Last week, marking the 17th anniversary of the
Afghan War, I joined my friends and colleagues at Creech Air Force Base at
Indian Springs, Nevada, home of the Predator (formerly Reaper) Drones to protest extra judicial killings in all the
countries drones operate: including Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Mali, Syria, and
Somalia, We were a varied crew from
places as far distant as Iowa, Salt Lake, Reno, Indiana, Colorado, New Jersey,
Hawaii, and Mexico, including professors of anthropology and linguistics, a
Menonite activist who walks Palestinian children safely to school past the
Israeli checkpoints two months a year, and a former U.S. diplomat and
participant in the Gaza flotilla delivering a boat load of medicines intended for
Gaza but detained till further notice by the Israeli government. Our week of
protest was organized by Code Pink, in collaboration with Veterans for Peace, Voices
for Creative Nonviolence and local groups. Some of us protest in the hope that
eventually we will shut down Creech and the military machine that now consumes
over 62% of the national budget to the detriment of infrastructure maintenance,
environment, health, welfare, and education, which receive percentages in the
meager single digits. Some of us think we cannot change a waroholic government,
but we don’t want that government to change us. We are a motley but cheerful
crew of Code Pink organizers as our goofy picture shows.
(For Creech religious practices see: https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7218921764613108785#editor/target=post;postID=3754103717847685258;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=41;src=postname)
Valiantly we displayed our banners (Kill by Drone, Reap the
Whirlwind) from 6 to 9 AM and from 3 to 5 PM as hundreds of cars streamed past
us entering and leaving the base, most operated by their single drivers hailing
from 70 miles away in Las Vegas. We sustained
seven arrests, one of them unintended because no warning was given, one
public stripping of a female organizer, and jail holds lasting in excess of 30
hours in the Clark County Detention Center, one of the worst jails in the
United States. Said one detainee: “Not a place for human beings., A place for
slaves.” And while children are killed, the drones drone on from sun
up to sunset, and we protest in a barren landscape under its vast skies and
towering thunderheads in a weather system building up from storms as far south
as Baja, with gale force winds, and rain, lightning and thunder in the desert.
Asymmetrical Warfare
The U.S. drone program dates from the events of 9/11,
growing exponentially by 2018 with drone bases scattered as far as Niger and
Chad. Its rationale was to prevent our “brave young men and women” from the
inconveniences of combat, in favor of shedding blood other than theirs, a
system which has proved to have unfortunate consequences: it facilitates extra
judicial killings, without trial judge or jury, it destroys societies unable
any longer to conduct weddings and funerals out of danger, or to shop, go to
school, attend evening prayer, herd goats, or farm; for
every “terrorist” it takes out, statistics show that it spills the blood of innocent
civilians, many of them children; it creates more enemy-terrorists than it
is designed to kill, and perhaps worst of all: its pilots still suffer from
PTSD.
Destabilization
While we were at Creech, we entertained the company of Ray
McGovern, former intelligence analyst for the CIA in the good old days before
spooks scurried under its umbrella, corrupting an organization by inherent conflict
of interest, namely in its tendency now “fixing” the intelligence to justify
military action. Among other things, he
brought to our attention an article uncensored by the New
York Times of Sept. 6, 2018, in which Jodi Rudoren quotes Nathan Thrall, a
Jerusalem-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, quoting him as
saying “The perpetuation of the [Syrian] conflict is absolutely serving
Israel’s interest,” because destabilization of the middle East countries
surrounding Israel keeps their threat to manageable levels. Drone warfare is
encouraged by Israel with the help of the United States acting as its enforcer
state.
Profit
But a third factor keeping the skids of dronewar greased is
that of profit for such corporations as the two leading drone manufacturers,
Northrup Grumman, maker of the Global
Hawk with a flight time of 32 hours, and a unit cost of $131.4 million, and
General Atomics, a privately held corporation, and maker of the Predator, now
rebranded as Reaper drone, with a stay in the air capability of 14 hours, at a
unit cost of $16.9 million. Figures for
the privately held company are hard to establish, but Northrup
Grumman showed $22.8 billion in sales in 2018. Basking in an income tax rate of
just 19.5 %, its profits for Q2 of 2018 stand at $7.l billion. As George Bush famously advised President Kirchner of Argentina, when that
country was on the verge of economic collapse. “War is good for business.”
Racism
Yet a fourth irrationalization for the use of drones applies,
such that with the exception of Germany in World War II, the United States’
preferred enemies are always people of color, especially people of color whose
territories and resources it covets.
The chief dysfunction guiding the U.S.
military/industrial/prison complex is the racism it publicly displays with the
election of its current administration by a huge proportion of its voters.
