Photo Credit: Code Pink

The following update is based on a press release issued by Code Pink. You can read the entire press release here.

CODEPINK Group Travels to Gaza to Bring Aid and Witness Devastation From Israeli Assault

In the wake of the ceasefire brokered by Egypt, a 20-person delegation of American journalists and peace advocates is traveling to the decimated territory to witness the hardships now facing the 1.7 million residents, deliver emergency aid and call attention to the need for a longer-term strategy to achieve peace and justice for Palestinians.

The delegates include CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin; former State Department official and retired Col. Ann Wright, and Voices for Creative Nonviolence co-coordinator Kathy Kelly.

“The U.S. government allowed Israel carte blanche for eight days while it pounded more than 1,000 sites in Gaza, disproportionately killing civilians,” noted Wright. “Americans of conscience must witness and report back on the heavy price exacted by our support of Israel, so that taxpayers back home will call for a more humane, productive use of their hard-earned dollars.”

A total of 162 Palestinians were killed during the attack. An estimated 73 percent were civilians, including more than 25 children. Five Israelis were killed. “We mourn the loss of lives on both sides,” said CODEPINK cofounder Medea Benjamin, “but we think it’s important to recognize the that the Palestinians have suffered much greater losses, and that the Israeli armaments used in the attack were financed largely by the United States, which sends Israel $3 billion in military funds every year.”

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Continue here to read the complete Press Release.

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On November 16th I testified in Congress at a congressional briefing on drones organized by Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Here is her testimony.

Drones Create Enemies

I recently returned from leading a US delegation of 34 Americans to Pakistan, looking at the results of US drone attacks. We found that drones are actually jeopardizing our security by spreading hatred of Americans and sowing the seeds of violence for decades to come. Drones help extremists recruit more discontented youth. In the tribal society of Waziristan where the drones are attacking, we learned that people who have lost their family members in these deadly attacks are bound by the Pashtun honor code — Pashtunwali — to retaliate and seek revenge.

While for the most part we were received with great hospitality, we found intense anger over the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and what people perceived as a cavalier attitude towards their lives. “To Americans, we are disposable people; our lives are worth nothing” an angry young man told me. At a meeting with the Islamabad Bar Association, we were confronted by a group of lawyers yelling, “Americans, go home. You are all a bunch of terrorists.”

A June 2012 Pew Research poll found that 3 out of 4 Pakistanis considered the US their enemy. With a population of over 180 million, that means 133 million people! Surely that cannot be good for our national security. When Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar was asked why there was so animosity towards the United States, she gave a one word answer: drones.

Suspending drone strikes won’t automatically make us loved or stop Islamic radicals, but continuing the strikes only exacerbates the problem. Whether in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia—Al Qaeda, the Taliban or Al Shabab may be callously killing innocent people, local police and armed forces, but by capitalizing on the fear of drones and the intrusion of Westerners, they cast themselves as defenders of the people.

The US Use of Drones Is Setting a Dangerous Precedent

The US is using drones as if it were the only country to possess them. But the overwhelming US dominance is coming to an end, with the technology falling into the hands of other nations, friends and foes alike.

According to a GAO report, by 2012 more than 75 countries have acquired drones. Most of these are for surveillance and reconnaissance missions but many countries—including Israel, Britain, France, Russia, Turkey, China, India and Iran—either have or are seeking weaponized drones.

Israel is the world’s leading exporter of drones, with more than 1,000 sold in 42 countries. China is producing some 25 different types of drones. Iran has already begun deploying its own reconnaissance drones and weapons-ready models are in the works. In October the Iranian government announced a new long-range drone that can fly 2,000 kilometers; just weeks ago, an Iranian drone launched by Hezbollah flew in Israeli airspace for three hours, beaming back live images of secret Israeli military bases before being shot down by the Israeli military.

A 2012 GAO study reported that “certain terrorist organizations” have acquired small, more rudimentary drones, such as radio-controlled aircraft that are available through the Internet. But if terrorists were able to equip these drones with even a small quantity of chemical or biological weapons, it could produce lethal results.

The proliferation of drones should evoke reflection on the precedent that the US is setting by killing anyone it wants, anywhere it wants, on the basis of secret information. Other nations and non-state entities are watching—and are bound to start acting in a similar fashion.

Surveillance Drones at Home

Here at home, the use of surveillance drones is about to explode thanks in large measure to the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus. Self-described as “industry’s voice on Capitol Hill”, this group of fifty lawmakers has close ties with the powerful industry lobby group: the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI).

The Caucus not only pushes to lift export restrictions, but also to relax regulations that limit the use of drones domestically. It pushed through legislation that requires the FAA to fully integrate drones into US airspace by September 15, 2015.

Some police departments have already applied for—and received—permission to test out various kinds of drones. From Miami to Houston to Mesa Country, Colorado, police departments have drones that can be equipped with tasers, stun batons, grenade launchers, shotguns, tear gas canisters and rubber bullets.

These drones can also be outfitted with high-powered cameras, thermal imaging devices, license plate readers, and laser radar. In the near future, they might add biometric recognition that can track individuals based on height, age, gender, and skin color and will soon have the capacity to see through walls and ceilings.

All the pieces appear to be lining up to introduce routine aerial surveillance into American life—a development that would profoundly change the character of public life in the United States. This is especially worrisome since our privacy laws are not strong enough to ensure that the new technology will be used responsibly and consistently with democratic values.

