted killings can be conducted without geographic limits, making the entire world a battlefield. What is different about the US government rationale for targeted killings that would not apply to other countries, such as Russia or China, that assert threats from terrorists?

The US government should clarify fully and publicly its legal rationale for conducting targeted killings and the legal limits on such strikes. Your administration has yet to explain clearly where it draws the line between lawful and unlawful targeted killings.

The government should also explain why it believes that its attacks are in conformity with international law and make public information, including video footage, on how particular attacks comply with that standard.

To ensure compliance with international law, the United States should conduct investigations of targeted killings where there is credible evidence of wrongdoing, provide compensation to all victims of illegal strikes, and discipline or prosecute as appropriate those responsible for conducting or ordering unlawful attacks.

We are particularly concerned about the expanded involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the targeted killings program. International humanitarian law does not prohibit intelligence agencies from participating in combat operations during armed conflicts. However, parties to an armed conflict have obligations to investigate credible allegations of war crimes and provide redress for victims. Because the US government routinely neither confirms nor denies the CIA’s well-known participation in targeted killings in northern Pakistan and elsewhere, there is no transparency in its operations. In 2009, then-CIA chief Leon Panetta unusually acknowledged the US airstrikes against al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan as being “very effective” because they are “very precise” and “very limited in terms of collateral damage.” However, he also said he would not provide more details, highlighting the government’s unwillingness to divulge information about CIA operations.

The CIA, like all US government agencies, is bound by international human rights and humanitarian law. Unlike the US armed forces, the CIA provides little or no information regarding the training and composition of its drone teams, or the procedures and rules it follows in conducting targeted killings. Nor has the government provided information as to whether the CIA has conducted any investigations into possible international law violations and their outcomes. As a result there is no basis for determining whether the US government is actually meeting its international legal obligations with respect to its targeting operations or providing redress for victims of unlawful attacks. Repeated assertions by senior officials within your administration that all US agencies are operating in compliance with international law – without providing information that would corroborate such claims – are wholly inadequate.

Human Rights Watch believes that so long as the US government cannot demonstrate a readiness to hold the CIA to international legal requirements for accountability and redress, the use of drones in targeted killings should be exclusively within the command responsibility of the US armed forces. This would be consistent with the findings of the independent 9/11 Commission, which in 2004 specifically recommended that “[l]ead responsibility for directing and executing paramilitary operations, whether clandestine or covert, should shift to the Defense Department.”

Such a recommendation has been made more recently by former director of national intelligence Dennis Blair, among others. At the same time, while the US military has a more transparent chain of command and operational procedures, it too needs to ensure compliance with the laws of war, and provide accountability of redress when violations occur.

We again ask you to consider these concerns in light of your own words when you accepted the Nobel Peace Prize: "Even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules ... the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war,” stating, “that is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is the source of our strength." We respectfully urge that you provide the legal framework to uphold these words.

We have enclosed our December 2010 letter and a recent Q&A addressing these issues. Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,

Kenneth Roth
Executive Director

Cc:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta
CIA Director David Petraeus
---
Bold and links added by SPW-blog

The Ballad of Bradley Manning, by Graham Nash

2011-12-14T12:48:00.000-08:00

Free Bradley Manning!

In Iowa, occupiers picket a drone factory

2011-12-06T02:25:00.000-08:00

From: Salon.com
Dec 5th 2011

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — The Cherry Building in Cedar Rapids’ revitalized New Bohemia neighborhood is a hive of artisans, small businesspeople, entrepreneurs — and soon, space for the assembly of surveillance drones.

It’s the arrival of the latter in the form of AirCover Integrated Solutions Corp. — a Northern California-founded firm— that attracted about 75 protesters Saturday afternoon from Occupy Wall Street movements across Iowa including Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Iowa City, Dubuque and Davenport.

The use of U.S.-government drone aircraft to wage war on suspected terrorists and innocent civilians from Pakistan to Gaza has become controversial as civilian deaths have mounted and civil liberties concerns have grown.

The protest lasted about an hour with the only significant verbal confrontations coming between activists and merchants in the 104,000-square-foot building who were upset that the protest coincided with — and disrupted — the annual Very Cherry Holiday Open House.

The Occupy argument: The drones, to be assembled by AirCover, will enable Big Brother to hover over the streets and homes of America, and serve as the handmaidens of death on foreign soil.

James Hill, president of AirCover Solutions, rejected the protesters’ message. In an interview with Salon, Hill insisted that the unmanned drones, soon to be assembled in Iowa, will save the lives of soldiers, police and rescue personnel who can use his company’s devices to enter danger zones remotely without risk of bodily injury.

What’s more, business leaders in Cedar Rapids are eager for the up to 25 tech jobs that Hill says AirCover will bring to this city of 126,000 people. Iowa’s second-largest city is still suffering from the effects of devastating floods in 2008.

The protesters gathered just after 3 p.m. outside the Cherry Building, carrying signs that said, among other things, “Are you listening?” “I want my right to privacy” and “Stop the police state now.”

“It concerns me a whole lot the kind of money that we spend on these kind of military, police state items when we don’t have enough money for our schools — enough money for health,” said Dr. Maureen McCue, who teaches in the public health department at the University of Iowa.

McCue, an Occupy supporter, said the potential abuse of the drone technology is greater than the likelihood it will be trained to peaceful, positive ends.

“These drone issues are completely buried if people don’t make a lot of noise about it,” McCue said.

Another protestor, Dr. Robert Schultes, a doctor in Cedar Rapids, held a sign that said “No Drone Zone.”

He doesn’t trust the remote-control aspect of the drones.

“If they make a mistake they kill a whole bunch of people,” Schultes said.

Read the rest here...

"Hancock 38" Defendants Found Guilty for Bold Army Base Protest Against U.S. Drone Attacks Abroad

2011-12-02T13:30:00.000-08:00

From: DemocracyNow.org:

Thirty-one of 38 accused activists were found guilty on Thursday for their role in a protest against U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The activists were arrested on April 22 at the New York Air National Guard base at Hancock Field near Syracuse, New York, after trespassing to protest the MQ-9 Reaper drones, which the 174th Fighter Wing of the Guard has remotely flown over Afghanistan since late 2009. The protesters draped themselves in white clothes splattered with blood-red pigment and then staged a "die-in" at the main entrance to the base. They said their act of nonviolent civil disobedience aimed to visualize the indiscriminate killing of civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan by drones operated by personnel sitting in front of computers thousands of miles away. The group calls themselves the Hancock 38 Drone Resisters. Following the guilty verdict, four of the activists were sentenced to 15-day terms in prison while a number of others were given fines and community service. We speak to Ramsey Clark, the former U.S. attorney general turned outspoken human rights activist, who testified at the trial that the drones violate international law. We’re also joined by Harry Murray, one of the Hancock 38 and a co-defendant in the trial. "Having a drone control center established at Hancock Air Base has really brought the war home to central New York," Murray says. "Having people who are actually killing human beings in Afghanistan working right in Syracuse really makes Syracuse and upstate New York a war zone." Clark says drones are "a weapon of extreme provocation and extreme danger, extreme inaccuracy... International law, I believe, does prohibit the use of drones."

Guests:
Ramsey Clark, lawyer and former U.S. attorney general.

Harry Murray, one of the Hancock 38 Drone Resisters and a co-defendant in the trial. He is professor of sociology and anthropology at Nazareth College, where he also serves as director of the peace and justice studies major.

Read the whole interview here...

Creech 18 "Stop the Drones" - slideshow

2011-11-28T12:28:00.000-08:00

With thanks to MacGregor Eddy!

Scientific American: About Pepper Spray

2011-11-21T12:50:00.000-08:00

From the Blog of Scientific American:

By Deborah Blum | November 21, 2011

One hundred years ago, an American pharmacist named Wilbur Scoville developed a scale to measure the intensity of a pepper’s burn. The scale – as you can see on the widely used chart to the left – puts sweet bell peppers at the zero mark and the blistering habanero at up to 350,000 Scoville Units.

I checked the Scoville Scale for something else yesterday. I was looking for a way to measure the intensity of pepper spray, the kind that police have been using on Occupy protestors including this week’s shocking incident involving peacefully protesting students at the University of California-Davis.

As the chart makes clear, commercial grade pepper spray leaves even the most painful of natural peppers (the Himalayan ghost pepper) far behind. It’s listed at between 2 million and 5.3 million Scoville units. The lower number refers to the kind of pepper spray that you and I might be able to purchase for self-protective uses. And the higher number? It’s the kind of spray that police use, the super-high dose given in the orange-colored spray used at UC-Davis.

The reason pepper-spray ends up on the Scoville chart is that – you probably guessed this - it’s literally derived from pepper chemistry, the compounds that make habaneros so much more formidable than the comparatively wimpy bells. Those compounds are called capsaicins and – in fact – pepper spray is more formally called Oleoresin Capsicum or OC Spray.

Photo courtesy: California Aggie

But we’ve taken to calling it pepper spray, I think, because that makes it sound so much more benign than it really is, like something just a grade or so above what we might mix up in a home kitchen. The description hints maybe at that eye-stinging effect that the cook occasionally experiences when making something like a jalapeno-based salsa, a little burn, nothing too serious.

Until you look it up on the Scoville scale and remember, as toxicologists love to point out, that the dose makes the poison. That we’re not talking about cookery but a potent blast of chemistry. So that if OC spray is the U.S. police response of choice – and certainly, it’s been used with dismaying enthusiasm during the Occupy protests nationwide, as documented in this excellent Atlantic roundup - it may be time to demand a more serious look at the risks involved.

read the rest here.

Unmasking the Illusion - Drones on Trial

2011-11-20T08:12:00.000-08:00

The Hancock 38 dramatically put drone warfare on trial in Dewitt Town Court, (near Syracuse, NY ) on November 1-6, 2011. While the verdict will not be rendered until December 1, 2011 it is clear that each of the Hancock 38 was lead by conscience, refusing to be complicit with the immoral and illegal assassinations and killings committed by the USAF and other US government agencies. Please join us in court on Dec. 1, 2011 to support the Hancock 38.

We are asking everyone to send this video to elected officials and military personnel. It is about the trial of the Hancock 38. Click on the arrow inside the Youtube to get it started:

From Mother Jones: Nuke Facilities in the US

2011-11-13T03:11:00.000-08:00

http://batchgeo.com/map/a87855317fdfab0922206bca2dbd19b9

Pakistani civilian victims vent anger over US drones

2011-11-02T07:05:00.000-07:00

From: BBC News
Nov 2, 2011
By Orla Guerin BBC News, Islamabad

When tribal elders from the remote Pakistani region of North Waziristan travelled to Islamabad last week to protest against CIA drone strikes, a teenager called Tariq Khan was among them.

A BBC team caught him on camera, sitting near the front of a tribal assembly, or jirga, listening carefully.

Four days later he was dead - killed by one of the drones he was protesting against.

His family told us two missiles hit the 16-year-old on Monday near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan. His 12-year-old cousin Wahid was killed alongside him.

The boys were on their way to see a relative, according to Tariq's uncle, Noor Kalam, who we reached by phone.

He denied that Tariq had any link to militant groups. "We condemn this very strongly," he said. "He was just a normal boy who loved football."

The CIA's drone campaign is a covert war, conducted in remote terrain, where the facts are often in dispute.

The tribal belt is off limits to foreign journalists. Militants often seal off the locations where drone strikes take place. The truth can be buried with the dead.

After the missile strike on Monday, Pakistani officials said four suspected militants had been killed.

If the strike actually killed two young boys - as appears to be the case - it's unlikely anyone will ever be held to account.

There are no confirmed death tolls but several independent organisations estimate that drones have killed more than 2,000 people since 2004. Most are suspected to be militants.

Many senior commanders from the Taliban and al-Qaeda are among the dead. But campaigners claim there have been hundreds of civilian victims, whose stories are seldom told.
Photo: A drone aircraft of the kind used by the US military The use of drone missiles has soared

A shy teenage boy called Saadullah is one of them. He survived a drone strike that killed three of his relatives, but he lost both legs, one eye and his hope for the future.

"I wanted to be a doctor," he told me, "but I can't walk to school anymore. When I see others going, I wish I could join them."

Like Tariq, Saadullah travelled to Islamabad for last week's jirga. Seated alongside him was Haji Zardullah, a white-bearded man who said he lost four nephews in a separate attack.

"None of these were harmful people," he said. "Two were still in school and one was in college."

Asghar Khan, a tribal elder in a cream turban, said three of his relatives paid with their lives for visiting a sick neighbour.

"My brother, my nephew and another relative were killed by a drone in 2008," he said. "They were sitting with this sick man when the attack took place. There were no Taliban."
Legal challenges

Viewed from a drone, any adult male in the tribal areas can look like a target, according to Mirza Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer who is taking on the CIA.

"A Taliban or non-Taliban would be dressed in the same way," he said. "Everyone has a beard, a turban and an AK-47 because every person carries a weapon in that area, so anyone could be target."
Clive Stafford Smith, director of the British legal charity Reprieve, holding the fragment of a missile Campaigners like Clive Stafford Smith say drones are resulting in "murder"

Mr Akbar is suing the CIA for compensation in the Islamabad High Court, and plans to file a Supreme Court action.

He claims the US is getting away with murder in North Waziristan. It's a view shared by the British legal charity Reprieve, whose director, Clive Stafford Smith, has been meeting drone victims in Pakistan.

"What's going on here, unfortunately, is murder," he said.

"There's a war going on in Afghanistan, but none here in Pakistan, so what the CIA is doing here is illegal."

The CIA would doubtless say otherwise, if it were prepared to discuss the drone programme, but US officials are usually silent on the issue.

In a rare public comment two years ago, the then director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, defended the use of drones.

"We have targeted those who are enemies of the United States," he said. " When we use it, it is very precise and it limits collateral damage."

But the damage is not limited enough, say opponents like Mr Stafford Smith, who is gathering evidence about civilian deaths. From a shopping bag he produced a jagged chunk of metal - a missile fragment - believed to have killed a child in Waziristan in August of last year.

"I have a three-year-old son myself, and the idea that this thing killed someone very much like my little Wilf really tugs at your heart strings," he said.

Mr Stafford Smith says drones are changing the nature of modern warfare.

"If you are trying to surrender and you put your hands up to a drone, what happens?" he asks.

"They just fire the missile, so there are all sorts of Geneva Conventions issues which are not being discussed."

Campaigners also warn that drone strikes are counter-productive, generating more radicalism and more hatred of the West. They say the drone strikes are a Taliban recruiting tool.

At Tariq Khan's funeral, many mourners spoke out against the US, according to his uncle Noor Kalam.

But Washington is unlikely to heed the anger here. Under President Barack Obama, the use of drone missiles has soared - there's an attack on average every four days.

Increasingly, these remote-controlled killers are Washington's weapon of choice.

US Drone Warfare: Ethiopia Edition

2011-11-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

By Asawin Suebsaeng
In: Mother Jones
Fri Oct. 28, 2011
It's official: another half-acre, multi-million-dollar US drone base has been confirmed, this one on Ethiopian soil. The Washington Post reports:

The Air Force has been secretly flying armed Reaper drones on counterterrorism missions from a remote civilian airport in southern Ethiopia as part of a rapidly expanding U.S.-led proxy war against an al-Qaeda affiliate in East Africa [al-Shabab in neighboring Somalia], U.S. military officials said...The Air Force confirmed Thursday that drone operations are underway at the Arba Minch airport. Master Sgt. James Fisher, a spokesman for the 17th Air Force, which oversees operations in Africa, said that an unspecified number of Air Force personnel are working at the Ethiopian airfield "to provide operation and technical support for our security assistance programs."

The Arba Minch airport expansion is still in progress but the Air Force deployed the Reapers there earlier this year, Fisher said. He said the drone flights "will continue as long as the government of Ethiopia welcomes our cooperation on these varied security programs."

Though the Post story emphasizes elements like the drones' "Hellfire missiles and satellite-guided bombs," BBC News reports that, although the aircraft can be fitted with such firepower, American officials speaking to the BBC on Friday "stressed that the remotely-piloted drones were being used only for surveillance, and not for air strikes" and that the Reaper drones were flying unarmed "because their use is considered sensitive by Ethiopia's government." (According to Tesfaye Yilma, the head of public diplomacy for the Ethiopian embassy in DC, it's their explicit policy not to "entertain foreign military bases in Ethiopia.")

Read the rest here...

Kamikaze drones

2011-10-31T01:17:00.000-07:00

On the development of "kamikaze drones".

The Hancock 38: Drones on Trial: November 1st, Syracuse, NY

2011-10-30T03:43:00.000-07:00

See here for a short article on the "Drone Trial."

October 9th Prayer Action: CatholicWorker arrests: 59 at the Nuclear Test Site (NNSS) and 18 at Creech Air Force Base

2011-10-10T07:02:00.000-07:00

(photos: Mary Lou)

From: the CatholicWorker:
October 9th CW arrests: 59 @ the Nuclear Test Site (NNSS) & 18 @ Creech Air Force Base

NEVADA NATIONAL SECURITY SITE PRAYER-ACTION
The NNSS (formerly the NTS & NPG) has been unlawfully occupying Shoshone land for over 60 years, conducting nuclear bomb tests and other international criminal violence. It's a place needing much prayer and radioactive remediation. The people working there need our prayers too. This week is also Keep Space for Peace Week, so today's actions at the NNSS and Creech are supporting a peace-zone around the planet, including in the outer space currently occupied by US weapons satellites.

Therefore, Catholic Workers have come here for decades on special dates, so that the violence may stop, and national resources may be used for the common good, especially for poverty relief for those among the 99% of the people affected by the 1% who are making bad decisions.

CREECH AFB PRAYER-ACTION

Creech Air Force Base is the headquarters of the USAF's 432nd Air Wing of Predator and Reaper drones which operates armed remotely piloted aircraft in various foreign countries. The NNSS continues to support the country's nuclear weapons programs, has a mandate to restart full-scale nuclear bomb tests within two years if so ordered by the President, and receives and stores radioactive waste on land that legally belongs to the Western Shoshone Nation.

Therefore, Catholic Workers have decided to help halt these offenses, so that the violence may stop, and national resources may be used for the common good, especially for poverty relief for those among the 99% of the people affected by the 1% who are making bad decisions. This week is also Keep Space for Peace Week, so today's actions at the NNSS and Creech are supporting a peace-zone around the planet, including in the outer space currently occupied by US weapons satellites.

List of arrestees at Creech still awaiting charges:

Matt Campbell (24) from Arizona
Huntley Hoffman (25) from Arizona
Nancy Mancias (41) from Arizona
Betsy Lamb (72) from Arizona
Fr. Jerry Zawada, (74) ofm from Arizona
John Heid (56) from Arizona
Toby Blome (56) from California
Mike Wisniewski (62) from California
Fr. Louis Vitale, ofm (79) from California
Mary Moody (47) from Iowa
Brian Terrell (56) from Iowa
Rosalie Riegle (74) from Michigan
Rebecca Lambert (28) Minnesota
Theo Kayser (21) from Missouri
Robert Majors (24) from Las Vegas, Nevada
Jim Haber (49) from Las Vegas, Nevada
Rachel Winch (27) from Wisconsin
Christine Nelson (64) from (North America)

Stopping drone warfare at Creech AFB right now!

2011-10-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

Code Pink Toby explains what is happening this weekend at Creech Airforce Base where hundreds of Catholic Workers and Code Pinkers are gathering to protest the use of Drone warfare and the research that makes possible robot weaponry. They will be present each morning up to October 13th, so join them!
Creech AFB, Indian Springs, Nevada, "home of the drones."

Unoccupy Creech

2011-10-06T04:21:00.000-07:00

Catholic Worker-Led Protests Against Nukes & Drones in Nevada
WHAT: Demonstration/Protest
WHEN: Sunday October, 9, 2011
WHERE: 9:00 a.m. Gate of Nevada National Security Site, Mercury, NV
1:00 p.m. Gates of Creech Air Force Base, Indian Springs, NV
***VISUALS: Signs, Banners, Puppets and Props, Civil-Resistance***

(Las Vegas) The largest anti-war demonstration ever at Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada, and the largest anti-nuclear civil resistance action in at least six years at the Nevada Test Site (now officially called the Nevada National Security Site or NNSS) will take place on Sunday, October 9. Over 200 radical pacifists from across the globe will swell the ranks of local activists because of the International Catholic Worker (CW)gathering in Las Vegas October 7 and 8. The CW gathering culminates with the antinuclear, anti-drone demonstrations which also mark the 10th tragic anniversary of the US
invasion of Afghanistan.

Creech Air Force Base is the headquarters of the USAF's 432nd Air Wing of Predator and Reaper drones which operates armed remotely piloted aircraft in various foreign countries.
The NNSS continues to support the country's nuclear weapons programs, has a mandate to restart full-scale nuclear bomb tests within two years if so ordered by the President,and receives and stores radioactive waste on land that legally belongs to the Western Shoshone Nation.

Jim Haber, Coordinator of Nevada Desert Experience which has a long history of peace activism in Nevada commented, “We are making connections to the Occupy Everywhere movement as well, but our prime focus is against war and killing as epitomized first by nuclear weapons and now drone assassins. Both rely on anti-democratic, secretive sites like these, the militarization of space, the desecration of ecosystems, and the swallowing of money that could otherwise be used to solve, rather than create social problems.”

“We are at an important milestone with 10 years of occupation in Afghanistan (and 8 in Iraq), expending millions of our tax dollars on unmanned aerial vehicles which are responsible for thousands of civilian deaths. The wars have bankrupted our country. It's time to stop the deadly drone strikes,” states Nancy Mancias, CODEPINK Ground the Drones campaigner.

The protests are also part of the Keep Space for Peace Week: International Week of
Protest to Stop the Militarization of Space taking place between October 1-8. Keep Space for Peace Week is co-sponsored by the Women’s International League for Peace &
Freedom, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK), Swedish Peace Council, Drone
Campaign Network (UK), and United Against Drones (U.S.). A complete list of global
protests can be found here.

Information contact:
Jim Haber, Nevada Desert Experience, 702-646-4814 (office), 415-828-2506 (mobile)
Brian Terrell, Catholic Worker, 773-853-1886 (mobile)

Er cof am bawb a laddwyd gan awyrrenau di-bellot / drones

2011-09-23T03:41:00.000-07:00

September 21st, Peace Action Day in Cymru: see here.

