New California Television Commercials Ask Drone Pilots to Stop Killing

Editor’s Note: What a statement on modern society this is. First we fight multiple, offensive (not defensive) wars for empire, and now we have television commercials begging our soldiers to stop following immoral orders and killing innocent people including women and children.

Wow.

Via Washington’s Blog:

This may be a first: a television ad campaign in a U.S. state capitol appealing to someone to stop murdering human beings who have, in most cases, already been born.

A new 15-second television ad, a variation on one that’s aired in Las Vegas near Creech Air Force Base, is debuting this week in Sacramento, Calif. Take a look:

The ad was produced by KnowDrones.com, and is cosponsored by Veterans for Peace/Sacramento, and Veterans Democratic Club of Sacramento. It is airing on CNN, FoxNews and other networks startingTuesday in the Sacramento/Yuba City area, near Beale Air Force Base.

Producers and promoters of the ad campaign have planned a press briefing at 8:30 a.m. PT on Tuesday, March 31, at the main gate to Beale Air Force Base. The ad’s appeal for pilots to “Refuse to Fly,” they say, “is aimed at drone pilots, sensor operators, support personnel and their families as well as the general public.”

While killing people with drones by the thousands has become so routine that elite lawyers argue for making “wartime” permanent, and the United States is selling armed drones to nations around the world without apparently the slightest consideration that any undesired consequences are possible, the reality of what is happening is rarely seen in U.S. media. Comcast cable has decided that the advertisement above cannot be shown before 10:00 p.m. because it shows a glimpse of what “targeted drones strikes” do.

Comcast is allowing the version below to air at all hours as it more closely resembles the rest of U.S. television content in hiding reality. It does state “U.S. drones have murdered thousands, including women and children.”  “Murder,” by the way, is the U.S. government’s own terminology, and strictly accurate.

Nick Mottern, coordinator of KnowDrones.com, suggested that activists have focused on appealing directly to drone pilots because appealing to the U.S. government has become so hopeless. “The President and the Congress,” he said, “refuse to respect law and morality and stop U.S. drone attacks, so we are asking the people who bear the burden of doing the actual killing to put a stop to it.”

In fact, drone pilots are suffering post traumatic stress and moral injury in significant numbers, and dropping out in significant numbers. Information on all the factors involved in creating the current, and much desired, shortage of drone pilots is, of course, incomplete. For a discussion of the issue, listen to this week’s Talk Nation Radio with guest Brian Terrell.  Efforts are also alive and well to get armed drones banned or to at least stop the U.S. government from arming the world with them.

Below is a nice collection of statements gathered by KnowDrones.com as part of its effort to persuade those who are all too much in the habit of obeying immoral orders:

1. “America’s targeted killing program is illegal, immoral and unwise.”

-Archbishop Desmond Tutu – From forward to Drones and Targeted Killing  January, 2015

2. “There are two main reasons why drone warfare is neither just nor moral.  First, it replaces interrogation by assassination.  Specific individuals (including American citizens) are placed on ‘kill lists.’  They are targeted with no accountability for errors in judgment or excesses of attack.  All due process is abandoned…Our consciences are stricken by the indefensible loss of life through drone warfare.”

– The Rev. George Hunsinger, Professor of Systemic Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary.  January 24, 2015.

3.  “They call themselves warfighters. They are assassins.”

– Former Congressman and member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence Rush Holt speakingof drone operators at the Interfaith Conference on Drone Warfare held at Princeton Theological Seminary, January 23 – 25.

4.  “We are the ultimate voyeurs, the ultimate Peeping Toms. I’m watching this person, and this person has no clue what’s going on. No one’s going to catch us. And we’re getting orders to take these people’s lives.”

– Brandon Bryant – former U.S. drone sensor operator quoted in the documentary Drone. Democracy Now, April 17, 2014.

5. Drone attacks violate basic human rights outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights including rights to the protection of life (Article 3), privacy (Article 12) and due process (Article 10).  The UDHR, born out of the horrors of World War II, was ratified by the United States in 1948 and forms the basis for international human rights law today.

6. “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him of responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”

– Principle IV of The Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Judgment of the Tribunal, The United Nations 1950.

7. “…there are grounds to maintain that anyone who believes or has reason to believe that a war is being waged in violation of minimal canons of law and morality has an obligation of conscience to resist participation in and support of that war effort by every means at his disposal. In that respect, the Nuremberg principles provide guidelines for citizens’ conscience and a shield that can be used in the domestic legal system to interpose obligations under international law between the government and members of the society.”

– Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law and practice, Princeton University.  From The Circle of Responsibility”, The Nation, June 13, 2006.

8. “According to the Nuremberg Principles, it is not only the right, but also the duty of individuals to make moral and legal judgments concerning wars in which they are asked to fight.” 

– John Scales Avery, world peace activist, The Nuremberg Principles and Individual Responsibility, Countercurrents, July 30, 2012.

9.  U.S. MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drone attacks have killed at least 6,000* people. That’s an estimate by KnowDrones.com based on various reports including those of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

10. In addition, to the death and injury resulting from drone attacks, the presence of drones overhead terrorizes whole populations in drone war zones, leading to disruptions to family and community life and psychological injury.

“…the fear of strikes undermines people’s sense of safety to such an extent that it has at times affected their willingness to engage in a wide variety of activities, including social gatherings, educational and economic opportunities, funerals…the U.S. practice of striking one area multiple times, and its record of killing first responders, makes both community members and humanitarian workers afraid to assist injured victims.

–   Living Under Drones, September, 2012.

(Read more at Washington’s Blog)