Drones at home also pose a threat to our safety because the technology is still in its early stages and many drones don’t have adequate “detect sense and avoid” technology to prevent midair collisions. In 2009, the Air Force admitted that more than a third of their drones had crashed. In August 2012 a drone in Afghanistan collided with a C-130 cargo plane, forcing it to make an emergency landing.

In June 2012 the military’s largest drone, the Global Hawk, did not crash in some far-flung overseas outpost but right here in southern Maryland. The aircraft, valued at $176 million, was on a Navy test mission when the ground pilot lost control. Luckily, it crashed into a marsh, not a residential neighborhood.

The Way Forward

The burden is now squarely on Congress and the public to push back against the proliferation of drones as a military and law enforcement tool.

Peace groups such as CODEPINK, Voices of Creative Non-Violence, and Catholic Workers are part of a growing movement protesting at US bases where lethal drones are remotely operated and at the headquarters of drone manufacturers. Faith-based leaders are questioning the morality of killer drones.

More and more, people of conscience are calling for international guidelines to curb robotic warfare, as the world community has done in the case of land mines and cluster bombs.

We are calling on friends in Congress to act as a counterweight to the pro-drone Caucus and the drone lobby. We need congresspeople who will stand up to a lethal presidential policy run amok, who will advocate on behalf of the privacy and safety of Americans at home, and on behalf of the rule of law overseas, who will demand that the CIA revert to being an intelligence-gathering agency, who will say that after 10 years of waging a war on terror by terrorizing people, it’s time to try another way—a way that includes speeding up the US troop exit from Afghanistan, stopping the deadly drone strikes, promoting peace talks and helping to educate and provide economic opportunities to people in the conflict regions.

The response to the brutal shooting of 15-year-old Pakistani Malala Yousefzai points in that direction. While the police undertook a nationwide search for her aggressors, Malala’s shooting awoke Pakistani’s silent majority who are saying “Enough” to Taliban threats and oppression. Pakistanis organized rallies throughout the country; girls everywhere, even in SWAT Valley where Malala was shot, expressed their determination to return to school; fathers vowed to protect the schools themselves; and citizens delivered one million signatures to the government demanding free and compulsory education.

Right now, less than half of Pakistani children are enrolled in school; in the tribal areas the figures are less than 20 percent, and only one in five students is female. The numbers are even worse in Yemen and Somalia. For the cost of one Hellfire missile, we could educate 750 children a year.

For the cost of one Predator drone, we could send 37,000 children to school. What a great way to fight extremism, build a better future for the youth of these nations, and make ourselves safer by winning the hearts and minds of the people. Schools not drones should not just be a catchy slogan, but a radical shift away from a 10-plus year failed policy of endless war towards one based on making peace with our Muslim neighbors.

Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange, and is author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.

Despite President Obama’s talk about getting out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, the U.S. military still has some 68,000 troops and almost 100,000 private contractors there, at a cost of $2 billion a week. And Obama is talking about a presence of U.S. troops, training missions, special forces operations, and bases for another decade. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of Americans think this war is not worth fighting, a sentiment echoed in a recent New York Times editorial “Time to Pack Up.” It is, indeed, time to pack up. The peace movement must push for withdrawal starting now—and definitely no long-term presence! Veteran’s Day should be a time to take a hard look at the impact of war on soldiers, particularly the epidemic of soldier suicide.  We must also look at the devastating impact of war on Afghan women and children, particularly as winter sets in. Despite the billions of dollars our government has poured into development projects, Afghan children are literally freezing to death.

American drone attacks are out of control, killing thousands in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, many of them civilians. Drones are sowing widespread anti-American sentiment and setting a dangerous precedent that will come back to haunt us. Anti-drones protests have sprung up all over the United States at air forces bases where the drones are piloted, at the headquarters of drone manufacturers, at the CIA and in Congressional offices. Our job now is to coordinate those efforts, to launch a massive public education campaign to reverse pro-drone public opinion, pass city resolutions against drone use, and to call on our elected officials to start respecting the rule of law. If we strengthen our ties with people in the nations most affected, as we have begun to do on our recent CODEPINK delegation to Pakistan, and join in with those at the UN bodies who are horrified by drone proliferation, we can make progress in setting some global standards for the use of lethal drones.

Also looming ominously is a possible Israeli attack on Iran that would draw the US into a devastating regional war. Almost 60 percent of Americans oppose joining Israel in a war with Iran. We must make sure Obama and Congress hear that voice above the din of AIPAC lobbyists gunning for war, and steer clear of dragging the US into yet another Middle Eastern conflict.  Public opinion campaigns such as the “Iranians We Love You” posters on busses in Tel Aviv, and cross-cultural exchanges in Iran and the US bring humanity to a tenuous political situation.  We also must renew efforts to oppose the crippling sanctions that are impacting everyday citizens in Iran, and rippling out to spike food prices elsewhere, including Afghanistan.

Perhaps hardest of all will be to get some traction on changing US policy towards Israel/Palestine. The grassroots movement to stop unconditional financial and political support for Israel is booming, with groups like Students for Justice in Palestine and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation building networks across the country. Campaigns to boycott and divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation continue to win victories and attract global support. We’re unlikely to see the Obama administration and Congress condemning settlements, human rights abuses, or the ongoing siege of Gaza, much less cutting off the $3 billion a year that helps underwrite these abuses. But we can continue to shift public opinion and gain more allies in Congress, with an openness to reaching out to libertarians and fiscal conservatives calling for cuts in foreign aid.  In the aftermath of the election, Jewish Voice for Peace and interfaith allies have pledged to continue efforts to call for US aid to Israel to be conditioned on compliance with international law.

