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Alfred, It would be hard to have missed Michelle Obama's photo with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, displaying sad eyes as she gave the pre-Mothers Day President's talk Saturday, assuring the public that the US would do everything it can to help rescue the hundreds of girls kidnapped by the Islamic fundamentalist group Boko Haram in Nigeria. We hope this turns out like the New York Police Department's Twitter campaign recently, which asked for photos of people with #MyNYPD, and got barraged with photos of police brutality from Occupy protests, stop & frisk arrests and unjust murders by the NYPD. In fact, Buzzfeed has gathered some of the response which either turns Michelle's sign into something truthful -- "My husband has killed more girls than Boko Haram ever could," or "BringBackYourDrones." The civilian toll of US drone strikes has penetrated US alternative news media this week like never before. Abu-Bakr al Shamahi writes 8 Stories of Civilians Killed by U.S. Drone Strikes in Yemen about the need to tell the stories of people killed because they are invisible: “That lack of humanity is part of the problem: Drone operators tucked away somewhere in Nevada or New Mexico are shielded from the casualties of their work, the human beings killed, the damage and destruction caused when a hellfire missile explodes into a car packed full of people....The following stories of eight people killed by drone strikes are important to tell because they show that behind every sanitized report of drone casualty figures, there are real people with goals, loves and dreams whose lives have been extinguished.” Learn about these people who lived in Yemen: Abdulaziz al-Huraydan, a child Aref al-Shafi'i, a father Salim Al-Taysi, a father of 6 children Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a teenaged American citizen Salim Ahmed Jaber, an imam who spoke against al-Qaida Waleed Abdullah Jaber, a police officer Jabir al-Shabwani, a deputy governor Ali al-Qawli, a school teacher Pratap Chatterjee writes on TomDispatch, in The Three Faces of Drone War about Rene Lopez, an Army intelligence specialist who says he “has been working in the dark arts of hunting and killing ‘high value targets’ using a National Security Agency (NSA) tool known as Gilgamesh.” Chatterjee explains: “That tool is named after a ruthless Sumerian king who ruled over Uruk, an ancient city in what is now Iraq. With the help of the massive trove of NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill recently explained that Gilgamesh is the code name for a special device mounted on a Predator drone that can track the mobile phones of individuals without their knowledge by pretending to be a cell phone tower.” Brandon Bryant, a 28-year-old U.S. airman, whose squadron has been credited with 1,626 kills, and is “among the first to be openly critical of the impact of remote tracking and targeting, of, that is, robot war.” Chatterjee says that in a new film on the US drone war, “Drone,” by Norwegian film maker Tonye Schei, “Bryant reveals that his former colleagues in the Air Force had not just been carrying out drone strikes on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq where the military was involved in open warfare. They were also conducting the strikes in the supposed CIA drone assassination campaigns in Pakistan and Yemen.” Heather Linebaugh, a former drone intelligence analyst, who wrote in The Guardian in December 2013 about the effects of robotic killing on the targeters: “‘How many women and children have you seen incinerated by a Hellfire missile? How many men have you seen crawl across a field, trying to make it to the nearest compound for help while bleeding out from severed legs?’ She added, ‘When you are exposed to it over and over again it becomes like a small video, embedded in your head, forever on repeat, causing psychological pain and suffering that many people will hopefully never experience.’” Sunrise Anti-Drone War Protest When Obama Speaks at West Point Commencement Wednesday May 28 Knowing what is going on is really important, a first step to stopping it.  But ACTING against it in many different ways is necessary.  We have just learned that President Obama is giving the commencement speech at the US Military Academy at West Point on Wednesday May 28.  It's unlikely he will be dis-invited because of protest. See Rice, Condi. We'll be on public roads at two West Point gates as cars enter the campus for the ceremony.  