Sept. 14, 2010
COMMENTARY: Banning Slaughter
By Kathy Kelly
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
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.”
http://www.harvardnsj.com/2010/06/law-and-policy-of-targeted-killing
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.
* * *
Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative
Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org). This commentary was distributed by PeaceVoice,
a program of the Oregon Peace Institute, Portland, OR.
http://www.peacevoice.info/