Moral
Corrosion of Drone Warfare
The U.S. government uses drones to eliminate
risk to its soldiers and thus domestic
opposition to war, but that heightens the moral
imperative to challenge the remote-controlled
killings, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
By Ray McGovern
July 16,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
-Required
by court order to appear before a judge in
Syracuse, New York, on July 12, some
out-of-towners had already arrived there when
the court granted the prosecution’s last-minute
request for more time to prepare its case
against us, the Jerry Berrigan Brigade, for our
nonviolent witness against drone warfare on Jan.
28, 2016. A trial date is likely to be set in a
month or two, or perhaps three (so much for our
Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial).
Back in January 2016, we
stood behind 30
larger-than-life-sized wooden silhouettes of
Syracuse peacemaker Jerry Berrigan, who died at
age 95 on July 26, 2015.
A
widely loved and respected educator, Jerry –
like his brothers Dan and Phil – was himself
larger than life. Even in his early 90s, Jerry
could be seen braving the elements, witnessing
against the extrajudicial killings enabled by
Hancock drone base in Syracuse.
Jerry
was asked at one point if there were anything he
would change in his life. “I would have resisted
more often and been arrested more often,” he
said.
On Jan.
28, 2016, we – the Jerry Berrigan Brigade –
brought images of Jerry to the gates of Hancock
as a tangible reminder that this is where he
would have been standing that day, putting his
body on the line to say a clear, physical “NO”
to killing. Jerry’s widow and daughter were
there with us, cheering us on.
Most Americans are blissfully unaware that, from
states-side drone bases like Hancock, drone
“pilots” – with a push of the joystick, a click
of a mouse, or simply a keystroke – can
incinerate “suspected terrorists,”
on the other side of the globe WITHIN THREE
MINUTES.
Thanks
to a media that is heavily influenced by what
Pope Francis (speaking before Congress in 2015)
called the “blood-drenched arms traders,” it’s
largely a comfortable case of
out-of-sight-out-of-mind. However, the more the
killing is hidden, the more we feel a moral
imperative to bring the killing out into the
open and appeal to the consciences of U.S.
citizens – including those of drone “pilots”
many of whom have moral qualms about what they
are being ordered to do and end up with bad
cases of PTSD.
Many of
us protesters – Catholic Workers and Jewish
grandmothers alike – take our cue from anti-war
activist Rabbi Heschel, who braced us all with
this admonition: “When injustice takes place,
few are guilty, but all are
responsible. Indifference to evil is more
insidious than evil itself.”
Rabbi
Heschel got that right. And Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr. reassured us that “the arc of the
moral universe is long, but it bends toward
justice.” But how long and how to make it bend?
Seventeen-plus months since our Jerry Berrigan
Brigade witness at Hancock, we cannot avoid
wondering just how long it will take for our
case to find justice. Nor are we sure what kind
of “justice” will befall us. Whatever it is,
though, it will be a small price to pay, when
one considers the price paid by families who
slip into the crosshairs of drone-fired Hellfire
missiles.
Some
well-meaning soul suggested we consider
apologizing – a notion far from our minds. Were
we to issue an apology, it would be patterned on
the one given by Jerry Berrigan’s brothers Dan
and Phil and the others of the Catonsville Nine,
who burned draft cards with homemade napalm 50
years ago at the height of the war in Vietnam:
“Our
apologies, good friends, for the fracture of
good order, the burning of paper instead of
children, the angering of the orderlies in the
front parlor of the charnel house. We could not,
so help us God, do otherwise. For we are sick at
heart, our hearts give us no rest for thinking
of the Land of Burning Children.”
Good
Friday Witness, 2017
“Justice” is likely to be meted out more quickly
to those of us who decided that Good Friday this
year would be a fitting time to honor the memory
of innocent victims of Empire, given what
happened to Jesus of Nazareth when he challenged
Empire. This time nine nonviolent resisters,
including from Upstate Drone Action and Catholic
Worker, were arrested at the main entrance to
Hancock drone base witnessing against Hancock’s
role in drone killings.
