[Diggers350] Sat27Apr - LINCOLNSHIRE - Ground the Drones protest

Tue Apr 16 08:19:00 BST 2013

A brilliant initiative. Birmingham Stop the War Coalition is organising a 45 seater coach.

Actually, the meeting point is the south west corner of South COMMON, not South Park. South Common is one of the three surviving city commons of Lincoln. It is wretchedly neglected, but still attractive and full of archaeology (bumps and hollows).

REVOLUTIONARY TOURISM NOTE: Just 5 miles due east of Waddington is the Nocton site of the proposed 8100 dairy cow unit (now much whittled down, I think). 

Dave Bangs

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Tony Gosling 
  To: Massimo 
  Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 7:29 PM
  Subject: [Diggers350] Sat27Apr - LINCOLNSHIRE - Ground the Drones protest

  ---------- Forwarded message ----------
  From: Stop the War Coalition <office at stopwar.org.uk >
  To: stwc at lists.riseup.net
  http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=21881

  stopwar.org.uk · 020 7561 9311 · 15 April 2013

  1) Ground the Drones protest logistics
  2) Fighting Drone wars behind our back

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Ground the Drones
  protest logistics

  We look forward to seeing you on the Ground the Drones march from Lincoln to Britain's drone control centre, RAF Waddington on April 27. The protest has been organised by CND, the Drone Campaign Network, War on Want and Stop the War Coalition. Here are some details to help you on the 27th.

  March route We will gather at 12pm on the West corner of South Park (look out for the Ground the Drones banner). At 12:30pm we will set off along the A15 to the site of Helen John's caravan protest against drones (the green symbol on the map) which is opposite RAF Waddington. The length of the route is 2.8 miles and we will arrive at approximately 2pm in time for a political rally.

  Transport

  By train If you are travelling to Lincoln by train, shuttle buses will run from Lincoln train station to South Park, the start of the march. When you arrive, look out for stewards in hi-viz jackets to find out when the next bus will leave. Please let us know if you plan to use the bus. They will leave at approximately 11:45am and about 12:15pm. Alternatively the number 1 bus goes from outside the Railway station at 11:05, 11:35 and 12:05 to Lincoln South Park. When the march and rally has finished at 4pm, the shuttle bus will return people to the train station.

  By coach or car Please ask your group's driver to drop you off at South Park, off Cross O'Cliff Hill, and park at the end of the route to the north of Sleaford Road (A15) where there are plenty of parking spaces. This will make it easy for your group to leave at 4pm.

  Book a coach ticket from your area

  Birmingham - 07771567496 ser14 at btinternet.com
  Doncaster - 07587697028
  Cambridge - 07562724750
  Coventry - 07732030231
  London - 02075619311 or buy online
  Manchester - 07765122829 info at manchesterstopwar.org 
  Norwich - 07717504 210
  Sheffield - 01142680726
  York - please contact Doncaster
  Organizing transport in your area? Let us know

  Stewarding

  We need your help. If you would like to volunteer as a steward to help us get from Lincoln to RAF Waddington, please drop us an email or call 020 7561 9311.

  Catering

  We advise that you bring a packed lunch, although there will be refreshments available at the end of the route. More details to be announced soon.

  Banners

  The groups who have come together to organize the Ground the Drones protest will bring their organization's banners and some placards will be available. However, we encourage participants to make their own banners and placards to send a clear message to the government.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  2) Fighting Drone wars behind our back

  Chris Nineham, vice-Chair of Stop the War, writes that the great advantage of drones for western governments is they can be used without domestic casualties and therefore, they hope, without the risk of popular opposition or protest.

  RAF Waddington will soon be the control centre for British drone warfare. It may already be, we can't be sure.
  The fact we don't know testifies to the secrecy that surrounds the operation of these remote control killing machines. Drones embody the sinister shift that has been taken in the West's wars post Iraq.

  They blur the distinction between war and state execution, with no chance for public scrutiny. 
  Britain has been using drones in Afghanistan for some years. But by developing its drone capability, the British government is now stepping up its global ability to conduct arbitrary assassinations.

  Official US language shows droes are normalizing such behaviour. There has been next to no public discussion about their use in Britain, but in the US drones are actualloy justified as precision weapons of international assassination. Their supporters say they are capable of surgically removing terrorist targets, so 'cleansing' weakened states of extremist leaders.

   In a half hearted attempt to provide a legal framework, the Obama administration has claimed that drones are justified because they are used only against "specific senior operational leaders of al Qaida and associated forces" involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks who are plotting "imminent" violent attacks on Americans. The US is still at war against Al-Qaeda, the argument goes, so such lethal incursions into foreign territory are legal.

  "It has to be a threat that is serious and not speculative," President Barack Obama said in a Sept. 6, 2012, interview with CNN. "It has to be a situation in which we can't capture the individual before they move forward on some sort of operational plot against the United States."
  But the evidence is unchallengeable: this is nonsense. Recent reports suggest that just 1.5% of the estimated 3,100 that have been killed by US drones in Pakistan were identified by US officials as 'high-profile targets'. The US categorises victims as children, civilians, "high-profile," and "other." "The 'other" grey zone comprises males of fighting age.

