March 02, 2011 journal, Robert Gates apologizes to the Pakistani families for killing their teenage sons accidentally. How long will mid Eastern countries tolerate our disregard for human life? Why should we need to apologize if we are not doing the wrong thing by killing. We are killing and being killed by an imaginary enemy that we do not know. Pie in the sky, warning to you rich men because you are foolish. they praise the stock market daily for their increases. there is of doubt that there God is their money and if we preach to them they consider it to be insane. Corporate wars are most profitable of all http://truth-out.org/news/item/9161-drone-warfare-killing-our-civil-liberties-with-a-joystick Drone Warfare: Killing Our Civil Liberties With a Joystick-Ed Kinane, Truthout: "Drone warfare is cowardly. A technician jiggles a joystick. Seconds later, thousands of miles away, a Reaper drone robot airplane fires a Hellfire missile, maiming or dismembering unsuspecting, unarmed, often unidentified human beings. That technician, along with his or her chain of command, plays god - a god who takes no risk in taking those human lives. The Reaper incinerates Afghan or Pakistani shepherd boys, funeralgoers and other noncombatants. US civilians are also victims of drone warfare. I'm not referring here to US citizens already assassinated by drones, but to the fact that - thanks to the Reaper piloted from various US military bases - our civil liberties are increasingly being curtailed, eroded, violated. Three cases from Central New York's Reaper hub in Syracuse: On April 22, 2011 38 US civilians, myself included, sought to deliver a citizens' indictment at the main gate of Hancock Air Base for the drone war crimes being committed within. The "Hancock 38" were responding to the Nuremberg protocols, signed by the United States, which require citizens to expose and impede their government's war crimes. The Hancock 38 were exercising our First Amendment rights of freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and the freedom to petition our government for redress of grievances. Nonetheless, we were arrested and charged with blocking traffic and failure to heed a supposedly "lawful" order to disperse. During our week-long trial, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark testified that weaponized Reapers violate international law. Nonetheless, a suburban town court found each of us guilty. (Note: many of the 38 saw no connection whatsoever between our "crime" and the $375 fines levied on each of us. Thus, rather than render unto Caesar, we redirected our fines - over $5000 total - through the antiwar organization Voices for Creative Nonviolence to a peace group in Afghanistan.) Exactly one year later, on April 22, 2012, more than 50 US civilians walked silently, somberly and single-file for two miles toward Hancock Air Base. Most held signs protesting the Reaper; many carried a war crimes citizens' indictment, which they intended to deliver to the base. Several hundred yards from their destination, they were forced to halt on the shoulder of a public road by Onondaga County sheriffs. Many were arrested without warning. In a further escalation of illegal tactics, the sheriffs confiscated walkers' cameras and video equipment. This equipment has yet to be restored to its owners. Closer to the base entrance but still on the shoulder of the public road, sheriffs arrested Ron Van Norstrand, a Syracuse attorney who, last fall, had defended some of the Hancock 38. Ron was snatched from our midst without provocation and without warning as he consulted with several of us about the day's arrests. There was no apparent reason that he was singled out from our group as we clustered on the shoulder across from the base entrance. Shortly thereafter, the sheriffs blocked six civilians, also carrying citizen indictments, as we approached that entrance. While detained, activist Rae Kramer read aloud our indictment to the nest of armed soldiers guarding the gate. In all, that day, 33 orderly, law-abiding individuals exercising our First Amendment rights were pre-emptively arrested, charged with "marching without a permit." Twice a month for the past couple of years, a handful of us have been standing on the shoulder of the road across from Hancock's main gate. We're there for 45 minutes during Hancock's afternoon shift change, displaying anti-drone signs to the rush hour traffic. Although we have had occasional conversations with civilian law enforcement there, we've never before been threatened or interfered with. But on May 2, 2012, several prowl cars pulled up, and sheriffs, citing an obscure and perhaps never-before-enforced DeWitt town ordinance, told us we could no longer demonstrate there without a permit. We engaged the sheriffs in a discussion about the First Amendment and their oath to defend and uphold the Constitution. A sergeant told us that the base complained about our presence. He also told us - with a straight face - that in the town of DeWitt, any "assembly" of more than two persons requires a permit. Dick Keough and I were then arrested, handcuffed and charged with "assembling w/o permit." Compared to the terror of robotic killing, such stifling of dissent may seem like small potatoes, but it's a harbinger, and a slippery slope. Law enforcement and the courts, more and more, knuckle under to the military and violate the First Amendment rights of US citizens. Presumably, our law enforcement