Drone Warfare on Trial

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report

Monday September 20, 2010 17:16

by Ciaron O'Reilly - Catholic Worker/Ploughshares

14 Catholic Worker and other friends have been on trial in Las Vegas for the nonviolent resistance action they took at Creech Air Force Base in the Nevada desert (USA) against drone warfare that is directed from the base over Pakistan and Afghanistan. Below is a good article about how the trial proceeded and the judge's decision to take four months to study the issue.

Over the weekend I attended a F.O.R. conference in London on Drone Warfare
http://www.for.org.uk/act/campaign/

I participated in a workshop by activists who are resisting the development of a drone testing range in Wales http://www.bepj.org.uk/ Other testing ranges exist in Northern Sweden and the South Australian desert around Woomera.

I also attended a workshop by Chris Cole on BAE and their development of drones. See his blog
www.dronewarsuk.wordpress.com

There were also workshops on the Israeli use of drones over Palestine, the illegality of drone warfare and developments in robotic warfare.

Drones on Trial and a Judge who is Listening
By Jerica Arents
September 17, 2010

I received an education yesterday.

I wasn’t in a classroom. I wasn’t laboring over a paper, strategizing in a small group, poring over a textbook or hustling across campus. I was sitting as a spectator in the front row of Judge Jansen’s courtroom in Clark County, Nevada.

Fourteen peace activists were on trial for trying to hand-deliver a letter to the base commander at Creech Air Force Base in April of 2009. Their letter laid out concerns about usage of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or drones, for surveillance and combat purposes in Afghanistan. The Creech 14 believe that the usage of remote aerial vehicles to hunt down and kill people in other lands amounts to targeted assassination and is prohibited by international and U.S. law. Soldiers carrying M16s stopped them after they had walked past the guardhouse at the base entrance and a few hours later Nevada state troopers handcuffed the Creech 14 and took them into custody.

The next day, they were charged with trespass to a military facility and released. The charges were later dropped, then reinstated. Defendants, upon learning of a September 14, 2010 court date, had ten months to plan for their trial. They decided to represent themselves pro se and to call, as expert witnesses, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Colonel Ann Wright and Professor Bill Quigley, the Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. What were the chances that a Las Vegas court that normally handles traffic violations and minor offenses would admit three expert witnesses to testify on behalf of defendants charged with a simple trespass? Slim to zero in the view of most observers.

Article continued....
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/drones-trial-and-j...stens