Drones & autonomous weapons

25 November 2014News

Welsh activists 'drape the drones' at Parc Aberporth

Kites not drones at Poppit Sands. Photo: Jill Gough

International Peace Day, 21 September, was celebrated by a ‘Drape the Drones’ event at Parc Aberporth. Protesters sealed off the roundabout and site entrance with colourful scarves – ably assisted by a friendly policeman who not only stopped the traffic but also ordered drivers to switch off their engines to ‘hear the singing’.

The action was a precursor to the first Global Action Day Against the Use of Drones for Surveillance and…

28 September 2014News in Brief

On 31 July, anti-drones protester Russell Brown was acquitted by a jury in New York state despite admitting lying in the road in front of Hancock air national guard base on 28 April 2013, as part of a protest by Upstate Drone Action. He had been charged with obstruction of governmental administration and disorderly conduct.

Brown, who served in Vietnam as a US Marine, testified in court that ‘lying in that road was the most peaceful moment I’ve experienced since I left Vietnam’.…

28 September 2014Feature

PN takes a look at a secretive, unaccountable and out-of-control US spy base

What is Croughton?

Seemingly not many people know about ‘RAF’ Croughton near Brackley and bordering Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. Misleadingly referred to as an RAF base, this important US facility is occupied and controlled by the US under the umbrella of the United States Air Force. It supports presidential, NATO, US European command, US central command, US air force special operations command, and US department of state operations. The US national security agency (NSA), the…

28 September 2014News

Rooftop occupation leads to 4 arrests

UAV factory, Shenstone, 5 August. Photo: London Palestine Action

On 5 September, on the second day of the NATO summit in Newport, Wales, about 40 people entered Barclays High Street branch in the town shouting ‘Stop arming Israel’ and ‘Barclays divest from the arms trade’. Barclays have almost 60,000 shares in Elbit. Four people were arrested and charged with aggravated trespass after glueing-on inside the office.

19 September 2014Blog

Ahead of the national demo there on 4 October, Lindis Percy and Chris Cole take a look at RAF Croughton & its role in the US drone wars.

Seemingly not many people know about ‘RAF’ Croughton near Brackley and bordering Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. Misleadingly referred to as RAF, this important US base is occupied and controlled by the US and their agencies under the umbrella of the United States Air Force. It supports Presidential, NATO, US European Command, US Central Command, Air Force Special Operations Command, US Department of State operations. The NSA, CIA and a contingent of GCHQ personnel are also present. It…

21 July 2014News in Brief

On 10 July, grandmother of three, Mary Anne Grady Flores, 58, was sentenced to one year in prison for violating an order of protection taken out by US mission support group commander colonel Earl Evans at drone base in New York state, USA.

Along with other anti-drone activists, Mary Anne had been issued with the protection order in late 2012. As a result, she chose to act as a photographer rather take part in a February 2013 protest, staying outside what she believed to be the…

21 July 2014News

As the UK sends five additional armed Reaper drones to Afghanistan, campaigners continue to challenge government secrecy surrounding British drone operations.

On 3 July, the ministry of defence (MoD) announced that the five Reaper drones – purchased as an ‘Urgent Operational Requirement’ in 2010, at the cost of roughly £100m – had finally begun operations in Afghanistan. According to MoD figures obtained by Drone Wars UK under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI), RAF pilots fired 15 Hellfire missiles from drones in Afghanistan in the first four months of 2014 – 11 from UK drones, and four from US drones.

Drones appeal

On 22…

10 June 2014Review

Pluto Press, 2014; 192pp; £16

As writers and analysts for one of the military’s key journals - Jane’s Intelligence Review - Ann Rogers and John Hill have respectable military credentials. Nevertheless much of the analysis in this important and engaging overview of the drone wars could easily grace the pages of Peace News.

Chapter by chapter the book investigates the key aspects of the use of armed drones, including tracing their history, the effect on military doctrine, ethical…

9 June 2014News

43 protesters arrested at spy HQ and air force bases in the US

A 90-by-60-foot poster of a Pakistani child who has lost both her parents and two young siblings in a US drone attack, displayed in a field in the Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa region of Pakistan, where a drone strike in November 2013 killed five people and led to  a road blockade by thousands of people. This image was created by a collective of artists in Pakistan and the US, who gave it the title #NotABugSplat. US Predator drone operators often refer to kills as ‘bug splats’, as viewing the body…

27 May 2014News

Anti-drone activism

On 4 May, three members of the US National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR) were arrested at the headquarters of the US national security agency (NSA) at Fort Meade in Maryland. This was part of a wave of action against military drones throughout the US during April and May, involving at least 43 arrests and one imprisonment.

On 11 April, seven women were arrested at US air force base (AFB) Creech, in a Code Pink protest…

3 April 2014Review

Transnational Institute and Statewatch, 2014;86pp; free for download at tinyurl.com/eurodrones

The use of military drones by Israel and the US has caused a revolution in how conflicts are fought and severely challenged our concepts of international law.

European nations were caught off guard and have rushed to catch up with their competitors, fearing becoming dependent on outsiders for military technology.

This detailed report on European involvement in the race toward autonomous warfare, explores the…

3 April 2014News

Over 30 UK groups held kite-flying actions on the spring equinox, celebrating Nowruz, the Afghan New Year, and protesting against the use of drones over Afghanistan. The international project was organised by Voice for Creative Nonviolence UK, inspired by the Afghan Peace Volunteers.

A Sussex kite-flyer braving hailstorms. Photo: Gill Knight

3 April 2014News

Action by the European parliament and the UN

As the European parliament votes overwhelmingly to ban ‘targeted killings’ and fully autonomous drones, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and countering terrorism has called on the US, UK and Israel – the three states currently known to be using armed drones – ‘to disclose the results of any fact-finding inquiries into [30 specific drone strikes in which civilians appear either to have been killed or had their lives put at immediate risk] or to explain why no such inquiries have been…

18 March 2014News

Recent strikes and new developments

On 23 January, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported that ‘Across Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the Obama administration has launched more than 390 drone strikes in five years – five times as many as were launched in the entire George W Bush presidency [ie 51 strikes in four years]’. According to the Bureau these strikes have killed more than 2,400 people, at least 273 of whom were reportedly civilians. On 5 February, Pakistani drone investigator Karim Khan was abducted from his home…

18 March 2014News

RAF pilots have conducted at least 496 drone strikes in Afghanistan since 2006, including 39 previously undisclosed strikes made using US drones.

According to figures obtained from the ministry of defence (MoD) by Drone Wars UK in January and February 2014 under the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA), unmanned British Reaper drones launched 457 weapons over Afghanistan up to the end of 2013. A further 39 launches (during 250 missions) were made using US drones up to the end of December 2012.

In what appears to have been a deliberate attempt to mislead parliament, the MoD neglected to mention the latter strikes when asked ‘how…