And then there’s the bloated Pentagon budget. At a time when the nation is looking at how best to allocate scarce resources, all eyes should be on the billions of dollars wasted on Pentagon policies and weapons that don’t make us safer. From the over 800 bases overseas to outdated Cold War weapons to monies given to repressive regimes, we need a rational look at the Pentagon budget that could free up billions for critical social and environmental programs.

Key to building a vibrant peace movement in the next four years is coalition-building, reaching out to a broad array of social justice groups to make the connections between their work and the billions drained from our economy for war. Environmentalists, women’s rights advocates, labor unions, civil rights—there are so many connections that have to be rekindled from the Bush years or started anew.

Finally, we have to provide alternatives to the worn narrative that the military interventions around the world are making us more secure. It’s time to demand alternatives like negotiations, creative diplomacy and a foreign policy gearing toward solving global problems, not perpetuating endless war. The UN declared November 10th “Malala Day” in honor of Pakistan’s 15-year-old Malala Yousefzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban for supporting education for girls.  This tragedy awoke international commitments to ensuring girls can get to school, a relatively inexpensive goal with major returns for the advancement of women’s rights, health, prosperity, and security.  Wouldn’t it be nice to see our government prioritizing funds for school over drone warfare and endless weapons stockpiling?

“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice,” said Martin Luther King. If we can connect these foreign policy issues with domestic needs and climate change, if we can follow the powerful examples of mass direct action movements from Chile to Egypt, and if enough people practice democracy daily rather than waiting until the next presidential election, then maybe–just maybe—we’ll be able to push the arc of Obama’s second term in the direction of peace and justice.

Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange, and is author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.

John Brennan

Having recently returned from Pakistan meeting with drone victims, on November 4 my partner Tighe Barry and I were having a leisurely Sunday morning breakfast. The discussion turned to John Brennan, Obama’s counterterrorism chief and the key person making decisions about drone strikes. We wondered if Brennan ever had a chance to meet innocent drone victims, as we did, and feel their pain.

Medea Benjamin

“Maybe we should go to his house and talk to him,” quipped Tighe. We laughed at the absurdity of the idea but decided to do a little bit of research. Fifteen minutes later, we were out the door, driving to a Virginia suburb an hour south of Washington DC. I had no idea if it was really John’s address, but it was a lovely day for a drive—and Tighe was willing to indulge me.

Exiting the freeway, we came to an area of rolling hills, green grass and private horse farms. As we approached what we thought might be John Brennan’s street, we were sure it was a mistake. How could this be? It was a nondescript upper middle class neighborhood, with children playing in the yards—no security, no government vehicles. The house was in a cul-de-sac sandwiched between two other houses, without so much as a fence surrounding it.

I decided to go knock on the door to make sure we were wrong.  A middle-aged, white-haired guy in a casual sweater and jeans opened the door, accompanied by someone who l assumed was his wife.

Could this really be John Brennan? The same man who championed “enhanced interrogation techniques” under President Bush? The same man who now decides, on “terror Tuesdays”, who will be on the CIA kill list? The guy who developed the Orwellian “disposition matrix”—a blueprint for disposing of terrorist suspects for at least another decade?

I hesitated. He looked much younger and thinner than I remembered, and he looked like such a nice man. And would someone who spent his career in the CIA and was the nation’s counterterrorism czar be answering his own door?

“John?,” I asked. “Yes,” he replied tentatively. I continued, still doubting that he was really John Brennan. “I’m sorry to bother you at your home on a Sunday, but I wanted to talk to you about a recent trip.”

“A trip?”, he asked, squinting his eyes and cocking his head to the side. “A trip to where?” “Pakistan,” I answered. “Ohhhhh,” he said.

What he really meant was, “Oh shit.” For it was at that moment I realized he was indeed John Brennan, and he realized that I knew exactly who he was.

“How did you know where I live?,” the spy-extraordinaire asked. I was suddenly nervous, knowing this was a man who put people on kill lists. Thinking quickly, I told him I had friends in the neighborhood who gave me his address.

He asked for a business card, and I ran back to get one from the car—where Tighe was waiting. We exchange looks, OMG!

When I went back and handed the card to Brennan, he glanced at it and muttered, “Ah, CODEPINK. I thought that’s who you were.” The last time we met I was being dragged out of the Woodrow Wilson Center by a 300-pound security man while yelling “I love my country! You’re making us less safe. Shame on you Mr. Brennan.”

I knew I didn’t have much time so I start(ed) talking fast—telling him I had just returned from a delegation to Pakistan meeting with drone victims, how heartbroken I was to hear their stories, how terrible it is that these drone attacks are causing so much suffering to innocent people and turning the entire Pakistani population against us.

He insisted that it wasn’t true, that we weren’t harming civilians. “But we met with people who lost their children, their fathers, their loved ones—we have photos of little children….” I wanted to say so much more. I wanted to tell him about the journalist Karim Khan who lost his son and brother or about 16-year-old Tariq Aziz, who was killed when trying to document drone strikes. I wanted to talk to him about the statistics provided by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that say conservative estimates of civilian casualties add up over 1,000.

“It’s just not true,” he repeated, dismissively. “You are being manipulated.”

By this time, the woman who joined him at the door had become very agitated. “You shouldn’t be coming to our house on a Sunday. We rarely get to see him as it is. You should talk to him in an appropriate place.”

