On International Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, two peace activists, charged with criminal trespass, will be tried in Jefferson City, Mo. The charge is based on an action at Whiteman Air Force Base last June 1st protesting US use of weaponized drones which are remotely piloted from the base. The trial testimony is expected to reflect a Nov. 24, 2014, report that for every intended target of a US drone strike, 28 unidentified persons are also killed. Drones change the nature of warfare, turning whole regions into battlefields where merely suspected militants, often uninvolved in combat, are identified and executed, without trial, from obscuring distances and with no chance to surrender.
The activists are Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of the Chicago-based Voices for Creative Non-Violence, and Georgia Walker, director of Journey to New Life, which helps former prisoners obtain jobs and housing in Kansas City, Mo.
Kelly and Walker offered bread and a letter to guards at Whiteman Air Force Base, near Knob Noster, Mo., on June 1, 2014. The guards accepted the bread but refused the letter, which addressed the base commander citing a consensus of international legal experts condemning drone warfare. Because, in doing so, Kelly and Walker had stepped across a designated line on the road toward the base, they will be tried at 9 a.m. in the Federal Courthouse at 80 Lafayette St. in Jefferson City, before Judge Matt Whitworth. In a similar case in 2012, Whitworth gave three defendants sentences of 6 months, 4 months, and probation, respectively.
Citing a Bureau of Investigative Journalism report, Georgia Walker stated, “In order for the US to kill a single terrorist leader with our militarized drones, US airborne attacks kill at least 28 innocent non-combatants. How can we tolerate these extra-judicial executions done in our name? These are weapons of mass destruction which are not making US people safer. These killings could feasibly recruit individuals to engage in anti-US activities. In the name of permanent and total war on terrorism, we are committing human rights violations. Have we totally lost the moral high ground?”
Kathy Kelly has accompanied numerous delegations to Iraq and Gaza where she lived through the US “Shock and Awe” and Israeli “Cast Lead” campaigns alongside ordinary civilians in communities under heavy bombardment. Her recent work in Afghanistan as a guest of Afghan Peace Volunteers, has also connected her with the drone issue. “I have lived with people who have shuddered, on the ground, under air attacks, some of which are carried out by drones and some of which have occurred because of information collected by drones,” she says. I’ve been at the bedsides of children whose bodies were ripped apart, and I’ve been with families who have exhumed the bodies of their children and held funerary rituals. Survivors entrusted me with their grievances and asked me to please beg the government of the country where I live to stop the airborne surveillance and attacks.”
Walker and Kelly will give testimony to the judge about the June 1 action and will cite Constitutional protections of free speech and of the right to peaceably assemble for redress of grievances.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy