Code Pink: Drone Summit

by Tila Neguse, PEP Executive Director

As a member of the St. Louis Instead of War Coalition, I was able to attend the Code Pink International Drone Summit, April 28-29. The summit brought together a wide range of activists and organizers to discuss U.S. policies, or the lack thereof, towards drones. The collection of speakers on the program was incredible. I was in a star-studded room full of activists and organizers whose work I admired. The line-up in the program included Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin, award winning journalist Jeremy Scahill, and human rights activist and lawyer Shazad Akbar (most recognizable for his work on behalf of drone strike victims in Pakistan).

Before coming to this conference, I had a very basic working knowledge of drones and I left with a deeper understanding of the need to do education around the issue of drone usage.

I loved that there was a wide range of opinions in the room. There was no general consensus that drones were inherently bad or inherently good, instead, we focused on the lack of transparency and accountability with drone usage.

The Obama administration has been using drone warfare both with a lack of transparency and accountability, killing people without granting them due process to a trial; assassination by association. But then again, they are terrorists. Or are they? In a report done by the New America Foundation, it is cited that the U.S. has launched 297 drone strikes which resulted in 1800 deaths. Of that1800; it is estimated that three to four hundred were not combatants. As unmanned indiscriminate killing machines, drones are unable to make the distinction between who is a threat and who is not, making them horribly ineffective on this “war on terror.” Such callous disregard for human life is weaponized drones biggest offense, but not the only one.

Drones are also a violation of global privacy. Just think, would the U.S. ever let another country fly surveillance or weaponized aircraft in our airspace? Hell no. And global privacy isn’t the only concern. Domestic use of surveillance drones is jeopardizing us here on our own soil. Local police departments are already using drones as a means of surveillance and since there are no policies in place to regulate this usage, we are in danger of having our every move recorded by authorities. It’s like an Orwellian nightmare; I can imagine it now, unmanned surveillance vehicles flying in every back yard, Big Brother looming in the skies.

Perhaps a little more tangible and immediate than imagining a dystopian society, is the obvious fact that domestic drones will be used to increase the already high (and ineffective) level of surveillance in low-income communities of color. As an anti-war organizer, I see this as an opportunity to reach out to and to address the concerns of these communities that have become seemingly absent from the anti-war movement in the age of Obama. There’s much organizing work that needs to be done around drones. I’m glad I was able to participate in Code Pink’s Summit and gain the knowledge to move forward on this issue.

Medea Benjamin will be in St. Louis promoting her book Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control in June.