A US Army chaplain has resigned to protest the use of drones in a "policy of unaccountable killing." "I resign," he says, "because I refuse to support U.S. policy of preventive war, permanent military supremacy and global power projection. "
I know the Americans think me an opponent of their drone wars. They are right; I am. Singling out people to assassinate, and killing nine of our innocent children for each person they target, is a crime of unspeakable proportions. Their policy is as foolish as it is criminal, as it radicalises the very people we are trying to calm down.
Polls show it and commentators of all political stripes often cite the figures: Killer drone attacks by the U.S. military and the CIA in the Greater Middle East and Africa have strong U.S. public support. Yet major media ignore four former Air Force drone-war personnel who went public with an open letter to President Obama urging the President to reconsider a program that kills “innocent civilians,” and which “only fueled the feelings of hatred that ignited terrorism.
The recent U.S. deployment of special operations forces to Syria expands a global U.S. battlefield that is at a historic size. This year, special ops have been sent to a record 147 countries—75 percent of the nations on the planet. It’s a 145 percent increase from the days of George W. Bush. And it means that on any given day elite U.S. forces are on the ground in 70 to 90 countries.
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Culminating a 90-mile walk for justice and peace across Wisconsin, on August 26th, some of the walkers will commit nonviolent civil resistance at Volk Field, carrying the messages about drone warfare and racial profiling into courts of law and public opinion.
It is not just the U.S. image that is suffering. Drone strikes create more enemies of the United States. While Faisal Shahzad was pleading guilty to trying to detonate a bomb in Times Square, he told the judge, “When the drones hit, they don’t see children.”
As of last week we lifted the ban on selling drones to foreign countries. Arms merchants have neither allies nor enemies. They have only customers. We are a country locked in a permanent war economy. To feed that economy we must have permanent war. And we have never been more successful at securing that combination than we are right now. Our endless wars with Iraq and Afghanistan destabilized the entire region.
A group of Afghan friends had entrusted me with a simple message, their grievance, which they couldn’t personally deliver: please stop killing us.
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