01:28USA: Drones make the US callous, but there is a way to stop them
USA: Drones make the US callous, but there is a way to stop them
Around 200 activists, academics and citizens attended the anti-drone summit in Washington D.C. on Saturday. The summit seeks to inform American society about the deployment of lethal and surveillance drones. Many human rights advocates, robotics technology experts, lawyers and journalists took part in the event, which was organised partly by Code Pink.
Commenting upon the effect of the use of militarised drones on modern morality, the human rights activist and professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Cornel West said: "It means in fact that one is solely concerned first about just Americans, as opposed to killing non-Americans. But two, it reinforces precisely the kind of callousness and indifference towards suffering, that is very dangerous in terms of creating a whole culture of indifference with the robots killing persons, with human beings feeling as if they no longer either take responsibility or play a role."
Code Pink's co-founder Medea Benjamin explained to RT what activists can do to regulate the use of drones and in the long term, eliminate their use for military or surveillance purposes. Benjamin said: "We have to start with little things like show us the public memos that justify the drone strikes, make those available to us. We have to say apologise and compensate to the innocent people that we have killed. We have to say ban signature strikes. That means the kind of strikes where we are killing people just on the basis of suspicious behaviour. We have to say take these weapons out of the hands of the CIA. The CIA is not even a military organisation; it should not have lethal drones. So, these are the kind of steps that we can take, as we are working towards ending the US use of killer drones."
Dozens of anti-drones activists demonstrated in front of the White House in Washington D.C. on Friday 15, to demand the immediate halt of the use of weaponised drones The drone summit will conclude on Sunday 27 November, with a session to discuss and plan future actions in the battle to end drone warfare.
01:28USA: Drones make the US callous, but there is a way to stop them
Around 200 activists, academics and citizens attended the anti-drone summit in Washington D.C. on Saturday. The summit seeks to inform American society about the deployment of lethal and surveillance drones. Many human rights advocates, robotics technology experts, lawyers and journalists took part in the event, which was organised partly by Code Pink.
Commenting upon the effect of the use of militarised drones on modern morality, the human rights activist and professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Cornel West said: "It means in fact that one is solely concerned first about just Americans, as opposed to killing non-Americans. But two, it reinforces precisely the kind of callousness and indifference towards suffering, that is very dangerous in terms of creating a whole culture of indifference with the robots killing persons, with human beings feeling as if they no longer either take responsibility or play a role."
Code Pink's co-founder Medea Benjamin explained to RT what activists can do to regulate the use of drones and in the long term, eliminate their use for military or surveillance purposes. Benjamin said: "We have to start with little things like show us the public memos that justify the drone strikes, make those available to us. We have to say apologise and compensate to the innocent people that we have killed. We have to say ban signature strikes. That means the kind of strikes where we are killing people just on the basis of suspicious behaviour. We have to say take these weapons out of the hands of the CIA. The CIA is not even a military organisation; it should not have lethal drones. So, these are the kind of steps that we can take, as we are working towards ending the US use of killer drones."
Dozens of anti-drones activists demonstrated in front of the White House in Washington D.C. on Friday 15, to demand the immediate halt of the use of weaponised drones The drone summit will conclude on Sunday 27 November, with a session to discuss and plan future actions in the battle to end drone warfare.