Four peace activists, Chris Cole, Penny Walker, Gary Eagling and Katharina Karcher, were arrested inside RAF Waddington, in Lincolnshire, on 5 January, while protesting against the use of armed drones.
The four cut a ‘New Year Gateway for Peace’ into the base and walked towards the Reaper ground control station from which RAF ‘pilots’ operate armed drones. The activists carried banners and reports of civilian casualties from recent UK, NATO and coalition airstrikes in Afghanistan and…
On 23 January, US peace activist Kathy Kelly handed herself in to authorities in Kentucky to start a three-month prison sentence (see p8), one part of the US movement against drone warfare.
On 26 November, on the west coast of the US, Chris Nelson and Shirley Osgood deliberately ‘crossed the line’ outside Beale air force base in California. They handed in a letter asking the base commander to end his role in ‘the kill chain which uses the Global Hawk drone to identify human…
Kites not drones at Poppit Sands. Photo: Jill Gough
International Peace Day, 21 September, was celebrated by a ‘Drape the Drones’ event at Parc Aberporth. Protesters sealed off the roundabout and site entrance with colourful scarves – ably assisted by a friendly policeman who not only stopped the traffic but also ordered drivers to switch off their engines to ‘hear the singing’.
The action was a precursor to the first Global Action Day Against the Use of Drones for Surveillance and…
On 31 July, anti-drones protester Russell Brown was acquitted by a jury in New York state despite admitting lying in the road in front of Hancock air national guard base on 28 April 2013, as part of a protest by Upstate Drone Action. He had been charged with obstruction of governmental administration and disorderly conduct.
Brown, who served in Vietnam as a US Marine, testified in court that ‘lying in that road was the most peaceful moment I’ve experienced since I left Vietnam’.…
What is Croughton?
Seemingly not many people know about ‘RAF’ Croughton near Brackley and bordering Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. Misleadingly referred to as an RAF base, this important US facility is occupied and controlled by the US under the umbrella of the United States Air Force. It supports presidential, NATO, US European command, US central command, US air force special operations command, and US department of state operations. The US national security agency (NSA), the…
UAV factory, Shenstone, 5 August. Photo: London Palestine Action
On 5 September, on the second day of the NATO summit in Newport, Wales, about 40 people entered Barclays High Street branch in the town shouting ‘Stop arming Israel’ and ‘Barclays divest from the arms trade’. Barclays have almost 60,000 shares in Elbit. Four people were arrested and charged with aggravated trespass after glueing-on inside the office.
Seemingly not many people know about ‘RAF’ Croughton near Brackley and bordering Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. Misleadingly referred to as RAF, this important US base is occupied and controlled by the US and their agencies under the umbrella of the United States Air Force. It supports Presidential, NATO, US European Command, US Central Command, Air Force Special Operations Command, US Department of State operations. The NSA, CIA and a contingent of GCHQ personnel are also present. It…
On 10 July, grandmother of three, Mary Anne Grady Flores, 58, was sentenced to one year in prison for violating an order of protection taken out by US mission support group commander colonel Earl Evans at drone base in New York state, USA.
Along with other anti-drone activists, Mary Anne had been issued with the protection order in late 2012. As a result, she chose to act as a photographer rather take part in a February 2013 protest, staying outside what she believed to be the…
On 3 July, the ministry of defence (MoD) announced that the five Reaper drones – purchased as an ‘Urgent Operational Requirement’ in 2010, at the cost of roughly £100m – had finally begun operations in Afghanistan. According to MoD figures obtained by Drone Wars UK under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI), RAF pilots fired 15 Hellfire missiles from drones in Afghanistan in the first four months of 2014 – 11 from UK drones, and four from US drones.
Drones appeal
On 22…
As writers and analysts for one of the military’s key journals - Jane’s Intelligence Review - Ann Rogers and John Hill have respectable military credentials. Nevertheless much of the analysis in this important and engaging overview of the drone wars could easily grace the pages of Peace News.
Chapter by chapter the book investigates the key aspects of the use of armed drones, including tracing their history, the effect on military doctrine, ethical…
A 90-by-60-foot poster of a Pakistani child who has lost both her parents and two young siblings in a US drone attack, displayed in a field in the Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa region of Pakistan, where a drone strike in November 2013 killed five people and led to a road blockade by thousands of people. This image was created by a collective of artists in Pakistan and the US, who gave it the title #NotABugSplat. US Predator drone operators often refer to kills as ‘bug splats’, as viewing the body…
On 4 May, three members of the US National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR) were arrested at the headquarters of the US national security agency (NSA) at Fort Meade in Maryland. This was part of a wave of action against military drones throughout the US during April and May, involving at least 43 arrests and one imprisonment.
On 11 April, seven women were arrested at US air force base (AFB) Creech, in a Code Pink protest…
The use of military drones by Israel and the US has caused a revolution in how conflicts are fought and severely challenged our concepts of international law.
European nations were caught off guard and have rushed to catch up with their competitors, fearing becoming dependent on outsiders for military technology.
This detailed report on European involvement in the race toward autonomous warfare, explores the…
As the European parliament votes overwhelmingly to ban ‘targeted killings’ and fully autonomous drones, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and countering terrorism has called on the US, UK and Israel – the three states currently known to be using armed drones – ‘to disclose the results of any fact-finding inquiries into [30 specific drone strikes in which civilians appear either to have been killed or had their lives put at immediate risk] or to explain why no such inquiries have been…
