20121215 Drohnen

15.12.2012 Drohnen

Equipment to supervise- Machine to kill

Update 2020: For some years we made a campaign against the weaponizing of drones for the Bundeswehr. Just in time of the Corona crisis the German defense ministry has started in the back room a "broad public ethical debate" on the purchase of waepons for the German drones - but this topic belongs to the real public.
All our articles to this topic https://www.aktion-freiheitstattangst.org/cgi-bin/searchartl.pl?suche=Drohnenbewaffnung&sel=meta

Update 2019: The Drones Quilts Project - In memory of children killed by US combat drones

The Drones Quilt Project is an art exhibition from the USA about the secret US drone war described below. This exhibition is in Germany in 2019 and can be ordered through us.

The exhibition consists of six patchwork blankets, each composed of 36 blocks of fabric. Each block of fabric commemorates a child killed by a US combat drone, whose name has been established by the prestigious British NGO, The Bureau of Invesitgative Journalism, through meticulous on-site research in Pakistan and Yemen. The exhibition includes 5 text panels with explanations of the murderous drone war of the USA. All information is available at https://a-fsa.de/drohnen-quilts/ .
All articles about the Drones Quilts.

Recently, most of our articles have been about drones- a danger that two years ago most people didn’t know about. That’s why the working group Police & Secret Services from our campaign freedom instead of fear have been busy with this theme very thoroughly.

The following text is also available as PDF. You will find it in the list of our publications for download.

Content:

Supervision drones
Military drones
Arguments against drones
Experts question the legitimacy of “targeted homicides”
Actions against drones

Polizei-Drohne bei Antifa Demo, Feb. 2011, elbflorenz, CC-BY-NC-SA2.0

Already a few years, the Federal German Armed Forces are in possession of various drones for the surveillance of “the enemy” when in foreign assignments. Currently they are in the process of getting Fight drones for military assignments.

Sensocopter
Linksunten
IndymediaOrgCC-BY-NC-SA20

Police drone against demonstrations in in Dresden, Feb. 2011,
elbflorenz, CC-BY-NC-SA20

Supervision drones

These drones are often small (not all) and fly quite low. They transfer videos to the one controlling them. In the EU- Project INDECT they are evaluating the video streams by using a software. “Abnormal behaviour” should be recognized automatically and countermeasures (identification, arrests, and more) are steered by programmes.

...

Military drones

The USA has most of these drones. They also have the most victims caused by military drones.

The US Military are in possession of 183-244 Predator/Reaper, the CIA have 30-35 of them. It is planned that 100 drones more should be available. In 2004-2012, due to 350 drone attacks, Pakistan have lost 2600-3350 people including 500-900 civilians and 175 kids. All male dead, regardless of any proofs, are being called “terrorists”. An other 1400 people were injured in these attacks.

Pakistan has, militarily, formed an alliance with the USA and also the government in Yemen (10-23 drone attacks with 60 to 170 deaths) counts as US friendly. However, the USA carry out drone attacks on villages without the permission of the authorities in both countries.

At the moment the arsenal of our armed forces enclose:

Euro Hawk long range/ strategic work (4-5 pieces) 20.000m flight altitude/ 28 hours flight time/ 7.500 km application radius.
Heron 1 middle range/ tactic work (SAATEG) (3 pieces) 24 hours flight time/ 6.400 to 8.430 m flight altitude/ 200km application radius
LUNA short range (90 pieces) 3 to 5 hours of flight time/ 150 to 800 m flight altitude over ground/ 40 km application radius
KZO middle range (60 pieces) 3 to 5 hours flight time/ about 3.500m flight altitude/ 100 km application radius
ALADIN local and close range (224+ pieces) 30 to 60 minutes flight time/ 50 to 150 m flight altitude/ 15+ km application radius
MIKADO (Airbot and Helicopter) local and close range (about 50 pieces) 20 minutes flight time/ 100 m flight altitude/ 500 to 1.000m application range.

