Baltimore Nonviolence Center: PLEASE JOIN THE *END DRONE WARFARE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE PLEDGE" CAMPAIGN

PLEASE JOIN THE *END DRONE WARFARE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE PLEDGE" CAMPAIGN

– Kick-off in Iowa, Saturday, May 18, 2019 From: Frank Cordaro, Des Moines Catholic Worker

The Des Moines Catholic Worker and the Des Moines “Bill Bassinger” Veterans for Peace Chapter 163 are joining Nick Mottern and KnowDrones
https://www.knowdrones.com/ to start a national "END DRONE WARFARE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE PLEDGE" CAMPAIGN here in Iowa! (The pledge
appears below.)

We want to kick off the campaign on Saturday, May 18, 2019 at our 3rd Annual Honor Vets Ground Drones Armed Forces Day Rally & Direct
Action @ 3 p.m. at the IA Air Guard Drone Command Center, 3100 McKinley Ave, Des Moines, IA.

The idea is to get as many of the presidential candidates to respond 'yes or no' to the pledge.

In Iowa, we hope to use the campaign to focus much-needed attention on our own drone command center in Des Moines, and to spread
this campaign across the country, particularly in the states that have drone command centers. (See the attached list.)

Right now, we are looking for two things:

- Individuals and groups to sign on publicly in support of the pledge.
- People to start showing up at candidate appearances to press the issue.

Please be in touch with me and Nick Mottern if you and/or your group would like to endorse the pledge. And please let us know too if you
will be able to attend presidential candidate events to call on the candidates to sign the pledge.

AND, please sign this petition: http://banweaponizeddrones.org

Iowa Contacts -- Frank Cordaro <frank.cordaro@gmail.com> & Gil Landolt <peacevet@hotmail.com>

National Contact -- Nick Mottern <nickmottern@gmail.com> KnowDrones https://www.knowdrones.com/

END DRONE WARFARE PLEDGE

Background

Beginning in October, 2001 with the invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. has conducted a drone warfare campaign that knows no boundaries
and is out of control.

This campaign, which is based on assassination, has taken up to 12,100 lives in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. This is a gross under-estimate because it does not include those killed in other nations experiencing U.S. drone surveillance and attack, such as Iraq, Syria, Libya and Niger.

In addition, much drone killing goes unreported because of the remoteness of the attacks and because the U.S. government conceals the full extent of drone killing and wounding, which has increased
exponentially from 2001, through the Obama presidency and again under President Trump.

We must remember also that tens of thousands of people living under killer drones are being systematically traumatized and that their community life, the basis of their physical and emotional survival, is being destroyed.

Note, these unrelenting U.S. drone attacks are being conducted against people of color - whose lives are already wracked by war – for the sole purpose of assisting corporations in grabbing resources,
particularly oil, gas and minerals, in an extraction process that, of course, contributes to global warming.

U.S. drone attacks violate the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights and are illegal, immoral and just plain outrageous.

The Pledge

Therefore, we call on you, as a presidential candidate, to pledge to

1. Stop all attacks by U.S. drones and to close all U.S. drone control centers inside and outside the U.S.; and
2. Work for an international ban on weaponized drones.

Will you sign this pledge?
____

Individuals and groups calling for this pledge (to date):

Baltimore Nonviolence Center

Thursday, May 16, 2019

PLEASE JOIN THE *END DRONE WARFARE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE PLEDGE" CAMPAIGN

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