and military personnel swear to uphold the Constitution. Such individuals may (or may not) serve and sacrifice with honor and courage; the sad irony is that some seem to think they do so to protect our freedoms." ED KINANE-Ed Kinane is an essayist and anti-state terror activist based in Syracuse, New York. In 2003, he spent five months in Baghdad with Voices in the Wilderness ... before, during and after "shock and awe." An advocate of "prison witness," he has twice done federal time for direct actions against the Pentagon's School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. Ed has worked on Peace Brigades accompaniment teams in the war zones of Haiti, El Salvador, Guatemala and Sri Lanka. In the eighties, he spent nearly three years teaching in and hitchhiking around Africa. Gcynic-The Founding Fathers must be turning in their graves! I am waiting for some other super power(?) to send its drones to the US to eliminate who they consider to be "terrorists". The boot would then be on the other foot but would presumably be called "terrorism" by those who are unable to see why their policies are hated by so many. FcukTheArmy-No foreign power will ever need to send drones to the USA, the US government is issuing armed drones to domestic law enforcement(rubber bullets and tear gas), butt I have EVERY confidence that nondeadly force will soon escalate to Hellfire missiles and will be unleashed against those "unAmerican terrorists/sympathizers" who would DARE to actually exercise their 1st Amendment rights. luckylongshot-The deeper issue here has to do with what sort of world we want to live in. Do we want one based on treating people with dignity and having respect for human life or one based on fear where machines can kill us if we are in the wrong place at the wrong time. With more and more evidence now indicating 9 11 was an inside job there is now no historical justification for building weapons for the war on terror as well as no moral justification. seeuingoa-What about making an article about the "technicians" behind the drone attacks. Who are they?, what is driving them?, what kind of moral do they have?, are they married?, family life?, children?, they can be anonymous, I just want to know if they are humans. mike-The same morals or lack thereof that IRS and TSA have; none. Samuel Gion-Someday, (pretty soon) they won't be humans. Drones will be able to attack, and kill, without any human control. There'll be no more war crimes, ever. Only bugs. Cheryl-They have no morals, they have no allegiances, they are mercenaries paid to kill. Avaritia-Just thin.k of the jobs that drones are creating. And for people whose only skills are playing video games all day. What could be better and sweeter? And talk about job security, ha! Fo.r as long as there are brown people in the Middle East, they will be guaranteed a job. And they kill them all, there are always another 300+ million right here at home. A job for life, indeed. Don Potter-There is nothing new in "unmanned" ordinance taking civilian lives. Artillery has been doing so since the American Revolution and before, and grew to epic proportion in the Napoleonic wars. World war I saw shells literally the size of boxcars launched into Belgian & French cities, and B29 bombers bombed whole cities into ash in World War II. If you wish to protest war and terror and wholesale killing I will stand with you. I do not agree, however, with the notion that adding more distance between the operator of the weapon and the result of that operation makes the act any more awful than any of the above. Drones are more accurate and less generally destructive than the alternative massive explosions. Yes there are "collateral" victims and yes that is terrible. But the sin of war is no different if the weapon is fired from a thousand miles or a thousand yards. Having been a soldier, having known soldiers who did not come home alive and well, I must tell you that from their point of view anyone who wants to put the soldier in harms way just to make it fair needs to volunteer to be that soldier. If there was ever a country that existed without an army to defend itself I do not know of it, probably because it did not exist for long. Some will always go into harms way to defend their homes, and some will always stay home and tell those people why they are wrong. In this country, we have the right to assemble and the right to seek redress from our government. If the county and town police have interfered with that right, a lawsuit should be filed to correct that error. The above mentioned soldiers fought and sometimes died to defend that right and the others guaranteed by the constitution. The oath they swore was to preserve, protect and defend that constitution. Most would not agree with your position on drones, nor do I. Many have fought to defend your right to hold that position and speak it and present it to the appropriate entity. Don Potter-Samuel Gion-I agree with most of your subtle - and brave - comment. To me, the main problem with drones is that they allow everlasting war. Public opinion doesn't oppose war because it's unfair, it does so because too many US soldier die. A technology that can preserve the lives of our soldiers while defending our country and our values is great : but I know that you know that we know that it could be misused to kill as many enemies and civilians that "we" want, while "we, the people" are watching sports on TV. That is scary.