I pleaded. “I’ve tried many times to do that, but never receive a response.” I asked for a number where I could reach him to set up a meeting, but he refused. “I have your information, I can reach you,” he claimed, waving my bright pink business card in the air.

Worried that he might be about to call in the police, or the CIA, or maybe even a drone, I finally desisted and thanked him for his time. “I want you to know, John, that I am doing this from my heart, because I care about the lives of innocent people everywhere and I care about our country.” With that, he slammed the door.
—
Medea Benjamin, Co-Director of Code Pink and Co-founder of Global Exchange, is author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.

Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control

Did you know that a drone can be as small as a bumble bee, that local law enforcement offices are eager to be the first to have their own fleet of drones here in the US and that Obama has granted the CIA the authority to kill people in Pakistan and Yemen using drone “signature strikes” based solely on suspicious behavior?

Medea Benjamin’s new book: Drone Warfare, Killing by Remote Control  is a well-researched investigation of these deadly weapons and how we can build a movement to stop them.

As Tom Hayden says in his blog:

After reading Medea Benjamin’s Drone Warfare, Killing by Remote Control, I can only wish she will invest more time in writing and less time getting arrested, because there are so few activists with her gifts of research, analysis and communication. But she wouldn’t be Medea without being arrested and pepper-sprayed in one front or another, because she is a true witness in both the Quaker moral sense and as a seeing journalist in the thick of things.

Come Hear Medea Speak About Drones

Medea Benjamin will be talking about her drones research and calls to action. Global Exchange and KPFA present An evening with Medea: “Drone Warfare, Killing by Remote Control” hosted by Laura Pirves.

• 7:30 Tuesday, June 19^th
• The Hillside Club 2286 Cedar Street Berkeley 
• Buy your tickets here 

In addition, special pre-talk reception hosted by Global Exchange and Code Pink will be held at the Hillside Club from 6:00 – 7:30.

Become a GEMS, Attend this Special Reception With Medea AND Get a Copy of Drone Warfare, Killing by Remote Control

Become a Global Exchange monthly sustainer (GEMS) now and receive a free signed copy of Drone Warfare, Killing by Remote Control plus an invitation to this intimate reception with Medea.

WE HAVE ten free tickets reserved for Global Exchange Monthly Sustainers. Sign up to become one of our GEMS and help support our important work plus attend this special reception and receive your copy.

Here’s How:

Step 1: Sign up to become a GEMS

Step 2: Call Kirsten to get your free ticket to the reception and talk 255-7295.

Questions? Email Kirsten at kirsten@globalexchange.org.

If you’re in the Bay Area we hope you are able to join us for this enlightening evening. This is a rare visit to the Bay Area by one of our favorite rabble rousers, Medea Benjamin, who is eager to reconnect with all of her Bay Area friends. Don’t miss it!

 Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. 

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On May 29, The New York Times published an extraordinarily in-depth look at the intimate role President Obama has played in authorizing US drone attacks overseas, particularly in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. It is chilling to read the cold, macabre ease with which the President and his staff decide who will live or die. The fate of people living thousands of miles away is decided by a group of Americans, elected and unelected, who don’t speak their language, don’t know their culture, don’t understand their motives or values. While purporting to represent the world’s greatest democracy, US leaders are putting people on a hit list who are as young as 17, people who are given no chance to surrender, and certainly no chance to be tried in a court of law.

Who is furnishing the President and his aides with this list of terrorist suspects to choose from, like baseball cards? The kind of intelligence used to put people on drone hit lists is the same kind of intelligence that put people in Guantanamo. Remember how the American public was assured that the prisoners locked up in Guantanamo were the “worst of the worst,” only to find out that hundreds were innocent people who had been sold to the US military by bounty hunters?

Why should the public believe what the Obama administration says about the people being assassinated by drones? Especially since, as we learn in the New York Times, the administration came up with a semantic solution to keep the civilian death toll to a minimum: simply count all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants. The rationale, reminiscent of George Zimmerman’s justification for shooting Trayvon Martin, is that “people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good.” Talk about profiling! At least when George Bush threw suspected militants into Guantanamo their lives were spared.

Referring to the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the article reveals that for Obama, even ordering an American citizen to be assassinated by drone was “easy.” Not so easy was twisting the Constitution to assert that while the Fifth Amendment’s guarantees American citizens due process, this can simply consist of “internal deliberations in the executive branch.” No need for the irksome interference of checks and balances.

Al-Awlaki might have been guilty of defecting to the enemy, but the Constitution requires that even traitors be convicted on the “testimony of two witnesses” or a “confession in open court,” not the say-so of the executive branch.

In addition to hit lists, Obama has granted the CIA the authority to kill with even greater ease using “signature strikes,” i.e. strikes based solely on suspicious behavior. The article reports State Department officials complained that the CIA’s criteria for identifying a terrorist “signature” were too lax. “The joke was that when the C.I.A. sees ‘three guys doing jumping jacks,’ the agency thinks it is a terrorist training camp, said one senior official. Men loading a truck with fertilizer could be bombmakers — but they might also be farmers, skeptics argued.”

Obama’s top legal adviser Harold Koh insists that this killing spree is legal under international law because the US has the inherent right to self-defense. It’s true that all nations possess the right to defend themselves, but the defense must be against an imminent attack that is overwhelming and leaves no moment of deliberation. When a nation is not in an armed conflict, the rules are even stricter. The killing must be necessary to protect life and there must be no other means, such as capture or nonlethal incapacitation, to prevent that threat to life. Outside of an active war zone, then, it is illegal to use weaponized drones, which are weapons of war incapable of taking a suspect alive.

