“In other countries, the country has a military. In Pakistan, the military has a country.”

I arrived in Pakistan on May 4^th, traveling with Kathy Kelly and Josh Brollier from Voices for Creative Nonviolence, based in Chicago. After traveling through Pakistan for about two weeks, I surely can’t claim to fully understand the country, but these words from I.A Rehman, Secretary General of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, seemed to summarize what I learned.

I learned that most of the combat troops in the pre-1948 Indian Army were Muslims. So the army “got a country” when East and West Pakistan were formed in 1947 from the former British colony of India.

One difficulty is that democracy and the military don’t mix well: the military is not a democratic institution. When it comes to running a country, this mis-fit becomes even more problematic. Kathy and Josh had been to Pakistan last year, and this year, as we went from place to place and interviewed person after person, we kept hearing about how the government was not representative of the people. Instead, we learned that a small ruling elite runs the country for its own benefit.

Here in the US, corporations are increasingly influencing US warmaking policy to fuel their consumption of resources. In Pakistan, however, the military actually owns profit-making corporations. As Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa, writes in her book Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy: “The military’s two business groups – the Fauji Foundation and the Army Welfare Trust – are the largest business conglomerates in the country.” And the military’s investment in their own corporations leads them to use more and more government influence so as to stifle, or even take over, rival corporations.  That, in turn, entails an increasingly militarized and hence an increasingly undemocratic state.

Modeled by the federal government, this non-representation of the people’s interests extends down even to local police and courts, creating an “enfranchisement gap” between the people and their “leaders,” with the people of Afghanistan feeling more like subjects than citizens, as one professor told us.

When the people realize that the government is not guaranteeing their civil rights, sooner or later they will begin to act to secure those rights.

In Pakistan, that action by the people takes several forms. The first is in the growing number of civil rights demonstrations scattered across the country. Dr. Mubashar Hassan, a long-time and astute political activist and observer told us he believed that a some point, those isolated demonstrations will coalesce and form a national movement that will compel the ruling elite to change.

We can get glimpses of that movement toward unity among the demonstrators from the social media. For example, check out the newly formed Amn Tehrik (Peace Movement) out of Peshawar, or Voice for Peace out of Khar.

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• Thousands of civil servants have marched through Athens, the Greek capital, as they went on a 24-hour strike in protest against the government’s plans to freeze wages, gather more taxes and reform pensions. The action left flights grounded and many schools and government offices closed, while public hospitals were expected to only take emergency cases. A two-million-strong federation of unions will also start a general strike Feb. 24.

• Ikea offered Wednesday to meet with labor union leaders after strikes shut down several stores in France — but only if six workers end a sit-in at its Paris office first. Workers walked off the job starting Saturday in protest over pay.

• Disneyland hotel workers  began a water-only fast Tuesday to protest what they describe as life-threatening safety issues on the job.  To show support for workers fasting outside the Grand Californian, over 300 people marched in front of Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel in Anaheim yesterday.

• In Iran, numerous opposition figures reported police harassment on Thursday, including the firing of tear gas and paint balls at protests in the capital Tehran.

• Also in Tehran, workers of Tohid Tunnel gathered in front of the entrance of the tunnel they work for in protest of unpaid salaries. The gathering resulted in the closure of the connections between north and south Chamran Freeway from Milad tower to the entrance of Tohid tunnel.

• Syracuse Peace Council members protested outside the Syracuse Air National Guard base on Tuesday against unmanned drones that are now being operated from the site.

• In Texas, dozens of prisoners have gone on a hunger strike at a Los Fresnos immigration jail in protest of inhumane conditions. It’s at least the third hunger strike at the Port Isabel Detention Center in less than a year.

• Tomorrow, citizens of Florida and Destin will have the opportunity to show their opposition to oil drilling off Florida’s coastline. Hands Across the Sand encourages Florida residents concerned with pending drilling legislation to gather on beaches at noon and hold hands forming lines in the sand against oil drilling in coastal waters.

• Thousands of Australians will let their tastebuds do the talking when they sit down later this month for “Vindaloo Against Violence”, a mass dining event to protest attacks against Indians.

Over the last couple years, I’ve followed with intense interest the growing use of robots in war and tried to document some of the dangers (and ethical problems) of going down this path.  On this site we’ve also looked at the growing resistance to this trend in war.

