As if the peace movement hasn’t enough on its plate already, the military-industrial complex invents a new and easier way to wage war: the unmanned drone.
For the busy activist trying to grapple with the growing development of the drone wars, what’s needed is a well-written, easy-to-read book, coming from a committed nonviolent perspective, that lays out the issues in an accessible but not simplistic way. Thankfully, long-…
A US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone waits out a sandstorm at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, 8 September 2008. Photo: Jason Epley © US Defense Department
Introduction
The present document must be read immediately by its named recipient. The reasons for such urgency will become obvious before the reading is completed.
In accordance with the Seventy-Third Amendment of the Constitution of the…
US president Barack Obama personally intervened to prevent the release of a Yemeni journalist who revealed that a 2009 airstrike that killed 14 women and 21 children was launched by US drones, not the Yemeni air force.
Abdulelah Haider Shaye was jailed in Yemen for five years in 2010 on trumped-up terrorism charges following a trial condemned by Amnesty International.
According…
Drone Wars UK held an important strategy day in Birmingham on 14 January. The group, coordinated by Chris Cole, has published its first annual briefing, exploring some of the key issues arising from the growing use of armed unmanned drones.
As the briefing’s introduction notes, a new UK-French drone is expected to be approved early in the New Year; the British Watchkeeper drone will finally be deployed sometime in the spring; RAF pilots will begin piloting armed Reaper drones over…
The RAF reported recently that the 200th British drone strike had taken place in Afghanistan. In October, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) reported that the 300th CIA drone strike in Pakistan had just taken place, while amidst the frenzy of reporting around the death of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi , the Pentagon revealed that the US had carried out 145 drones strikes in Libya.
But statistics do not tell the whole story. Occasionally we are given glimpses into the human…
Over the summer, the inaugural “UK-France Industry Day” was held in central London. Although innocent sounding, this was the first meeting between the UK and French military industry following the signing of a new “defence” treaty last November. A key element of this new military co-operation between France and the UK is the proposed development of a new combat drone. While it is still at the preliminary stage, BAE Systems’ decision to tie up with French firm Dassault to jointly offer the “…
On 31 August, the New Zealand high court imposed £600,000 in damages and costs on three peace activists who punctured a dome at a US national security agency base at Waihopai in New Zealand on 30 April 2008. The Waihopai Ploughshares (Sam Land, Adrian Leason and Peter Murnane), who carried out their action in protest at the role of the base in the US-led “war on terror”, were acquitted by a jury on 17 March 2010 (see PN 2520). (The government plans to restrict the use of the “right of claim…
Drones may be “the perfect weapons for a war weary nation on a tight budget” as one journalist wrote recently, but reported civilian casualties from drone strikes continue to rise. For the first time the British ministry of defence (MoD) has admitted that one of its drone strikes killed Afghan civilians in March 2011. The deaths of the unnamed Afghans was revealed by an anonymous correspondent from the UK’s permanent joint headquarters (PJHQ) at RAF Northwood in reply to one of my Freedom of…
Over 1,200 arms companies will attend the world’s largest arms fair this September to hawk their deadly wares to 25,000 buyers from around the world. The Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEi) exhibition is taking place from 13-16 September at the ExCeL centre in east London.
DSEi is organised by Clarion Events (who also run family-friendly events such as the Baby Show) and by the government’s UK Trade and Investment Defence & Security Organisation (UKTI DSO).
…On 26 June, about 100 people went on a pilgrimage to the military training ground on Epynt mountain in mid-Wales. On “Armed Forces Day” they showed their objection to the militarisation of Wales and in particular to the testing of unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs or drones.
A service was held in the remains of Babell chapel led by the reverend Guto Prys ap Gwynfor, chair of Cymdeithas y Cymod (the Fellowship of Reconciliation in Wales). He said that the authorities wanted us to remember…
On 26 July, 170 peace activists from 17 countries entered the “North European Aerospace Test Range” (NEAT) in north Sweden in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience. Some 28 activists were arrested or detained, among them activists from Venezuela, the UK, Spain, Germany and Finland. The action started at midday with a pink carnival which involved people marking the test range and the road leading to it with pink arrows and the slogan “War starts here, let’s stop it here!”. The airspace was…
As we saw in the last issue, drones are the hot new weapons of the 21st century. While drones have been around for decades, mostly as small, short-range and unreliable surveillance planes, a convergence of technological factors in the last decade have taken them to the forefront of the arms race.
With the rapid emergence of sophisticated drones in the last few years, Britain was caught flat-footed without a capable domestic drone system. The response was two-fold. Firstly,…
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, are aircraft either controlled by “pilots” from the ground or, increasingly, autonomously following a pre-programmed mission. While there are dozens of different types of drones, they basically fall into two categories: those that are used for reconnaissance and surveillance purposes; and those that are armed with missiles and bombs.
The use of drones has grown quickly in recent years because unlike piloted aircraft they can…
Over the past month Libya has been added to the list of countries subjected to drone strikes by US and British forces, joining Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Iraq. Unfortunately, the list of countries facing these kind of remote attacks is only likely to grow as US military procurement plans, released this month, show that the Pentagon is planning to double its arsenal of large military drones over the next decade.
In Pakistan, anger at the continuing CIA drone strikes continues to…
On 13 May, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced it is forming a second RAF drones squadron to be based at RAF Waddington, Lincs. RAF pilots will then control the UK’s armed Reaper drones that fly in Afghanistan from Waddington rather than the Creech US air force (USAF) base in Nevada. Defence secretary, Liam Fox noted that this followed the doubling of the UK’s Reaper capability to ten aircraft, an increased investment of £135m in drone warfare.
A recent article by two senior MoD…