  The Obama administration assumes that these are legitimate targets even though there is no information as to their affiliation. But the Washington Post reported in February that most attacks now are "signature strikes," in which targets are selected based on suspicious patterns of activity and the identities of those who could be killed is not known. In 2012, the New York Times paraphrased a view they said was shared by several officials that "people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good."
  Their crime in other words was to have been young, male and in the area.

  But it's not just that fantasies are being peddled about drones' technical ability to single out their targets. Their strategic role is being obscured too. In reality drones are not used simply as surgical weapon to pre-empt a possible attack. Partly their adoption has been driven by the unpopularity and the manifest failure of the conventional wars that have been fought under the rubric of the war on terror over the last twelve years.

  The great advantage of drones from the point of view of western governments is that, at least while the West has the technological edge over competitors, they can be used without domestic casualties and therefore, they hope, without the risk of popular opposition or protest.
  Another advantage of drones is that they are a relatively cheap way of killing people, important at a time of spending cuts. They are a way of continuing foreign wars while slimming budgets.

  Drones are no more part of a rational policy of self-defence than the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. And nor do they mark a drawdown in US military ambitions. They are in fact being used as a surrogate for conventional military operations. White House senior counterterrorism adviser John Brennan defended drone strikes in April 2012 by comparing them to "deploying large armies abroad" and "large, intrusive military deployments."

  The fact the US has used drones in Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan and very likely in Mali as well as Iraq and Afghanistan, testifies to the fact that drones are integrated into the US's wider war strategy. They are being used to destabilise enemy governments and shore up allies.
  The conditions that led to the war on terror are still in place. The US faces growing economic challenges while it retains enormous military predominance. The chaos and volatility created by the failed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the rise of Chinese power in influence in the Pacific, in Africa and elsewhere make the global situation is, if anything, even more tense than at the beginning of the last decade.
  The US military is explicit that the war goes on. In January, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told Ted Koppel that even after 2014, "Our war in Afghanistan will be complete, but no one has ever suggested that that will end the war." Secretary Panetta is just as clear: "We are in a war. We're in a war on terrorism and we've been in that war since 9/11."

  In a process that the experts call 'monopoly erosion', drone use is spreading fast, confirming that they are becoming the new face of modern warfare. A 2012 survey showed that 11 countries had functioning drone systems, including France, Germany, Israel, Turkey, India and China. Other countries are rushing to catch up. We already face a frightening situation in which great powers are confronting each other with these 'easy to use' 'low cost' killing systems.

  A US study based on extensive research in Pakistan gives some inkling of the impact of this remote control imperialism:
  Drones hover twenty-four hours a day over communities in northwest Pakistan, striking homes, vehicles and public spaces without warning. Their presence terrorizes men, women and children giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities. Those living under drones have to face the constant worry that a deadly strike may be fired at any moment, and the knowledge that they are powerless to protect themselves.

  One man interviewed by the researchers described the reaction to the sound of the drones as "a wave of terror" coming over the community. "Children, grown-up people, women, they are terrified. . . . They scream in terror." Another "God knows whether they'll strike us again or not. But they're always surveying us, they're always over us, and you never know when they're going to strike and attack".

  The opposition to our government's foreign wars must continue - we mustn't let them keep fighting behind our backs.

  16 April Public Meeting in Parliament: Drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan

  Public meeting jointly called by Afghanistan Withdrawal Group of MPs and the All Party Drones Group

  Tuesday 16th April: 18.30 to 20.00
  Wilson Room, Portcullis House
  (next to Westminster tube station)

  Speakers: 
  Chris Cole, Drone Campaign Network UK
  Rafeef Ziadah, War on Want
  Co-Chairs: 
  Paul Flynn MP 
  Baroness Stern

  Afghanistan Withdrawal Group of MPs was launched to press for British withdrawal and consider constructive ways in which the conflict might be ended. The group is co-chaired by MPs Paul Flynn and Caroline Lucas. Supporters are drawn from across the political parties.

  All Party Parliamentary Group on Drones was set up to examine the use of drones by governments for domestic and international, military and civilian purposes. It is chaired by Tom Watson MP. Baroness Stern, a cross bench peer and human rights and criminal justice campaigner, is group vice chair.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to stwc-subscribe at lists.riseup.net 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman.gn.apc.org/mailman/private/diggers350/attachments/20130416/457f7bac/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/x-ygp-stripped
Size: 149 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://mailman.gn.apc.org/mailman/private/diggers350/attachments/20130416/457f7bac/attachment.bin>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/x-ygp-stripped
Size: 149 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://mailman.gn.apc.org/mailman/private/diggers350/attachments/20130416/457f7bac/attachment-0001.bin>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/x-ygp-stripped
Size: 149 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://mailman.gn.apc.org/mailman/private/diggers350/attachments/20130416/457f7bac/attachment-0002.bin>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/x-ygp-stripped
Size: 149 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://mailman.gn.apc.org/mailman/private/diggers350/attachments/20130416/457f7bac/attachment-0003.bin>