One thing I have never thought about, however, is the potential for activists to use robots to further their work. Over at Glocal Christianity, Matt Stone has a post today about the Pamphleteer, a “propaganda robot which automates the often dangerous practice of distributing subversive literature to the public,” created by an anonymous group of artists and activists called the Institute of Applied Autonomy (IAA). At first I thought this little robot, which can be seen in the video above, was some kind of joke. But after perusing their website and doing a little outside research, it seems they are legit.

According to their website, the mission of the IAA – which was founded in 1998 – is to “to study the forces and structures which affect self-determination and to provide technologies which extend the autonomy of human activists.”

On top of the Pamphleteer, the Institute has developed several other robots and initiatives that are quite interesting, including a programmable bot that can spray paint graffiti on the ground and i-See, a “web-based application charting the locations of closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance cameras in urban environments,” which allows users to “walk around their cities without fear of being ‘caught on tape’ by unregulated security monitors.”

Long before the advent of Twitter, the group also created TXTmob – a free service allowing texts to be sent to hundreds or thousands of people at once – that was widely used during the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York to alert protesters of the police crackdown.  In 2oo8, according to the New York Times, “the New York City Law Department issued a subpoena to Tad Hirsch, a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who wrote the code that created TXTmob.”  Pretty interesting stuff.

From a purely nonviolence perspective, my gut reaction to this is that we can’t lose the human element to our activism. Yes, using a robot to distribute fliers may initially attract more folks to check out the message, but the opportunity to engage those passersby in real conversation is totally lost. And while some of our work may put us in harm’s way or land us in jail, advocates of principled nonviolence, like Gandhi and King, believed that it is that willingness to suffer for what we believe is right that has the power to convert an opponent into a friend.

The news from Pakistan seems to be getting worse by the day. On Wednesday, a massive bombing in the Lower Dir district killed 7, including 3 US soldiers disguised as Pakistanis, and wounded at least 130 others.

The day before, the US launched the largest coordinated drone strike inside Pakistan to date. According to Pakistani authorities, 9 drones fired 18 missiles, killing at least 31 people. This strike was the latest in an unprecedented wave of recent attacks. Just last month, for example, there were a record 12 strikes in the country, a nearly threefold increase over last year.

To protest the increasing use of drones in war, a group of activists with Peace of the Action unfurled a banner last month (video above) at a military unmanned aerial vehicle exhibit in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC, reading “Drones Kill Kids.” This action is but the latest in a growing campaign against the drones, which we’ve been keeping close tabs on.

As the military and CIA escalate the number of drone attacks against Afghanistan and Pakistan, which have led to heavy civilian casualties, activists are preparing – for the first time – to protest these robotic killers at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia on January 16, from 1-4pm.

Speaking at this event will be:

- Cindy Sheehan (world renowned U.S. anti-war/peace activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee)
- Cynthia McKinney (former six term member of the U.S. House of Representatives and former Green Party candidate for President of the United States)
- Hadi Jawad (Pakistani-American and Co-founder of the Crawford Peace House)
- Kathy Kelly (U.S. peace activist, pacifist and author, a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, one of the founding members of Voices in the Wilderness, and currently a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence)
- Debra Sweet (Brooklyn-based director of World Can’t Wait)
- Bruce Gagnon (coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space)
- Joshua Smith (anti-war/peace activist, analyst and coordinator)
- David Rovics (musician)

According to an announcement for the action, which can be read in full here:

On the day of the event, activists will demand that the United States and its allies adhere to the protection of civilians (non-combatants) in international armed conflicts in accordance with the multiple existing conventions, protocols and customary international laws. These same activists will, of course, also demand an end to the wars and occupations currently under way and an immediate withdrawal of all troops and contractors.

At Creech Air Force Base, just outside of Las Vegas – where many of the operators who fly the Predator and Reaper drones that regularly launch Hellfire missiles in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, are based – a group of Code Pink activists wrapped up a nine-day presence yesterday that included:

…a mourning mother’s costumed funeral procession with child-like coffins, a four-day fast, climate change action and civil disobedience. They were joined and supported by members of the Las Vegas faith-based, veterans and military family communities.

This action was part of a nationwide campaign by Code Pink to halt these attacks from unmanned planes. On their website, the organization says this new focus for their work was inspired by the first ever protest against the drones last April, which was organized by our friends at the Nevada Desert Experience and Voices for Creative Nonviolence.

