drones
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Where are Britain’s armed drones? Why Drone Wars is going to court to seek answers By Chris Cole
Drone Wars UK will be in court next week seeking to overturn the refusal of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to release how many of the UK’s fleet of ten armed Reaper drones are deployed and where they are located. The MoD currently releases such deployment details about its other armed aircraft, but has insisted… Continue reading
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“It was incessant.” Former RAF Reaper pilot speaks to Drone Wars By Chris Cole
Drone Wars UK is publishing an exclusive interview with former British Reaper drone pilot Justin Thompson (a pseudonym), who for three years flew RAF Reapers over Afghanistan while based at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. Continue reading
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PM must publish Intelligence Committee report on UK drone killings By Chris Cole
Soon after it had been re-constituted in the new parliament, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) issued a statement in October 2015 saying that an investigation into the drone strikes in which British nationals were killed was an “immediate priority”… Four months later we are still waiting. Continue reading
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Legacy: “Obama scattered his drones and special forces throughout the Muslim world”
In January, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported that President Obama embraced the US drone programme, overseeing more strikes in his first year than Bush carried out during his entire presidency. A total of 563 strikes, largely by drones, targeted Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen during Obama’s two terms, compared to 57 strikes under Bush. Continue reading
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New Report: British Drone Operations Against ISIS, 2014-2016 By Chris Cole
Drone Wars UK is today publishing a new report detailing UK armed drone and air operations against ISIS. The report contains data on UK operations in Iraq and Syria gained through Freedom of Information requests since 2014 as well as background and a timeline of UK air operations. In addition, the report highlights continuing issues… Continue reading
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Media: Downplaying US Contribution to Potential Yemen Famine
For almost two years, the United States has backed—with weapons, logistics and political support—a Saudi-led war in Yemen that has left over 10,000 dead, 40,000 wounded, 2.5 million internally displaced, 2.2 million children suffering from malnutrition and over 90 percent of civilians in need of humanitarian aid. Continue reading
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Trump’s first disastrous airstrike, followed by ‘boots on the ground’
American broadcasting network NBC was the first to report news from a senior US military official that in the first airstrike and military raid carried out under President Donald Trump, two Americans were killed in Southern Yemen on Sunday. One was a member of SEAL Team 6 a U.S. Navy component of Joint Special Operations… Continue reading
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Attorney General speaks on legality of UK pre-emptive drone strikes By Chris Cole
UK Attorney General Jeremy Wright’s speech at the IISS on Wednesday evening, “The modern law of self-defence”, trailed by advanced PR as “setting out the legal basis for British military strikes against terror targets overseas”, gained a flurry of advance media coverage. I’m sure others far more qualified will comment in detail on the legal… Continue reading
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Where are Britain’s armed drones? And why it matters we are not allowed to know By Chris Cole
At the first stage of what is likely to be a lengthy appeals process, the Information Commissioner has upheld the Ministry of Defence’s refusal to reveal to Drone Wars UK the number of Britain’s armed drones currently deployed. Continue reading
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Mayhem! what we are we doing? Adding political to military strikes.“UN, US, UK devastation, complicity and double standards”
These words of journalist Felicity Arbuthnot reverberated as the writer belatedly discovered Josie Ensor’s report from Istanbul that a US air strike killed nearly 60 civilians, including children, in Syria after the coalition mistook them for Islamic State fighters. Some eight families were hit as they tried to flee in one of the single deadliest… Continue reading
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NYT Reveals Think Tank It’s Cited for Years to Be Corrupt Arms Booster
A recent New York Times article (8/7/16) detailed, in often scathing terms, what many media critics already knew: that think tanks are frequently not objective, neutral arbiters of information, but corporate- and government-funded agenda-promoters with an academic veneer to give the appearance of impartiality. Continue reading
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NYT Contributor Has Multiple Motives for Denying Drone Crimes
Hayden’s op-ed in the NYT is long on fictional accounts of ultra-scrupulous drone planners worrying about striking civilians and completely lacking the real-life incidents where the US has mistakenly targeted weddings and deliberately hit funerals. That’s to be expected when you ask someone who has carried out what the United Nations and other international law… Continue reading
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National Security Archive: New Documents Trace Controversial Use of Drones and other Aerial Surveillance for Domestic National Security
“FBI spy plane zeroes in on Dearborn area” was the headline in The Detroit News on August 5, 2015. The story, which broke the news that the FBI had conducted at least seven surveillance flights recently over downtown Detroit, also raised a broader issue. It illustrated the fact that along with the controversy concerning electronic… Continue reading
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The world’s shame: America expects a ‘cascading series of global crises’ & plans to increase drone flights in 90 ‘combat air patrols’ each day
The Pentagon plan grows the capacity for expanding surveillance and lethal airstrikes, the most controversial part of the U.S. drone program, with its rapid growth under President Barack Obama – killing 3,000 people or more as estimated by non-partisan groups. Continue reading
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Drone warfare news stacking up
”Opposition to the horrendous war crimes committed by US imperialism is not predicated on support for Islamic fundamentalism or any of the regimes the American government sets out to bring down. Dealing with these reactionary elements is the responsibility of the Afghan, Pakistani or Yemeni people; it cannot be subcontracted to the US government, military… Continue reading
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Drones massacre of the innocents
“Even when operators target specific individuals — the most focused effort of what U.S. President Barack Obama calls “targeted killing” — they kill vastly more people than their targets, often needing to strike multiple times.” Continue reading
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Israeli drone conference features weapons used to kill Gaza’s children By Rania Khalek
Organized in partnership with the US embassy in Tel Aviv, “Israel Unmanned Systems 2014” offers Israeli military firms an opportunity to flaunt the performance of their products, many of which were tested on Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip this summer. Continue reading
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Government: is BT assisting targeted killing by drones, violating international law?
Human rights lawyers Reprieve, acting on behalf of two Yemeni men whose relatives were accidentally killed by drones, have brought a complaint against BT, filed with the British government on 19 August. he charge is that the $23m (£13m) fibre-optic circuit built by BT in 2012 was installed to facilitate air strikes in Yemen and… Continue reading
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The era of American drone supremacy is fading – but the threat of drone multipolarity is real – and potentially endless
For almost ten years the Central Intelligence Agency has been able to strike targets with impunity. At the moment, Barack Obama orders drone assassinations without having to admit it, or explain himself to anyone. Hundreds of militants have been killed in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere. But hundreds more civilians, perhaps thousands, have also been accidentally… Continue reading
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Drone Wars: “Force Protection Alpha in Effect” By Brian Terrell
While the CIA’s drone program is shrouded in secrecy, the Air Force supposedly has been using drones strictly as a weapon for waging war against combatants in recognized areas of conflict such as Afghanistan and formerly in Iraq, under a chain of command that is accountable to elected officials. Some who condemn the CIA’s assassinations… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 