Drones don’t keep us safer
Listen to this articleThe film, “Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars,” was shown on the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The producer and director of the film, Robert Greenwald (above), shared his views on it before a large audience.
The focus of the shocking documentary is the country of Pakistan and how the mostly indiscriminate use of killer drones by the U.S. was impacting large elements of their population and creating a “blowback” toward President Barack Obama’s administration. Our success rate against the really bad guys in Pakistan is supposedly “two percent.”
The vast majority of the victims of the killer drones are innocent people.
A Q&A session followed the presentation. Professor Bernadette Wegenstein served as the moderator of the program, and David LaRocca (philosopher) and Jed Dietz (Maryland Film Festival) as panel members.
Greenwald underscored that “the film can make a difference…it puts a face on the [killer drone] policy,” and that the film is available for “free online.”
He urged activists to become “distributors” of the film, via the use of social media.
Greenwald said the CIA has turned from “an intelligence gatherer into a military operation.”
He believes “the American people are tired of war.”
Greenwald argues that the killer drones “don’t make us safer.” He believes that they should be stopped because [there is] “no judge, no jury, no trial; and [that they are also] a violation of international law, and just wait till other countries start doing it, we will be outraged.”
Excerpts of Mr. Greenwald’s comments are found on this video. To learn more about the film, along with an opportunity to set free your inner activist, click on the YouTube channel below.
Bill Hughes is a native of Baltimore. He’s an attorney, author, professional actor and hobbyist photographer. In his salad days, he worked on the docks as a longshoreman. Bill also played on three championship soccer teams: sandlot with Jules Morstein; high school at Calvert Hall; and college at the University of Baltimore.