Just think of the precedent the US is setting with its kill-don’t-capture doctrine. Were the US rationale to be applied by other countries, China might declare an ethnic Uighur activist living in New York City as an “enemy combatant” and send a missile into Manhattan; Russia could assert that it was legal to launch a drone attack against someone living in London whom they claim is linked to Chechen militants. Or consider the case of Luis Posada Carrilles, a Cuban-American living in Miami who is a known terrorist convicted of masterminding a 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Given the failure of the US legal system to bring Posada to justice, the Cuban government could claim that it has the right to send a drone into downtown Miami to kill an admitted terrorist and sworn enemy.

Dennis Blair, former director of national intelligence, called the drone strike campaign “dangerously seductive” because it was low cost, entailed no casualties and gives the appearance of toughness. “It plays well domestically,” he said, “and it is unpopular only in other countries. Any damage it does to the national interest only shows up over the long term.”

But an article in the Washington Post the following day, May 30, entitled “Drone strikes spur backlash in Yemen,” shows that the damage is not just long term but immediate. After interviewing more than 20 tribal leaders, victims’ relatives, human rights activists and officials from southern Yemen, journalist Sudarsan Raghavan concluded that the escalating U.S. strikes are radicalizing the local population and stirring increasing sympathy for al-Qaeda-linked militants. “The drones are killing al-Qaeda leaders,” said legal coordinator of a local human rights group Mohammed al-Ahmadi, “but they are also turning them into heroes.”

Even the New York Times article acknowledges that Pakistan and Yemen are less stable and more hostile to the United States since Mr. Obama became president, that drones have become a provocative symbol of American power running roughshod over national sovereignty and killing innocents.

One frightening aspect of the Times piece is what it says about the American public. After all, this is an election-time piece about Obama’s leadership style, told from the point of view of mostly Obama insiders bragging about how the president is no shrinking violent when it comes to killing.  Implicit is the notion that Americans like tough leaders who don’t agonize over civilian deaths—over there, of course.

Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer suing the CIA on behalf of drone victims, thinks its time for the American people to speak out. “Can you trust a program that has existed for eight years, picks its targets in secret, faces zero accountability and has killed almost 3,000 people in Pakistan alone whose identities are not known to their killers?,” he asks. “When women and children in Waziristan are killed with Hellfire missiles, Pakistanis believe this is what the American people want. I would like to ask Americans, ‘Do you?’”
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Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control

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Medea Benjamin speaking out at the Wilson Center

Counterterrorism adviser John Brennan spoke at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington DC on April 30 to mark the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden. It was the first time a high level member of the Obama Administration spoke at length about the U.S. drone strikes that the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command have been carrying out in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

“President Obama has instructed us to be more open with the American people about these efforts,” Brennan explained.

I had just co-organized a Drone Summit over the weekend, where Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar told us heart-wrenching stories about the hundreds of innocent victims of our drone attacks. We saw horrific photos of people whose bodies were blown apart by Hellfire missiles, with only a hand or a slab of flesh remaining. We saw poor children on the receiving end of our attacks—maimed for life, with no legs, no eyes, no future. And for all these innocents, there was no apology, no compensation, not even an acknowledgement of their losses. Nothing.

The U.S. government refuses to disclose who has been killed, for what reason, and with what collateral consequences. It deems the entire world a war zone, where it can operate at will, beyond the confines of international law.

So there I was at the Wilson Center, listening to Brennan describe our policies as ethical, “wise,” and in compliance with international law. He spoke as if the only people we kill with our drone strikes are militants bent on killing Americans. “It is unfortunate that to save innocent lives we are sometimes obliged to take lives – the lives of terrorists who seek to murder our fellow citizens.” The only mention of taking innocent lives referred to Al Qaeda. “Al Qaeda’s killing of innocent civilians, mostly Muslim men, women and children, has badly tarnished its image and appeal in the eyes of Muslims around the world.” This is true, but the same must be said of U.S. policies that fuel anti-American sentiments in the eyes of Muslims around the world.

So I stood up and in a calm voice, spoke out.

“Excuse me, Mr. Brennan, will you speak out about the innocents killed by the United States in our drone strikes? What about the hundreds of innocent people we are killing with drone strikes in the Philippines, in Yemen, in Somalia? I speak out on behalf of those innocent victims. They deserve an apology from you, Mr. Brennan. How many people are you willing to sacrifice? Why are you lying to the American people and not saying how many innocents have been killed?”

My heart was racing as a female security guard and then a burly Federal Protection Service policeman started pulling me out, but I kept talking.

“I speak out on behalf of Tariq Aziz, a 16-year-old in Pakistan who was killed simply because he wanted to document the drone strikes. I speak out on behalf of Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, a 16-year-old born in Denver, killed in Yemen just because his father was someone we don’t like. I speak out on behalf of the Constitution and the rule of law.” My parting words as they dragged me out the door were, “I love the rule of law and I love my country. You are making us less safe by killing so many innocent people. Shame on you, John Brennan.”

I was handcuffed and taken to the basement of the building, where I was questioned about my background and motives. To their credit, it seems the Wilson Center thought it would not be good to have someone arrested for exercising their right to free speech, so I was released.

Brennan’s speech came the day after another U.S. drone strike in Pakistan, one that  killed three alleged militants. After the strike, the Pakistani government voiced its strongest and most public condemnation yet, accusing the United States of violating Pakistani sovereignty, calling the campaign “a total contravention of international law and established norms of interstate relations.” Earlier in April the Pakistani Parliament unanimously condemned drone strikes and established a new set of guidelines for rebuilding the country’s frayed relationship with the United States, which included the immediate cessation of all drone strikes in Pakistani territory.