Justin Raimondo on mechanized imperialism

2011-09-23T02:55:00.000-07:00

The Obama administration has found a good way to avoid both the domestic political and international fallout that comes of waging constant warfare: let machines do the dirty work. Of course, the Obamaites don’t get the full credit for the discovery – drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan were part of the Bush team‘s strategic plan, but the Obama White House has gone much further in utilizing this tactic to escalate and extend American military operations around the world, and they’re doing it in secret – without congressional oversight, without public debate, and without the knowledge or consent of the American people.

The theater of operations is vast – potentially as vast as the world itself, given the rationale of pursing “terrorists” wherever they might be detected – and, so far, the range extends from the tribal regions of Pakistan to the African savannah, where pilotless “Reapers” take off from airfields in Ethiopia and Djibouti in search of prey. According to reports, US bases have also been established in Saudi Arabia and the Seychelles for this purpose. The latter, I hear, are quite happy about what this has done for local business: Americans may be standing in the unemployment lines, while their taxes go to fund endless war, but the Seychellois are in relatively good shape these days.

In any case, the latest targets of these unmanned killer-drones are located, as far as we know, in Somalia, where the Islamic group al-Shabab is alleged to have some vague ties to al-Qaeda. But that’s just what they’re telling us: because this is a secret war, we don’t know the real targets. It is highly likely, however, that among those targets are numerous rebel groups rising against the tyranny of Ethiopian “president” Meles Zenawi.

Further reading.

U.S. assembling drone bases in Africa and Arabia

2011-09-21T00:24:00.000-07:00

The Obama administration is assembling a constellation of secret drone bases for counterterrorism operations in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as part of a newly aggressive campaign to attack al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen, U.S. officials said.

One of the installations is being established in Ethiopia, a U.S. ally in the fight against al-Shabab, the Somali militant group that controls much of that country. Another base is in the Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, where a small fleet of “hunter-killer” drones resumed operations this month after an experimental mission demonstrated that the unmanned aircraft could effectively patrol Somalia from there.

The U.S. military also has flown drones over Somalia and Yemen from bases in Djibouti, a tiny African nation at the junction of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. In addition, the CIA is building a secret airstrip in the Arabian Peninsula so it can deploy armed drones over Yemen.

The rapid expansion of the undeclared drone wars is a reflection of the growing alarm with which U.S. officials view the activities of al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and Somalia, even as al-Qaeda’s core leadership in Pakistan has been weakened by U.S. counterterrorism operations.

The U.S. government is known to have used drones to carry out lethal attacks in at least six countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. The negotiations that preceded the establishment of the base in the Republic of Seychelles illustrate the efforts the United States is making to broaden the range of its drone weapons.

The island nation of 85,000 people has hosted a small fleet of MQ-9 Reaper drones operated by the U.S. Navy and Air Force since September 2009. U.S. and Seychellois officials have previously acknowledged the drones’ presence but have said that their primary mission was to track pirates in regional waters. But classified U.S. diplomatic cables show that the unmanned aircraft have also conducted counterterrorism missions over Somalia, about 800 miles to the northwest.

The cables, obtained by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, reveal that U.S. officials asked leaders in the Seychelles to keep the counterterrorism missions secret. The Reapers are described by the military as “hunter-killer” drones because they can be equipped with Hellfire missiles and satellite-guided bombs.

To allay concerns among islanders, U.S. officials said they had no plans to arm the Reapers when the mission was announced two years ago. The cables show, however, that U.S. officials were thinking about weaponizing the drones.

During a meeting with Seychelles President James Michel on Sept. 18, 2009, American diplomats said the U.S. government “would seek discrete [sic], specific discussions . . . to gain approval” to arm the Reapers “should the desire to do so ever arise,” according to a cable summarizing the meeting. Michel concurred, but asked U.S. officials to approach him exclusively for permission “and not anyone else” in his government, the cable reported.

Michel’s chief deputy told a U.S. diplomat on a separate occasion that the Seychelles president “was not philosophically against” arming the drones, according to another cable. But the deputy urged the Americans “to be extremely careful in raising the issue with anyone in the Government outside of the President. Such a request would be ‘politically extremely sensitive’ and would have to be handled with ‘the utmost discreet care.’ ”

A U.S. military spokesman declined to say whether the Reapers in the Seychelles have ever been armed.

“Because of operational security concerns, I can’t get into specifics,” said Lt. Cmdr. James D. Stockman, a public affairs officer for the U.S. Africa Command, which oversees the base in the Seychelles. He noted, however, that the MQ-9 Reapers “can be configured for both surveillance and strike.”

A spokeswoman for Michel said the president was unavailable for comment.

Jean-Paul Adam, who was Michel’s chief deputy in 2009 and now serves as minister of foreign affairs, said U.S. officials had not asked for permission to equip the drones with missiles or bombs.

“The operation of the drones in Seychelles for the purposes of counter-piracy surveillance and other related activities has always been unarmed, and the U.S. government has never asked us for them to be armed,” Adam said in an e-mail. “This was agreed between the two governments at the first deployment and the situation has not changed.”

The State Department cables show that U.S. officials were sensitive to perceptions that the drones might be armed, noting that they “do have equipment that could appear to the public as being weapons.”

To dispel potential concerns, they held a “media day” for about 30 journalists and Seychellois officials at the small, one-runway airport in Victoria, the capital, in November 2009. One of the Reapers was parked on the tarmac.

“The government of Seychelles invited us here to fight against piracy, and that is its mission,” Craig White, a U.S. diplomat, said during the event. “However, these aircraft have a great deal of capabilities and could be used for other missions.”

In fact, U.S. officials had already outlined other purposes for the drones in a classified mission review with Michel and Adam. Saying that the U.S. government “desires to be completely transparent,” the American diplomats informed the Seychellois leaders that the Reapers would also fly over Somalia “to support ongoing counter-terrorism efforts,” though not “direct attacks,” according to a cable summarizing the meeting.

U.S. officials “stressed the sensitive nature of this counter-terrorism mission and that this not be released outside of the highest . . . channels,” the cable stated. “The President wholeheartedly concurred with that request, noting that such issues could be politically sensitive for him as well.”

The Seychelles drone operation has a relatively small footprint. Based in a hangar located about a quarter-mile from the main passenger terminal at the airport, it includes between three and four Reapers and about 100 U.S. military personnel and contractors, according to the cables.

The military operated the flights on a continuous basis until April, when it paused the operations. They resumed this month, said Stockman, the Africa Command spokesman.

The aim in assembling a constellation of bases in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula is to create overlapping circles of surveillance in a region where al-Qaeda offshoots could emerge for years to come, U.S. officials said.

The locations “are based on potential target sets,” said a senior U.S. military official. “If you look at it geographically, it makes sense — you get out a ruler and draw the distances [drones] can fly and where they take off from.”

One U.S. official said that there had been discussions about putting a drone base in Ethiopia for as long as four years, but that plan was delayed because “the Ethiopians were not all that jazzed.” Other officials said Ethiopia has become a valued counterterrorism partner because of threats posed by al-Shabab.

“We have a lot of interesting cooperation and arrangements with the Ethiopians when it comes to intelligence collection and linguistic capabilities,” said a former senior U.S. military official familiar with special operations missions in the region.

An Ethiopian Embassy spokesman in Washington could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.

The former official said the United States relies on Ethiopian linguists to translate signals intercepts gathered by U.S. agencies monitoring calls and e-mails of al-Shabab members. The CIA and other agencies also employ Ethiopian informants who gather information from across the border.

Overall, officials said, the cluster of bases reflects an effort to have wider geographic coverage, greater leverage with countries in the region and backup facilities if individual airstrips are forced to close.

Further reading.

Protest at Arms Fair in London

2011-09-13T23:39:00.001-07:00

Blowback from drone warfare

2011-09-13T23:33:00.000-07:00

Targeted killing by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), commonly known as drones, has become the central element of U.S. counterterror operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, a safe haven for Taliban and al-Qaeda militants. Over nearly a decade, drone-attack frequency and death rates have increased dramatically. Rather than calming the region through the precise elimination of terrorist leaders, however, the accelerating counterterror program has compounded violence and instability. These consequences need to be addressed, since the summer of 2011 has seen the dramatic expansion of the drone program into Yemen, Somalia and Libya.

Drone warfare has complicated the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, a sisyphean counterinsurgency and nation-building project, by provoking militant attacks in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan.1 At the strategic level, fragmented U.S. intelligence and military policies are working at cross purposes, eroding trust through "covert" drone warfare on the Pakistani side of the Durand line while trying tardily to build trust on the Afghan side. The growing outrage of Pakistani society came to a head in spring 2011 over the Raymond Davis incident and the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden. These events put great stress on relations between the United States and the world's most volatile nuclear state.

Further reading.

Quick denial of number of civilian deaths due to drones

2011-08-13T06:27:00.000-07:00

CIA drone strikes have led to far more deaths in Pakistan than previously understood, according to extensive new research published by the Bureau. More than 160 children are among at least 2,292 people reported killed in US attacks since 2004. There are credible reports of at least 385 civilians among the dead.

In a surprise move, a counter-terrorism official has also released US government estimates of the numbers killed. These state that an estimated 2,050 people have been killed in drone strikes – of whom all but an estimated 50 are combatants.

Further reading.

"No collateral damage due to drones"

2011-08-12T11:46:00.000-07:00

On May 6, a Central Intelligence Agency drone fired a volley of missiles at a pickup truck carrying nine militants and bomb materials through a desolate stretch of Pakistan near the Afghan border. It killed all the militants — a clean strike with no civilian casualties, extending what is now a yearlong perfect record of avoiding collateral deaths.

Or so goes the United States government’s version of the attack, from an American official briefed on the classified C.I.A. program. Here is another version, from a new report compiled by British and Pakistani journalists: The missiles hit a religious school, an adjoining restaurant and a house, killing 18 people — 12 militants, but also 6 civilians, known locally as Samad, Jamshed, Daraz, Iqbal, Noor Nawaz and Yousaf.

The civilian toll of the C.I.A.’s drone campaign, which is widely credited with disrupting Al Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan’s tribal area, has been in bitter dispute since the strikes were accelerated in 2008. Accounts of strike after strike from official and unofficial sources are so at odds that they often seem to describe different events.

The debate has intensified since President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, clearly referring to the classified drone program, said in June 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.” Other officials say that 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.

Further reading.

Statement on Behalf of Nevada Desert Experience and Anti-Nuclear Allies in the United States on the Occasion of the 2011 World Conference Against A & H Bombs

2011-08-09T06:36:00.000-07:00

Nevada Desert Experience is able in 2011 to send three delegates to Japan for the commemorative events there on Hiroshima Day and Nagasaki Day. We thank Gensuikyo for hosting our delegates in Japan this year.

by Jim Haber and Mary Lou Anderson

We feel very privileged to be at this conference with everyone. For both of us, this is our first visit to
East Asia. The motivation is so meaningful, to join in this great peace-making work. If it were only for
ourselves, the expense would be better spent staying close to home, expressing solidarity electronically
and not increasing our carbon footprint.

We regularly hold signs and demonstrate at places like the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), until recently called the Nevada Test Site, or in Las Vegas, where we live, to make people aware that nuclear weapons continue to threaten all of humanity.

Nevada Desert Experience (NDE) organizes interfaith resistance to nuclear weapons and war. We
were important participants in the successful effort to end full-scale testing of nuclear weapons by the
United States in 1991. Unfortunately, the ending of the cold war didn't end the nuclear problem, it just
made it more invisible and hence harder to confront. There are many ways in which President Obama is
showing himself not to be working for nuclear disarmament, despite earlier statements that sounded like
a call to eliminate nuclear weapons from the world:

• Marching toward “Full Spectrum Dominance” by the “Global Strike Command” to
project US force worldwide in a matter of minutes;

• Developing a nuclear capable remotely piloted bomber;

• Budgeting over $80 billion to rebuild three major facilities to quadruple the output of
new parts for nuclear warheads;

• Resuming and increasing sub-critical and other “stockpile stewardship” tests at the
NNSS and other national laboratories;

• Researching a new generation of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) and ballistic
missile submarines;

• Frequently testing ICBMs that can “launch on warning” in a matter of minutes while
issuing bellicose statements against North Korea and Iran for testing inferior, shorterrange
missiles that take days to launch and can't even reach the United States itself;

• Pressuring South Korea and other allies to construct military bases (e.g. on Jeju Island)
in those countries for US anti-ballistic missile defense units which are actually very
provocative, destabilizing, and which promote the global arms race;

• Promoting the lie that we can construct new, safe nuclear power plants even as the
disaster of the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown continues to unfold;

• Looking to new weapons systems and technologies, like drones and other robotics, to
save us from war and environmental problems exacerbated by earlier weapons systems
and technologies.

We will share what we learn here when we return home. Our hope is that by meeting all of you, our
voices will travel further than they do now. So we have come here, not for ourselves, but as allies
representing allies. Gratefully, we're not alone, and we are happy to bring thoughts and greetings from
mutual friends who couldn't be here, just as we're looking forward to bring wisdom from this conference
back with us.

We bring greetings from Claudia Peterson of St. George, Utah, who is a member of our National
Council. She has attended several of these conferences because of the harmful, even deadly, effects that
nuclear weapons have had on her family and friends “downwind” from atmospheric tests 40 years ago in
southern Nevada. Claudia asked us to pass on this message:

“I would like the Japanese people to know they are in our thoughts and prayers. Even though
I am unable to join you this year at the conference, I am with you in spirit.

“With the terrible events of the earthquake, tsunamis and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
power plant accident, it is more important than ever that, together we push for a nuclear free
world. It has been 66 years since the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the suffering
continues. The Downwinders suffering continues also. Our health and environment have been
compromised for power and greed. Working together in solidarity we can make changes for
good. With our convictions to change the wrongs of the past, we can insure the future for our
children and grandchildren.

“My thanks to Gensuikyo for their continued work to help the people of need throughout the
world not only with their continued work for a nuclear free world but also for their work with the
many other disasters which they have assisted with.”

We bring greetings from Johnnie Bobb, NDE Council member and Chief of the Western Shoshone
National Council who some of you met last year while visiting Las Vegas. The meeting of Hibakusha,
Shoshone and other American Downwinders remains very poignant and motivational in our hearts.

We also bring greetings from our friend, Jackie Cabasso. She wishes she could be here again this
year in her capacity as North America Coordinator of Mayors for Peace, Executive Director of Western
States Legal Foundation, Convener of the United for Peace and Justice Nuclear Disarmament and
Redefining Security Working Group, and member of the Abolition 2000 Coordinating Committee.
Jackie is remembering the victims of nuclear war closer to home this year at the gates to the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory. Recently, Jackie wrote, “Nuclear weapons have threatened human
security since they were used by the United States against Japan nearly 66 years ago. In a time of
unprecedented global economic, environmental and political upheaval, can we afford to pay for them for
another 70 years, hoping they won't be used again?”

In closing we want to thank NDE Council member Janet Chisholm for giving us a charge. Janet was
raised watching nuclear tests in Nevada as a child and wanted to be a nuclear scientist. In college she
shifted from physics to religion and has become a leading trainer of nonviolence and popular education.
She told us to “Listen, learn and come back with new ideas.” We plan to do just that. Peace.

Jim Haber
Mary Lou Anderson
Nevada Desert Experience
1420 West Bartlett Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89106
USA
702-646-4814 office
415-828-2506 Jim-mobile (Japan and USA)
702-572-7249 Mary Lou-mobile (USA)
jim@nevadadesertexperience.org
mlavegas@yahoo.com

This Statement can be found here.

Sister Jackie Hudson – Presente

2011-08-09T06:20:00.000-07:00

From: Disarm Now Plowshares:
Aug 3rd 2011

Dear Friends,

It is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that Sister Jackie Hudson passed away early this morning in Washington State. Sr. Jackie died at around 7:30 am Pacific time.

After services in Washington her remains will be flown to Grand Rapids where a funeral Mass and the gift of her life will be celebrated.

We will have more details as soon as they are available.

Sisters Kay O’Neil and Michelle Meyers from Minnesota said, ”Surely Jackie never leaves us from her home in the communion of saints… We write with tears, love, and prayers of gratitude for her magnificent life. She continues to comfort and challenge us in death. May all who lived and worked with Jackie be held in tender love.”

As Liz McAllister said this morning, “Let us keep Jackie, her family, friends and community in our thoughts as we join our prayers with hers for a world at peace… and may more of us grow into her spirit.”
Deep Peace amidst such Deep Sorrow,

Leonard
---
See also: Jackie Hudson: A Peacemaking Road Well Walked

A memorial will be held for Jackie Hudson on Saturday, August 13th at 1:30 pm at Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, 16159 Clear Creek Road, Poulsbo, Washington.

Pakistani Navy gets drones

2011-07-21T01:17:00.000-07:00

The first squadron of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) was formally inducted in Pakistan Navy’s fleet during a ceremony held at the navy’s airbase, Mehran, on Wednesday.

Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Noman Bashir graced the occasion as chief guest. The indigenously developed UAVs are equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and sensors and can successfully be employed in support of Maritime Interdiction Operation (MIO) in the coastal areas. The induction of UAVs in Pakistan Navy will enhance its operational capabilities.

Admiral Noman, while addressing the audience, congratulated all those who were involved in the UQAB-II programme and expressed satisfaction on induction of UAVs. He said that prevailing maritime environment poses multifarious challenges to navies across the globe. In addition to traditional roles, navies are now increasingly confronted with emerging challenge of deterring maritime terrorism. Owing to their small size, ease of operation and maintenance versatility in employment and low risk of loss, UAVs are regarded as force multipliers and are increasingly being used by combat forces worldwide.

Admiral Noman reiterated that UAVs induction is a manifestation of PN’s commitment and resolve towards self-reliance and indigenisation. Cognisant of the heightened surveillance measures at all times, the induction of UQAB-II UAVs will provide essential experience to Pakistan Navy and necessary impetus to utilise this particular segment of warfare to the best use of naval objectives.

Source.

Mass murder on the cheap

2011-07-16T04:12:00.000-07:00

In many ways, it's the perfect weapon for a war-weary nation that suddenly finds itself on a tight budget.

Missile-armed drones are playing a greater role than ever in U.S. counter-terror operations, as President Barack Obama winds down land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Washington's focus expands to militant havens such as Somalia and Yemen where there are no U.S. troops permanently on the ground.

Further reading.

13th Annual Kateri Tekakwitha Peace Conference

2011-07-11T05:28:00.000-07:00

Awakening to the “Circle of Life”

13th Annual Kateri Tekakwitha Peace Conference

National Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine, Fonda, NY

Johnnie Bobb
Chief of the Western Shoshone National Council and Western Shoshone Spiritual Person

Randy Kehler
Peace activist and community organizer

Dr. Bonnie E. Bobb
Cross cultural psychologist; Environmental consultant

Friday evening, August 19th and Saturday August 20, 2011

For complete information go to: http://www.kateripeaceconference.org/
or call John Amidon at 518-312-6442

Kindly pass along to your friends and neighbors. Thank you!

From LVRJ: Activists appreciate nation where everyone has a say

2011-07-11T05:22:00.000-07:00

Well done and thank you Jim and Linda, for your Work...

By John Przybys
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Posted: Jul. 3, 2011

Jim Haber's and Linda Faso's names might seem vaguely familiar to you, even though it's unlikely you've ever met them in person.

Maybe you've run across their names in a photo caption or a newspaper story. Maybe you've driven by as they were holding picket signs or marching in demonstrations. And when you saw them, maybe you honked your horn in support, or yelled "Get a job!" or offered them a rude single-digit salute.

Haber and Faso are political activists, he for anti-war and pro-peace causes and she for animal rights. Singly and together, they're the living embodiment of dissent, the bedrock American value that not only allows us to disagree -- with each other, with our government, with mainstream society's opinions -- but encourages us to do so.

Independence Day weekend seems a good time to remember that our nation was founded in dissent, and that, even today, we remain happily, usefully and sometimes uncomfortably awash in it.

And it's interesting to note how often in our history dissenting voices -- over slavery, civil rights and women's suffrage, to name a few issues -- have evolved into mainstream thought, all because a handful of Americans got involved, spoke up and raised some democratic hell.

Faso and Haber certainly find it interesting. They're even banking on it happening again.

Read the rest here...

This summer and autumn get ready for Peace Actions across the Globe!

2011-07-11T05:06:00.000-07:00

From the Agenda of The Nuclear Resister:

July 22 – 29

NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION AT N.A.T.O. WAR GAMES

Ofog, the Swedish anti-militarist network, invites international activists to next summer’s action camp against military combat training in Luleå, northern Sweden.

July 26 will be the day for nonviolent direct action at NEAT, the North European Aerospace Test Range, during NATO war practice. Make a direct impact on the largest training ground for war in Europe and meet as organizations and activists to exchange experiences and knowledge and coordinate resistance in the future.

For more information, visit www.warstartshere.com and www.ofog.org or email info@ofog.org, phone +46 (0) 733 81 53 61.

August 5 – 9, 2011, HIROSHIMA & NAGASAKI DAYS

STRATCOM
The Des Moines and Omaha Catholic Workers will sponsor their annual 3-1/2 day August 6-9 “shake and bake” vigil at the gates of Offutt Air Force Base, in Bellevue, Nebraska, home of the Strategic Nuclear (STRATCOM) and the U.S. Military Space Commands.

Vigil concludes August 9 from 8–11 a.m. with a ceremony and line crossing. Evening programs to be announced; come for an hour or the whole time.

Bring a bedroll for church floor space or call ahead for other hospitality. For more info contact Jerry Ebner at 402-502-5887 or email cwomaha@gmail.com.

LOCKHEED-MARTIN
Brandywine Peace Community will hold a Hiroshima Day commemoration and vigil, concluding with nonviolent civil disobedience beginning at noon on Saturday, August 6 at Lockheed Martin corporation on Goddard Boulevard, behind the King of Prussia Mall, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

Call the Brandywine Peace Community, 610-544-1818, by July 25 if interested in participating in the Hiroshima Day civil disobedience. Check www.brandywinepeace.com for more info.

WASHINGTON, D.C.
Jonah House and the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Community will host a Hiroshima/Nagasaki Days Faith and Resistance Retreat in Washington, D.C., with nonviolent direct actions at the White House and Pentagon. Details pending.

For more information, contact Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, 202-882-9649, or check www.jonahhouse.org.

BANGOR TRIDENT SUB BASE
Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action will commemorate the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nonviolent direct action at Kitsap-Bangor Navy Base, homeport of Trident nuclear submarines. Details pending, contact the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, www.gzcenter.org, email info@gzcenter.org, 360-930-8697.

LIVERMORE LABS
Planning is underway for a Hiroshima Day commemoration at the Livermore nuclear weapons lab in California, with civil resistance planned for Nagasaki Day, August 9. For more info as plans develop, contact Tri-Valley CAREs at 925-443-7148 or visit trivalleycares.org.