Source: IMI Fact-Sheet „Drohnen-Kriege“, http://www.imi-online.de/download/Drohnen2012

Global Hawk, WikimediaCommons, CC-BY-NC-SA20

Global Hawk, RQ-3, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-NC-SA20

The Federal German Armed Forces want to purchase fight drones either the American type called Reaper or the Israeli type called Heron.

Furthermore until 2020 the EU will develop their own fight drones.

Arguments against drones

Disregarding the legal statement and our international law, ...
Denying the proclamation of innocence,
It can get to anyone with no prediction nor traceability
Behavioural changes due to invisible danger,
The greater the distance to the opponent, the easier it is to kill
35% of the “collateral damage” does not correspond to what the military calls “surgical strikes”.

The two last arguments do not come from the “left corner of the peace friends” but from the magazine about foreign affairs and security policies, ADLAS 2/2012 ISSN 1869-1684, P. 28.

The 16-year-old US citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and his cousin are killed in Yemen by an US drone, just 14 days after a drone murdered his father because he was a “supposed terrorist”.

How should their families put together basic values and clan custody/murdering?

International assessment by experts of the German “Bundestag”

Experts question the legitimacy of “targeted killings” in the fight against terrorism.

The committee for human rights and humanitarian aid Berlin: (hib/AHE)

Experts recognize a violation of international lay in the practice of “targeted killings”. That resulted in a hearing of the committee of human rights and humanitarian aid on Wednesday evening. Among other things the experts referred to the danger of a hollowing of the humanitarian international law. The background are the attacks of US military with armed drones on terrorists and terror suspects in Pakistan or in Yemen.
Andreas Zimmerman from the centre of human rights of the University of Potsdam warned about a development in which certain “legal assertions” and interest-escorted interpretations of the international law could harden. Although an attack on hostile fighters and under quite narrow conditions temporarily involved civilians would be covered during armed conflicts by the international law. However the area of the fightings would limit the applicability of these rules. Nevertheless the government of the USA would argue that because of the specific features of the worldwide operating network al-Qaeda the conflict would not be limited geographically. The expert Christian Schaller spoke of an “dissolved” beginning, which would refer to the opposing party and not a defined area. From his point of view “to speak of a worldwide opposing party” goes too far. Shaller added that there are people from the US administration that justify offences against the international law by using the right to self-defence. However, it is to question whether the “indisputable lasting danger” from al-Qaeda appeals to the self-defence right from article 51 of the charter of the United Nations- or whether it should rather concern a self-made interpretation of spatially and time wise scattered events of a “lasting attack”. Wolfgang Kaleck (European centre for Constitutional and Human Rights) pointed out to the fact that through international cooperation, Germany could have been indirectly involved, in under international law, dubious methods- like the utilisation of the confessions which could have originated under certain countries torture methods or by concealed “kidnapping flights” with which the USA have also brought Germanys terror suspects to the much talked about Guantanamo bay detention centre. Therefore, the far-reaching cooperation with United States in the fight against terrorism must be made depended by clear criteria, says Kaleck. He also referred to a judgment of the European Court of human rights that exclude a proof utilisation-not only after proof found, but already that a statement could be forced by torture when a “high risk” was identified. Steven Watt (American Civil Liberties union) criticised, that apparently the USA would set the juridical frames of “specific homicides” when they see fit. It is not only illegal but also dangerous to assume that “the whole world could become a battlefield” and to derive from it that it is allowed to kill terror suspects far away from conflict zones. Watt called in the connection to so-called “signature strikes” in which people, which identity could not be identified but whose behaviour would show a certain pattern, could apparently be attacked. With such attacks the USA created, in the long term, new enemies for themselves in the affected countries and like that endangers it’s own security.

Source: hib - heute im bundestag Nr. 111, Neues aus Ausschüssen und aktuelle parlamentarische Initiativen, Thu, Feb 28th 2013, time of going to press 10:55

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Actions against Drones

...