Meantime, we occupy the highway outside Creech AFB, wondering how many
casualties, how many prosthetic arms and legs the drone whirlwind may reap
during the scant hours we maintain our vigil, banners aloft, (17 years in
Afghanistan. Enough!) and the ingeniously constructed stanchions and ballast
holding them against the occasionally
hurricane force winds that compete with
them, wonderstruck at the immense skies surrounding us, the swales of sunlight
radiating between menacing thunderheads, breakthrough sunlight firing the surrounding
mountains in bright colors, and the endless stretch of desert, all reminders
that this Earth is an island, one of millions of similar islands marking their
trajectories throughout the universe, some of them perhaps peopled by more peaceful
and intelligent life than ours.
International
In 1989, Brazil’s Porto Allegre became the world’s first
city where residents participate in budgetary decisions, Three decades later
the practice has become widespread in over 3000 municipalities.
Indonesia bans new palm oil plantations.
Chile convicts 20 Pinochet-era intelligence agents for their
role kidnapping and murdering 12 victims of CIA-backed Operation Condor.
International Court investigates the U.S. and U.K.’s mass
expulsion of the indigenous Chagossian
people, from Diego Garcia.
Green Party endorses letter to the ICC requesting that it
investigate crimes committed by Israel.
Fighting for the poor and disenfranchised, Renata Souza
steps into the role of assassinated
councilwoman, Marielle Franco in Rio de Janeiro..
AMLO’s landslide election raises hopes for Mexican labor.
Environment
Ohio hospital treats whole neighborhood as ‘patient,’
diagnosing the cause as “unstable housing.”
Pakistan plants more than a million trees.
Australian real estate developer Lendlease is supporting a
200 MW solar power project which has secured a town approval and a tax
abatement in East Texas.
Putting world on notice, Dutch court orders government to
move faster on emissions cuts.
Cleveland, Ohio aims for 100% renewables as it sheds its
fossil fuel past.
Federal judge strikes down the administration’s decision to
remove the greater Yellowstone grizzly bear from the endangered species list,
thereby reinstating federal protection for the bears.
Black residents of
Greensborough, N.C. open food co-op, the first of its kind in the
nation.
Kentucky’s Mountain Association for Community Economic
Development announces energy conservation jobs have come to coal country.
Zero emission buses move a giant step loser to becoming
commonplace in California.
Solar United launches Solar for All to provide free local
solar to all of Washington D.C.’s low income families over the next fifteen
years.
Justice
Dallas police officer who killed an innocent unarmed black
man in his own home is fired.
Officials in Hartford Connecticut roll out ordinance
preventing deceptive advertising in faith-based pregnancy centers that use
anti-choice messaging to target those seeking abortion and contraception
services.
California is first in the nation to ensure water or milk
comes standard with children’s meals at restaurants.
John McDonnell of the UK Labour Party unveils policy
requiring large corporations gradually to place 10% of their equity into an
inclusive Ownership Fund owned by workers.
Two whistleblower attorneys announce that a joint client
received a whistleblower award from the IRS of $13.6 million dollars by
providing information leading to the government collecting over $52.6 million
dollars in taxes, penalties, and interest.
Jury finds police officer Van Dyke guilty of second-degree
murder in the 2014 murder of black teenager, Laquan McDonald..
Amazon whose CEO is richest man in the world, concedes $15
hour floor wage.
Across the U.S. states and 92 cities, among them San
Francisco and Cincinnati, ditch Columbus Day to honor indigenous peoples.
Governor Brown signs A.B. 829 and 2162 to eliminate local
barriers to housing homeless people.
Democratic AGs successfully sue DeVos in federal court to stop
her from rolling back protections for students from abusive for-profit
colleges.
U.S. won’t appeal court order freeing pizza delivery man
from ICE custody.
Citing shithole countries slur, judge blocks administration
from ending immigration protections.
Udall and 12 other democrats introduce bill to battle
suppression of the American Indian vote.
Colorado, Michigan,
Missouri and Utah vote on redistricting reforms in November.
Senate Democrats introduce bill mandating body cameras at
ICE.
At
last Feds arrest SoCal racists for violence in Charlottesville.
Resistance
Dozens of students, faculty, and community members demonstrated
at John Hopkins University demanding the university end its relationship
with Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE).
Charges dismissed for Roman Catholic woman priest and others
who sat in Rep. Steny Hoyer’s office demanding he speak out against U.S.
involvement in Yemen.
Workers at Diamond Freight in Yakima band together to sue a
local trucking company for wage theft.
Rapid Response pro-immigrant networks spread nationwide.
Medea Benjamin of Code Pink confronts official at hearing on
Iran.
Yale cancels some classes as law students protest Brett
Kavanaugh nomination.
Los Angeles puts city-owned bank on the ballot.
Peace
UN court issues interim order to U.S. lifting some Iran
sanctions.
House resolution directs the president to end U.S. support
for Yemen War.
The House and Senate in a rare display of partisan accord,
pass measure to address the opioid epidemic.
South Korea’s leader urges U.S. to end the Korean war.
Pyongyang agrees to start denuclearization process.
Moon and Kim stage
exuberant summit in Pyongyang.
Koreans begin removing land mines from the DMZ to ease
military tensions.
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