We will gather at 6:45 am near the Stoney Lonesome Gate of West Point just off Route 9W, one exit north of the exit leading to Highland Falls, NY, home of West Point. The protest will end shortly before 10 am when the commencement is scheduled to begin. MAP  Write for more info. Friday May 23 Global Day of Action to Close the Torture Camp at Guantanamo & End Indefinite Detention Emad Hassan, photographed in Guantánamo. He has been cleared for release since 2007. Actions have been added in Pittsburgh, Portland OR, Mexico City and Redwood City CA. Check Facebook. Received this week from Reprieve in the UK, representing several of the prisoners held in Guantanamo, a letter from Emad Hassan on the ongoing hunger strike, now whited-out by the U.S. military who has stopped reporting numbers of prisoners striking and being force-fed: “‘One Yemeni is 80 pounds and he was brought to his feeding by the Forced Cell Extraction (FCE) team, Guantánamo's official riot police. Yesterday the F.C.E team beat him when they came into and out of his cell. He is 80 pounds with one broken arm. He cannot walk, just crawl from his bed to the faucet or toilet once he needs to use it! How can someone with this condition fight 8 armoured guards?’ Emad, himself a Yemeni who has been on hunger strike since 2007 and cleared for release from the prison since 2007, has never been charged with a crime. He said in another letter: ‘As I write now, [a detainee] is vomiting on the torture chair, having been brought there by the Forced Cell Extraction (FCE) team. The nurse and corpsman have refused to stop the feed, or to slow the acceleration of the liquids.’” Download Organizers Toolkit for May 23rd Day of Action to Close Guantanamo, prepared by Witness Against Torture. Includes sample fliers, songs, poems, and many tips on how to stage a creative and powerful protest, even with just a handful of people! Share this message: World Can't Wait Conversations: Please join us tonight with a special guest who's deeply involved in defending Guantanamo prisoners. Thursday May 15: 10pm Eastern / 7pm Pacific Conversation with Carlos Warner, a federal defender and attorney for Guantanamo prisoners, as we prepare for protests May 23 to Close Guantanamo NOW. For background, see an interview with Carlos from last month on The Talking Dog blog which covers the work of Guantanamo attorneys.  Send in your questions & thoughts for Carlos ahead of time. REGISTER for dial-in info.  — CALENDAR — Join World Can't Wait, War Criminals Watch and the Stop Mass Incarcration Network at: The Left Forum May 31-June 1 John Jay College New Building 524 West 59th Street NYC PANELS: Vast Surveillance of Whole Populations: The NSA Revelations One Year Out The US government collects billions of bytes of “metadata” on phone calls, emails, bank traffic, text messaging, chats -- content, recipients, etc. – storing everything for future use, if not needed immediately.  Edward Snowden and others in the field say the amount of data collected doubles every two years. The ramifications of this data collection and storage process goes beyond issues of civil liberties and abstract rights.  It leads to how the US ruling interests can control whole populations – in this country and throughout the world – with the threat that whoever you are, if you act, or even think about acting in a way that this or a future government doesn't like, you could be targeted. How can this be countered? How do we organize ourselves to engage in visible protest? William Binney, Kevin Gosztola, Abi Hassen, Ray McGovern Bringing CUNY into the US War Machine – Students and Faculty Rise UpCUNY has restored ROTC on a number of campuses after it was driven out by protest 40 years ago. General David Petraeus, architect of the “surge” in Iraq, one-time CENTCOM and CIA Director, is teaching at Macaulay Honors College.  The US military is shifting recruiting on diverse urban campuses like CUNY, saying that in 15 years it needs officers who “reflect the geographic and demographic diversity of the country.” What is the challenge for those who want to stop unjust wars? Prof. Ian Hansen, Sharmin Hossain, Ray McGovern, Prof. Glenn Petersen US “Dirty” Wars, Targeted Killing & Secret Operations Supercede Military Occupations – But Are Still Illegitimate More than twelve years into the “war on terror,” the CIA and Pentagon war planners are increasing emphasis on special operations and targeting killing, with open discussion of targeting US citizens. International law has gone by the wayside, as have constitutional protections of citizens.Medea Benjamin, Ed Kinane, Ben Kuebrich, Nick Mottern, Paki Wieland Imperialist Wars & Global Ecological Degradation With 1100+ bases, the US military is the single largest user of fossil fuels in this century, while at the same time it fights wars and engages in occupations to both to ensure strategic access to those resources and deny rivals control.  In its military, it uses weapons of mass destruction, such as Agent Orange (in Vietnam) and depleted uranium (in the former Yugoslavia and in Iraq) which cause horrendous suffering including cancer and birth defects and remain over time as potent environmental toxins.  The ecological effects of war, such as the burning of oil fields and the destruction of large urban constructions, spreads poisonous fumes and dust, with devastating effects. Larry Everest, Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani More Events Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait

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