Banning Slaughter

In
the early 1970's, I spent two summers slinging pork loins in a Chicago meat-packing factory. Rose
Packing Company paid a handful of college students $2.25 an hour to process
pork. Donning combat boots, yellow rubber aprons, goggles, hairnets and
floor length white smocks that didn't stay white very long, we'd arrive on the
factory floor. Surrounded by deafening machinery, we'd step over small pools of
blood and waste, adjusting ourselves to the rancid odors, as we headed to our
posts. I'd step onto a milk crate in front of a huge bin full of thawing
pork loins. Then, swinging a big, steel
T-hook, I'd stab a large pork loin, pull it out of the pile, and plop it on a
conveyor belt carrying meat into the pickle juice machine. Sometimes a
roar from a foreman would indicate a switch to processing Canadian pork butts,
which involved swiftly shoving metal chips behind rectangular cuts of meat. On
occasion, I'd be assigned to a machine that squirted meat waste meat into a
plastic tubing, part of the process for making hot dogs. I soon became a
vegetarian.

But,
up until some months ago, if anyone had ever said to me, "Kathy Kelly, you
slaughtered animals," I'm sure I would have denied it, and maybe even felt a
bit indignant. Recently, I realized that in fact I did participate in
animal slaughter. It's similar, isn't it, to widely held perceptions here in
the United States about our
responsibility for killing people in Afghanistan,
in Pakistan, in Iraq and other areas where the U.S. routinely
kills civilians.

The
actual killing seems distant, almost unnoticeable, and we grow so accustomed to
our remote roles that we hardly notice the rising antagonism caused by U.S.
aerial attacks, using remotely piloted drones.
The drones fire missiles and drop bombs that incinerate people in the targeted area, many of them
civilians whose only "crime" is to be living with their family.

Villagers
in Afghanistan and Pakistan have little voice in the court of U.S.
public opinion and no voice whatsoever in U.S. courts of law. Aiming to raise concern over U.S. usage of drones for targeted killings, 14
of us have been preparing for a trial here in Las Vegas,
where we are charged under Nevada state law
with having trespassed at Creech Air Force Base, in nearby Indian Springs, Nevada.

The
charges stem from an April, 2009 action when several dozen people held vigils
at the main gate to Creech AFB for ten days.
One of our banners said, "Ground the Drones, Lest Ye Reap the
Whirlwind." Franciscan priest Jerry Zawada's sign said: "The drones don't hear
the groans of the people on the ground, --and neither do we." Jerry carried that sign onto the base on April
9, 2009 when 14 of us attempted to deliver several letters to the base commander,
Colonel Chambliss. Nevada
state authorities charged us with trespass. We believed that international law,
which clearly prohibits targeted assassinations, obliged us to prevent drone
strikes. "It is incumbent on pilots,
whether remote or not, to ensure that a commander's assessment of the legality
of a proposed strike is borne out by visual confirmation," writes Philip
Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary
executions, "and that the target is in fact lawful, and that the requirements
of necessity, proportionality, and discrimination are met."

The
United States isn't at war
with Pakistan.
U.S. leaders repeatedly
stress that Pakistan
is our ally. Nevertheless, U.S. operated drones are used for targeted
killing in North and South Waziristan. "Targeted killing is the most coercive tactic
employed in the war on terrorism," according to the Harvard Journal. "Unlike detention or interrogation, it is not
designed to capture the terrorist, monitor his or her actions, or extract
information; simply put, it is designed to eliminate the terrorist."

The
Pentagon claims that the drone attacks are an ideal strategy for eliminating Al
Qaeda members. Yet in the name of
bolstering security for U.S.
people, the U.S.
is institutionalizing assassination as a valid policy. Does this make us safer?

General
Petraeus may perceive short-term gains, but in the long run it's likely that
the drone attacks, as well as the night raids and death squad tactics, will
cause blowback. What's more, drone
proliferation among many countries will lessen security for people in the U.S.
and throughout the world.

With
the usage of drones, the U.S.
populace can experience even greater distance and less accountability because U.S. armed forces and CIA agents, invisible to
the U.S. populace, can
assassinate targets without ever leaving a U.S. base. Corporations that manufacture the drones and
technicians who design them celebrate cutting edge technology and rising
profits.

In
a Las Vegas courtroom, on September 14, 2010, the
judge who hears our case has an unusual opportunity to help accelerate that
process by allowing expert witnesses to speak about citizen obligations under
international law and our protected rights under the constitution of the U.S.,
all in relation to our duty to abolish drone warfare.

Recalling
my own involvement in slaughter, I'm ashamed that I took the job for no other
reason than to earn a few dimes more, per hour, than I might have gotten at a
job which didn't involve killing. It took me four decades to realistically
assess what I'd done. Will it take 40 years for us humans to acknowledge our
role in slaughtering other human beings who have meant us no harm.