Israeli Drone impact Unexamined by the Press

By Enrico Rodriguez
found on the KnowDrones Watch Blog  Blog

While mainstream media has of late been more open in reporting issues surrounding drone spying and killing, there has been very little coverage of the drone’s key role in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  The story of massive civilian casualties in Gaza, rightfully, has received wide reporting, but the press hardly mentions drones in this context.

Browse through the stations and sites of the major networks for coverage of drones in Gaza and see which story surfaces most prominently in the search listing.  It’s the report that Israeli forces downed a single drone coming from Gaza.  The message: “Something destructive and lethal flew over and, thank God, they have it down!  This, indeed, is worthy of headlines.”

Briefly on July 28, CNN viewers heard drones and got a sense, possibly for the first time, of their power to generate fear and destruction. http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/07/28/erin-penhaul-gaza-explosions-gunfire.cnn.html

And yet--even as ceasefires bring brief lulls in the bombing of Gaza--women and children still spend sleepless nights cowering under the constant watch of the countless drones that fly over the Gaza sky.  Each sharp eye surveys each roof, and with each sharp gaze comes the dreaded possibility of the trigger being pulled.

Recently, the press has given some coverage of the drone story for reasons good and bad.  The prevailing notion advanced by the US government is that drones reduce civilian casualties with greater accuracy and precision in hitting enemy targets.  This 4 minute video, which predates the current conflict, seems almost like an advertisement for the rationale behind “pinpoint” and “focused” drone killings: http://live.wsj.com/video/graphic-video-drones-kill-targets-in-gaza/F524AAD1-E07F-4F8C-A970-5CBE379E99C0.html#!F524AAD1-E07F-4F8C-A970-5CBE379E99C0
“We can see the suspect, find uninvolved civilians, and find the terrorists, distinguish between them; and, we focus our attack only on the terrorist.” – Drone pilot

Never mind the sad effort at validation of drone killings.  (Note the leap from “innocent” to “terrorist” in the above quote.)  The point is that the heavily touted drone spying and killing technology should have only improved since this report.  Doesn’t that come with a higher expectation of fewer civilian deaths?

However, on the contrary, the overwhelming majority of deaths and injuries in Gaza have in fact been civilian.  And, while the rationale now being peddled behind that statistic is that Hamas is using civilians as human shields, the question that mainstream media has yet to pursue is this: Why, with such powerful drone intelligence that is supposed to be mindful of civilian lives, the trigger is still being pulled notwithstanding?

OPENING A NEW FRONT IN DRONE PROTEST

Noam Chomsky noted on Democracy Now, August 11, 2014:
“…there’s something we have to remember about the United States: It’s not a democracy; it’s a plutocracy. There’s study after study that comes out in mainstream academic political science which shows what we all know or ought to know, that political decisions are made by a very small sector of extreme privilege and wealth, concentrated capital.”
In the face of the renewed wars in Gaza and Iraq in which drones are playing central roles, this is an essential moment to open a new front in counter-drone protest that involves a organized effort to smoke out corporate drone war profiteers in America’s plutocracy who are funding the political plutocrats who obediently vote for drone killing and spying and our “dirty (imperial) wars” generally.

A first step is the Boycott and Divest Honeywell campaign that focuses on David M. Cote, chairman and CEO of Honeywell International.  Cote is extremely close to Barack Obama, as described on http://www.badhoneywell.org/, which also documents Honeywell’s support not only for the world’s #1 killer drone, but for the Israel Defense Forces, nuclear weapons and various other nefarious activities.

Most recently, Honeywell announced that it is producing portable refineries for war zones; for Iraq, for example.  This technology will help oil companies to reduce their risk while extracting and refining oil in the midst of slaughter. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-05/honeywell-ships-mobile-refineries-to-danger-zone-fields.html

In September and October, actions will be held to promote the BadHoneywell campaign.