August 20, 2011

OLKILUOTO, FINLAND

Join this summer’s blockade of Europe’s largest, most expensive, new nuclear power plant at Olkiluoto, Finland. Plan to be there by August 20. Full details about the encampment, nonviolent direct actions, accommodation, legal consequences, maps and other information will be found at olkiluotoblockade2011.wordpress.com/english.

August 2011 through 2015

WALK FOR A NUCLEAR FREE FUTURE IN AUSTRALIA, CANADA, U.S. AND JAPAN

The Walk for a Nuclear Free Future is actually a series of walks through Australia, Canada, the United States and Japan over a five year period. The walks will follow the deadly nuclear fuel path from uranium mines to nuclear reactors, waste dumps and nuclear weapons sites. The drug- and alcohol-free walks will range from two to six months, covering an average of 15 miles/day.

A support van with kitchen will accompany each walk. Walkers will educate themselves and the public about a nuclear free future using street theater, music, art, public forums, media, petitioning, letter writing and nonviolent direct actions.

This year, Walk Away from Uranium Mining in Southwest Australia, August 21 – October 30.

In 2012, Saskatchewan to Montreal, Canada.

2013, Minnesota to Buffalo, NY, and

2014, Miami, FL to Oak Ridge, TN.

2015: Oak Ridge, TN to Hiroshima, Japan.

Walk coordinator Footprints for Peace has for over a decade organized annual walks, runs and bike rides bringing thousands of people into the streets to create positive change through peaceful action.

For full information, visit www.nuclearfreefuture.com, or contact Footprints for Peace, 1225 North Bend Rd., Cincinnati, OH 45224, 513-843-1205, nffc@footprintsforpeace.net.

Week of September 13, 2011

DSEI ARMS FAIR, ENGLAND

This September, the world’s biggest arms fair returns to the conference center at London Docklands, England. Make no mistake; this is the big one – the nexus of 1,200 purveyors of capitalism, war and repression.

Join the Day of Action against DSEi on Tuesday, September 13, and other actions all week. In previous years there have been street parties, Critical Mass bike rides, die-ins, mock sales of “arms”, legs and even a tank; splashing fake blood across the entrances, engaging with arms dealers on the trains and platforms, invading the car park and rail entrance, blocking the roads, locking on to the trains, tripod and boat blockades to stop equipment from arriving at the arms fair and more. Find out where the arms dealers’ dinner is taking place on September 15 and spoil their party!

For more information, visit dsei.org.

October 3, 2011

BLOCKADE HINKLEY NUCLEAR POWER STATION, SOMERSET, U.K.

Hundreds of people are expected to non-violently blockade the access to Hinkley Point nuclear power station for one day.

While the blockade will be the key focus, there will be plenty of roles and activities for people who do not wish to risk arrest. Everyone who is anti-nuclear can come and join us on the day to express their opposition in many different ways. We will prepare ourselves for this blockade with non-violence training, and we will not be deterred by police trying to prevent our non-violent action.

The blockade will be inclusive, allowing people from all walks of life and with a wide range of experience in non-violent action – or no experience at all – to participate. We will organise a safe environment for everyone, built on trust for each other, but also on our determination to stop nuclear new-build.

In the days before the blockade, there will be local actions in Bridgwater. There will be a camp and local accommodation for people over the weekend and non-violence training will be provided.

More information at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk.

October 7-9, 2011

CREECH AIR FORCE BASE & NEVADA TEST SITE

A National Catholic Worker Gathering will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, October 7–9, 2011. Roundtable discussions, hikes, prayer, crafts, singing, opportunity for civil disobedience at the Nevada Test Site (nuclear weapons) and Creech Air Force Base (drone warfare). Hosted by the Las Vegas Catholic Worker at Christ the King Catholic Community. Confirmed attendance already from at least 100 Catholic Workers, families and friends in 27 states [NR editors’ note: including us!].

If you plan to attend, or for more information, please contact the Las Vegas Catholic Worker, 500 W. Van Buren Ave., Las Vegas, NV 89106, 702-647-0728, mail@lcnv.org.

US still in charge at Shamsi airbase

2011-07-06T03:44:00.000-07:00

One week after Pakistan’s Defense Minister publicly demanded that the US leave its Shamsi air base in the Balochistan Province, the Obama Adminsitration is reporting that the base is “fully operational” and still in US hands.

The US immediately rejected the call to leave the base, insisting they will remain in control. Though the base is reportedly no longer used for drone attacks, it is used to launch surveillance drones, which help in the controversial drone attacks.

Which are continuing to this day. Indeed, just today a US drone attacked a house in North Waziristan, killing six people and wounding an unknown number of others. As usual, the slain were termed “suspects” but there was no indication of their identities.

US officials downplayed the risk of losing the Shamsi base, despite Pakistani demands, saying that the CIA already has a “backup plan” in place for launching the surveillance drones, presumably out of Afghanistan, if Shamsi is ever taken back by Pakistan.
(Antiwar Newswire)

New Mexico fires threaten Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab – again

2011-06-29T07:59:00.000-07:00

From the Christian Science Monitor:

New Mexico fires, having blazed through 61,000 acres in three days, now approach Los Alamos. Residents have evacuated and the fireproofed buildings of the National Laboratories are about to be put to their second test in 11 years.

By Pete Spotts, Staff writer
posted June 28, 2011

For the second time in 11 years, a New Mexico fire is threatening one of the nation's three nuclear-weapons laboratories, as well as the town that hosts it.

The approaching Las Conchas fire is raising concerns that if the blaze reaches the lab, it could free radioactive material from the grounds and storage sites surrounding the laboratory.

The bulk of the lab's stockpile of highly-radioactive material is stored in structures specifically designed to withstand fire, lab officials say.

IN PICTURES: Wildfires around the world

But the facility also hosts some 20,000 barrels of plutonium-bearing waste – ultimately destined for long-term storage in southern New Mexico – at a facility atop a small mesa just outside White Rock, N.M., known as "Area G." As of midday on Tuesday, the fire was two miles away from Area G.

The laboratory grounds also include at least one canyon that was used as a dump in the early years of the US nuclear weapons program.

Teams from the National Nuclear Safety Administration are expected to arrive on-site Tuesday, to help deal with any releases that might occur if the fire reaches the lab.

The Las Conchas fire started Saturday afternoon in the Santa Fe National Forest. The cause remains under investigation, but by Tuesday morning, the explosive blaze had scorched nearly 61,000 acres, forcing the evacuation of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, as well as the town of Los Alamos, both about 25 miles northwest of Santa Fe.

Lessons from the past: The Cerro Grande Fire
The last fire that threatened the lab, the Cerro Grande, took two weeks to burn 48,000 acres when it moved across New Mexico in 2000. That blaze caused an estimated $1 billion in damage, destroying lab buildings and some 400 family homes, but no fatalities from the fire were reported.

During the Cerro Grande fire, some forms of radioactivity increased to between two and five times their normal levels, according to a study led by lab researcher David King.

But they weren't from the radioactive materials at the nuclear weapons lab.

Instead, radioactive byproducts from naturally-occurring radon gas, which had settled on plants and the soil around the plant, got caught up by the fire and redistributed. The team calculated that, even at the height of the blaze, the firefighters and volunteers were exposed to a level of radiation far below that of someone on an airline flight.

Still, the work highlighted a lack of information on the kind of radiation released by any wildfire – a gap filled by measuring the release of radioactive particles from four experimental fires, including two controlled burns in the Carson National Forest outside of Taos, N.M., in 2001 and 2002.

Lab scientists did find elevated levels of radioactive elements in ash following the Cerra Grande fire – including isotopes of plutonium, cesium, and strontium that appeared to be residual fallout from the years prior to a ban on above-ground nuclear tests.

The concern: storm water run-off following a fire could carry the ash into reservoirs or the Rio Grande River, which flows south through the valley below Los Alamos and on through Albuquerque.

To deal with the run-off – an issue not just after wildfires, but an ongoing concern because of lab-produced chemical contaminants – the lab has built a low-slung rock dam across one canyon, to slow the flow of storm run-off and allow sediment to fall out behind the dam. It has also planted willows and restored wetlands in strategic locations along the courses taken by run-off.

The current concern: Power failure
In looking at the potential radiological risk from the Las Conchas fire, the biggest uncertainty rests with a broad power failure involving the lab, says Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, a watchdog organization based in Santa Fe.

Most of the sensitive facilities are hardened and "pretty much fireproof," he says. As for the 20,000-barrel Area G storage facility, if a fire engulfs them, "the consequences are severe, but the probability is probably relatively low." The facility is not within the Ponderosa forests that are currently burning, and the lab has taken pains to clear the facility's immediate surroundings of vegetation.

But loss of power to the lab injects an extra element of uncertainty into the safety equation, Mr. Coghlan continues.

"I don't draw any parallel to Fukushima except to note that stuff happens when power goes out," he says.

Firefighters are prepared to build a line around the lab if the need arises, even as they set up containment lines to protect area homes.

In an interview Monday with the Associated Press, deputy Los Alamos County fire chief Mike Thomas said, "We'll pre-treat with foam if necessary, but we really want the buildings to stand on their own for the most part. That is exactly how they've been designed. Especially the ones holding anything that is of high value or high risk, for the community, and really, for the rest New Mexico for that matter."

The special drone show in Iran

2011-06-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

RAN has shown Russia US drones it shot down over the Gulf, Revolutionary Guards aerospace commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hadjizadeh was quoted as saying.

"Russian experts requested to see these drones and they looked at both the downed drones and the models made by the Guards through reverse engineering," the official IRNA news agency quoted Hadjizadeh as saying.

Hajizadeh did not elaborate on the number or type of unmanned US aircraft it had shot down, or when or where it had done so.

Iran announced on January 2 that its forces had downed two US drones after they "violated" Iranian-controlled territory.

It later said it would put the aircraft on public display.

"The planes that were shot down are among the most modern US navy drones and have a long-range capability," the Fars news agency quoted the commander of the Guards' naval forces, Ali Fadavi, as saying at the time.

Further reading.

Drone attacks part of daily life in Yemen

2011-06-15T04:48:00.000-07:00

June 2011 already saw 130 people killed by drone attcks in/on Yemen.
And His Royal Nobelpriziest Highness plans to step up the attacks.

New book on Area 51 discussed on DemocracyNow

2011-06-09T08:05:00.000-07:00

Annie Jacobsen, investigative journalist, on her new book "Area51: Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base" on DemocracyNow.org today, June 9th 2011:

Located some 80 miles north of Las Vegas, the secret U.S. military base Area 51 in Nevada was established in the 1950s to build and test hi-tech spy and war planes including the U2, the stealth bomber and surveillance drones. Located inside the Nevada Test and Training Range, Area 51 also played a key role in nuclear weapon tests. For decades, the government denied Area 51 even existed, but in recent years many CIA and military documents have been declassified. We speak with Annie Jacobsen, author of the new book, "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base."

Read the rest here.

Here is a review of Ms Jacobsen's book in the NYT.

Fr. Bill Bichsel's ordeal: Cruel and inhuman punishment

2011-06-06T06:46:00.000-07:00

John Dear SJ: Fr. Bill Bichsel's ordeal: Cruel and inhuman punishment
June 1st, 2011

...since Obama's inauguration, over 2,600 people have been arrested for similar acts of nonviolent civil disobedience against war and injustice, a stunning number given the total lack of media coverage on peace and justice movements. (Bill Quigley, in Common Dreams)

Last week's Supreme Court ruling against California's prison system as "cruel and inhuman punishment" was not a surprise -- except in the sense that it was said publicly. Many of us who have experienced our criminal injustice system first hand know well how horrific it is. The court ruled that 35,000 California prisoners would have to be transferred or released because the system is so unjust.

The case sparked new discussion on overcrowded prisons (156,000 prisoners suffer in California prisons built for half that number), but it started years ago because of the atrocious lack of health care in California's prisons. Many prisoners died needlessly over the years, usually because they were not given their medicine.

It's not surprising either that our violent, imperial nation has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. The most recent figure says we have over 2,292,000 people in prison. The so-called "war on drugs" and mandatory sentencing laws against nonviolent offenders are partly to blame for this huge prison population.

Prison is bad for one's health, to put it mildly. During my last stint in the Las Vegas Jail for the Creech 14 action, I was stunned as the woman in charge of the main admitting area where a hundred of us sat in chains or handcuffs, yelled at us and threatened us. Then, she ordered an officer to beat up one prisoner, and he threw him against the wall. Nobody blinked.
NCR - June 10, 2011

Certainly one of the worst places I've ever been is the Robeson County Jail in North Carolina near the South Carolina border. Built for 75 people, it held 400 people when I was there for a few weeks in 1993 for our Plowshares action. One human rights report claimed that over 25 people had died in the five years previous to my stay. Most of them had been denied medicine, and were simply found dead the next morning.

I remember an elderly man serving a year for a nonviolent offense that Philip Berrigan and I had befriended. He was in the cell across the hall from us. We occasionally talked. He told us of his heart condition. We saw pills delivered to him every day. About a month after our transfer to another jail, we received word that he had died. He had argued with a jailer, so the jailer did not give him his medicine, and he died that night.

This week, many of us will gather in San Francisco to celebrate the release of Franciscan Fr. Louie Vitale after his six months in prison for protesting the "School of Americas," our U.S. assassination and terrorism school at Fort Benning, Ga. Louie's in fine fettle, as determined as ever to do what he can to resist our wars and weapons. We go to honor his indomitable spirit (See: www.paceebene.org).

Last week the Nuke Resister [added updated link, but it comes from Common Dreams here - LaLa] reported that since Obama's inauguration, over 2,600 people have been arrested for similar acts of nonviolent civil disobedience against war and injustice, a stunning number given the total lack of media coverage on peace and justice movements. As our prisons continue to worsen, it's amazing that activists are willing to risk imprisonment for social change.

At the moment, some friends are currently languishing in Tennessee and Georgia jails for civil disobedience at the Y-12 nuclear complex at Oak Ridge, Tenn. (See: www.jonahhouse.org). This past weekend, one friend suffered severe chest pains and was refused medical help. We are hoping and praying for her healing, and mobilizing folks to work on her behalf.

Read the rest here.

Also follow this blog for updates on those in prison because of their actions for peace and humanity.

Obama's hidden war

2011-05-24T14:04:00.000-07:00

DATTA KHEL, Pakistan — This was once an oasis of calm, a peaceful town in a region famous worldwide for its lawlessness and violence. But in 2007, all that changed when Datta Khel became the primary target of unmanned U.S. drones armed with hellfire missiles.

Even with the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden outside of Islamabad on May 2, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials believe this town is the command and control center for members of Al Qaeda and its remaining senior leadership. It is also, they say, home to the Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqani Network, a Pakistan militant group that has launched continuous attacks on U.S. and NATO forces operating in Afghanistan.

Many of these militants have poured into Datta Khel, which borders northeastern Afghanistan, and the nearby town of Mir Ali in recent years as they have fled Pakistani military operations in South Waziristan and the Swat Valley.

Further reading.
(Three stories)

Free from prison

2011-05-24T12:34:00.000-07:00

Our brothers David Omondi and Louie Vitale were released from prison on May 20th.
Here an invitation to join Louie's birthdayparty on June 1st.

Harvey Wasserman: America's New Nuclear Showdown

2011-05-17T02:59:00.000-07:00

Harvey Wasserman: America's New Nuclear Showdown (on Counterpunch.org)

As Fukushima continues to leak and smolder, what may be the definitive battle over new nukes in America has begun.

The critical first US House vote on a proposed $36 billion loan guarantee package for reactor construction may come as early as June 2. Green power advocates are already calling and writing the White House and Congress early and often, gearing up for a long, definitive showdown.
Germany and Japan have made their decision---the "Lethal Atom" has no future.

The coffin nail is Fukushima. Substantial radiation still leaks from three or more of its six reactors. Volatile fuel rods are dangerously exposed. Various containment and fuel pool structures are compromised. Heat and radiation still pour into our global eco-systems, with no end in sight.
Thankfully, a global citizens movement helped lower the amount of plutonium-based MOX fuel loaded into Unit Three. Without that, Fukushima's emissions would be far more lethal.

As it is, fallout continues to be detected across Europe and the United States. Fukushima is now rated on par with Chernobyl, by some estimates the killer of more than a million people.

... Read the rest here!

Pakistan Air Force Chief: Forces Ready to Shoot Down US Drones

2011-05-14T04:04:00.000-07:00

Concerns that the US is once again escalating its attacks against Pakistan’s tribal areas appear all the stronger today, as drones attacked a vehicle in North Waziristan Agency, killing three suspects.

Future drone attacks might be a seriously risky matter, however, as Pakistan’s Air Force Chief of Staff Marshal Rao Suleman reported that the air force is now prepared to shoot down future drones if given authorization to do so by the Zardari government.

The drones have been hugely unpopular in Pakistan, and the government has recently issued repeated demands for their halt. The fact that the attacks have continued and escalated have put the Pakistani military into a position of needing to assert itself.

Marshal Suleman also revealed an unusual fact about the drone flights, which have come out of an air base in Balochistan. According to Suleman, the Shamsi Air Base has actually been under the control of the United Arab Emirates since the 1990s.

(Antiwar Newswire)

The most dynamic growth sector of the world aerospace industry.

2011-05-10T00:30:00.000-07:00

Indian Defence Review on the UAV-industry.
(h/t Kathy Kelly)

"Where is your democracy?"

2011-05-10T00:09:00.000-07:00

On May 4, 2011, CNN World News asked whether killing Osama bin Laden was legal under international law. Other news commentaries have questioned whether it would have been both possible and advantageous to bring Osama bin Laden to trial rather than kill him.

World attention has been focused, however briefly, on questions of legality regarding the killing of Osama bin Laden. But with the increasing use of Predator drones to kill suspected “high-value targets” in Pakistan and Afghanistan, extrajudicial killings by U.S. military forces have become the new norm.

Just three days after Osama bin Laden was killed, an attack employing remote-control aerial drones killed 15 people in Pakistan and wounded four. CNN reports that its Islamabad bureau has counted four drone strikes
over the last month and a half since the March 17 drone attack that
killed 44 people in Pakistan’s tribal region. This most recent suspected
strike was the 21st this year. There were 111 strikes in 2010. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimated that 957 innocent civilians were killed in 2010.

I’m reminded of an encounter I had in May 2010, when a journalist and a social worker from North Waziristan met with a small Voices for Creative Nonviolence delegation in Pakistan and described, in gory and graphic detail, the scenes of
drone attacks that they had personally witnessed: the carbonized bodies,
burned so fully they could be identified by legs and hands alone; the
bystanders sent flying like dolls through the air to break, with shattered
bones and sometimes-fatal brain injuries, upon walls and stone.

“Do Americans know about the drones?” the journalist asked me. I said I thought that awareness was growing on university campuses and among peace groups. “This isn’t what I’m asking,” he politely insisted. “What I want to know is
if average Americans know that their country is attacking Pakistan with
drones that carry bombs. Do they know this?”

“Truthfully,” I said, “I don’t think so.”
“Where is your democracy?” he asked me. “Where is your democracy?”

Further reading.

Seventeen people killed by drone strikes in Pakistan

2011-05-07T02:48:00.000-07:00

Multiple missile strikes from US Predator drones hit the North Waziristan Agency on May 6th, killing at least 17 “suspects” and wounding an unknown number of others. The strikes destroyed a housing compound as well as a vehicle in Datta Khel. In a strike earleir this year, on March 17th, 44 people were killed in the same area.

The attacks targeted a region that is believed to have large numbers of militant factions, and was the first one to hit Pakistan since the Sunday raid into Abbottabad. The strikes have been hugely unpopular across Pakistan.

Increasingly the Pakistani military has been condemning the strikes, and several of the recent strikes killed large numbers of civilians and tribesmen allied with the government. This has added to anger about the attacks, which were already under renewed scrutiny after the Raymond Davis affair.

Today’s strike suggests that those demands to end the attacks have not been heeded, and the Zardari government, already embarrassed by the suggestion that Sunday’s bin Laden raid will become a precedent for a more aggressive collection of US ground attacks, will likely have to react, or face more loss of legitimacy.

(Antiwar Newswire)

Sacred Peace Walk: Wailing on the line about nuclear weapons, nuclear waste

2011-04-28T14:30:00.000-07:00

Anti-nuclear camp in Sizewell, England

2011-04-26T12:29:00.000-07:00

A picture (courtesy Stop Nuclear Power Network) from the anti-Nuclear Camp at Sizewell, Suffolk, England, 22-25 April 2011.
More pictures....

Remembering Chernobyl and Fukushima at the Test Site, April 26th 2011

2011-04-25T16:16:00.001-07:00

On April 24th (Easter Sunday) 38 people gathered at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) as thousands have done each spring over the past 30 years. Eight were arrested and a dozen will return tomorrow to the NNSS (at the Mercury exit of US Highway 95) with the same hope for peace, environmental safety, and nuclear abolition. Both prayer-actions celebrate the Springtime hopes for an end to the terrors of the Nuclear Age. The April 26th event is held to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. Tomorrow’s demonstration will be held from 7am to 8am, and is one of hundreds all over the globe. These vigils and protests highlight the painful and expensive radioactive troubles from Chernobyl (Ukraine) and Fukushima (Japan).

The group holding interfaith prayers tomorrow morning, April 26th, at the NNSS wishes to communicate the urgent need to end the expansion of nuclear power technology and to protect the Nevada Desert and other bioregions from nuclear disasters. The recent Fukushima, Japan nuclear melt-down has sent radioactive fallout around the planet. The Chernobyl nuclear power explosion contaminated food and people across Europe. Ten thousand demonstrators in the town of Gronau, Germany today and fifty thousand others in Amsterdam last week are all supporting the same cause of ridding the earth of the radiological problems of nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

One of the Franciscan activists in Nevada this week hoping to stop the spread of nuclearism, Paul Lachance, said, “at this season of Easter we give thanks to the rising power of Love which overcomes the forces of evil and death in ourselves, in our world and in the nuclear madness.”

Easter Sunday Services End in 16 Arrests at Nuclear Test Site

2011-04-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

Easter Sunday Services End in 16 Arrests
at Nuclear Test Site

RELEASE DATE: April 24th 2011
CONTACT: Jim Haber, 702.646.4814

At 12 noon today, April 24th 2011, 38 people gathered near the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). The group held interfaith prayers and then eight women and eight men were arrested for alleged trespassing onto the NNSS. The prayer-action included local members of the Western Shoshone National Council, Buddhist Nipponzan Myohoji monks from Washington state and Catholic Workers from Nevada. Other demonstrators came from Arizona, California, Illinois, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Wisconsin, The Netherlands, and Japan.
Today’s Easter services were the climax of a 60-mile walk from Las Vegas to Mercury along US
Highway 95. The annual pilgrimmage is the interfaith “Sacred Peace Walk”, which included a
musical ritual at the NNSS.

