Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Can a People’s Movement Ground U.S. Drones?

In her latest book, Medea Benjamin, peace activist and co-founder of Code Pink, offers a critical guide to the dramatic increase since 2001 in the U.S. military’s use of hunter/killer drones. She also covers effective strategies for resisting this disturbing shift in modern warfare.

Under President Obama, who Benjamin calls the “peace candidate turned war president,” the military has shifted strategies “from boots on the ground to assassins in the air.” Drones have delivered bombs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen—often killing civilians and inflaming hatred against the United States.

Drone Warfare lifts the curtain on the proliferation of models of killer hardware and the arms manufacturers who profit from them: General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and AeroVironment. It also calls out the domestic law enforcement agencies already monitoring citizens with drones.

The proliferation of drones is backed by powerful forces. But Benjamin inspires with her description of a global movement to ground the 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,” she writes. She describes protests from Nevada to New York that make it difficult for the military and arms manufacturers to conduct business as usual under the radar of public awareness.

After years in which drone warfare was underreported, Benjamin is one of several authors who are looking into the subject. But her perspective as a peace activist is unique. Some journalists reporting on military robots and drones seem almost intoxicated by the new technology. For Benjamin, killing by remote control is no game.

“With the U.S. military now using thousands of drones and the FAA opening domestic skies to drones, the conversation is long overdue,” she writes. Drone Warfare contributes to making that conversation better informed and anti-drone activism more effective.

Original Article
Source: yesmagazine.org
Author: Stuart Glascock

No comments:

Post a Comment