{"id":87964,"date":"2013-10-08T14:32:43","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T13:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dronewars.net\/?p=4871"},"modified":"2013-10-08T14:32:43","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T13:32:43","slug":"drone-protests-just-beginning-say-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/drone-protests-just-beginning-say-activists\/","title":{"rendered":"Drone protests just beginning say activists"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"drone_protest_court\"<\/a>As many of you will have seen reported in the media the Waddington Six trial took place yesterday<\/a>. All six \u00a0spoke about the dangers of drone warfare and how the use of drones by British forces breaches international law<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0District Judge John Stoddert listened carefully to everything that was said, but stated that he felt constrained by what he could do. As has been reported in various media, the judge said that he convicted \u201cwith a heavy heart\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0then went on to urge the six to appeal to a higher court as\u00a0there were important issues in the case that needed careful examination. The six are considering their next move. \u00a0\u00a0For a good summary of the day see War isn’t a video game: witnessing (against) drone warfare.<\/a><\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s affinity with drone warfare continues to grow. Figures released by the UK MoD in response to a question by Caroline Lucas MP<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0show that between June 2008 and July 2013 there were 299 Reaper UAV\u00a0sorties that resulted in one or more weapons being fired. We know from other information that a total of 419 weapons have been fired from UK Reapers (till 2 Sept). \u00a0According to analysis by the\u00a0\u00a0Bureau\u00a0of Investigative Journalism, the UK is three times more likely than the US to fire weapons from its drones in Afghanistan<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Latest figures on UK drone strikes are summarised in this table:<\/p>\n

\"UK_Reapers_sept13\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite the withdrawal\u00a0of British forces from Afghanistan in 2014 getting ever closer, the UK MoD continues to refuse to confirm if UK Reapers will remain flying in Afghanistan post troop withdrawal or not. What is becoming clearer, as stated by various senior military officers as the recent DSEi arms fair, is a commitment to armed drone technology beyond Afghanistan<\/a>. These admissions,\u00a0especially in the light of the\u00a0recently revealed\u00a0MoD policy document <\/a>on fighting future wars with a \u2018casualty averse public\u2019 (suggesting\u00a0a greater use of private military contractors, special forces and, surprise, surprise, drones) means that British armed drones will continue to be used into the future.<\/p>\n

As Martin Newell of\u00a0the Waddington 6 stated\u00a0outside court after the verdict: “this isn’t the end of the process – its just the\u00a0beginning.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As many of you will have seen reported in the media the Waddington Six trial took place yesterday.  All six  spoke about the dangers of drone warfare and how the use of drones by British forces breaches international law.   District Judge… Read More ›<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1223,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-87964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}