The attacks in Pakistan, carried out by the CIA, started in 2004. Since then, there have been over 300 strikes. The areas where the strikes take place have been sealed off by the Pakistani security forces, so it has been difficult to get accurate reports about deaths and damages. John Brennan has denied that innocents have even been killed. Speaking in June 2011 about the preceding year, he said “there hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities we’ve been able to develop.” Mr. Brennan later adjusted his statement somewhat, saying, “Fortunately, for more than a year, due to our discretion and precision, the U.S. government has not found credible evidence of collateral deaths resulting from U.S. counterterrorism operations outside of Afghanistan or Iraq.”

This is just not true. The UK-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism is the group that keeps the best count of casualties from U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. According to its figures, since 2004, U.S. has killed between about 2,500-3,000 people in Pakistan. Of those, between 479 and 811 were civilians, 174 of them children.

Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer who has been representing drone victims and who started the group Foundation for Fundamental Rights, disputes even these figures and claims that the vast majority of those killed are ordinary civilians. “I have a problem with this word ‘militant.’ Most of the victims who are labeled militants might be Taliban sympathizers but they are not involved in any criminal or terrorist acts, and certainly not against the United States,” he claimed. He said the Americans often assumes that if someone wears a turban, has a beard and carries a weapon, he is a combatant. “That is a description of all the men in that region of Pakistan. It is part of their culture.” Shahzad believes that only those people who the Americans label “high-value targets”, which would be less than 200, should be considered militants; all others should be considered civilian victims.

While President Obama is gearing up for an election campaign and using his drone-strike killing spree to as a sign of his tough stance on national security, people from across the United States and around the world are organizing to rein in the drones.

Gathering in Washington DC on April 28-29, they came up with a new campaign to educate the American public about civilian deaths in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere as a result of the use of drones for illegal killing and to pressure members of Congress, President Obama, federal agencies, and state and local governments to restrict the use of drones for illegal killing and surveillance. The tactics include court challenges, delegations to the affected regions, direct action at U.S. bases from where the drones are operated, student campaigns to divest from companies involved in the production of killer drones and outreach to faith-based communities.

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Brian Moynihan and pink bra

“Stripping Protestors In Pink Bras Crashed Bank Of America CEO Brian Moynihan’s Speech,” declared Business Insider on March 8, showing Moynihan’s stern photo with a pink bra playfully dangling in the air beside him.

It’s true, things did get a bit wild at Citi’s Financial Services conference at New York’s Waldorf Astoria when Brian Moynihan got on stage and began flipping through his tedious powerpoint.

While the hotel security was busy watching anti-bank protesters rallying outside, CODEPINK cofounder Jodie Evans, dressed in a hot pink bustier, burst into the conference room. “Bust up Bank of America before it busts up America”, she shouted, before being hauled out by security guards. “As I was saying,” continued a deadpan Moynihan to the laughter of the crowd, returning to the dreary slides that tried to put a rosy spin on this dinosaur of a company whose share price has plummeted while it continues to foreclose on families’ homes and faces tens of billions of dollars in damages from lawsuits over mortgage investments.

Little did Moynihan know that the excitement at what is normally a bankers’ snoozefest had just begun. CODEPINK codirector Rae Abileah and I were already seated in the front of the room. Wearing dark business suits, we did our best to blend into the crowd of stodgy white men in black business suits.

While Moynihan was bragging that Bank of America ended 2011 with the most capital, liquidity and reserves ever in its history, I calmly walked on stage and began to disrobe while Rae deftly jumped on a table in front of the stage. As we shed our jackets and shirts, the startled CEO suddenly found himself flanked by women in pink bras, with Bust up B of A scrawled on our chests.

Taking the mic away from Moynihan, I addressed the audience of bankers and institutional investors. “Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day, and on behalf of 99 percent of women in this country who are disgusted by the unbridled greed of the big banks, we say it’s time to Bust Up the Bank of America.” I kept talking about the bank’s misdeeds as security guards jumped on stage and dragged me into the hall. To my delight, I could hear Rae, who was left standing on the table in her pink bra, shouting over the boos of the audience. “Stop foreclosing on people’s homes; stop the predatory lending; stop funding dirty coal. Mr. Moynihan, how can you justify making millions while bankrupting America?” she asked, as the security guards dragged her away. Indeed, in 2011, while millions of Americans were jobless and homeless thanks to the bankers, Moynihan received over $6 million in compensation.

Bank of America protestor on International Women's Day Credit: Rae Abileah

This protest was one of many taking place at Bank of America branches around the country on International Women’s Day. Organized by CODEPINK, Women Occupy and Occupy Wall Street, the protests were meant to highlight the effects of the financial crisis on women and the fact that, four years into this crisis, the same problems exist.

In the afternoon, those of us in New York moved on to protest at the Bank of America branch located across the street from famous Zuccotti Park. While protesters gathered outside the bank, a few of us, including Rae and myself, went inside early. Just as the “bank busters” tried to make their way inside, the manager locked the doors and refused to let anyone else in.

With only a three of us inside, we didn’t know whether to proceed or bail. We decided to say a few chants, sing a Break Up the Banks song we had practiced, and then make a quick exit. We had just taken off our shirts and belted out a few chants when the police stormed in.

I gathered my belongings, ready to follow what I assumed would be a request to leave. Instead, the police treated me like I was about to rob the bank, pinning my arms behind my back and putting me in handcuffs. “We were never asked to leave, we were only exercising our right to free speech, we didn’t harm anyone or block any doors,” I argued to no avail.

Meanwhile Rae, who had run outside, was brutally tackled to the ground, her head smashed against the pavement. Crying and clearly in pain, she was roughly pulled up and cuffed. So was Monica Hutchins, who was arrested by the same out-of-control officer for merely marching and singing on the sidewalk. Occupy Wall Street activist Mark Adams, who had come to Rae’s aid, was also grabbed and arrested.

I later learned that the gentle, soft-spoken Mark Adams had personal reasons for protesting the bank, and for joining the Occupy Wall Street movement. His father had been approved for a mortgage by a small private lender, but then his dad got sick and passed away. Mark tried to keep the house, but the lender sold the loan to Bank of America who then foreclosed, leaving him homeless.

The four of us, arrested at 2:30pm on March 8, were taken to the local jail, where we were booked, and then transferred to the infamous clink known as “The Tombs.” We were locked up in a dirty, freezing cell with about 15 women who had been picked up on various charges like prostitution, shoplifting, drug dealing and domestic violence. All our possessions, including our jackets, had been taken away, so we were stuck in the freezing cell with no coats or blankets. The sleeping accommodations consisted of three dirty plastic mats—meant for one person each—thrown on the floor to “share” among all of us. We spent a long, sleepless night shivering in the cold.

The women in the cell were proud of us for standing up to the banks; so were some of the police. “They were arrested for protesting against foreclosures at Bank of America,” one of the policemen told a policewoman while I was being fingerprinted. “I’m with you there,” she said. “Those bankers are thieves. They take government money to bail them out but then they refuse to lend money to black women like me. I lost my house because I couldn’t get a bank loan, even though I have a good, steady job.”

Her case is all too common. And minority women who do get loans have been targeted with the most expensive, punitive and toxic loans. Women are 32% more likely than men to receive sub‑prime mortgages, and Latina and African-American women borrowers are the most vulnerable.
**********
After several rounds of fingerprinting, two iris scans, one disgusting peanut butter sandwich, and 26 hours in a cold cell, we finally got to see a judge. We were charged with two counts of trespassing, and have to return to court on March 30.

In jail, you see the stark contrast between those who create the economic havoc and those who really pay the consequences.
Meeting women locked up for such petty crimes as stealing a $40 bottle of perfume from Sephora, I thought about how much money CEO Brian Moynihan and his cronies have stolen from the American people. In fact, the very same day we were protesting, a whistleblower filed court documents charging Bank of America with knowingly and fraudulently seeking to limit homeowner mortgage modifications under the Home Affordable Modification Program.

Occupy Wall Street has been tapping into the anger against these unaccountable, “too big to fail” institutions, not only protesting against them but spurring a campaign to move many millions of dollars from Wall Street to Main Street. In the past year over a million Americans took their money out of big banks and opened accounts with credit unions. Credit union profit jumped 41 percent to $6.4 billion last year. The exodus continues this year, as greedy financial giants continue to squeeze their customers by hiking up fees.

While many of us are protesting, our government has failed to hold the banks accountable, prosecute the wrongdoers or restructure our financial system. The banks that were too big to fail then are even bigger now. The top 6 banks that had 7 trillion dollars in assets now have 9 or 10 trillion, and the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department continue to prop up these behemoths, instead of breaking them up into smaller, more sustainable banks. The Dodd-Frank legislation passed to regulate the financial institutions is too cumbersome (2,300 pages compared to the 24-page Glass-Steagall Act); the big banks with their fancy lawyers can find all kinds of loopholes, while the smaller banks are now forced to pay for the avarice of the big ones.

Looking back on March 8, going to jail for justice was an appropriate way to commemorate a day that, starting in 1911, was a call by women workers for shorter hours, better pay, voting rights and an end to discrimination. Our foremothers like hell-raiser Mother Jones would certainly approve of standing up to rapacious banks and bankers. She might have even approved of the pink bras. After all, the feisty Mother Jones did have this advice for women: “Whatever your fight, don’t be ladylike.”

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of www.codepink.org  and www.globalexchange.org. Please join us in calling on the bank to drop the charges against us.

Medea (right) holding photo of a boy in hospital who died from tear gas in Sitra, Bahrain

Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Code Pink and Global Exchange, was deported from Bahrain for joining a peaceful women’s march that was broken up by tear gas.

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John Timoney is the controversial former Miami police chief well known for orchestrating brutal crackdowns on protests in Miami and Philadelphia- instances with rampant police abuse, violence, and blatant disregard for freedom of expression. It should be of great concern that the Kingdom of Bahrain has brought Timoney and John Yates, former assistant commissioner of Britain’s Metropolitan Police, to “reform” Bahrain’s security forces.

Since assuming his new position, Timoney has claimed that Bahrain has been reforming it brutal police tactics in response to recommendations issued by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry. He says that there is less tear gas being used and that while tear gas might be “distasteful,” it’s not really harmful.

I have no idea what country Chief Timoney is talking about, because it’s certainly not the Bahrain I saw this past week, a week that marked the one-year anniversary since the February 14, 2011 uprising.