Fr. Jerry Zawada

The demonstrators include members of Nevada Desert Experience (NDE) and Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service, including Fr. Jerry Zawada who celebrated Mass at less than half an hour prior to the ritual line crossing. NDE is an interfaith group based in Las Vegas which resists nuclear weapons and war. NDE has a long history of activity in this region near Creech Air Force Base, and NDE’s work helped lead to a cessation of full-scale nuclear testing in the early 1990's.

The prayer-action today focused on stopping the flow of money into nuclear weapons development, protecting the Nevada Desert, and protecting all people from nuclear disasters
such as the recent one ongoing in Fukushima, Japan and the Chernobyl incident from April 26th 1986. One of the demonstrators from The Netherlands, Annabelle Parker said, “It’s a terrible crime that the US government has committed by stealing and contaminating this beautiful land from Western Shoshone people. I found this week’s Sacred Peace Walk to be a very strong spiritual action—I felt very much connected to the earth and everyone else.”

Another demonstrator, Iris Wolfe from Arizona, went further, “We must also consider the powerful effect of nuclear radiation on the earth and her capacity to support life including ladybugs, bees, earthworms and others. We are wholly dependent and cannot survive without the interaction of all life forms together.” Tomorrow and Tuesday, April 25th and 26th , NDE will hold 7:00AM vigils at Creech AFB and the NNSS respectively, in concert with global events commemorating the Chernobyl disaster.

Sit-in against drones in Pakistan

2011-04-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

The campaign to get the US to stop carrying out drone attacks in tribal areas would continue till its “logical conclusion”, Imran Khan, chief of the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI), said here on Saturday.

Speaking to thousands of supporters during a sit-in at Hayatabad township, from where many of the vehicles carrying supplies for foreign forces in Afghanistan pass, Mr Khan said: “Pakistanis are not animals but human beings. That’s why they should be protected against aggression.”

He said that international law guaranteed the sovereignty of all independent states, but the US and its cronies in Pakistan had violated the law by killing scores of innocent people.He said the sit-in organised by his party would bring to an end the US designs for the region.
Further reading.

Thirty-seven people arrested at drone war protest, Syracuse NY

2011-04-23T15:45:00.000-07:00

New sign at Test Site

2011-04-23T15:03:00.000-07:00

MEDIA RELEASE
Veterans For Peace
John Amidon

The Nevada Test Site was recently re-branded the Nevada
National Security Site. On Easter Sunday, April 24, 2011
a new sign (picture attached) will welcome visitors to the
Western Shoshone Nation at Mercury, Nevada.

Contacts:
Chief of the Western Shoshone National Council
Johnnie Bobb @ 775-964-2210
Veterans For Peace - John Amidon @ 518-312-6442 (cell)
Nevada Desert Experience - Jim Haber @ 415-828-2506 (cell)

What: A new sign for Mercury, Nevada, and civil resistance to the illegal occupation of the Western Shoshone Homeland and nuclear weapons.

When: Sunday, April 24, 2011 10:15 AM

Where: Nevada National Test Site, Mercury, NV

Who: Members of Veterans For Peace, the Western Shoshone,Nevada Desert Experience, Code Pink, and concerned citizens who support justice for the Western Shoshone and nuclear abolition.

Why: How is the war economy working for you, Las Vegas and how will you like the nuclear waste that the US government will once again try to shove down your throats at Yucca Mountain? The illegal occupation of the Western Shoshone Homeland has brought nothing but misery, disease, hatred and distrust to the world with the development of nuclear weapons. It is time to wake up. Time is running out. Let us hope we can learn from Japan. Restoration of the Western Shoshone Homeland will beginning the process of restorative healing which is so deeply needed. John Amidon (center) and Johnnie Bobb (right) in attached picture.

The smartness of smart bombing planes

2011-04-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

Forget the collateral damage, we can’t even solve a closed room crime like the
Jonbenet Ramsey murder. And, after the most rigorous process the American "Justice" System can muster, people here are regularly exonerated from death row because DNA evidence proves they couldn’t possibly have committed the crime that put them there. So now you’re going to tell me when these military institutions target and kill folks half-a-world away with this and other operations — when they often can’t even speak the language — they’re going to get it right?

Humanitarian war carried on by drone attacks

2011-04-21T21:29:00.000-07:00

Speaking at a Pentagon briefing early Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that President Obama has authorized the use of drone strikes in Libya. Drones had previously only been used in surveillance missions in the war.

NATO had been reportedly pressing for US drones to enter the war, particularly so they could launch attacks in and around the Western city of Misrata. The first mission was to begin Thursday evening, but bad weather forced its delay.

Marine Gen. James Cartwright said the drones were “uniquely suited” for attacks in urban areas, because they can fly lower and get better visibility on potential targets. Secretary Gates denied that the deployment of drones indicated a further escalation of the NATO-led war.

Rather Gates said the deployment was a “modest contribution” to the NATO war, and that the deployment of attack drones to launch strikes was purely for “humanitarian reasons.” The war began on March 19, just days after the UN approved a no-fly zone.
(Antiwar Newswire)

Sacred Peace Walk Day Three: Lee Canyon to Cactus Springs

2011-04-21T20:45:00.001-07:00

Special cake awaiting the walkers in the guest house of the Sekhmet Godess Temple

Sacred Peace Walk Day Two: Lee Canyon Camp

2011-04-20T22:51:00.000-07:00

[to be completed]

Sacred Peace Walk: Day One: Downtown Las Vegas to the Martin Luther King Monument

2011-04-19T21:06:00.000-07:00

The Nevada Desert Experience's stone at the brick wall of the Atomic Test Site


Our Sacred Peace Walk started at the Atomic Test Museum


We read out a poem by Marritte Funches dedicated to the NDE, heard contributions from several people, were Spiritually Cleansed, and set off...

Johnnie Bobb and Jeremiah at the Las Vegas Catholic Worker, holding up the spirits

Press Release: Sacred Peace Walk 2011

2011-04-18T13:44:00.000-07:00

Monday, April 18, 2011

From:Nevada Desert Experience
1420 W. Bartlett Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89106
(702) 646-4814
jim@nevadadesertexperience.org
megan@nevadadesertexperience.org

What:Activists Start Sacred Peace Walk Outside Atomic Testing Museum

Contacts:
Jim Haber
702.646.4814 or 415.828.2506 (cell)
jim...at...nevadadesertexperience.org

Megan Rice
702.646.4814 or 702.574.7420
megan...at...nevadadesertexperience.org

When:Tuesday, April 19, 2011
8:30 am Blessing
9:00 am Walk Begins

Where:
Atomic Testing Museum (at the outdoor Brick Way)
755 E. Flamingo Road
Las Vegas, Nevada

What:
The Sacred Peace Walk will walk through the heart of Las Vegas on Tuesday, April 19, starting outside the Atomic Testing Museum, including stops at the offices of the Nevada Site Office of the National Nuclear Safety Administration and the National Security Technologies, LLC which operates the NNSS for the Department of Energy.The rest of the walk will commence Wednesday from the junction of US-95 and NV-156, demonstrations and spiritual observances through April 26 will include vigils and demonstrations at Creech Air Force Base and the Nevada National Security Site, formerly the Nevada Test Site.

Who:
Nevada Desert Experience, Veterans For Peace, Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service along with concerned citizens from all walks of life and faith communities. Bishop Dan Edwards of the Episcopal Diocese and Chief Johnnie Bobb of the Western Shoshone National Council will offer opening blessings on the group. See the Nevada Desert Experience website for more details about the schedule and issues raised by the Sacred Peace Walk.

Why:
By walking in Las Vegas, the Sacred Peace Walk participants will reach a cross-section of society from all over the country and world with the message that we need to liberate ourselves from the threat of nuclear weapons and power, and from the increasing reliance on new weapons systems which continue to cause untold accidental and civilian casualties. By walking from the museum which celebrates the work involved in making the atomic bomb and its role in the cold war and including stops at offices sites of Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) managers, the walkers are making the connection between the historical work at the NNSS and the ongoing support for war underway there and at nearby Creech AFB.

Fukushima is an enormous wake up call for the world. Nuclear weapons, nuclear power and nuclear waste are profoundly dangerous and that other catastrophes cannot be avoided. The harm caused from mining, the inability to store wastes safely in the long or short term, from accidents, and from the threat of nuclear attack by the U.S. and others is bringing more people into a consensus against nuclearism. We sincerely hope a doorway to understanding will finally open so we may avert further calamity both at home as well as in the rest of the world.

The war economy is not working for the USA. Proposed budgets don't reflect the true cost of war on the economy and people. Programs that cost pennies on the dollar compared to military programs are fighting for survival. Without deep cuts to military spending no change can come. As Martin Luther King said before he was assassinated, there needs to be a "radical revolution of values" in this country, against "militarism, economic exploitation and racism."

The events at Creech are done in solidarity with the Upstate (NY) Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars, a group of concerned citizens from Buffalo, Rochester, Ithaca, Binghamton, Syracuse, Rome and Albany, have organized a week of education and action to protest the Reaper Drones at Syracuse's Hancock Air National Guard Base, culminating in a rally at Hancocok Airfield, April 22 at 3pm.

Recent incidents of children being killed while gathering firewood, killings of two US service-members by drones, and an estimate by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan that 957 people were killed by US drone strikes in that country in 2010 all point to the drones as being a failure if the goal is to end hostilities. Nevada Desert Experience and Sacred Peace Walk participants walk because the evidence has continued to mount, against drones and armed robotics systems as untrustworthy and indescriminating.

Hence, the following portion of the April, 2009 statement from the action that was later dubbed the "Creech-14" remains tragically valid:

"The idea that technology can provide a cleaner and safer battlefield is seductive but has been proven a lie. From the catapult and crossbow, through the use of poison gas and airplanes in World War I, the atom bomb, helicopters and napalm in Vietnam to the “smart bombs” of the Gulf War, war has only grown deadlier. Technological advances may reduce the danger of casualties among the military personnel in the short run, but with each advance the number of civilian deaths multiplies and every war of the past century has numbered more children than soldiers among its victims."

###

UAV's above the USA

2011-04-16T10:17:00.000-07:00

Within weeks and possibly days, President Obama is likely to sign into law a bill that will bring unmanned aerial vehicles - drones - into US general airspace, crisscrossing the country in company with passenger planes and other human-carrying aircraft.

The story of how planes without on-board pilots will gain entry into our crowded airspace, where birds are life threatening, possibly within the next three years, is one involving campaign contributions, jobs and fear. As we will see, safety appears not to be the top priority.
Further reading

Friendly fire they call it

2011-04-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

A U.S. Marine reservist and a Navy corpsman were killed in a drone airstrike in Afghanistan last week in an apparent case of friendly fire, U.S. military officials tell NBC News.

Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremy Smith and Navy Corpsman Benjamin Rast were reportedly killed Wednesday by a Hellfire missile fired from a U.S. Air Force Predator in what appears to be a case of mistaken identity, NBC reported. Smith and Rast were part of a Marine unit moving in to reinforce fellow Marines under heavy fire from enemy forces outside Sangin in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan.

Further reading.

Western Shoshone - Most Radiated Nation on Earth

2011-04-05T04:56:00.000-07:00

The Nevada Test Site Within Newe Sogobia

In 1948, Western Shoshone lands were seized to create the Nevada Test Site, forcing over 100 families to abandon seasonal or permanent family camps. Many burial and cultural sites exist within the Test Site and are inaccessible to the people. No compensation was ever offered. The Western Shoshone are the most bombed nation on Earth, with over 1,000 nuclear bombs detonated on their lands by the U.S. and Great Britain.

In 1987, the Western Shoshone National Council exercised their sovereignty and challenged U.S. jurisdiction by issuing WSNC Land Use Permits to participants of anti-nuclear gatherings at the Nevada Test Site. Since that time, hundreds of simple trespass actions onto the Test Site have not been prosecuted, because the government wants to keep the issue of the Ruby Valley Treaty out of the courts.

The Yucca Mt. Nuclear Waste Repository

On February 14th, 2002, Energy Secretary Abraham recommended Yucca Mt. as the site for storage of all US irradiated reactor fuel and other high-level radioactive waste. If passed, the federal government would ' withdraw' (steal) another 260 square miles of Newe Sogobia. The DOE hopes to complete their license application by the end of 2008. The WSNC is completely opposed to the Yucca Mountain project, and has passed a resolution making all of New Sogobia a Nuclear-Free Zone. Litigation continues.

WSNC member Johnnie Bobb, a spiritual leader from the Yomba Shoshone Reservation, has led the annual spring Newene Sogobi Mava’a Mia: Western Shoshone Walk On the Sacred Land since 2000. Walkers and runners alternately encircle the western and eastern boundaries of the Test Site the first two years, ending at the NTS gates or Yucca Mountain. They conduct prayer ceremonies and vigils, visit communities, and bless waters, hot springs, all living beings and the land along the way.

Source.

Prison for Peacemakers in Tacoma, Washington

2011-03-29T01:24:00.000-07:00

From Common Dreams, please also follow the blog http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com/ for updates!

Two Grandmothers, Two Priests and a Nun Go onto a Nuclear Base

by Bill Quigley

Two grandmothers, two priests and a nun were sentenced in federal court in Tacoma, WA Monday March 28, 2011, for confronting hundreds of US nuclear weapons stockpiled for use by the deadly Trident submarines.

Sentenced were: Sr. Anne Montgomery, 83, a Sacred Heart sister from New York, who was ordered to serve 2 months in federal prison and 4 months electronic home confinement; Fr. Bill Bischel, 81, a Jesuit priest from Tacoma Washington, ordered to serve 3 months in prison and 6 months electronic home confinement; Susan Crane, 67, a member of the Jonah House community in Baltimore, Maryland, ordered to serve 15 months in federal prison; Lynne Greenwald, 60, a nurse from Bremerton Washington, ordered to serve 6 months in federal prison; and Fr. Steve Kelly, 60, a Jesuit priest from Oakland California, ordered to serve 15 months in federal prison. They were also ordered to pay $5300 each and serve an additional year in supervised probation. Bischel and Greenwald are active members of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, a community resisting Trident nuclear weapons since 1977.

What did they do?

In the darkness of All Souls night, November 2, 2009, the five quietly cut through a chain link perimeter fence topped with barbed wire.

Carefully stepping through the hole in the fence, they entered into the Kitsap-Bangor Navy Base outside of Tacoma Washington – home to hundreds of nuclear warheads used in the eight Trident submarines based there.

Walking undetected through the heavily guarded base for hours, they covered nearly four miles before they came to where the nuclear missiles are stored.

The storage area was lit up by floodlights. Dozens of small gray bunkers – about the size of double car garages - were ringed by two more chain link fences topped with taut barbed wire.

USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED one sign boldly proclaimed. Another said WARNING RESTRICTED AREA and was decorated with skull and crossbones.

This was it – the heart of the US Trident Pacific nuclear weapon program. Nuclear weapons were stored in the bunkers inside the double fence line.

Wire cutters cut through these fences as well. There they unfurled hand painted banners which said “Disarm Now Plowshares: Trident Illegal and Immoral”, knelt to pray and waited to be arrested as dawn broke.

What were they protesting against?

Each of the eight Trident submarines has 24 nuclear missiles on it. The Ground Zero community explains that each of the 24 missiles on one submarine have multiple warheads in it and each warhead has thirty times the destructive power of the weapon used on Hiroshima. One fully loaded Trident submarine carries 192 warheads, each designed to explode with the power of 475 kilotons of TNT force. If detonated at ground level each would blow out a crater nearly half a mile wide and several hundred feet deep.

The bunker area where they were arrested is where the extra missiles are stored.

In December 2010, the five went on trial before a jury in federal court in Tacoma charged with felony damage to government property, conspiracy and trespass.

But before the trial began the court told the defendants what they could and could not do in court. Evidence of the medical consequences of nuclear weapons? Not allowed. Evidence that first strike nuclear weapons are illegal under US and international law? Not allowed. Evidence that there were massive international nonviolent action campaigns against Trident missiles where juries acquitted protestors? Not allowed. The defense of necessity where violating a small law, like breaking down a door, is allowed where the actions are taken to prevent a greater harm, like saving a child trapped in a burning building? Not allowed.

Most of the jurors appeared baffled when defendants admitted what they did in their opening statements. They remained baffled when questions about nuclear weapons were objected to by the prosecutor and excluded by the court. The court and the prosecutor repeatedly focused the jury on their position that this was a trial about a fence. Defendants tried valiantly to point to the elephant in the room – the hundreds of nuclear weapons.

Each defendant gave an opening and closing statement explaining, as much as they were allowed, why they risked deadly force to expose the US nuclear arsenal.

Sojourner Truth was discussed as were Rosa Parks, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King.

The resistance of the defendants was in the spirit of the civil rights movement, the labor movement, the suffragist movement, the abolition of slavery movement.

Crowds packed the courtroom each of the five days of trial. Each night there was a potluck and a discussion of nuclear weapons by medical, legal and international experts who came for the trial but who were largely muted by the prosecution and the court.

While the jury held out over the weekend, ultimately, the activists were convicted.

Hundreds packed the courthouse today supporting the defendants. The judge acknowledged the good work of each defendant, admitted that prison was unlikely to deter them from further actions, but said he was bound to uphold the law otherwise anarchy would break out and take down society.

The prosecutors asked the judge to send all the defendants to federal prison plus three years supervised probation plus pay over five thousand dollars. The specific jail time asked for ranged from 3 years for Fr. Kelly, 30 months for Susan Crane, Lynne Greenwald, 7 months in jail plus 7 months home confinement, Sr. Anne Montgomery and Fr. Bill Bichsel, 6 months jail plus 6 months home confinement.

Each of the defendants went right into prison from the courtroom as the spectators sang to them. Outside the courthouse, other activists pledged to confront the Trident in whatever way is necessary to stop the illegal and immoral weapons of mass destruction.

--------------

Bill Quigley is part of the legal team supporting the defendants and was in Tacoma for the sentencing. You can learn more about the defendants at disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com.

Bill Quigley is Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He is a Katrina survivor and has been active in human rights in Haiti for years with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. Contact Bill at quigley77 @ gmail.com

Sacred Peace Walk: 18-24 April: Fried eggs and Nuclear Meltdown

2011-03-24T04:46:00.001-07:00

Mail from NDE's Jim in Kabul

2011-03-24T04:00:00.000-07:00

March 21, 2011
Jim Haber via email from Kabul, Afghanistan:

Today's discussions with the young Afghans was so powerful, hearing their individual stories. Also, they have specific ideas for us to share with our friends at home. We're looking forward to sharing with you the images of their actions, the powerful slogans that we can share and amplify. The candle light of hope that we hope to ignite with you, sparked from candles we return with from the vigil here the other night. Their commitment to ending the killing in their country is strong. The clarity with which they call on all the warring factions to stop killing is so powerful. The risks for peace they take are so real. The 25 members of this delegation are inspired by this small group to redouble our work to get their message out, to combat the ignorant perspectives of the people of Afghanistan.

People were warned about threats of violence today, the Afghan New Year, the first day of Spring. 50,000 people gathered, and throughout the city there was a bit of an earthquake in the afternoon, but no bombs or attacks. It was a day of celebration. Tomorrow, Mary Lou and I will visit a internally displaced person's camp on the edge of town. I'm sure it will be sobering, but we'll also have more to share when we return.

Finding Hope in Afghanistan
By Jake Olzen
March 20, 2011

In a country torn by thirty years of war where the promise of peace is continually broken, despair and resignation seem to be the norm for Afghan society. War – and its corollaries of social decay, poverty, corruption, and trauma – does not discriminate.

Not a family in Afghanistan has been left unaffected by the death or disappearance of a loved one and the daily, traumatizing stress of living in an occupied war zone. Billions of aid intended for reconstruction has been siphoned off leaving little left over for meaningful, local development.

Afghanistan is an unstable society wracked by corruption at nearly every level of government and a pervasive distrust of strangers and neighbors alike is the expectant result of such disintegration of social ties. But as the late Studs Terkel reminds us, “hope dies last.” And this is certainly true for the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, a small but growing group of young Afghans committed to a life of peace in the midst of so much violence.

While cynicism and disbelief run deep across generations, the AYPVs have an alternative vision for their country embedded deep in their hearts – and they believe this hope for peace is already in the heart of every Afghan.

Hope in the Afghan Spring
Fifty-five young saplings mark the beginning of a new year in Afghanistan. The various apple, apricot, and almond trees were planted in a Kabul elementary and high school as a sign of hope and promise of peace. Organized by the AYPVs, twenty-five international partners joined together with over fifty ordinary Afghans to declare a commitment to an Afghanistan without war.

The previous day, the AYPVS along with members of the Open Society organized and participated in an inter-ethnic walk for an end to the war. As far as anyone can tell, this is the first public gathering calling for peace in Afghanistan that is not politically aligned or sponsored. The bright blue scarves of the AYPVs, their smiles and words of gratitude to the accompanying riot police, and banners denouncing warmongering is a considerable different message that most Kabulis are not used to seeing or hearing.

The steadfast commitment to nonviolence of the AYPVs and their deep desire for peace offers a kind of hope that is unheard of in Afghanistan but it also offers a breath of fresh air. Slowly but surely the AYPVs and their partners – both Afghan and international – are growing into a sizable community with a peace-filled vision for Afghanistan.

The planting of trees is a small gesture indeed and the challenges for ending the foreign occupation of Afghanistan, confronting corruption and human rights abuses (particularly of women), and promoting a culture of peace are many. But the planting of trees is a beginning and it may very well be the birth of a movement that transforms Afghanistan.

Jake Olzen is a member of the White Rose Community in Chicago, Il. He writes from Kabul, Afghanistan. He can be reached at jake.olzen@gmail.com.

March 19th: Candlelight commemoration remembering the children recently killed in Afghanistan - Nau Roz

2011-03-19T04:00:00.000-07:00

From Kathy Kelly´s article on Antiwar.com, entitled One blue sky above us:

On March 19th, in Kabul, Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers will hold a candlelight commemoration, remembering the children recently killed in Afghanistan. Following this ceremony they will plant saplings as a symbol of their dedication to a nonviolent future. Their compassion extends beyond Afghanistan to young people in other lands, some of whom they will connect with through a "Global Day of Listening," a 24-hour Skype communication which they’ll host on the first day of spring, Afghanistan’s "Nau Roz" (New Year’s Day) holiday. Colorado College students, on their spring break, plan to participate.