It also follows on the heals of a much larger protest against drones that occurred last month at Hancock Field in Syracuse.

With Obama dramatically escalating the number of drone attacks since his term began, this new focus of the antiwar movement is absolutely crucial.

In Syracuse, more than 150 picketers protested Sunday afternoon at the New York Air National Guard base against the use of unmanned drones in Iraq and Afghanistan, which will be flown from the base starting next fall. (Mike Greenlar / The Post Standard)

• Human rights activists protesting torture being carried out by the United States marched to the main gate at Fort Huachuca Army Intelligence Center in Arizona on Sunday. Five crossed into the base and were taken into custody.

• In Finland, 750 Finnair pilots went on strike on Monday after weekend negotiations over a labor contract between the airline and the pilots’ union failed. The industrial action on first day grounded at least 215 international and domestic flights, which would have carried about 15,000 people to destinations.

• The prominent Western Saharan human rights activist Aminatou Haidar, dubbed the “Saharan Gandhi,” has launched a hunger strike at a Spanish airport, accusing Morocco and Spain of preventing her from entering Western Sahara.

• Eighty-seven Tamil political prisoners in Sri Lanka began a hunger strike protest from Saturday morning demanding that their lives be better protected following an attack on fellow Tamil prisoners Friday by Sinhalese prisoners in the presence of prison officials.

• Last Thursday, several dozen SEIU 1021 members and staff occupied San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office, while hundreds more cheered them on inside and outside City Hall. The action was to highlight the solutions 1021 has been proposing over the mayor’s latest attempt to decimate public services.

• In Lebanon, Zahle residents, backed by MPs from the capital of the Bekaa as well as popular and student delegations, on Monday staged a daylong sit-in outside the government Serail in protest against increasing armed robbery and assaults in their city.

• More than 40 Kurdish political prisoners are continuing with their hunger strike to protest the execution of Ehsan Fatahian.

• Students took over the Science and Engineering Library at the University of California at Santa Cruz Friday night to keep it open that night and Saturday — as had been the case before budget cuts limited its hours.

• In Sri Lanka, the petroleum sector trade unions vowed to continue their strike, which began on Friday, after politicians threatened to take action against the protesting employees.

Last Saturday, about 30 activists demonstrated outside of the Los Angeles Air Force Base (LAAFB) in El Segundo, CA. The “Space and Missile Center” located there is used to monitor launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) about 160 miles northwest of LAAFB. The timing was set to precede the test of a Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) from VAFB early the next morning. The Vandenberg and El Segundo bases are also used to receive and distribute communications via satellite for the targeting of conventional weapons by ground forces and airplanes as well as hunter-killer Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These air-strikes are increasingly implicated in widespread civilian casualties despite attempts by the military to downplay them and reduce their number.

There hadn’t been a demonstration at LAAFB for many years, so this was seen as groundbreaking by the organizers. Given the obscurity of the base, and the lack of recent organizing about its mission, the turnout was seen as encouraging. More actions will probably be forthcoming.

From midnight until 3:30am Sunday morning about a dozen people also demonstrated outside the main gate of VAFB. Despite the late hour, there was a fair amount of traffic as some members of the base community and press arrived to watch the launch from an official viewing site. At 1:30 am, Fr. Louis Vitale, OFM and Sr. Megan Rice, SHCJ tried to enter the base to present a letter to the base commander from Japanese opponents to such missile tests. A guard did take the letter, though she did not unequivocally state that she would deliver it. When the two activists were stopped from entering the base they knelt and prayed. The citations mentioned “entering federal installation without permission.” They were released about an hour later and escorted across the highway from the base entrance. Future legal proceedings are “to be determined;” no date for court appearances were set.

The Japanese letter, signed by over 150 people and groups, made the point that the US frequently tests ICBMs that in fact are functional, can travel over 6,000 miles, can be launched on a moment’s notice and can carry three nuclear warheads. Such tests make it hypocritical to seriously reprimand or sanction North Korea for its recent missile tests, which would actually take 2 to 3 days to prepare for launch, only can travel several hundred miles, are not inter-continental, and as yet aren’t able of being loaded with nuclear bombs. Until the actions opposing Sunday morning’s test launch, they were unaware that the US was testing ICBMs too.