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Three
hung on large wooden drone crosses representing
victims of U.S. drone strikes in seven majority
Muslim countries. Eleven others held smaller
drone crosses headed by the phrase, “DRONES
CRUCIFY,” each followed by one of these:
Children, Families, Love, Peace, Community, the
US Constitution, UN Charter, Rule of Law, US
Treaties, Due Process, or Diplomacy (in all, 14
“Stations of the Cross”). All the crosses were
confiscated by Base personnel.
Perceiving a need to explain our Good Friday
action
we issued a statement,
that includes the following:
“Good
Friday commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus.
Recognizing that 70% of our nation identify as
Christian, we come to the gates of the Hancock
drone base to make real the crucifixion today.
As Jesus and others were crucified by the Roman
Empire, drones are used by the U.S. Empire in
similar fashion.
“In
Roman times, crosses loomed over a community to
warn people that they could be killed whenever
the Empire decided. So, too, our drones fly over
many countries threatening extrajudicial
killings upon whoever happens to be in the
vicinity. On this Good Friday, we recall Jesus’
call to love and nonviolence. We’re asking this
Air Force base and this nation to turn away from
a policy of modern-day crucifixion.
“What
if our country were constantly being spied upon
by drones, with some ‘suspected terrorists’
killed by drones? What if many bystanders,
including children, were killed in the process?
If that were happening, we would hope that some
people in that attacking country would speak up
and try to stop the killing. We’re speaking up
to try and stop the illegal and immoral drone
attacks on countries against which Congress has
not declared war.”
(A
five-minute video
of Nativity Scene Action at Hancock, the theme
of which was: “If Herod Had Drones, Jesus, Mary,
and Joseph Would Have Been Incinerated.”)
Several
of those arrested on Good Friday, including me,
were the same “perps” awaiting trial for the
action of our Jerry Berrigan Brigade action a
year and a half ago. But the judge hearing this
more recent case told us when we appeared before
him on July 13 that he will now set a trial date
for us Good Friday protesters.
Other
Witness Against Drones
Over
the last couple of years there have been many
protest actions and arrests at one of the most
important drone bases – Creech AFB in Nevada,
where many from many parts of the U.S. and
abroad have demonstrated against the brutality
of drone killing.
Lesser
known are actions in other parts of the country
to raise awareness of the expansion of drone
bases in localities like Des Moines, Iowa. There
the Des Moines Catholic Worker and Veterans For
Peace have launched a campaign to call attention
to the drone assassinations in which the 132nd
Wing of the Iowa Air National Guard plays a role
from Des Moines airport. There have been several
arrests, trials, and convictions.
The
July issue of the Des Moines Catholic Worker
community newspaper, Via Pacis, carries
the words of Frank Cordaro, a Catholic priest,
before his latest arrest in late May at the
National Guard drone command in Des
Moines. Frank reached back to the prophet
Ezekiel to address the imperative to “blow the
trumpet,” saying:
“This
protest is an Ezekiel ‘Watchman’ witness.
Ezekiel was a priest of the First Temple and
only became a prophet after he was kicked out of
Jerusalem and sent into captivity in
Babylon. Once there, he started to have visions:
‘The Lord said to me, when the Watchman sees the
sword coming against the land, he should blow
the trumpet to warn the people.’
“The
Des Moines Catholic Worker community has been a
kind of Watchman for the city of Des Moines on
the issues of war and peace for the past 40
years. It’s probably because we Catholic Workers
have been protesting US-led wars for over 80
years nationally and 40 in Des Moines. And it’s
very personal for me too. I grew up on the south
side of Des Moines and this airport is just
blocks away from the neighborhood I grew up in.”
Needed:
more Watchmen and Watchwomen. A drone base may
soon be coming to your own neighborhood.
Ray
McGovern works for a publishing arm of the
Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.
He has written about
the moral imperative of activism
and tries to heed it. He was an Army officer
and then a CIA analyst for 30 years, and is now
on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
This article was first published by
Consortium News
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views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
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