Join Take Back YPR outside the Meyerhoff from 7 to 7:45 PM on Tuesday December 2. We will be urging attendess of the talk by GARRISON KEILLOR, Humorist and Radio Host of A Prairie Home Companion, to refuse to contribute to WYPR until there are changes in management.
Desert Voices is
On line now at http://NevadaDesertExperience.org.
current newsletter, our range of concerns connects nuclear weapons testing with other political and spiritual issues.
Desert Voices Vol 21, Number 4 December 2008
Drone Warriors
Another Threshold Crossed
by Louis Vitale, OFM
In a recent article in the
military and environment writer Keith Rogers quotes
Colonel Christopher Chambliss, commander of the
432nd Wing, in heralding the new MQ3 Reaper, big
brother to the MQ1 Predator, the latest in the
of “Unmanned Airborne Vehicles.” The colonel reflects
on the time nine decades ago when military leaders were
beginning to grasp the value of piloted aircraft that led
the
intimidation of the world through the dropping of two
atomic bombs on
Jonathan Schell’s latest book The Seventh Decade updates
us on where we have come with the “atomic bomb”
since that time. We have become the “Superpower” who
holds the world in check through global domination with
the fear of nuclear annihilation through our 12,000+
nuclear weapons available from air, land sites and sea.
Noted psychiatrist and author Dr. Robert Jay Lifton
has further illustrated the debilitation of the one dropping
the bombs. He speaks to a severe “numbing” of the
psyche that happens through the size of the weapons and
the distance from the victims on the ground.
The new drones that are flown from Creech Air Force
Base near
miles from the target extend the numbing even further.
Here young enlisted men in the Air Force sitting side by
side with more experienced pilots guide missiles to their
targets as in a video game. But these are real missiles and
even 500 pound bombs on the Reaper. Our daily newspapers
and TV broadcasts show us the impact on dwellings,
schools, and hospitals. These bring the fleeting sense of
dropping a bomb from 35,000 feet to an immediate sight
of bodies in plain view. Commanders report the impact
on some crews, especially the sensors who control the
cameras and use laser beams to guide the missiles to their
targets. Chambliss speaks of the difficulty some of the
younger crew members have when they return home to
their families after the bombing runs and that they need
to hire more chaplains and psychologists for their aid.
Long time observers of the impact of the
Iraq war, such as humanitarian/activist Kathy Kelly, who
have experienced firsthand the enormous sufferings of
the 2,000,000+ victims are eager to travel to
and other frontiers between
to see up close what the Predator and Reaper crews see
on their screens. BBC viewers worldwide were treated to
this dramatization of a British Reaper crew,
partners, actively engaging in attacks.
Here in
UAV 432nd Wing nearby, part of the same land space
shared with the
operated by Nellis Air Force Base, and other sites of new
and lethal weapons, the scandal of Creech’s remote and
earth-shattering war, we cannot dare fail to address the
damage and destruction both on the
and on its own crews.
With other
the gate to the Drone base. We have carried out signs of
concern, taken a letter to the base commander Colonel
Chambliss and heard their ownership of “causing groans”
and making “kills.” We pray and we weep. As with recent
developments of torture, this is a frontier we did not want
to pass. They intimidate the world and leave us all in fear
and trembling. We are pledged to call attention to the
truth of these atrocities and take active measures to put
an end to their existence.
To stop nuclear weapons testing through a campaign of prayer,
education, dialogue, and nonviolent direct action.
To mobilize people of all faiths to work toward nuclear abolition and
nonviolent social change.
To support personal renewal in the desert tradition, reconnecting with
each other and the earth.
To end subcritical tests and other warmaking preparations at the
Nevada Test Site and preventing the return of full scale nuclear testing.
1420
702.646.4814
jim@nevadadesertexperience.org
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