Read the whole article http://original.antiwar.com/kathy-kelly/2011/03/18/one-blue-sky-above-us/">here.

International peace activists arrive in Afghanistan for week of actions

2011-03-19T02:12:00.000-07:00

From Wagingnonviolence.org

by Eric Stoner | March 18, 2011

A group of 28 peace activists from the US and Australia, including Waging Nonviolence contributors Simon Moyle, Jim Haber and Jake Olzen, has just arrived in Afghanistan. They immediately connected with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, a truly inspirational group of young people who I had the good fortune of getting to know during my trip there in December. As Voices for Creative Nonviolence co-coordinator Kathy Kelly explains in an article that was widely published today:

Last evening, they showed us photos of an unusual walk they’d held in the streets of downtown Kabul that morning. Dressed in white, with the young women wearing sky blue veils and the young men in the same color neck scarves, the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers carried sky blue and white banners proclaiming that Peace is a Pre-Requisite for Progress. They are seeking an end to wars in their country. “Why did you choose sky blue?” I asked. “Because it shows that there is just one sky over all of us,” Chahara replied. Although they came from different ethnicities and various provinces, they walked shoulder to shoulder, 40 of them, on a bright, warm day.

The delegation’s itinerary over the next few days is jam-packed. Kelly writes that:

On March 19th, in Kabul, Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers will hold a candlelight commemoration, remembering the children recently killed in Afghanistan. Following this ceremony they will plant saplings as a symbol of their dedication to a nonviolent future. Their compassion extends beyond Afghanistan to young people in other lands, some of whom they will connect with through a “Global Day of Listening,” a 24 hour Skype communication which they’ll host on the first day of spring [March 20], Afghanistan’s “Nau Roz” (New Year’s Day) holiday… (see: www.livewithoutwars.org and www.ourjourneytosmile.com or email globaldayoflistening@gmail.com to arrange participation for yourself and/or your community.

Hopefully over the next few days we will be running the dispatches from our contributors on the ground, so check back for updates on the work of these courageous activists.

Come to the desert for peace

2011-03-18T12:35:00.000-07:00

Nevada Desert Experience - In the Name of Love

Sr. Megan Rice on the Nevada Desert Experience Sacred Peace Walk

Exciting Additions to NDE Spring Activities

2011-03-17T04:14:00.000-07:00

NDE Represented in Delegation to Afghanistan for their New Years (Spring Equinox) "Day of the People's Peace"; Ways for Non-Travelers to Participate
Help NDE Send Two Shoshone Youth to DC for Alliance for Nuclear Accountability Lobby Days

Peace and Disarmament: Interfaith Perspectives

April 17 Forum at Islamic Society of Nevada Now Leads off NDE's Sacred Peace Walk (Note that April 26 is the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.)

Click here to view the Feb/March Newsletter

In Loving Memory of Sr. Rosemary Lynch (1917-2011), NDE Elder
Native Outrage at Nuclear Testing by Johnnie Bobb, Chief of the Western Shoshone National Council

The Creech-14 Verdict: Guilty of Protesting US Drones by the Creech-14
60 Years of Disaster: Finger Still on the Button by Jim Haber, NDE Coordinator

When Our Feet Pray: Walking in Memory of MLK by Candace Ross, Sekhmet Temple Priestess

DETAILS:
1. NDE Members Visiting Nonviolent Afghan Peace Activists

Jim Haber and Mary Lou Anderson of Las Vegas are privileged to be among the 26 international peace activists meeting with members of Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (AYPV) and other Afghans for Peace in Kabul, Afghanistan, March 17-24 in support of the "Journey to Smile" campaign. Traveling as “citizen diplomats,” they hope to learn first-hand about Afghan experiences and to support an AYPV project called “I Wish to Live Without Wars,” www.livewithoutwars.org. Trip organizers Voices for Creative Nonviolence led two smaller delegations in December and October of last year.

Please go to their action page to sign the "I Wish to Live Without Wars" petition and read about other ways to show solidarity with their courageous anti-violence/pro-peace work in Afghanistan. Sign up for their Facebook event. "Please join with your heart and spirit “I wish to live without wars,” which asks for your solidarity on the Day of the People’s Peace on March 21, 2011, which is also the Afghan News Year’s Day. We call everyone, anywhere, individually or in groups, to walk, plant trees or light candles in loving support of the mothers, youth and people of Afghanistan, as they walk, plant trees, and light candles to declare the peaceful wish of the People of Afghanistan to live without wars." (from the Action Page)
Of particular interest should be the Global Day of Listening, a 24 hour call in opportunity whereby people of the world can actually listen to people of Afghanistan and other war torn countries via voice over internet, Skype or international telephone connection. The first one, held in December, was powerful and memorable for listener and presenter alike. People from Afghanistan will be speaking from 8 to 11 pm Pacific Daylight Time on March 19.

Updates from Haber and Anderson will be posted on this NDE webpage which you can also find from the NDE homepage and on Twitter @NVDesertExp.

2. NDE Raising Money to Help 2 Western Shoshone Youth join Anti-Nuclear Lobbying Delegation to DC
Every year the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability holds their "DC Days" lobbying meetings in the Spring. Since the Sacred Peace Walk is also in the Spring, sometimes NDE and the state of Nevada are not represented as the delegations meet with members of Congress as well as some executive branch committees.

This year, we're excited to help two young members of the Western Shoshone Nation attend. We're hoping that you will want to help NDE in this effort by contributing specifically to support their travel expenses. Donzie Bobb and Jeremiah Jones are looking forward to meeting other anti-nuclear activists and to see some of what is going on in our nation's capitol, and to give voice to underrepresented views in the halls of government.

3. April 17 Interfaith Forum and Sacred Peace Walk, April 18 to 25

Peace & Disarmament: Interfaith Perspectives
Date & Time: Sunday, April 17, 3 to 5 pm

Location:
Islamic Center of Nevada
4730 East Desert Inn Road, Las Vegas 89121

The community of religions must not be seen as neutral on issues related to war and peace. We are on the side of peace, and we stand against all acts that put the creation of God in danger, especially those acts associated with weapons of mass destruction. To express its unambiguous support for movements of peace and disarmament, the interfaith community of Nevada is hosting this public forum. Come, join in taking a stand for life, love and dignity.

Confirmed Presenters:
(sharing from their lives, as informed by their respective faiths, and perhaps their faith in faith)
Aslam Abdullah, Masjid Imam and Executive Director, Islamic Society of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV
Johnnie Bobb, Chief, Western Shoshone National Council
Candace Ross, Priestess, Temple to Goddess Spirituality, Cactus Springs, NV
Robert "Bob" E. Stoeckig, Pastor, St. Andrew Catholic Community, Boulder City, NV
Mel Hecht, Retired Founding Rabbi, Temple Beth Am, Summerlin, NV

Co-sponsored by Nevada Desert Experience, The Islamic Society of Nevada, Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service, Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada, The Sekhmet Temple. (More sponsors to be added)

For more information, contact:
Nevada Desert Experience
702-646-4814
Jim@NevadaDesertExperience.org

Closing Thought
Please offer up prayers for our 5 dear friends of the Disarm Now Plowshares. They are to be sentenced on March 28 in Tacoma, Washington for their having entered to within one fence of the Trident D-5 missile bunkers at the Bangor-Kitsap Naval Base.

Sincerely,
Jim Haber, NDE Coordinator and Desert Voices Editor
jim@NevadaDesertExperience.org

NDE: International Activists Assemble in Kabul, March 17 – 24to Join Afghan Youth in Solidarity Delegation

2011-03-14T09:39:00.000-07:00

*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

*Contacts:

Jim Haber 415.828.2506 haber.jim@gmail.com
Mary Lou Anderson 775.219.5327 mlavegas@yahoo.com
Hakim (AYPV, Afghanistan) weeteckyoung@gmail.com
Joshua Brollier (VCNV, Chicago, IL) 773.878.3815 joshua@vcnv.org
Mario Intino (NDE, Las Vegas, NV) 702.806.4152 mario@cyberservo.com

*International Activists Assemble in Kabul, March 17 – 24 to Join Afghan Youth in Solidarity Delegation*

Jim Haber and Mary Lou Anderson of Las Vegas will be among the international peace activists meeting with members of Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (AYPV), in Kabul, Afghanistan, March 17-24, 2011.

Traveling as “citizen diplomats,” they hope to learn about Afghan experiences and to support an AYPV campaign called “I Wish to Live Without Wars,”. Updates from Haber and Anderson will be posted on an NDE webpage and on Twitter @NVDesertExp (and on this blog and on the facebook page).

Haber and Anderson are coordinator and a volunteer, respectively, with Nevada Desert Experience (NDE). Founded to resist nuclear weapons work at the Nevada National Security Site, NDE has recently been in the forefront of the movement against the increasingly deadly use of Predator pilotless aircraft in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Many Predator “drones” are controlled from Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, NV.NDE also facilitates personal renewal in the desert tradition, honoring the land, as people of the Earth.

“I look forward to meeting the brave citizens and youth groups of Afghanistan, listening to their dreams, their strife; sharing some joy, knowledge and hope for a violence-free future,” Anderson said about her reasons for going on this journey. Haber added, “One doesn't have to go there to have solidarity with average Afghans, beset by violence from so many quarters, both foreign and domestic. However, I feel called to see for myself, to meet peacemakers there who I have been supporting in my long-standing work against US war-making and other brutalizing forces in Afghanistan.”

The AYPVs have asked the international delegation to help promote the second “Live Without Wars, Global Day of Listening” and to support their other anti-violence activities in Kabul in celebration of the Afghan New Year which is March 21, the first day of Spring. Afghans of many ethnicities will walk for peace together, followed by a tree planting take on Saturday, March 19, the Global Day of Listening on Sunday, March 20 (starting on 3/19 in Las Vegas), and the candle lighting on Monday, March 21.

Like the group Afghans for Peace, AYPV calls for an end to war. Determined not to exacerbate spiraling violence based on desires for revenge, members encourage wide-scale friendships of love and truth that will cross all borders towards nonviolent and conciliatory relations. They ask, “Why not love?”

During 2010, Voices for Creative Nonviolence members spent three weeks in October and again in December as guests of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, first in Bamiyan and then in Kabul. As in those trips, Anderson, Haber and the other 22 delegation members will meet with representatives of various NGOs and with leaders of civil society. They will also meet with Afghans who have been displaced by the war and now endure wretched conditions in a Kabul refugee camp.

*Voices for Creative Nonviolence has deep, long-standing roots in active nonviolent resistance to U.S. war-making. Begun in the summer of 2005, Voices draws upon the experiences of those who challenged the brutal economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and U.N. against the Iraqi people between 1990 and 2003.

Nevada Desert Experience has been organizing interfaith resistance to nuclear weapons and war since the mid-1980s. Through campaigns of education, dialogue and nonviolent direct action, NDE works against development and use of nuclear and other new weapons systems.

WA: Week of Sentencing! March 26th for the Disarm Now Plowshares

2011-03-10T11:32:00.000-08:00

From: Disarm Now Plowshares

Week of Sentencing!

Here is the most current schedule of events leading up to and including the sentencing of the Disarm Now Plowshares. Please note that changes might occur, and we will keep this schedule updated, so check back on the day of each event for any last minute changes.

Please also note that you can still write letters of support on behalf of the Disarm Now Plowshares co-defendants. Go to the “Support Us” page to learn more. Thanks!

SATURDAY MARCH 26 - 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm. Vigil at the US Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor Main (Trident Ave.) Gate.

SUNDAY MARCH 27 – 10:30 a.m. MASS AT ST. LEO CHURCH, 710 South 13th St., Tacoma, Fr. Pat Lee, SJ, Oregon Provincial

SUNDAY MARCH 27 – 5:30 p.m. FESTIVAL OF HOPE AT ST. LEO CHURCH, Potluck Dinner, Music by St. Leo’s Choir, Mooncoyne, Native American Drummers. Speakers include BISHOP THOMAS J. GUMBLETON– longtime peace activist and founding member of Pax Christi.

MONDAY MARCH 28 – 9:00 a.m. SENTENCING for all five Disarm Now Plowshares co-defendants begins at the U.S. District (Union Station) Courthouse, Tacoma. 8:00 a.m. Vigil in front of the Union Station Courthouse in support of Disarm Now Plowshares. Come out and support them!

Click here for directions and parking information for the Tacoma Union Station Courthouse.

Post Sentencing Gathering to be determined.

For more information and/or if you need hospitality, please call Bix at 253-304-6612.

For housing, contact Karen at karenh@harbornet.com or call her at 253-627-0486.

Azerbaijan starts production of Israeli drones

2011-03-10T11:25:00.000-08:00

From: News-AZ

Thu 10 March 2011

Production of drones has started at Azad Systems, a joint venture between Azerbaijan's Defence Industry Ministry and Israeli manufacturer Aeronautics.

Azad Systems, which was formally opened by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev last week, is producing the Orbiter 2M and Aerostar unmanned aircraft, Fineco/ABC reported.

The Orbiter 2M has four to five hours of free flight at an altitude of 4-6 km, while the Aerostar can fly for 12 hours at an altitude of up to 10 km.

Azerbaijan has already created a flight control centre for the Orbiter 2M, Fineco/ABC said.

Sources in Israel indicate that the close cooperation between Israeli company Aeronautics and Rafael Advanced Defence Systems may result in the production or assembly of some Rafael systems in the new Azad Systems facility, according to Flightglobal website.

Aeronautics is the third-largest Israeli UAV manufacturer, after Israel Aerospace Industries and Elbit Systems.

Aeronautics has formed a similar joint venture in Spain and the facility there will start operations by mid-2011.

In recent years, Israel has become a major arms supplier to Azerbaijan. The deals so far include artillery systems, communications equipment and UAVs of the same types that will be now assembled locally.

Azerbaijan's defence industry minister, Yaver Jamalov, said in May 2010 that negotiations were under way with an Israeli company on the joint production of pilotless aircraft, but did not name the company involved.

Azad Systems has also started production of a four-seat passenger aircraft, the Diamond DA42.

News.Az

Wired: Prisoners Help Build Patriot Missiles

2011-03-09T12:20:00.000-08:00

By Noah Shachtman
In: Wired
March 8, 2011

This spring, the United Arab Emirates is expected to close a deal for $7 billion dollars’ worth of American arms. Nearly half of the cash will be spent on Patriot missiles, which cost as much as $5.9 million apiece.

But what makes those eye-popping sums even more shocking is that some of the workers manufacturing parts for those Patriot missiles are prisoners, earning as little as 23 cents an hour. (Credit Justin Rohrlich with the catch.)

The work is done by Unicor, previously known as Federal Prison Industries. It’s a government-owned corporation, established during the Depression, that employs about 20,000 inmates in 70 prisons to make everything from clothing to office furniture to solar panels to military electronics.

One of the company’s high-tech specialties: Patriot missile parts. “UNICOR/FPI supplies numerous electronic components and services for guided missiles, including the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missile,” Unicor’s website explains. “We assemble and distribute the Intermediate Frequency Processor (IFP) for the PAC-3s seeker. The IFP receives and filters radio-frequency signals that guide the missile toward its target.”

The missiles are then marketed worldwide — sometimes by Washington’s top officials. Last year, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pitched the Patriots to the Turkish government last year, a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks reveals: “SecDef stressed that ‘nothing can compete with the PAC-3 when it comes to capabilities.’”

Patriot assemblers Raytheon and Lockheed Martin aren’t the only defense contractors relying on prison help. As Rohrlich notes, Unicor “inmates also make cable assemblies for the McDonnell Douglas/Boeing F-15, the General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin F-16, Bell/Textron’s Cobra helicopter, as well as electro-optical equipment for the BAE Systems Bradley Fighting Vehicle’s laser rangefinder.”

Unicor used to make helmets for the military, as well. But that work was suspended when 44,000 helmets were recalled for shoddy quality.
Government agencies — with the exception of the Defense Department and the CIA — are required to buy goods from Unicor, according to a Congressional Research Service report (.pdf). And no wonder: the labor costs are bordering on zero. “Inmates earn from $0.23 per hour up to a maximum of $1.15 per hour, depending on their proficiency and educational level, among other things,” the report notes.

Last year, Unicor grossed $772 million, according to its most recent financial report (.pdf). Traditionally, inmate salaries make up about five percent of that total.

Unicor insists that the deal is a good one for inmates — and for the government. The manufacturing work offers a chance for job training, which “improves the likelihood that inmates will remain crime-free upon their release,” the company says in its report. (Some reports suggest that Unicor prisoners are as much as 24% less likely to return to crime.)

The work also keeps the inmates in check, Unicor insists. “In the face of an escalating inmate population and an increasing percentage of inmates with histories of violence, FPI’s programs have helped ease tension and avert volatile situations, thereby protecting lives and federal property,” the company says. “Prisons without meaningful activities for inmates are dangerous prisons, and dangerous prisons are expensive prisons.”

Technical advise...

2011-02-19T04:37:00.000-08:00

Anonymous “technical advisor” for the US Consulate in Lahore Raymond Davis, two anonymous motorcyclists gunned down on the streets and a major diplomatic row over the intricacies of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic immunity.

This hardly made for a “simple” story in the first place, but rumors and preliminary reports from unnamed officials are putting a number of new spins on this incident which could potentially turn this into one of the seediest scandals imaginable.

That is because investigators reportedly found GPS targeting chips on Davis, the kind which were used in the US drone attacks in North Waziristan. Adding to the intrigue, Davis is said to have made several unauthorized visits to North Waziristan before his arrest.

If that sounds a little far-fetched, there’s another piece of evidence tying this together. After attacks several times a week there hasn’t been a single US drone strike in the tribal areas in the past 25 days, and they stopped just a couple of days before Davis’ arrest.

What about the two cyclists? The ones Davis said were trying to “rob” him and that he shot in the back, including one he jumped out of the car and ran down the street to finish off? Reports have been around from the start that they may have been spies for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, and if Davis was indeed involved in the drone strikes, it might well explain their interest in him.

Obviously all of this is pretty speculative, but the story of impossible intrigue and diplomatic dispute does seem internally consistent, and only adds another reason why this story will simply not vanish from headlines in Pakistan.

(Antiwar Newswire)

NY: Unmanned drones, controlled by Air National Guard from Hancock Airfield, will fly over the Adirondacks

2011-02-10T02:31:00.000-08:00

From: The Post-Standard, at Syracuse.com, by Dave Tobin, Feb 6, 2011

If you feel like you’re being watched while floating in a canoe or driving along some lonely road in the Adirondacks this summer, you might be right.

In June, the New York Air National Guard’s 174th Fighter Wing in Syracuse plans to begin regular unmanned surveillance flights from Fort Drum over the Adirondacks.

The training mission of the drones, called Reapers, will mark the first ongoing flights east of the Mississippi with aircraft that don’t have people in them.

The 174th’s New York flights will train pilots (who remotely fly the planes) and sensor operators (who monitor video shot from the plane). The Reapers, or MQ-9s, will be controlled from a station at Hancock Airfield, the same place from which the 174th is flying Reapers over Afghanistan.

The New York flights will not be armed and should be undetectable by those on the ground.

The new training mission shows the Syracuse air guard unit’s prominence in the growing role of unmanned military aircraft. It also hints at the looming issues of civil liberties and air safety that come with government surveillance by unmanned aircraft over American soil.

MQ-9 Reaper Video Courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection The MQ-9, or Reaper drone, is an unmanned aerial vehicle that the 174th Fighter Wing of the New York Air National Guard plans to begin flying from Syracuse in training missions over a portion of the Adirondacks this summer. For the past year the airwing has been flying Reapers from Syracuse over Afghanistan. U.S. Customs and Border Protection already flies the MQ-9 along U.S. land borders. The drone can stay in the air up to 20 hours. It has highly sensitive optical, infrared and synthetic aperture radar sensors that can see in great detail from miles away. Video courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Watch video

U.S. Customs and Border Protection flew an unarmed MQ-9 over northern New York for 30 days of testing during the summer of 2009. That craft launched from Fort Drum and was operated from North Dakota and Arizona.

The agency’s seven MQ-9s regularly fly along the southern U.S. border and the northern U.S. border west of Minnesota. With its highly sensitive cameras and radar, the drone can “see” people crossing a border 20 miles away, said John Priddy, the agency’s director of air operations in Grand Forks, N.D.

The border patrol hopes to regularly fly MQ-9s over northern New York by 2016. When that happens, the agency plans to operate them from North Dakota, Priddy said.

The FAA, which has created an Unmanned Aircraft Program Office, has been cautious about allowing unmanned aircraft flights in unrestricted airspace. There is no reliable technology to help unmanned aircrafts “sense and avoid” other aircraft.

The MQ-9’s accident rate is seven times the general aviation rate, and 353 times the commercial aviation rate, based on a few thousand hours of drone flights by the border patrol.

At a Jan. 13 presentation to the Adirondack Park Agency, Col. Charles “Spider” Dorsey, the 174th Fighter Wing’s vice commander, touted the safety of Air Force MQ-9s. His data, based on about 70,000 flight hours, comes from the military’s experience flying mostly in war zones where there is almost no commercial or civilian traffic.

U.S. Air Force Reapers like this one at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., are capable of carrying both precision-guided bombs and air-to-ground missiles.

The Air Force Reaper’s accident rate is similar to the F-16 fighter jet for the same number of hours flown, Dorsey said. The Air Force and Air National Guard have had 10 major accidents with the Reaper (causing death, permanent disability or the plane’s destruction). Seven were caused by human error, three by aircraft malfunction, he said. Most came during landings.

Once the “sense and avoid” issue is resolved, domestic use of drones is expected to rise rapidly, according to the FAA.

As of Dec. 1, the FAA had issued 273 authorizations to fly at least 72 different types of unmanned aircraft. Some are the size of birds and launched by hand. The Miami Dade police department recently bought a RQ-16 T-hawk drone, which takes off vertically, looks like a small robot and can fly as high as 10,000 feet for more than 40 minutes.

The 174th Fighter Wing has been flying the heavily armed Reaper in Afghanistan since December 2009. The 174th’s Hancock base is one of six sites in the nation from which Reapers in Afghanistan are flown.

For the northern New York training missions, the 174th Fighter Wing has requested permission initially for Reapers to fly above 18,000 feet, over general aviation planes. When “sense and avoid” gear develops, the 174th plans to fly at lower altitude.

Practice following cars

The Reapers’ high altitude and relative quiet make them hard to detect, which has contributed to their heavy use for surveillance in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, where the CIA flies them.