Action by Codepink documented on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZsfKJc4Tgg

Obama adviser John Brennan’s speech was disrupted by Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK. Over the weekend Benjamin helped organize the International Drone Summit in Washington, D.C.: "How many people are you willing to sacrifice? Why are you lying to the American people and not saying how many innocents have been killed? I speak out on behalf of Tariq Aziz, a 16-year-old in Pakistan, who was killed because he wanted to document the drone strikes. I speak out on behalf of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a 16-year-old born in Denver, killed in Yemen, just because his father was someone we don’t like. I speak out on behalf of the Constitution, on behalf of the rule of law. I love the rule of law. I love my country. You are making us less safe by killing so many innocent people."

"Wie viele Leute sind Sie bereit zu opfern? Warum belügen Sie das amerikanische Volk und sagen nicht, wie viele Unschuldige getötet wurden? Ich spreche im Namen von Tariq Aziz, ein 16-Jähriger in Pakistani, der getötet wurde, weil er die Drohnenangriffe dokumentieren wollte. Ich spreche im Namen von Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, ein 16-Jähriger US Bürger aus Denver, im Jemen getötet, nur weil sein Vater jemand war, den wir nicht mögen. Ich spreche im Namen der Verfassung im Namen der Rechtsstaatlichkeit. Ich liebe die Rechtsstaatlichkeit. Ich liebe mein Land. Sie machen uns weniger sicher durch das Töten so vieler unschuldiger Menschen."

More to the background of the video you will find here: http://mondoweiss.net/2012/05/shame-on-you-why-i-interrupted-obama-counter-terrorism-adviser-john-brennan.html

To be continued ...

We look for your comments to this topic (Mail to kontakt@aktion-fsa.de)

Anti-Drone web sites:

http://www.drohnenkampagne.de/
http://www.ag-friedensforschung.de/themen/Drohnen/Welcome.html
http://antidrohnenkampagne.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/antidrohnenkampagne
http://www.knowdrones.com/

Our flyer to this topic "Keine Drohnen für Krieg und Überwachung"
and in English: Aktion FsA Flyer No Drones for War and Surveillance.pdf

Fight drones: Interview with Jan van Aken
http://antidrohnenkampagne.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/kampfdrohnen-interview-mit-jan-van-aken/

Panorama Report (Nov. 2013) about the Secret war of the US
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoKHbXiMAOo

Stop Britain being a launchpad for killer drones. Sign the petition


VIDEO: 600 march on RAF Waddington in drone protest


David Swanson -- Fighting Drones


Anti-drone movement must become worldwide


ANTIDROHNEN BLOG
http://antidrohnenkampagne.wordpress.com

Antidrohnen Kapagne on FACEBOOK
https://www.facebook.com/antidrohnenkampagne

Videos about drones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=belN8mLzEuo

200 Mio $ hightech Drone crashes - Euro Hawk Prototype
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XfSyHAoxUfs

Drohnen -- Neue „Wunderwaffe"? - Informationsstelle Militarisierung
http://youtu.be/ZiJ3K_1YDyI

UAE: War robots on the loose in Abu Dhabi
http://youtu.be/wk7igCtP-BA

The future of (military)robots - Documentary about the evolution of drones, autonomic flying machines and eventually real terminator behavior of machines.
http://youtu.be/-quWk8E45MU

Human Hunter's DARPA's Military Robot Police Force
http://youtu.be/S9WbSKP9B0c

Military Robot 2013 DARPA LS3 Automatically Follows Soldiers
http://youtu.be/Yj7DgklsZDk

Military Robot Technology
http://youtu.be/diOrq17Cs-M

Robots of tomorrow to help fight the wars of today RIA Novosti Copyright
http://youtu.be/f1pOjuFVCmQ

Robots go to war: American insect Terminators
http://youtu.be/hP7FtwEejVI

Robot-War: Der Soldat der Zukunft und Militär-High-Tech
http://youtu.be/Wp6mNcBwSc4
http://youtu.be/hP7FtwEejVI