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ARMY VET SPEAKS OUT ON RESISTING KILLER DRONES

By Rollean

The U.S. is at the forefront of manufacturing enemies.  And we’re now making a whole lot more with robotic warfare waged by “unmanned aerial vehicles” (UAV’s) like the armed Predator drone or missile “systems” like the ones that use Insitu’s drones.   They are being flown by the hundreds in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan by the military and by the CIA.

They assassinate anyone their handlers are pleased to target, without benefit of independent investigation or trial, with zero accountability. The fingers on the triggers that launch the Hellfire missiles can be 7,000 miles away in Las Vegas.

The civilian cost is high. David Kilcullen, a former top advisor to General David Petraeus, testified before Congress early in 2009 that drones had terminated 14 “high-value” Islamic militants, while killing some 700 Pakistani civilians. In June 2009, after missing its main target seven or eight times and killing scores of people in the process, the C.I.A. killed as many as 86 more during a drone attack on a funeral gathering for the earlier victims.

Ten of the dead were children, and four were elderly tribal leaders. Body parts went flying everywhere.  These were innocent country people.  The C.I.A. made no apology. Who was the terrorist in that attack?

It violates international law and any sense of morality or clear thinking to allow this violence in our name.  These victims had faces and dreams and loved ones.  Acts like this by the C.I.A. are cowardly beyond words and will be paid back in kind some way and some day.  We can bet the farm on that.

And we will pay in lives.  We love our cheap affordable oil, but the young men and women in uniform that help provide it look unacceptably pale and unheroic when unpacked at Dover, Delaware after they step on an I.E.D. or are hit by U.S. friendly fire.

The problem is that drones and robots make war way more likely, and a fresh new dynamic is emerging: the illusion of war without risk.  The term “clean war” is even bandied about in Washington.  No need for courage or heroics.  Send in a machine.  Let the robot take the punch.  They’re cheap, no pilot is onboard, and they make jobs, jobs, jobs.
Since every war system from the slingshot to the nuclear missile has been copied and pointed back at the inventor, do we really want to go down this road?  What are our choices, and where can they take us?  The April conference in Hood River will explore these questions and choices for organizers through panel discussions, speakers, and small-group sessions. Come join us.

Rollean is a peace activist, U.S. Army veteran, and board member of the Columbia River Fellowship for Peace.  He lives in Lyle, Washington.


INSITU DESERVES A HARDER LOOK

By Susan Garrett Crowley

Insitu, a local drone developer now owned by Boeing, has recently approached cities in the Columbia River Gorge  as a part of a public relations campaign to develop public support for its operations.  Since Boeing/Insitu has initiated this discussion, Washington and Oregon citizens may want to carefully consider the true nature of what it is designed to do for the U.S. military.

Insitu drones were developed to track moving targets on the ground.  Early Insitu scientists had hoped to develop a product that would track fish schools for the kill, but found a limited market.  Instead, its drones will probably be used directly or indirectly to track humans for the kill, as well as for simple surveillance.

Boeing/Insitu now choose to emphasize reconnaissance, not the targeting assistance, but their development history shows that both are intended.  A development report dated April 14, 2005 and then posted on Insitu’s website described testing of its drone ScanEagle at White Sands Missile Range:  The drone “ . . . provided . . . targeting support and [was] used to derive targeting information for the delivery of an ATAC missile and JDAM missile.”

According to the website, in March and June of 2004, the ScanEagle flew with a larger Predator drone – which is not made by Insitu, but which is armed and used in assassination missions -- during tests of “hand-off strategies” with the Predator as they “prosecute targets.”  Preliminary results indicated “that ScanEagle was among the quickest for target acquisition and most accurate for target location designation.”

Insitu drones have now been used by the U.S. Marines, Navy and Air Force and in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Boeing/Insitu website is no longer so frank.

From miles on high there is no way for a drone to project exactly who the human beings inside targeted buildings or vehicles might be.  Many are individuals who die tragically in a crossfire not of their making.  Inevitable targeting mistakes have already created more enemies for the U.S. in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, whose citizens refuse to consider their lost family members merely “collateral damage.”

Drones facilitate arm’s-length killing with no risk to the killer.  Warfare without apparent cost can result in warfare without thought.  It makes it easy for us to think we can occupy a foreign country and then savage our opposition and assassinate inconvenient local leaders – all by manipulating a computer joystick many miles away.

Moreover, it’s now assumed that the U.S. government can execute targeted assassinations of foreign citizens without benefit of any judicial process, an idea that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago and violates norms of international law.  An official acknowledged this week that 367 people are now on the U.S. military’s kill list (New York Times, 8/10/09).

This is all done in our name, and Boeing/Insitu has an important role in it.  Do we want to accept this with our silence?  We already pay for it with our tax dollars.

We might take the lead of Insitu founder Tad McGeer, who left the company in part out of discomfort with its growing military focus.   If Boeing/Insitu is asking for an endorsement of that kind of development in our communities, before we take their 30 pieces of silver, we might at least have an informed discussion of the role they play in forming the world our children will inherit.

Susan Garrett Crowley is a retired Hood River attorney and former mediator.

Note: A version of this Op-Ed piece in response to Insitu’s initiatives was published (without footnotes) in the Hood River News on August 12, 2009, and may be republished if desired.

All Rights Reserved Columbia River Fellowship for Peace 2009