An unarmed Reaper can fly up to 20 hours, cruise at roughly 180 mph as high as 40,000 feet, loitering over targets.

For training maneuvers over New York, the Reapers will randomly follow vehicles or circle over buildings, giving pilots and operators experience watching something on the ground, Dorsey said.

A possible exercise might be to sight “the next car driving north across the Black River out of Castorland, and track that vehicle as it makes turns, goes under trees and behind barns,” Dorsey said.

Would someone know they were being watched? asked Leilani Crafts Ulrich, an APA commissioner.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection imageAn MQ-9 drone's imaging equipment snapped this electro-optical image of a scene 12 miles away. The imaging equipment includes an infrared device.

“No,” Dorsey said. “They’d have no way of knowing they were targeted.”

During training, Reapers will not monitor specific people or places, Dorsey said. Department of Defense regulations prohibit targeted surveillance of U.S. citizens in training missions.

However, DOD does allow exceptions with approval from the secretary of defense. In such cases, surveillance data is turned over to agencies such as border patrol, FBI, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and the Coast Guard, the regulation states.

Use by police agencies

At Fort Drum, a new $2.7 million Reaper hangar and control station is planned to be built at Wheeler Sack Army Airfield by 2012, said Lt. Col. Fred Tomaselli, military airspace manager for the N.Y. Air National Guard.

For live missile training, the 174th is seeking permission to fly Reapers within a small restricted flight zone over Fort Drum and eventually over part of Lake Ontario.

Similar training observations over the Adirondacks were made by pilots of F-16s, which the 174th flew for more than 20 years, Dorsey said. The 158th Fighter Wing of the Vermont Air National Guard still flies F-16s over the Adirondacks.

By 2014, the 174th plans to fly Reapers inside the same flight zones that F-16 fighter jets flew, a broad expanse over the Adirondacks and Lake Ontario, as well as between Syracuse and Fort Drum.

The guard doesn’t have FAA approval to fly drones between Syracuse and Fort Drum. When Reapers need to be moved, they are taken apart and trucked.

The 174th Fighter Wing has a school to teach Reaper maintenance in Syracuse. It is seeking approval for a flight school to teach pilots and operators. Students could include military personnel from Italy, Spain, Germany, Canada and Turkey, according to Air Force documents.

Months ago, the 174th wing commander, Col. Kevin Bradley said his unit plans to have three cockpits (or control stations) at Hancock, each responsible for up to four Reapers overseas. Maj. Jeff Brown, spokesman for the Fighter Wing, would not say whether the 174th had met its goals.

Police agencies in Texas, Maryland, Florida and Colorado are already flying some version of unmanned air vehicles, the Washington Post recently reported. At this point the FAA grants authorization to police agencies on a case-by-case basis.

In New York state, the 174th could be called upon by state or civil authorities to fly Reapers during emergencies, Dorsey said.

“Let’s say Nine Mile Point (nuclear reactor) suffered a major radiation leak, he said. “You wouldn’t want a manned aircraft up there monitoring it.”

--Contact Dave Tobin at dtobin@syracuse.com or 470-3277.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/02/unmanned_drones_controlled_by.html

Eight activists arrested at the Nevada Test Site

2011-02-01T04:40:00.000-08:00

From: KNTV
Updated: Jan 30, 2011

Las Vegas, NV—Marking the 60th year since the first atomic bomb was tested on land belonging to the Western Shoshone National Council, near Indian Springs, Nevada, eight activists stepped onto the land and were immediately arrested by Nye County police.

The Western Shoshone National Council had issued permits for the activists to enter their land. "You bless the land with each of your footsteps," said Johnnie Bobb, a leader of the Western Shoshone Nation. Taken into custody immediately after stepping onto the land were: George Homanich, Judy Homanich, Mary Lou Anderson, Renee Espeland, Brian Terrell, Denis DuVall, Jim Haber and Jerry Zawada.

On January 27th, 2011, five of the eight were sentenced to time served after Judge Jansen found them guilty of trespass for an April 2009 entry into Creech Air Force base. Judy Homanich, Renee Espeland, Brian Terrell, Denis DuVall and Jerry Zawada were among the "Creech 14."

Jim Haber, coordinator of the Nevada Desert Experience, noted that the Nye County Sherriff's office accepted as valid forms of identification the permits issued to the activists by the Western Shoshone National Council.

‘Creech 14’ found guilty of trespassing, judge says ‘go in peace’

2011-01-27T11:54:00.000-08:00

By Dave Toplikar
Las Vegas Sun

Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011, Creech Air Force Base

A Las Vegas judge on Thursday handed down a decision that got a mixed reaction from protesters of drone warfare who were arrested for trespassing nearly two years ago at Creech Air Force Base in Southern Nevada.

Judge William Jansen, in a 20-page decision, ruled that the "Creech 14" who protested April 9, 2009, at the base, were guilty of the crime of trespassing.

But the judge also decided that the defendants, who stood trial for the misdemeanor offense last September in his courtroom, would be given credit for the time they served in jail and would be free to go.

"Go in peace," were Jansen's final words to the defendants after an hour-long court proceeding this morning in Las Vegas Justice Court.

The judge also urged them to use diplomacy, rather than trespassing, in their attempts to get U.S. drone warfare policy changed.

There was some scattered applause in the crowded courtroom upon hearing the defendants wouldn't get jail time — but the defendants weren't pleased about the judge's guilty verdict.

The protesters had argued there was "necessity" that compelled them to act. As someone might trespass onto private property to save a child from a burning building, they said they were trying to stop drone warfare from killing civilians thousands of miles away in Afghanistan.

However, in his conclusion, Jansen said that "Defendants' motivation for why they committed the offense is irrelevant and does not constitute a defense to the charge. Moreover, defendants are unable to show that their conduct was compelled by true 'necessity' as that doctricne has been defined by various courts."

Before handing down sentences, the judge allowed each of the defendants to make statements. Each of those who spoke said they disagreed that what they were doing wasn't out of necessity.

Those found guilty of the misdemeanor charge are the Rev. John Dear, a Jesuit priest; Dennis DuVall; Renee Espeland; Judy Homanich; Kathy Kelly; the Rev. Steve Kelly, a Jesuit priest; Mariah Klusmire; Brad Lyttle; Libby Pappalardo; Sister Megan Rice, a member of the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus; Brian Terrell; Eve Tetaz; and the Revs. Louie Vitale and Jerry Zawada, both Franscican priests.

60 Years of Disaster

2011-01-27T07:06:00.000-08:00

by Jim Haber, Coordinator of Nevada Desert Experience

January 27 marks 60 years since the first atomic bomb test in Nevada. Codenamed “Able” it was tiny for a nuclear weapon: the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT, about 1/15 the size of the bomb that killed upwards of 130,000 people in Hiroshima. Anniversaries are times to reflect, so what is the legacy of the Nevada Test Site (NTS), now called the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS)? What is the current state of the NNSS and what is going on there? Are the nation and world safer for all the Cold War and post-Cold War efforts? As the NNSS re-purposes itself to focus more on detecting and containing national security threats, it still stands as a world-wide symbol of the making of weapons of mass destruction. The name change is intended to reassert its relevance in the absence of exploding nuclear devices, but the inherent problem of the NTS remains. The NNSS is always able to resume testing nuclear weapons within two years should the president order it.

Testing of nuclear weapons didn't only happen at the Nevada Test Site. Historians even argue that using the bombs on Japan rather than demonstrating them on an unpopulated location constitute human experimentation. Treating victims as research subjects rather than patients was widely reported in Japan, as well as from victims of atmospheric testing in the 1950s. Targeting civilians was and remains a crime against humanity, as does threatening nuclear attack on non-nuclear states, no matter how repressive their leaders.

We, as a people, caused much worldwide grief for our part in the Cold War, which used small countries as battlegrounds with no concern for local populations or environments. Official tours of the NNSS and the displays at the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas exhibit great pride in the NTS' Cold War role. There is little mention in their history about efforts to stop testing and other parts of the nuclear weapons complex. Efforts to shut down the Soviet nuclear test site in Kazakhstan or French test sites in Africa and the South Pacific garner barely a word. Only a limited view is presented.

At the NNSS which is run by the Department of Energy (blurring the lines between civilian and military in this country), military nuclear waste is buried even as remediation efforts elsewhere are undertaken. The detection and first responder trainings are only defensive in nature if we concurrently support the leadership of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its mission to monitor nuclear programs around the world. Unilateral or bilateral agreements that ignore the mandate of the IAEA actually encourage other states to seek nuclear weapons to be seen as worthy players on the international stage.

The United States military budget is on par with military spending of all other countries combined. When the US attacks countries that don't have nuclear weapons, it makes the possession of nuclear weapons seem like a necessary deterrent. But if more countries have deterrent forces, then we've lost the disarmament fight.

Taking the land of the Western Shoshone and other native peoples to use it for nuclear testing is not just. Forcing the people of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands to live on tiny Ebeye Island, creating one of the most densely populated places on Earth is not just. Stealing and contaminating native hunting and fishing grounds is not just.

Thank God so few countries have tested or possess nuclear weapons. The global consensus is clearly to eliminate all nuclear weapons. "Stockpile Stewardship" tests at the NNSS, along with missile tests in the Pacific are undermining the credibility of the U.S.'s agreement to seriously reduce nuclear stockpiles. Sharing nuclear technology with violators and abstainers of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while threatening countries not in egregious, well-documented breaches of the NPT is not just and promotes horizontal proliferation. Hence, continued testing whether they're full-scale tests or not, signals to the world that the US will keep its finger on the button and will brook no new players in the nuclear game.

When we devise ways for nuclear weapons to be more precise and kill fewer civilians, to be more militarily useful, we undermine the international consensus against all weapons of mass destruction. And how many design upgrades and revisions can be implemented and still not require a real test? At some point, unless we in the United States get serious about pressuring our government to cut its nuclear weapons arsenal, the Nevada Desert will again quake with detonations...and be filled with peacemakers crashing the gates like in the 1980s to shut it down once and for all. This anniversary should serve as a time to work for peace and disarmament.

# # #

Jim Haber is the Coordinator of Nevada Desert Experience (NDE) which organizes interfaith resistance to nuclear weapons and war. Jim is on the War Resisters League National Committee, and he edited the 2008 WRL Peace Calendar. Jim is also very active with Jewish Voice for Peace, the G.I. Rights Hotline and the Catholic Worker movement. He can be reached at: jim[at]nevadadesertexperience.org.

The Judge Will DECIDE!

2011-01-20T10:48:00.000-08:00

January 27, 2011

The Creech 14 were arrested in April 2009, the State of Nevada prosecuted the case on September 14th 2010. The judge recognized the social justice significance and decided to withhold judgement for at least 90 days.

Come hear his announcement with the Creech 14 at the Regional Justice Center, 200 Lewis Ave., Las Vegas, (8th Floor).

That will coincidentally be the 60th anniversary of nuclear testing at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS--formerly the NTS/NPG).

January 27 from 7:30 to 8:15am: Pre-verdict rally @ Lewis St and 3rd (outside Regional Justice Center). This rally/vigil happens just prior to the court hearing in which Hon. William Jansen will pronounce his verdict--4 months and 13 days after the trial ended.

January 27 from 3:00 to 5:00pm: Public Vigil @ Las Vegas Blvd at Tropicana on pedestrian overpasses

January 28 from 6:30 to 8:00am & 3:30 to 5:00pm: Vigils at Creech Air Force Base in opposition to remote-controlled "hunter-killer drones" from Indian Springs.

January 29 from 11am to 1pm: Prayerful Memorial Observance of the 60th Anniversary of 1st Nuclear Bomb Test in NV. This event is @ the entrance to the Nevada National Security Site (formerly called the Nevada Test Site)--Mercury exit of US-95, 65 miles northwest of Vegas. The actual anniversary is January 27th, but our Memorial Observance is January 29th.

Peace Platoon in Las Vegas

2011-01-20T07:06:00.000-08:00

This year, Nevada Desert Experience, Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service, the Las Vegas Catholic Worker and the Sekhmet Temple to Goddess Spirituality walked as the "Peace Platoon" in the Las Vegas Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday celebration.

Our handouts, and the excerpts of Dr. King that we played on our sound system brought to light the pacifist King, the man who preached against the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism. It was a fun, beautiful, uplifting day!

(Photo of Mark and the others: Jim Haber. More photos here)

Nuclear abolitionists to face trial at the birthplace of the bomb

2011-01-20T01:20:00.000-08:00

For Immediate Release: January 19, 2011

On February 8, a jury in Los Alamos, New Mexico, will hear the case against six people charged with trespass during a demonstration against expansion of the nuclear weapons production complex at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The August 6, 2010 demonstration involved over 120 people, led by Think Outside the Bomb youth at the conclusion of their ten-day Disarmament Summer encampment in nearby Chimayo. They observed the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, with a spirited march through the town and up to the gate of the plutonium processing facility.

Eight people joined a sit-in at the gatehouse for half an hour until they were taken into custody by Los Alamos police. They were cited and released the same day. Two later pled no contest, and were sentenced to fines and probation.

Defendants Jason Ahmadi, 25, and Jeff Freitas, 26, from California; Bryan Martin, 24, from Boise, Idaho; Lisa Fithian, 49, from Austin, Texas; and Sr. Megan Rice, 80, from Las Vegas, Nevada, will be represented by attorney Mary Lou Boelcke, while defendant Jack Cohen-Joppa, 54, from Tucson, Arizona, and will represent himself. Their trial is set to begin at 9:00 a.m., Tuesday, February 8, in the Los Alamos County courtroom of Magistrate Pat Casados, 2500 Trinity Drive, Los Alamos. Jury selection will begin at 8:00 a.m.

Expert testimony about the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the proposed expansion of the plutonium pit facility is expected to be heard from Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, and Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group. The recent passage of the START Treaty has created an illusion about disarmament. The Obama Administrations is seeking $180 billion + to rebuild the nation's nuclear weapons production capacity and delivery systems.

Opposition to the Obama administration's plan is growing and resulted in arrests last year at the three major factory sites in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Kansas City, Missouri; and Los Alamos.

The February 8 trial in Los Alamos will be the first of these cases heard by a jury. Fines, probation and short jail sentences resulted from state trials in Missouri and Tennessee, while thirteen people still await trial May 9 in federal court in Knoxville, Tennessee, after crossing the line at Oak Ridge last July 5.

For more information contact:

Lisa Putkey, 505-351-0970 or 650-303-1353 (messages)

Updates posted at http://tna.lovarchy.org/trial.html
###

Dear friends and supporters:

On August 6, 2010, the 65th Anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, eight people were arrested blocking the gate to the plutonium pit production facility at Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory, following a demonstration against the expansion of the nuclear weapons complex. Six of us will face a jury trial on February 8 in Los Alamos, New Mexico. We could use your support.

We are asking for donations from both individuals and groups - even $6 - one dollar for each of us will be a big help! Your contribution will support educational work around the trial, expenses for the volunteer expert witnesses and our pro bono attorney.

Take a stand with us against new nuclear weapons production and help protect our right to do it.

Contributions can be made payable to TOTB and mailed to Think Outside the Bomb, c/o Lisa Putkey, POB 508, Chimayo, NM 87522.

You are also invited to be present at our trial! Details about other events at the time of the trial are forthcoming. (We invite you to circulate the preceding media/movement advisory on activist lists along with this appeal for donations! Thanks!)

With great appreciation,

The LANL Six:

Jason Ahmadi
Jack Cohen-Joppa
Lisa Fithian
Jeff Freitas
Bryan Martin
Sr. Megan Rice

Bangor protestors face prison with no regrets

2011-01-16T03:49:00.000-08:00

From King 5:

by TONYA MOSLEY / KING 5 News

NWCN.comhttp://www.nwcn.com/news/washington/Bangor-protestors-face-prison-with-no-regrets-113825804.html

Posted on January 15, 2011 at 5:51 PM

Updated yesterday at 6:05 PM

POULSBO, Wash. - At the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action on Saturday there was a celebration of what Martin Luther King Junior stood for, and a celebration of the Bangor 5.

Eighty-four-year old Anne Montgomery is the oldest of the "Disarm Now Plowshares," convicted in December of breaking into the Kitsap Bangor Naval Base outside of Bremerton.

Now in their golden years, they face 10 years in federal prison with no regrets.
"We take responsibility, we don't walk away, and prison comes out of that," said Montgomery.

For decades they stood outside of the base - protesting the storage of nuclear weapons. But two years ago, they cut through barbed wire and onto the base.
The five were charged with trespassing and destroying property.
"We have a responsibility and we're grateful we had that opportunity to speak out the atrocities that exist on the other side of the fence here," said Lynne Greenwald.

Sister Rosemary Lynch, 93, founder of group against violence, dies after car hits her

2011-01-15T14:41:00.000-08:00

Justin M. Bowen

Rosemary Lynch (right) and Ida Antoszewska talk with Sen. Harry Reid Saturday, October 16, 2010 during the rally with the Nevada Alliance for Retired Americans at Painters Hall in Henderson.

Source: Las Vegas Sun

By Jackie Valley

Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2011 | 1:55 a.m.

Courtesy Jim Haber

Sister Rosemary Lynch (standing) is shown during a meeting in August 2008.

Courtesy photo

Sister Rosemary Lynch during a 90th birthday celebration at the Nevada Test Site in 2007.

Friends say the legacy of Sister Rosemary Lynch, who died Sunday in Las Vegas at age 93, will be carried on in the many lives she touched along her journey fighting for the well-being of all people.

Lynch, who co-founded Pace e Bene, an organization promoting nonviolence, was walking with fellow Franciscan Sister Klaryta Antoszewska in their Las Vegas neighborhood Wednesday near Bartlett Avenue when a car "brushed" against her and she fell, said Jim Haber, coordinator of the Nevada Desert Experience, a movement Lynch became affiliated with tied to the Nevada Test Site.

She suffered a concussion, internal bleeding and fractures in the fall and died four days later at the hospital.
"Her legacy will be many spiritual children who have learned from her who will carry the vision of Sister Rosemary — the vision of what it means to be created in the image of God and respect each other," said longtime friend Peter Ediger, who helped co-found Pace e Bene.

Lynch wore many hats during her life — teacher, religious servant, social activist — but her mission in all roles resembled the meaning of Pace e Bene, which is Italian for "peace and good," Ediger said.
"Her passion was to find the divine in people and cultivate that," he said. "Beyond the people, she also had a deep compassion for honoring all of created life."

Born in Phoenix, Lynch became a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity community in 1932. After taking her vows in 1934, she went on to teach at a Catholic school in Los Angeles followed by a stint as principal at a high school in Montana.

From there, she went to Rome as a representative for her congregation. Her 15 years in Rome included the Second Vatican Council.

Lynch joined the staff of the Franciscan Center in Las Vegas when she returned to the United States in 1977. Once in Las Vegas, she began visiting Nevada's nuclear test site.

She was part of the first "Lenten Desert Experience" at the Nevada Test Site in 1982 to protest ongoing nuclear testing and violence. The movement later became known as the Nevada Desert Experience, which still exists today.

It was during those protests that Ediger said Lynch's character was exposed: She protested issues involving the test site — not the people on the other side of the debate, he said.
In fact, Ediger said, through her social activism, Lynch developed "very warm human relationships" with the people in support of the test site.

"In our culture, no one listens to each other," he said. "She was able to go beyond that."
Lynch retired in 2004 and became the first "Pace e Bene elder," continuing to promote nonviolence.
Haber said Lynch demonstrated her passionate personality in November when David Rovics, an acoustic performer who plays songs of social significance, visited with her.
"Some other people left as time went on, but Rosemary was so grateful for the beauty of the music and the political content that she stayed until the end," he said.

A memorial service will be held for her Jan. 23 at St. James Catholic Church, 1920 N. Martin Luther King Blvd. Memorial gifts in honor of Lynch may be sent to Franciscan Sisters Social Programs, 6517 Ruby Red Circle, Las Vegas, NV, 89108. The funds will be used for local refugee ministries, Pace e Bene and the Nevada Desert Experience.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/jan/11/sister-rosemary-lynch-93-founder-group-against-vio/

Remembering Sr. Rosemary Lynch (1917-2011)

2011-01-11T13:53:00.000-08:00

Sr. Rosemary Lynch, OSF:
Apostle of Nonviolence In full bloom 

this desert Rose 
four score years and ten 
speaks truth petals across continents 
gardens the spirituality of nonviolence 
through the generations.

—Peter Ediger, marking Sr. Rosemary’s 90th birthday in 2007

Franciscan Sister Rosemary Lynch, who throughout her life was an instrument of peace nurturing reverence and love for all living things, died on January 9 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

On Wednesday, January 5 Sr. Rosemary was hit by a car while she and Franciscan Sister Klaryta Antoszewska were on a walk in their neighborhood. After being unconscious for several days, she died peacefully on Sunday night. Her Franciscan sisters are in process of planning her funeral, which will be held in California. A memorial service will be held at St James Catholic Church in Las Vegas on Sunday, January 23, at 4:00 pm.

A co-founders of Pace e Bene, Sister Rosemary lectured and led retreats on nonviolence in many communities across the US and around the world, and with Sister Mary Litell developed Pace e Bene’s Peace Grows curriculum. In 2005 she retired from the staff and was designated a “Pace e Bene Elder” by the organization.

Sister Rosemary lived life to the fullest. It was this dedication to the fullness of life that motivated her unceasing commitment to removing every barrier to this fullness for all beings.
We at Pace e Bene join with people everywhere in celebrating Sister Rosemary’s life, a powerful journey for peace and justice.

Here is a brief overview of this journey, with a special emphasis on her participation in the effort that emerged in the 1980s to end nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site and throughout the world.

Thank you, Sr. Rosemary, for the innumerable gifts of peace that you showered into the lives of so many of us!

Peace always,

Ken Butigan, for Pace e Bene
Above photo: Banner created by Leslie Klusmire to honor Sr. Rosemary on her 90th birthday (Nevada Desert Experience)

Pakistan - a sovereign nation?

2010-12-28T03:43:00.000-08:00

A pair of US drone strikes in the Mir Ali village of North Waziristan have left at least 25 people dead. The drones targeted a pair of vehicles but also appear to have killed a number of people around those vehicles as well.

Though the Pakistani government, as usual, was quick to declare every single person killed an “alleged militant,” officials also conceded that they had no idea who any of the people killed were, suggesting that once again the shoot first and inquire later (if ever) policy of the drone program has probably killed a number of random tribesmen.

The drone program has caused a record number of deaths in 2010, and has come under renewed scrutiny amid reports that, as with the 2009 strikes, there are major numbers of civilian deaths going completely unreported in the international media.