I was in Bahrain for five days before being deported for joining a peaceful women’s march. During my stay, I accompanied local human rights activists to the villages where protests were raging and police cracking down. Every day, I inhaled a potent dose of tear gas, and came close to being hit in the head with tear gas canisters. Every evening I saw the fireworks and smelled the noxious fumes as hundreds of tear gas canisters were lobbed into the village of Bani Jamrah, next door to where I was staying. The villagers would get on their roofs yelling “Down, Down Hamad” (referring to the King). In exchange, as a form of collective punishment, the whole village would be doused in tear gas. I went to bed coughing, eyes burning, wondering how in the world the Bahrainis can stand this.

Tear gas is supposed to be used to disperse violent gatherings that pose a threat to law and order. It is not supposed to be used on unarmed protesters who are simply exercising their freedoms of expression and assembly.

“Shamefully, Bahrain has the highest tear gas use, per capita, in the world,” said human rights activist Nabeel Rajab. “And the police don’t just shoot outside to disperse crowds. They use the tear gas canisters as weapons, shooting them directly at people. And they shoot the gas right into people’s houses. If Mr. Timoney thinks the use of tear gas here is ‘moderate,’ he has obviously not spent many evenings in Bahraini villages.”

Timoney also told reporters that there is no evidence that tear gas has killed anyone. He should meet Zahra Ali, the mother of Yassin Jassim Al Asfoor.

On November 19, 2011, riot police—running around the village of Ma’ameer searching for a few people chanting anti-government slogans—fired three tear gas canisters directly into her home.

Everyone in the family started choking, especially 13-year-old Yassin, who suffered from asthma. Yassin could barely breathe.  Panicking, his parents called an ambulance. “I’m dying from the tear gas, I’m dying,” Yassin cried on the way to the hospital. He struggled desperately to survive for the next 29 days before his lungs simply collapsed.

Zahra lovingly showed me photos of Yassin donning a party hat, celebrating his 14^th birthday in the hospital a few days before he died. “All the doctors and nurses loved him—Sunni, Shia, everyone. They even came here for his funeral,” she said proudly.

I asked Zafra if she had a message about the tear gas for Police Chief Timoney. “Just ask him if he has ever lost a child,” she whispered.

Timoney should also meet the parents of 14-year-old Ali Jawad al-Sheik. He did not die from inhalation. No. He was killed on August 31, 2011, when the police fired tear gas at protesters from roughly 20 feet away. A canister busted open the young boy’s face. To his parent’s furor, the autopsy said the cause of death was “unknown.”

The same thing happened exactly four months later to 15-year-old Sayyed Hashem Saeed. The police then used tear gas to disperse mourners at Sayyed’s funeral.

Faisal Abdali, a businessman who lives at the entrance of Sitra, would also love to speak to the police chief. He is hopping mad and wants some justice and accountability.

For months now, as the police enter the village of Sitra, they have been tossing tear gas directly into his house. Every time he lodged a complaint, the house would be targeted even worse the next day.

Faisal had taped up all the windows and sealed the air conditioners to keep the gasses out. On January 27, 2012 the police shot tear gas inside the garage. When Faisal’s wife opened the garage door, the gasses filled the house. Everyone felt sick, especially Faisal’s father—a healthy 58-year-old. He started vomiting, and went to bed early in the hopes that he would feel better the next day. When Faisal opened his father’s bedroom door the next morning, he found him lying on the floor. Five days later, he was dead. The doctor said he died from tear gas but he was not allowed to put that on his death certificate.

Faisal showed me about ten of the canisters that had been thrown into his house. Three of them came from Combined Systems in Jamestown, Pennsylvania and three from factories in Brazil. The rest had no markings at all. Faisal thought that the unmarked ones were the most toxic.

A Bahraini doctor told Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) about the different types of gas she found in the villages. “[There was] a white gas and a yellow one, but I also saw a third gas of a blue color from a distance. The gas felt like a poison, like a thousand knives and needles all over your body; what kind of tear gas is supposed to affect people this way? I have seen tear gas patients who are in a state of convulsion that never ends, like a prolonged seizure.”

Other Bahraini doctors have noted that the symptoms of the tear gas are unusual. When they asked the Ministry of Health to run tests on the gas canisters, their requests were denied.

Since the long-term effects of prolonged and repeated exposure to tear gas has never been studied, physicians and environmentalists in Bahrain have begun to worry about the impact that repeated exposure to these chemicals may have on the general population.

On January 26, 2012, Amnesty International called on Bahrain to investigate 13 deaths that followed the misuse of tear gas by security forces. At least three of those deaths occurred after Timoney was hired.

Environmentalist Moh’d Jawad Fursan told me that there are no accurate records of how many people have died from the tear gas, since doctors are not allowed to report this as the cause of death. He thinks more than 13 people have died and thousands have been affected, particularly the young and the elderly. Fursan says the rates of miscarriages and stillborn babies have increased, and he expects the rates of cancer will soar, as well as babies born with deformities.

The day before I was deported from Bahrain, I visited the home of a poor extended family where 44 people lived in an open-air complex. They had one tiny, windowless room that was covered; they called this the “safe room” for the little children. The day I visited, there was a nursing mother of a 2-week-old child, another baby and a two year old. This “safe room,” just like the open space around it, reeked of tear gas. “The babies cry, their eyes are all red and swollen, they get skin rashes, but what can we do?”, sighed the young mother. “We have no way to protect our children. We have nowhere to hide.”

Mr. Timoney, I suggest you take another tour of Bahrain, led not by government minders but by women from the villages. (Make sure you bring along a gas mask.) I also suggest you donate the blood money you’re taking from the Bahraini government to a fund for the tear gas victims.