Wednesday, April 03, 2013

Joan Wile stands up to The Drone War

This evening in NYC, Joan Wile, the author of Grandmothers Against the War: Getting Off Our Fannies and Standing Up for Peace and one of the Raging Grannies, will be taking part in an action to protest The Drone War:


NYC GRANNIES TO KICK OFF "APRIL DAYS OF ACTION"
WITH ANTI-DRONE RALLY ON FIFTH AVE. APRIL 3;
Planning for "No Drone" Resolution To NYC Council To Be Announced

New York City peace grandmothers, along with most of the City's other anti-war groups. will kick off April Days of Action on Wednesday, April 3, with a rally at Rockefeller Plaza, from 5 to 6 p.m. on the west side of 5th Ave. between 49th and 50th Sts.  April Days of Action was created by a group of U.S. activists to launch a series of protests in April to generate a public uprising across the country against the government’s deadly drone policy.
Principal speakers on April 3 include Col. Ann Wright, retired Army officer and diplomat who resigned office on the day of the U.S. attack on Iraq; Nick Mottern, editor of Know Drones, and Bill Gilson, President of Veterans for Peace, New York City Chapter 34.

Among the granny groups planning to participate in the rally will be the Granny Peace Brigade, which will announce their plan to call on the New York City Council to pass a resolution controlling the use of both weaponized and surveillance drones in NYC. "The City Council of Charlottesville Virginia has passed such a resolution and the mayor of Seattle has ordered the city police department to scrap plans it had to roll out drones. It is time for New York City to declare itself drone-safe," state the grannies.
"We must stop preying on other nations with these immoral lethal weapons," said Joan Wile, of Grandmothers Against the War, which is coordinating the protest.  "The war against terrorism cannot be justification for using killer drones that often miss their targets and result in the deaths of children and other innocents.  It is unthinkable that our nation, the so-called beacon of democracy, orders an anonymous person sitting in front of a screen to press a button that launches death and destruction to people thousands of miles away.  We are acting as accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner. Where is due process? ""There is a tremendous amount of skepticism with the public about drone attacks in other countries. There is concern that innocent people are killed and enemies of the United States are being made," said  Mottern.

There appears to be a ground swell of doubt developing among the public regarding these lethal missiles.  It is hoped that the April 3 rally will encourage citizens to protest the largely secret drone operations.

DATE:  April  3, 2013
TIME:  5 to 6 p.m.
LOCATION:  west side of 5th Ave. between 49 and 50 Sts. (across from Saks)
Endorsers include: Military Families Speak Out; the Granny Peace Brigade; War Resisters League; Pax Christi Metro New York; Grandmothers for Peace International; Raging Grannies; Veterans for Peace Chapter 34 (NYC); Peace Action Manhattan; World Can't Wait; Peace Action of Staten Island; Code Pink NYC, Women for Peace; Peace Action New York State; Institute for Policy Studies-New Internationalism Project; Brooklyn for Peace; Gray Panthers; The LI Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives; Western New York Peace Center.


Sunday at Third, we wrote "Editorial: The Drone War:"

For years now, The Drone War has taken place and with little objection.
People have been killed.  Innocents?  All are innocent.  None were convicted of anything.  But, yes, children have been killed (as many as 197 in Pakistan alone),  an eight-year-old girl has watched as a drone killed her mother.  The Drone War is US terror inflicted upon innocents, especially children, who watch these attacks from the sky on their family, on their friends, on their neighbors.
And you better believe, these attacks will not be forgotten as the children grow into adults.
The Drone War takes place in Somalia, Yemen and, especially, Pakistan.  In Pakistan alone, US President Barack Obama has launched 366 strikes.


Joan Wile and others taking part in this evening's actions are refusing to be silent, refusing to table objections as the killings continue.  An inter-faith group,  Brave New Foundation, is part of the new awareness saying no to The Drone War.  The organization notes:
Brave New Foundation has the honor of releasing a video to accompany a seminal report by human rights law experts at Stanford and New York University law schools. The report, entitled Living Under Drones presents chilling first-hand testimony from Pakistani civilians on the humanitarian and security costs of escalating drone attacks by the United States. The report uncovers civilian deaths, and shocking psychological and social damage to whole families and communities – where people are literally scared to leave their homes because of drones flying overhead 24 hours a day.

The report is based on nine months of research, including two investigations in Pakistan. The Stanford-NYU research team interviewed over 130 individuals, including civilians who traveled out of the largely inaccessible region of North Waziristan to meet with the researchers. They also interviewed medical doctors who treated strike victims, and humanitarian and journalist professionals who worked in drone impacted areas.

As U.S. citizens, we feel a responsibility to know the real impact of the policies of our government. We hope you will join us at www.WarCosts.com to be part of this fight for a more humane and just world.


If you're in NYC this evening and need additional reasons to participate, you can refer to Conor Friedersdorf's pieces here and here for The Atlantic about the use of drones within the United States.  Need another reason?  The press has enlisted in propaganda to sell the Iraq War.  Case in point: David Axe's nonsense for Reuters entitled "Drone coalition: Key to U.S. security."  No.  It has nothing to do with security.  It has to do with killing.  It has to do with terrorizing.  It has to do with breeding hostilities, angers and resentments that will boil over int he future but don't declare this a key to security because it isn't.


The following community sites -- pluse Antiwar.com, Pacifica Radio and Adam Kokesh -- updated last night and this morning:

Cedric's Big Mix
His ego suffers
22 minutes ago


Wally's "THIS JUST IN! TIME TO BOOST HIS EGO!" is not showing up yet. The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.








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