The Obama Administration has been repeatedly demanding a full Pakistani invasion of North Waziristan, but in recent days suggestions have leaked that the administration may be planning to send US troops across the border instead. Pakistan’s government has approved its own military invading North Waziristan, but has rejected the notion of a US invasion.
(Antiwar Newswire)

*

As another drone attack killed more than 20 people on North Waziristan on Monday, all leading political parties of the country unanimously declared that these attacks were tantamount to compromising the sovereignty of Pakistan and the government and the Pakistan Army should take immediate measures to stop them.

Leaders of these parties said the government and authorities should sort out the matter in accordance with parliament’s unanimous resolutions and take action against the extremists by itself wherever it is needed.

Further reading.

Drone attacks stimulate terror

2010-12-28T03:36:00.000-08:00

In 2006, 657 terrorist attacks, including 41 of sectarian nature, took place in Pakistan, leaving 907 people dead and 1,543 others injured according to a Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) security report.

It said that in 2007, 3,448 people died in 1,503 terrorist attacks and clashes, including suicide attacks, killings, and assassinations while 5,353 were injured. These casualties were 128% and 491% higher as compared with 2006 and 2005, respectively. The report stated that Pakistan faced 60 suicide attacks (mostly targeted at security forces) during 2007, which killed at least 770, besides injuring another 1,574 people. In 2008, the country saw 2,148 terrorist attacks, which caused 2,267 fatalities and 4,558 injuries. HRCP in its annual report indicated that there were at least 67 suicide attacks across Pakistan killing 973 people and injuring 2,318.

The PIPS report says in 2009, 2,586 terrorist, insurgent and sectarian-related incidents were reported that killed 3,021 people and injured 7,334. These casualties were 48% higher as compared to 2008. On the other hand, the rate of suicide attacks surged by one third to 87 bombings that killed 1,300 people and injured 3,600, it has reported. The year 2010 has not ended yet but the terrorist attacks are continuing. So, it is about time the US government took the drone attack issue seriously and put an end to such attacks, once and for all.

Further reading

Veterans For Peace Protest War Outside White House

2010-12-18T09:08:00.000-08:00

The Real News Network (TRNN):

December 17, 2010

Veterans For Peace Protest War Outside White House

Ray McGovern, Daniel Ellsberg and Chris Hedges amongst dozens of protesters arrested outside White House

More at The Real News

We thank and congratulate the people doing this protest and we wish them strength and determination!

Just in, via The Raw Story, this YouTube:

CIA chief in Pakistan leaves after drone trial blows his cover

2010-12-18T08:14:00.000-08:00

By The Guardian
Declan Walsh in Islamabad, 17 Dec. 2010

Jonathan Banks, station chief In Islamabad, back in US after calls for him to be charged with murder over drone attack.

The CIA has pulled its station chief from Islamabad, one of America's most important spy posts, after his cover was blown in a legal action brought by victims of US drone strikes in the tribal belt.

The officer, named in Pakistan as Jonathan Banks, left the country yesterday, after a tribesman publicly accused him of being responsible for the death of his brother and son in a CIA drone strike in December 2009. Karim Khan, a journalist from North Waziristan, called for Banks to be charged with murder and executed.

In a rare move, the CIA called Banks home yesterday, citing "security concerns" and saying he had received death threats, Washington officials told Associated Press. Khan's lawyer said he was fleeing the possibility of prosecution.

"This is just diplomatic language they are using. Banks is a liability to the CIA because he's likely to be called to court. They want to save him, and themselves, the embarrassment," said lawyer Shahzad Akbar. Pakistani media reports have claimed that Banks entered the country on a business visa, and therefore does not enjoy diplomatic immunity from prosecution.

The recall comes at a sensitive moment for Washington. This week's Afghanistan policy review brought fresh focus on Taliban safe havens in Pakistan's tribal belt. Meanwhile CIA drone attacks – which are co-ordinated from the Islamabad embassy – have reached a new peak. Three drones struck targets in Khyber, a previously untouched tribal agency, on Friday, reportedly killing 24 people and signalling a widening of the CIA covert campaign.

The drones enjoy quiet support from the Pakistani government and military but are intensely unpopular among the wider public. Public anger over civilian casualties has focused on Karim Khan, who first publicised his case with a $500m (£323m) civil law suit that named Banks, CIA director Leon Panetta and the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, as respondents.

Few legal experts expect the case to succeed, but it has renewed uneasiness over drones. There have been over 100 strikes so this year, twice as many as in 2009.

The identity of the CIA station chief is a closely guarded secret in any country. Khan's lawyer said he had obtained Banks's name from one Pakistani journalist and confirmed it with a second. "I asked around, then got an answer after three or four days of searching," he said.

Read the rest here.

Extending drone attacks killing 54 persons

2010-12-18T03:16:00.000-08:00

Thursday Dec. 16th’s US drone strikes against the Khyber Agency, which killed seven suspects, appeared to be only the tip of the iceberg, as Pakistani officials now report that the United States has launched a salvo of missiles against the agency, killing at least 54.

The major strikes hit in the Spin Darang village, and were said to be targeting a meeting among suspected Lashkar-e Islam members, a group with a strong presence in Khyber which, like virtually every other faction of Pashtuns in the tribal areas, is often referred to as a “Pakistani Taliban” faction.

It is unclear what prompted the Obama Administration’s sudden interest in spreading its drone war into Khyber, far north from its usual targets in North and South Waziristan, nor is it immediately apparent why such moves were taken against the Lashkar-e Islam, a group which has clashed with the Pakistani government but does not appear to be a major player in Afghanistan.

It may simply be a case of escalation for escalation’s sake, as the Obama Administration struggles to claim some measure of progress in the nearly decade long occupation of Afghanistan and seems to be lashing out in odd directions in an effort to turn those claims into something at least vaguely credible.
(Antiwar Newswire)

Hope and action

2010-12-17T16:58:00.000-08:00

Dozens of activists, including the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam War, were arrested Thursday at the White House as they protested the Afghanistan conflict and defended WikiLeaks.

As President Barack Obama unveiled a war review strategy inside, more than 100 war opponents -- many of them veterans -- marched through snow to the White House, chanting "Peace now!" and refusing to step down from the fence's ledge.
Police waited before gradually sealing off the area and escorting remaining protesters -- who had vowed to stay until their arrest -- into two waiting buses.
Daniel Ellsberg, who as a government consultant leaked the Pentagon Papers that revealed war planning in Vietnam, saluted Bradley Manning, the young army officer suspected of leaking secret US documents to website WikiLeaks.

Ellsberg predicted that Obama would intensify the Afghanistan war as "presidents don't like to say they were wrong."
"I'm afraid that will happen indefinitely unless more people follow the example of Bradley Manning, whose courageous act of civil disobedience probably confronts him with life in prison," Ellsberg said to cheers.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the Code Pink women's peace movement, noted that Afghanistan ranks near the worst in rankings on development and corruption despite billions of dollars a month in the US war effort.
"It is high time that President Obama get a clue and understand that we need, as our signs says here, a real peace president," she said.
"We need men that understand that the best thing we can do for our security and the security of the people of Afghanistan is to take the money that we are spending on war and invest it in people, invest it in health care, invest it in education at home and in Afghanistan," she said.

Obama, an early opponent of the Iraq war, has tripled troop numbers in Afghanistan but pledged to start a withdrawal next year. The United States sent troops to Afghanistan in 2001 after the September 11 terrorist attacks carried out by Al-Qaeda, which had found sanctuary in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
In the review, Obama said there was "significant progress" in curbing the Taliban and stifling Al-Qaeda, but warned more time was needed.
(AFP)

On Thursday, author, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges and Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg were among the 131 anti-war activists arrested during a nonviolent demonstration outside the White House to protest against the war in Afghanistan as well as America’s ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Pakistan.

Hedges delivered a rousing speech about the nature of hope (in contrast to what certain campaign slogans might have suggested in recent years), pointing out that “hope has a cost, hope is not comfortable,” before joining other supporters of Veterans for Peace who chained themselves to the White House fence. When asked why he chose that course of action, Hedges replied, “Because it’s all we have left at this point ... The normal mechanisms by which democratic participation are rendered possible in this country have been closed shut, and if we don’t do this, we die. This is what’s left of hope in this country.”

For his part, Ellsberg said he was drawn to the demonstration in part because veterans were leading the action. “I know that people here understand this war is as hopeless and wrong as the war we participated in in Vietnam, and it is not going to end by a presidential initiative,” he said. “It’ll only be because the American public has awakened to their responsibilities and to the realities of this war.” The “big lie” that the American government is telling its people now, Ellsberg believes, “is that these wars are protecting us at home.” (Truthdig)

Victims drones attacks are left helpless

2010-12-12T12:34:00.000-08:00

At least 2100 civilians were killed and various others injured during 2009 in the ongoing war on terror, dronre attacks and activities against the terrorists, according to a report released by a US non-government organistation.

According to the report by Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), the bereaved families of these people have been left helpless without any proper succour provided to them.

The conflict in Pakistan has exacted an immense toll on civilians, but the US and Pakistani governments, aid agencies and even military officials pay little attention to their plight says a US pressure group which works for civilian victims caught in armed conflicts.

The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, a Washington-based NGO, notes that there were probably more civilian casualties – 2,100 deaths – in Pakistan in 2009 than in neighbouring Afghanistan.

The civilian casualties, the group warns, will have substantial humanitarian and security consequences, causing the Pakistani government to lose its credibility.

“Losses have a long-lasting and devastating impact on civilians’ lives, provoke anger, and undermine the legitimacy of the Pakistani government,” warns the author, Christopher Rogers.

“CIVIC’s research in Pakistan shows that war victims demand and expect warring parties to recognise their losses and make amends to help them recover.”

But the report regrets that despite the severity and consequences of these losses, civilian casualties “receive too little attention from US, Pakistani, and donor-nation policymakers, as well as military officials”.

The report, however, notes the Pakistani government has created a compensation mechanism for deaths, injuries and property damage and the US Congress last year appropriated $10 million or a special fund to aid civilian war victims in Pakistan.

Despite these burgeoning efforts, CIVIC’s research shows serious deficiencies and gaps in care that leave many victims without recognition or assistance. Many war victims are losing hope that the Pakistani government will make good on its promise to provide compensation. Others must cope with devastating conflict losses while also being displaced, particularly following record floods in August.

Some of the findings of the research are as follows: Significant civilian casualties are caused by Pakistani military operations; US drone strikes, militant and terror attacks, and other forms of conflict-related violence such as unexploded ordnance and sectarian clashes.

Interviewees expected better behaviour in combat operations from Pakistani and US forces than from militants.

There is no governmental or military mechanism that systematically and publicly investigates or collects data on civilian casualties. The lack of accurate information on civilian casualties, including tracking of incidents, causes, and locations, inhibits the ability of civilian and military authorities to learn lessons and minimise civilian casualties. It also prevents authorities as well as humanitarian and development organisations from identifying and assisting war victims.

Deaths, injuries and property losses are greatly compounded by widespread poverty and displacement.

The death of a husband often means the loss of a key breadwinner. The death of a wife often leaves children and their household without the primary caretaker.

News Pakistan.

Jury for Tacoma Trident Peace Activists Still Out

2010-12-11T03:22:00.001-08:00

Thanks to Disarm Now Plowshares for sharing this article from the Huffington Post

By Bill Quigley, Dec. 10, 2010

The federal criminal trial of five veteran peace activists facing several charges was recessed until Monday after their jury announced late Friday they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict on one of the counts. The Tacoma Washington trial has been going on since Tuesday. The five defendants, called the Disarm Now Plowshares, challenged the legality and morality of the US storage and use of thermonuclear missiles by Trident nuclear submarines at the Kitsap-Bangor Naval Base outside Bremerton Washington.

The peace activists argued three points: the missiles are weapons of mass destruction; the weapons are both illegal and immoral; and that all citizens have the right to try to stop international war crimes being committed by these weapons of mass destruction. "It is not a crime to reveal a crime," they argued. Supporters from around the world packed the main courtroom every day of the trial. Numerous others followed the trial in an overflow court room.

The five were charged with trespass, felony damage to federal property, felony injury to property and felony conspiracy to damage property. Each faces possible sentences of up to ten years in prison.

On trial are: Sr. Anne Montgomery, 83, a Sacred Heart sister from New York; Fr. Bill Bischel, 81, a Jesuit priest from Tacoma Washington; Susan Crane, 67, a member of the Jonah House community in Baltimore, Maryland; Lynne Greenwald, 60, a nurse from Bremerton Washington; and Fr. Steve Kelly, 60, a Jesuit priest from Oakland California. Bill Bischel and Lynne Greenwald are active members of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, a community resisting Trident nuclear weapons since 1977.

The five admitted from the start that they cut through the chain link fence surrounding the Navy base during the night of All Souls, November 2, 2009. They then walked undetected for hours nearly four miles inside the base to their target, the Strategic Weapons Facility-Pacific. This top security area is where activists say hundreds of nuclear missiles are stored in bunkers. There they cut through two more barbed wire fences and went inside. They put up two big banners which said "Disarm Now Plowshares: Trident Illegal and Immoral," scattered sunflower seeds, and prayed until they were arrested at dawn. Once arrested, the five were cuffed and hooded with sand bags because the marine in charge testified "when we secure prisoners anywhere in Iraq or Afghanistan we hood them...so we did it to them."

Eight Trident nuclear submarines have their home port at the Kitsap-Bangor base. Each Trident submarine has 24 nuclear missiles on it. Each one of the missiles has multiple warheads in it and each warhead has many times the destructive power of the weapon used on Hiroshima. One fully loaded Trident submarine carries 192 warheads, each designed to explode with the power of 475 kilotons of TNT force. If detonated at ground level each would blow out a crater nearly half a mile wide and several hundred feet deep. In addition to the missiles on the submarines, the base has an extensive bunker area where more missiles are stored. That storage area is the Strategic Weapons Facility-Pacific. That is where the activists made their stand for disarmament.

The trial brought peace activists from around the world to challenge the US use of the Trident nuclear weapons. Angie Zelter, internationally known author and activist from the UK, testified about the resistance to Trident weapons in Europe. Stephen Leeper, Chair of the Peace Culture Foundation in Hiroshima, told the jury "the world is facing a critical moment" because of the existence and proliferation of nuclear weapons. Though prohibited from testifying about the details of the death, destruction, and genetic damage to civilians from the US nuclear attack on Hiroshima, he testified defendants "have a tremendous amount of support in Hiroshima." Retired US Navy Captain Thomas Rogers, 31 years in the Navy, including several years as Commander of a nuclear submarine, told the court he thought the US possession of nuclear weapons after the Cold War was illegal and immoral. When asked how these weapons would impact civilians, he responded "it is really hard to detonate a 475 kiloton nuclear device without killing civilians." Dr. David Hall of Physicians for Social Responsibility testified about the humanitarian core beliefs of the defendants. And Professor and author Michael Honey told the jury about the importance of nonviolent direct action in bringing about social change.

Prosecutors said the government would neither admit nor deny the existence of nuclear weapons at the base and argued that "whether or not there are nuclear weapons there or not is irrelevant." Prosecutors successfully objected to and excluded most of the defense evidence about the horrific effects of nuclear weapons, the illegality of nuclear weapons under US treaty agreements and humanitarian law, and the right of citizens to try to stop war crimes by their government.

The peace activists, who represented themselves with lawyers as stand by counsel, tried to present evidence about nuclear weapons despite repeated objections. At one point, Sr. Anne Montgomery challenged the prosecutors and the court "Why are we so afraid to discuss the fact that there are nuclear weapons?"
The government testified that it took about five hours to patch the holes in the fences and most of the day to replace the alarm system around the nuclear weapons storage area.

The twelve person jury reported it was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on all counts and the judge sent them home for the weekend.

The extensive peace community gathered at the courthouse supported the defendants and rejoiced that the jury was taking the defendants and the charges seriously. Supporters promised to continue to protest against the Trident and its weapons of mass destruction. They echoed the words of one of prospective jurors who was excluded from the trial because, when asked whether he would follow the instructions of the judge in this case, said "I totally respect the rule of law, but some laws are meant to be broken, that is how things change."
Jury deliberations will resume Monday.

For more information on the trial and the peace activists please see the site for Disarm Now Plowshares http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com/ or Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action .

Note: for photos made by the government, taken after the action was over and the participants had been arrested, see here.

Report by CIVIC claims many more civilian victims of drone strikes in Pakistan than US says

2010-12-10T01:41:00.000-08:00

The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (Civic) says it investigated nine recent cases involving more than 30 non-militant deaths.

The group says that it is not clear how many people have died in drone attacks in the past two years.
But it is thought to be about 1,000, with a higher number of injuries.
The US says very few are civilians.
(From: BBC News, Dec 9, 2010)

Anti-war.com also mentions the report, which has an October 2010 release date to it.

The link to the entire report is here: http://www.civicworldwide.org/storage/civicdev/documents/civic pakistan 2010 final.pdf

Executive Summary

Since 2001, the conflict in northwest Pakistan has killed and injured thousands of civilians, displaced millions, and destroyed countless homes and livelihoods. The warring parties include Pakistani forces, US forces, and militant groups. This report documents civilian losses as a result of this armed conflict, analyzes the humanitarian, security, and strategic consequences of those losses, and examines existing-and needed-efforts by warring parties to make amends to survivors.

The number of civilian casualties-meaning deaths and injuries-is significant in Pakistan, though exact figures are unknown due to insecurity and government restrictions on information. In 2009, an estimated 2,300 civilians were killed in terror attacks alone with many more injured. Counting losses from Pakistani military operations and U.S. drone strikes, civilian casualties in Pakistan likely exceed in number those in neighboring Afghanistan.

Despite the severity of losses and consequences of ignoring them, civilian casualties receive too little attention from US, Pakistani and donor-nation policymakers, military officials, and international organizations alike. Overlooking the majority of civilians harmed or displaced by combat operations is undermining the Pakistani government's legitimacy. The US, too, has an obligation to these victims, as a major supporter of Pakistan's anti-terror efforts and as a warring party itself, with small numbers of troops on the ground and drones conducting strikes from overhead.

Over the past year, CIVIC conducted interviews with Pakistani and US policymakers, humanitarians and officials from international organizations, and over 160 Pakistani civilians suffering direct losses from the conflict. After nearly a decade of conflict and billions of aid channeled into Pakistan, more can and should be done to address the civilian cost of the conflict. CIVIC proposes concrete, specific measures to warring parties and their partners toward finally acknowledging and making amends for civilian harm.

Headlines focus on the horrors of terrorism in Pakistan, but CIVIC's research shows that civilians suffer greatly from a much broader range of conflict-related violence. Pakistani military operations, particularly artillery shelling and airpower, cause significant civilian losses. Civilians are caught between militants and Pakistani forces, while also suffering the consequences of extrajudicial killings, sectarian violence, explosive remnants of war, and US drone strikes.

US drone strikes, in particular, have touched off intense public debate. Neither the US nor Pakistani governments officially deny the program exists but tacitly concede its existence. Anonymous US officials insist that civilian casualties caused by drone strikes are minimal. CIVIC's research and that of other independent non-government organizations indicates that the number of civilians killed and injured by drones is higher than the US admits.

Civilian losses in Pakistan are often long-lasting and complex, destabilizing families and entire communities. The loss of a husband can deprive the family of its only source of income. An injury can require expensive medical treatment, care by other family members, and prevent survivors from working in the household or finding a job. A house destroyed can mean homelessness, but also the loss of a family's most important financial asset, forcing them into cycles of debt and dependency.

For Pakistanis already struggling to make ends meet, losses like these are compounded by underdevelopment, displacement, and economic vulnerability. Without savings, insurance, or social safety nets, the shock of a death, injury or property damage can dramatically alter families' lives, pushing many into debilitating poverty.

Civilian victims expressed anger at warring parties for their losses. Despite some people's fear of retribution for speaking out, many placed the blame squarely on the Pakistani and US militaries. Almost all victims insisted that the Pakistani or US governments, respectively, had a responsibility to make amends-meaning, an acknowledgment of the harm suffered and an offer of assistance or compensation.

Of the warring parties involved in the conflict, the Pakistani government is the only one making some form of amends to war victims. For example, the Pakistani government maintains compensation programs for some civilian deaths and injuries as well as housing destruction. While these programs need improvement in practice, amends like these can restore a measure of dignity through recognition of losses and provide much-needed help, while also mitigating anger and enhancing the perceived legitimacy of the Pakistani government and military.

This report demonstrates that amends are both possible and practicable in Pakistan, and expected by Pakistani civilians. This requires new programs and a significant improvement of efforts underway. Most Pakistani war victims have yet to receive any assistance, compensation, or even recognition of the harm they suffered.

Summary of Findings

Significant civilian casualties are caused by Pakistani military operations, US drone strikes, militant and terror attacks, and other forms of conflict-related violence such as unexploded ordnance and sectarian clashes;
There is no governmental or military mechanism that systematically and publicly investigates or collects data on civilian casualties;
Deaths, injuries, and property losses are greatly compounded by widespread poverty and displacement;
Civilians interviewed acknowledge the relative accuracy of US drone strikes but criticize them for causing civilian casualties and question the program's long-term effectiveness against militants; most opposed the strikes and demanded an end to the practice;
Civilians hold warring parties responsible for their losses and expect amends (compensation, for example) from both the Pakistani and US governments;
The Pakistani government is the only warring party attempting to make direct amends to civilian war victims, with a compensation and housing program;
Civilians see Pakistani government efforts to compensate or assist war victims as providing real help to those in need and dignifying losses. These programs can also mitigate anger and enhance the perceived legitimacy of the Pakistani government and military;
Most victims interviewed were left without amends for their losses due to serious deficiencies in Pakistani compensation mechanisms and no US effort to help those harmed by its combat operations; this, despite US programs for such victims in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Recommendations

To the Government of Pakistan

Ensure all forces-including military, intelligence, security, and lashkars-adhere to the rules of international humanitarian law, including principles of distinction and proportionality, and that all government forces are adequately trained on the same;
Refrain from using artillery, mortars and airpower in densely populated areas and ensure such weapons are deployed in a manner that appropriately discriminates between civilians and combatants;
Publicly investigate all incidents of civilian harm and, when appropriate, acknowledge responsibility for causing harm;
Halt all extrajudicial killings and investigate potential incidents of extrajudicial killings;
Halt destruction of homes and other civilian property as retribution or collective punishment;
Remove restrictions preventing UN and non-governmental organizations from accessing conflict-affected areas;
Halt all intimidation and coercion of journalists, civilian victims or advocates who document or speak out about civilian harm;
Improve existing compensation mechanisms for civilians suffering losses by:
Proactively investigating all potential incidents of civilian casualties (or allowing independent investigators to do so), identify victims including those who are displaced, acknowledge responsibility where appropriate, and ensure harm is fully addressed;
Designating federal and provincial level institutions and administrators to oversee, coordinate, and standardize compensation mechanisms;
Developing mechanisms to ensure compensation accountability and transparency with record-keeping, clear and publicized guidelines, and official oversight;
Ensuring compensation amounts are appropriate to the loss (i.e. a multi-family house may require a larger payment) and standardizing amount ranges for compensation;
Standardizing eligibility and procedures for civilians filing claims and for officials that proactively offer compensation across the country;
Ensuring sufficient and timely financing (i.e. an accountable and steady funding stream) for compensation;
Developing mechanisms, preferably in partnership with the US, to make amends to victims of drone attacks;
Ensuring women and other vulnerable groups have equal access to compensation;
Do not ignore or improperly address civilian losses from the conflict in responding to the humanitarian crises caused by the recent floods.