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Two long-time peace and anti-nuclear activists have brought their nonviolent protest and resistance to the U.S.-Mexico border. John Heid, a Quaker with Christian Peacemaker Teams, and Fr. Jerry Zawada, a Franciscan priest, were arrested on trespassing charges as they prayed and offered repentance for the thousands of migrant deaths that are the consequences of an increasingly militarized border.  In a prepared statement, Heid and Zawada announced their intentions:

On this, the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, we call for an end to militarization in all its guises. An end to bombs, nuclear and conventional. An end to the use of Drones (unmanned aerial vehicles). An end to walls, fences and their virtual counterparts that divide us and promote fear of each other. An end to war without end.

This morning we vigil at the gates of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base,home of a Predator UAV unit which now flies missions around the clock in Iraq and Afghanistan armed with Hellfire missiles which have killed hundreds of unarmed civilians. We demand an end to the unilateral slaughter.

This afternoon we vigil at a communication tower, “Tucson-1″ (virtual fence) construction sight. Fences and walls, solid and virtual, have funneled people in migration deeper into the harsh, dangerous terrain of the Sonoran desert, resulting in more than 5,000 deaths since 1994.

These three – bombs, drones and fences/walls – are lethal weapons directed specifically at noncombatants. Cities like Hiroshima, villages in Iraq and Afghanistan and the U.S.-Mexico borderland have been deliberately targeted and violated. These are crimes against humanity. A betrayal of civility. In spiritual terms, a sin. “Today we pray without ceasing for a world without weapons and fences. We pray for peace, for justice, for unity which makes walls and war obsolete.

The virtual tower that Heid and Zawada were arrested at is part of a larger initiative by U.S. federal authorities to deter migrants from crossing the border.  With physical walls – and in some places double walls – making urban crossings much less likely in places like San Diego, Nogales, and El Paso, the flow of migrants has been channeled into remote places hardly accessible to Border Patrol vehicles.  But with the introduction of these virtual towers, equipped with cameras, video, and radar, authorities are pushing migrants into even more lethal terrain. Joseph Nevins reports on the escalation of U.S. border enforcement in his book Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the “Illegal Alien” and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary.

One scholar at the Scalabrini International Migration Institute, Gioacchino Campese, argues that the deadly U.S. immigration policy is not only immoral but also failing.  In his essay “Cuantos Mas” (from A Promised Land, a Perilous Journey: Theological Perspectives on Migration) Campese writes:

After more than ten years since the implementation of the new border strategy, the results have been mostly negative: the federal government has spent billions of dollars in taxpayers’ money; because of border enforcement the smugglers’ industry has boomed to the point of becoming basically indispensable; the violation of human rights of immmigrants continues unabated; there is no real proof that this strategy has substantially reduced “illegal” immigration in the USA; the border build-up, rather than deterring undocumented immigrants from entering the USA, discourages them from returning home; and, most tragically, the number of immigrants dying at the border has simply skyrocketed.  To deal with this latter problem the Border Patrol launched in 1998  – five years after the El Paso experiment [Operation Hold the Line] – search-and-rescue operations to help immigrants stranded in the deserts and mountains of the border region.  But despite these efforts the number of deaths continues to rise because of the strategy itself – the rerouting of the immigrants towards the most dangerous terrains – that is causing these deaths.  The. U.S. government refuses to take any responsibility for all these casualties, which are considered one of the “unintended” consequences of the nation’s effort to protect its sovereignty.

The “unintended consequences,” which are more intentional then many Americans are willing to admit, are the reasons why John Heid and Fr. Jerry Zawada sat in prayer at the virtual tower surveillance site.  The site they visited is only one of seventeen towers in a 23-mile stretch of the border surrounding Sasabe.  The two men, long-time friends through the Catholic Worker and Plowshares movement, have moved their lives and work to the U.S.-Mexico border south of Tucson.  Both are members of the No More Deaths community, whose humanitarian efforts have saved thousands of lives in the harsh terrain of the Sonoran desert.

Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Scott Horton on Antiwar Radio, which goes out live in Austin, TX on KAOS 95.9FM, and is then replayed on stations in Southern California, San Francisco, and Oregon.

I gave a brief overview of what this site is all about, and then spoke on the use of nonviolence to force political changes, the decline of the antiwar movement after Obama’s election, the need for more creative and assertive protests, why there is no such thing as a humanitarian war and the replacement of soldiers with remote-controlled robots. Click below to stream or download the interview

Eric Stoner on Antiwar Radio (30:25).