To Militant Groups

Immediately cease all attacks directly targeting civilians;
Comply with applicable laws of war, including proportionality and distinction between combatants and non-combatants;
Publicly investigate all incidents of civilian harm and, when appropriate, acknowledge responsibility for causing civilian harm;
Provide compensation or assistance to civilians collaterally harmed as a result of legitimate combat actions, acknowledging that such assistance in no way justifies or excuses attacks that target or disproportionately harm civilians;
Do not inhibit or undermine aid provided to civilian victims, whether provided by the Pakistani government or humanitarian organizations;
Ensure civilians have freedom of movement and facilitate civilians' departure from conflict areas;
Ensure UN, NGOs, other neutral humanitarian organizations, and journalists have access to conflict-affected areas and ensure forces refrain from any intimidation or violence targeting these groups.

To the United States Government

Ensure proportionality and combatant/non-combatant distinction in targeting in all drone strikes;
Make public the official definition of civilian, combatant, and non-combatant applied in the drone program, the legal justification for drone strikes, and measures taken to ensure strikes conform to applicable international law;
Investigate and publicly acknowledge incidents of civilian casualties caused by drone strikes;
Work in partnership with the Pakistani government to provide compensation and other assistance to all civilians harmed by drone strikes;
Support existing Pakistani compensation mechanisms including the provision of financial and technical support;
Identify additional programs and initiatives to fund that specifically help conflict victims recover, as the US Congress has done in Iraq and Afghanistan;
Ensure funds appropriated by Congress under the Pakistan Civilian Assistance Program are used for programs directly aiding victims of the conflict;
Ensure that the US response to the flood crisis does not displace needed attention on the losses suffered by civilian victims of the conflict.

To the UN and other Members of the International Community

Establish a UN mechanism to monitor, document, and investigate incidents of civilian casualties;
Whenever possible, coordinate the provision of assistance with all other actors and link victims with existing government and non-governmental assistance;
Encourage all warring parties to provide amends to meaningfully recognize and assist civilian victims of the conflict;
Press the Pakistani government for increased access for humanitarian and development organizations to conflict-affected areas;
Ensure that in channeling resources to the flood crisis, the losses of civilian conflict victims are not ignored.

Washington State: On the Eve of the Trial…

2010-12-07T07:05:00.000-08:00

From our friends at: Disarm Now Plowshares.
We wish them much good luck and we hold them in our prayers...

On the Eve of the Trial…

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Disarm Now Plowshares

Friends,

It is late Monday evening, and I am sitting in the living room of Jean’s House of Prayer writing this post while others huddle over their laptop computers preparing for tomorrow’s trial.

On the eve of the Disarm Now Plowshares trial people came together at St. Leo Church in Tacoma to break bread, join together in fellowship and celebrate Plowshares. Following a bountiful potluck supper, the Seattle Raging Grannies serenaded us with timeless classics like “Take Me Out of the Bomb Game.” James Morgan engaged the crowd in a sing-along to “The Ballad of Disarm Now Plowshares,” along with other music throughout the evening.

Fr. John Fuchs, SJ, opened the formal program with a moment of silence in honor of Philip Berrigan, who died on this day 8 years ago.

Before introducing the evening’s keynote speaker, Angie Zelter, the Rev. Anne Hall of Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action shared the colorful history of Plowshares actions at Bangor. The Disarm Now Plowshares are the third group of Plowshares activists to have made their way to the Strategic Weapons Facility, Pacific, and none of them had it easy.

The first time was in 1979 when James Douglass and others slogged across Sub Base Bangor after notifying the Navy ahead of time; it still took the Navy 12 hours to find them. Six months later on January 5, 1980, Douglass and others trudged through the snow towards SWFPAC again. This time they did not notify the Navy ahead of time, and only after Shelley Douglass got worried after not hearing from Jim after 20 hours and called the Navy did they find them (after they had been on the base a total of 24 hours. The Navy wanted to minimize publicity, and only charged them with trespassing; they spent 6 months in jail.

Scottish Trident activist, and founder of Trident Plowshares (among many other things) Angie Zelter then spoke to us of “The Importance of Civil Resistance.” I will do my best to share highlights of her rich presentation.

Angie applauded the action of Disarm Now Plowshares as “creating the changes needed in your society to enable it to pass beyond war and injustice, control and dominance,” and she reminded us that “we are colleagues in the same struggle for justice and peace.” As for the trial, Angie said that the actions of Disarm Now provide an opportunity for our court system to recognize and stop the grievous crimes being committed by our own government “and to strengthen the rule of law.” She also recognized that the courts may “not act fairly and rise to the challenge,” in which case it will be on their conscience.

In stating the case for strong engagement by civil society Angie said, “I believe that the law is a powerful tool that, if respected and used with integrity, can deliver nuclear disarmament. However, as we know to our cost, powerful nations tend to act above the law and to abuse power, which is why there is a need for a strong civil society to keep track and pressure governments and law courts to uphold international law. This has been difficult as there is a great deal of official and public cynicism about law in general and international law in particular, epitomised by views that the law serves the powerful in society, does not look after the interests of the poor or weak, and is the law of the victors over the vanquished.”

Angie spoke of how international law is becoming more widely recognized in the United Kingdom in cases involving anti-nuclear activists, but cautioned that they ” still find prosecuting lawyers and some judges expressing impatience and strong disapproval of ordinary citizens ‘meddling’ in the law, and a belief that ‘amateurs’ should not try to ‘uphold’ the law or ‘take the law into their own hands’. We are told not to get involved, that it is up to the government, or the police, or the military, or some other institution, to deal with crimes against peace or war crimes. But we all know that we cannot rely upon these institutions to make the changes we need – we have to act ourselves, as responsible global citizens, and be involved in people’s disarmament.”

Because the legal systems in both our countries have been corrupted and therefore work to prevent defendants from presenting full legal arguments, we must use the jury system to our advantage in order “to uncover the illegalities and criminalities of possessing and threatening to use nuclear weapons and to demand a proper reckoning. We have to expose the hypocrisy of our countries expecting others to obey international law while refusing to obey it themselves.” Of course, given the limitations generally placed on the defense it is difficult but not impossible to be able to speak to the jury. Angie reminds us that we must use “creative ways of making sure that the jury are informed.”

Back to the importance of civil society: “Civil society acts in the belief that the strength and wisdom of a society lies with its people and that we get the governments and legal systems that we allow. We believe we are not completely powerless but are responsible individuals. Thus, rather than staying silent when we see gross crimes being committed in our names, we act. Knowing that the deployment of weapons of mass destruction destroys our humanity and breaks the fundamental principles of humanitarian law, we take the spirit of the law seriously and call our institutions to account. We become part of the forces creating the evolution of our society, we help shape the law and ensure its implementation.”

In speaking of the process of correcting the courts’ previous errors of judgement and upholding the rule of law Angie said ,

Actions like the Disarm Now Ploughshares action are part of this whole process of social transformation that takes much longer than we would all wish but which is nevertheless having its effect. You face a much tougher challenge than we do as you are more often refused the chance to present the evidence of the effects of nuclear weapons on people and the environment. This is because it is clear that if this evidence were given to an impartial jury it would be obvious that these weapons break all the rules and there would be a good chance of an acquittal. Over the coming days we will no doubt witness the lengths to which the Tacoma court will go to stop the truth from getting out. It is our responsibility to make sure that nevertheless we take it out to a wider public by writing articles and talking about it, doing whatever we can. And I hope that the coming trial will inspire you all to continue the nonviolent civil resistance.

I believe that our citizens’ campaigns must carry on using international law to de-legitimise nuclear weapons and to legitimise our own nonviolent actions and to do this in highly public and confrontational ways so it cannot be ignored. We have to do this whilst keeping the moral arguments to the fore as well, by emphasising the links between morality and law.

As she neared the end of her presentation, Angie quoted Judge Weeramantry of the International Court of Justice who stated that,

Every citizen has an obligation to use his or her influence to prevent crimes against humanity …….. Indeed anti-nuclear civil resistance is the right of every citizen of this planet for the nuclear threat, attacking as it does every core concept of human rights, calls for urgent and universal action for its prevention. If it is a basic human right to be free of threat or violence, if the right to life is a basic human right, and if the protection of children and future generations is a basic human duty, international law must unhesitatingly recognise that the right to nonviolent resistance activities, for the prevention of such an international crime is basic to human dignity.

Angie finished by reiterating our responsibility as citizens of the world to act:

It is clear …… that there is an increasing need in the modern world …….. for citizens to take a greater interest in international law and in the way their government fulfils its obligation in this regard. This is increasingly a matter for the citizenry of the world and if they do not rise to their obligations in this respect, future generations will pay dearly for this inaction.”

So you see the law is on our side. Humanity is on our side. The vast majority of countries in the world want nuclear disarmament and are on our side. Eventually if we keep our fragile candle of hope and love and nonviolent resistance alight we will get nuclear disarmament. I wish you all strength and hope for the coming days.

As the Disarm Now Plowshares prepare to begin their trial tomorrow morning may each of us light a candle of hope for them, and may we also pledge to call on our government to uphold its obligations under international laws and to speak out as citizens of the world and say “NOT IN OUR NAME!”

Peace,
Leonard

Lawsuit Over Flawed CIA Drone Code Is Deep Sixed by Settlement

2010-11-28T02:48:00.000-08:00

An explosive lawsuit alleging that Boston-area tech company Netezza Corp. sold computer hardware loaded with “hacked,” faulty software to the CIA for use in the agency’s Predator Drone program has now disappeared from public view.
The parties to the lawsuit, which include Netezza and software developer Intelligent Integration Systems Inc. (IISI), announced two weeks ago that they had reached a settlement in the case. A day after that announcement, corporate giant IBM closed on a $1.7 billion deal to purchase Netezza.

Further reading.

They’re in there for us; we’re out here for them!

2010-11-26T11:47:00.000-08:00

The Nuclear Resister marks 30 years of supporting imprisoned activists and reporting on anti-nuclear and anti-war resistance

in: Peacenews nr 2526

They’re in there for us; we’re out here for them!

Felice & Jack Cohen-Joppa

Thirty years ago this October, the first issue of the Newsletter of the National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective (later renamed the Nuclear Resister) reported on just one anti-nuclear civil disobedience action – that of the Plowshares Eight.

On 9 September 1980, eight US activists made their way into a General Electric factory in Pennsylvania, where they hammered and poured blood on nuclear missile nose-cones. This action inspired a global movement, and scores of similar acts of direct disarmament have been reported in the 157 issues of the Nuclear Resister published since then.

Dubbed by an early reader a “chronicle of hope”, the newsletter began with the aim of providing comprehensive reporting on arrests for anti-nuclear civil resistance in the United States, and encouraging the essential support for the activists jailed for these actions.

In 1990, coverage expanded to include reporting on anti-war arrests in North America, plus overseas anti-nuclear and anti-war resistance.

Each issue lists the names of activists behind bars and their prison addresses. It is a testimony to the persistence and commitment of these movements that there have always been resisters in jail, every day, through the last 30 years. Building on this reporting, the Nuclear Resister helps network the anti-nuclear and anti-war resistance movements. Contact information for action groups and a list of upcoming actions are regular features of the newsletter.

Online, the new Nuclear Resister blog at nukeresister.org provides more information to a growing number of people, including up-to-date prisoner addresses, breaking news, links to action groups, and a sign-up for the free monthly e-bulletin supplements to the print edition.

Over the past three decades, the Nuclear Resister has reported on more than 100,000 anti-nuclear and anti-war arrests during thousands of actions in the US and around the world, and encouraged support for at least 1,000 men and women imprisoned for these acts of conscience – people who have received sentences ranging from two weeks to 22 years.

Writings from many of these prisoners have been included in almost every issue, along with stories of direct actions against nuclear power, nuclear weapons, nuclear testing, uranium mining, war, military recruiting and torture.

The powerful history of a significant movement for social change emerges from the stories of war tax resisters, military refusers and conscientious objectors; bomb plant blockaders and nuclear reactor site occupiers; citizen weapon inspectors at military bases and backcountry activists disrupting a missile launch or nuclear test; people sitting-in at legislative offices and military recruiting centres; and plowshares/ploughshares activists who have dismantled weapons of mass destruction with household hammers.

It’s unlikely that you’ll read much about these actions, or about the people behind bars, in the mainstream press, and certainly not portraying these actions in their context as part of a wider movement.

Soon after the 1991 attack on Iraq, George HW Bush smugly remarked that he couldn’t hear any anti-war voices in the US, and the media didn’t do much to dispel that notion. But the Nuclear Resister proved he simply wasn’t listening, and reported over 6,000 arrests during more than 225 actions in at least 27 states in the months leading up to and through the course of the bombardment.

Similarly, by mid-April 2003, the Nuclear Resister had chronicled over 300 actions in 115 cities in 35 states, resulting in 7,500 arrests in opposition to the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. The hard work and dedication of many people have kept the Nuclear Resister going all these years. Since 1980, Jack and Felice Cohen-Joppa have co-ordinated the work and edited the newsletter, along the way travelling to countless demonstrations, actions, conferences, courthouses and prison visiting rooms.

Hundreds of others have helped by distributing newsletters, staffing Nuclear Resister tables [stalls] at various events, creating artwork and writing articles, helping at mailing parties, providing information about actions and legal updates, sending photos, helping with the website and blog, and writing letters of support to imprisoned activists. The work has squeaked by on a shoestring budget thanks to the generous support of activists and subscribers around the world.

This past July, the Nuclear Resister, sister organization Nukewatch, and the Plowshares Eight celebrated their 30th anniversaries together at the Resistance for a Nuclear Free Future gathering in Tennessee [see PN 2525].

The gathering aimed to advance the impact of civil resistance at a critical time in the movement for a nuclear-free future. More than 200 people attended the gathering. 37 were arrested on 5 July at the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex, the largest number in 20 years of civil resistance at Y-12. There are wars continuing in our name – and with our tax dollars – that need to be stopped; nuclear weapons that need to be disarmed; and an aggressive drive for more nuclear power that needs to be turned back.

This is no time to put nonviolent direct action on hold!

These acts of conscience must continue – they are continuing – and it’s important for activists engaged in resistance to keep connected and support each other as they risk arrest, go on trial and possibly to jail.

The Nuclear Resister will continue to help that happen.

For an updated list of imprisoned activists and future actions, for subscription and donation information, to sign up for the monthly e-bulletin or to receive a free sample of the more comprehensive print newsletter, please visit www.nukeresister.org - nukeresister@igc.org

Undercover police among arrested at SOA vigil

2010-11-25T03:44:00.000-08:00

From: National Catholic Reporter
Nov. 23, 2010

By Joshua J. McElwee

At least one of the 29 persons taken into custody outside Fort Benning during a rally at the annual School of Americas Watch vigil Nov. 20 in Columbus, Ga. was an undercover police officer.

The revelation came as Lauren Stinson, an undercover narcotics agent with the Muscogee, Ga., county sheriff’s office, testified in court Nov. 21 that she participated in two meetings with SOA Watch protesters and allowed herself to be rounded up with activists during the rally.

SOA Watch organizers, meanwhile, said Nov. 22 they believed that at least four more of those arrested near the alley leading to the gates of the military institution were also undercover agents.

Backing their allegation, they said, is video taken at the scene of the arrests. SOA Watch organizers said that from the video they can see that five of those taken into custody at the rally were never put in jail and never ended up in court.

Several of those tried for Saturday’s action also said they could recognize the missing arrestees on the video as people who attended discussions with organizers before the arrests.
SOA Watch founder Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois expressed anger and frustration at the new revelations.

Said Bourgeois: “They should be ashamed of themselves. They’re seeing us … as the enemy, when just down the street is this military base that has contributed to a lot of violence.”

Center for Constitutional Rights legal director and SOA Watch legal volunteer Bill Quigley said the use of undercover officers seemed like “overkill” and a “waste of taxpayer resources.”

“It was probably a great weekend in Georgia to be a drug dealer,” said Quigley. “A number of the people in Columbus who would normally be enforcing drug laws were instead talking to priests and nuns and college students about sitting down in a street for 10 minutes.”Police confront people near the alley leading to the gates of the Fort Benning military complex Nov. 20.Saturday’s arrests came as activists were concluding a rally at the gates of Fort Benning for the afternoon. Hundreds had gathered at the edge of the alley leading to the military base, facing towards a nearby shopping center while chanting slogans and carrying large puppets made of cardboard.

Police stood directly opposite the activists. As the activity continued, police warned activists that they would be arrested for unlawful gathering if they stepped into the street and out of the designated protest area as a group.

As activists began to leave the rally, SOA Watch organizers say police arrested 29 people in two separate groups.

One group of 17 people were arrested as they attempted to leave the rally in twos and threes. They were charged with blocking the road and failure to disperse. SOA Watch said no one in this group intended to be arrested.A woman is taken into custody by police officers Nov. 20.Included in this group were three journalists with the television network Russia Today: Kaelyn Eckenrade, Jihan Abdel-Hafiz, and Khadja Abdel-Hafiz. The three were taking photos and video of the arrests.

Also included in this group was Curtis Thornton, a resident of Columbus who testified in court Nov. 21 that he worked at a nearby barber shop and had stepped out of his building to take photos of the action when he was arrested.

Another group of 12 people were arrested as they were purposefully blocking the street in an act of civil disobedience. SOA Watch organizers say five people in that group were not put in jail with the other seven and were not charged with any crimes. The remaining seven were charged with blocking the road and failure to disperse.

Twenty-two of the 24 people who were charged with crimes Nov. 20 went before Columbus Recorder’s Court Judge Michael Cielinski Nov. 21. Cielinski found 21 of those in that group guilty and ordered them to pay fines between $1,300 and $5,500.

The other two people who were charged Nov. 20 -- Jesuit Fr. Bill Brennan and Janice Sevre-Duszynska -- faced trial separately. They went before Georgia State Judge Stephen Smith Nov. 22 and were also found guilty.

Brennan was ordered to pay $50 in fines; Sevre-Duszynska $500. Both also received six months probation.

The two faced trial separately because Brennan uses a wheelchair and could not be arrested by police officers at the scene. Sevre-Duszynska, an ordained member of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, was accompanying Brennan at the scene.

Over the weekend four other people were arrested by federal authorities for trespassing onto the Fort Benning military complex in an act of civil disobedience.

Franciscan Fr. Louis Vitale and Nancy Smith walked onto the base Nov. 20. David Omandi, a member of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker community, and Christopher Spicer, a member of the White Rose Catholic Worker community in Chicago, climbed over the barbed wire fence located at the main entrance of Fort Benning Nov. 21.

Vitale and Omandi pleaded no contest to charges of trespass in federal court this morning (Nov. 23). U.S. magistrate judge Stephen Hyles sentenced them both to six months in jail. They are currently being held in Muscogee county jail pending transfer.

Spicer and Smith pleaded not guilty. They were both released on bond with a trial set for Jan. 5.
The arrests came during the annual School of Americas Watch vigil. In its twentieth year, the vigil commemorates the deaths of the Salvadoran Jesuit martyrs and thousands of other Latin Americans with a weekend gathering.

Put together by SOA Watch, an organization which was founded in 1990 by Bourgeois, the annual vigil calls attention to the training of soldiers from Latin America at what used to be called the School of the Americas and is now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, located at Fort Benning.

See also: SOAWatch.

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From: Los Angeles Catholic Worker:

11/24/2010
David Omondi In Jail!

LA Catholic Worker David Omondi was arrested for scaling the fence at the School of the Americas Protest and sentenced to six months in jail. David was determined to stand in solidarity with the victims of SOA graduates and with oppressed people everywhere. When his attorney tried to get him a lighter sentence by claiming that he decided to climb the fence at the last minute, he countered with the statement “With all due respect to my attorney, I came from Los Angeles with the specific intention of climbing that fence.”

Also arrested were Fr. Louie Vitale, activist, co-founder of the Nevada Desert Experience and long time friend of the LACW, Nancy Smith of New York and Chris Spicer of the White Rose Catholic Worker in Chicago and former LACW volunteer.

Fr. Louie, like David plead no contest and was sentenced to six months. This is his fourth SOA arrest. Chris and Nancy both plead not guilty and will return for trial in January. We ask for all to join our prayers for the well being of the resisters and for the end of injustice everywhere

New factsheet on drone warfare

2010-11-21T13:35:00.000-08:00

Code Pink has a petition running against drone warfare.
Their new factsheet. [pdf!]

Convicted!

2010-11-21T01:45:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, November 18, Fr. Louie Vitale and Sr. Megan Rice were convicted of “trespass” in Santa Barbara Federal Court for their August 23 witness against the Minuteman III launch. Fr. Louie received a $1,000 fine and Sr. Megan received a $500 fine. Neither received jail time or probation from U.S. Magistrate Rita Coyne-Federman.
(Thanks to Vandenberg Witness)

CIA wants drone war expanded

2010-11-20T03:43:00.000-08:00

US officials have been pressuring Pakistan to allow the expansion of CIA drone strikes beyond the nation’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and into Pakistan’s largest province of Balochistan.

Pakistani intelligence officials reportedly rejected the US demand for access to Balochistan, but did agree to a compromise allowing a larger number of CIA agents to operate on the ground in the Baloch capital city of Quetta.

The US has been launching drone strikes against FATA for years, but has dramatically increased the numbers since President Obama took office. The vast majority of those killed in the strikes appear to have been innocent civilians, and only a handful of militant leaders were ever killed.

The prospect of escalating those strikes into Balochistan would also be hugely unpopular, as Pakistanis have complained about the attacks in FATA, only nominally Pakistani territory to begin with, and would undoubtedly object much more loudly to attacks in an actual Pakistani province.

(Antiwar Newswire)