{"id":190353,"date":"2021-08-02T12:01:04","date_gmt":"2021-08-02T11:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=190353"},"modified":"2021-07-28T10:03:52","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T09:03:52","slug":"the-price-of-conscience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/08\/the-price-of-conscience\/","title":{"rendered":"The Price of Conscience"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Drone warfare whistleblower sentenced to 45 months in prison for telling the American people the truth.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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27 Jul 2021 – <\/em>Daniel Hale, a former intelligence analyst in the drone program for the Air Force who as a private contractor in 2013 leaked some 17 classified documents about drone strikes to the press<\/a>, was sentenced today to 45 months in prison.The documents, published<\/a> by The Intercept\u00a0<\/a>on October 15, 2015, exposed that between January 2012 and February 2013, US special operations airstrikes killed more than 200 people. Of those, only 35 were the intended targets. For one five-month period of the operation, according to the documents, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets. The civilian dead, usually innocent bystanders, were routinely classified as \u201cenemies killed in action.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Justice Department coerced Hale, who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2012, on March 31 to plead guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act, a law passed in 1917 designed to prosecute those who passed on state secrets to a hostile power, not those who expose to the public government lies and crimes. Hale admitted as part of the plea deal to \u201cretention and transmission of national security information\u201d and leaking 11 classified documents to a journalist. If he had refused the plea deal, he could have spent 50 years in prison.<\/p>\n

The sentencing of Hale is one more potentially mortal blow to the freedom of the press.\u00a0 It follows in the wake of the prosecutions and imprisonment of other whistleblowers under the Espionage Act including Chelsea Manning, Jeffrey Sterling, Thomas Drake and John Kiriakou, who spent two-and-a-half years in prison for exposing the routine torture of suspects held in black sites.\u00a0 Those charged under the act are treated as if they were spies.\u00a0 They are barred from explaining motivations and intent to the court. They cannot provide evidence to the court of the government lawlessness and war crimes they exposed.\u00a0 Prominent human rights organizations, such as the ACLU and PEN, along with mainstream publications, such as The New York Times and CNN, have largely remained silent about the prosecution of Hale. The group\u00a0Stand with Daniel Hale<\/a>\u00a0has called on President Biden to pardon Hale and end the use of the Espionage Act to punish whistleblowers. It is also collecting donations for Hale\u2019s legal fund. The bipartisan onslaught against the press \u2014 Barack Obama used the Espionage Act eight times against whistleblowers, more than all other previous administrations combined \u2014 by criminalizing\u00a0those within the system who seek to inform the public is ominous for our democracy.\u00a0 It is effectively extinguishing all investigations into the inner workings of power.<\/p>\n

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Daniel Hale. Screenshot from \u201cNational Bird\u201d documentary film<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Hale, in a handwritten letter to Judge Liam O\u2019Grady on July 18, explained why he leaked classified information, writing that the drone attacks and the war in Afghanistan \u201chad little to do with preventing terror from coming into the United States and a lot more to do with protecting the profits of weapons manufacturers and so-called defense contractors.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the top of the 11-page letter Hale quoted US Navy Admiral Gene LaRocque, speaking to a reporter in 1995: \u201cWe now kill people without ever seeing them. Now you push a button thousands of miles away \u2026 Since it\u2019s all done by remote control, there\u2019s no remorse \u2026 and then we come home in triumph.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my capacity as a signals intelligence analyst stationed at Bagram Airbase, I was made to track down the geographic location of handset cellphone devices believed to be in the possession of so-called enemy combatants,\u201d Hale explained to the judge. \u201cTo accomplish this mission required access to a complex chain of globe-spanning satellites capable of maintaining an unbroken connection with remotely piloted aircraft, commonly referred to as drones. Once a steady connection is made and a targeted cell phone device is acquired, an imagery analyst in the U.S., in coordination with a drone pilot and camera operator, would take over using information I provided to surveil everything that occurred within the drone\u2019s field of vision. This was done, most often, to document the day-to-day lives of suspected militants. Sometimes, under the right conditions, an attempt at capture would be made. Other times, a decision to strike and kill them where they stood would be weighed.\u201d<\/p>\n

He recalled the first time he witnessed a drone strike, a few days after he arrived in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\u201cEarly that morning, before dawn, a group of men had gathered together in the mountain ranges of Patika province around a campfire carrying weapons and brewing tea,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThat they carried weapons with them would not have been considered out of the ordinary in the place I grew up, much less within the virtually lawless tribal territories outside the control of the Afghan authorities. Except that among them was a suspected member of the Taliban, given away by the targeted cell phone device in his pocket. As for the remaining individuals, to be armed, of military age, and sitting in the presence of an alleged enemy combatant was enough evidence to place them under suspicion as well. Despite having peacefully assembled, posing no threat, the fate of the now tea drinking men had all but been fulfilled. I could only look on as I sat by and watched through a computer monitor when a sudden, terrifying flurry of hellfire missiles came crashing down, splattering, purple-colored crystal guts on the side of the morning mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Photo by AAMIR QURESHI\/GETTY<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

This was his first experience with \u201cscenes of graphic violence carried out from the cold comfort of a computer chair.\u201d There would be many more.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot a day goes by that I don\u2019t question the justification for my actions,\u201d he wrote. \u201cBy the rules of engagement, it may have been permissible for me to have helped to kill those men \u2014 whose language I did not speak, customs I did not understand, and crimes I could not identify \u2014 in the gruesome manner that I did. Watch them die. But how could it be considered honorable of me to continuously have laid in wait for the next opportunity to kill unsuspecting persons, who, more often than not, are posing no danger to me or any other person at the time. Never mind honorable, how could it be that any thinking person continued to believe that it was necessary for the protection of the United States of America to be in Afghanistan and killing people, not one of whom present was responsible for the September 11th attacks on our nation. Notwithstanding, in 2012, a full year after the demise of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, I was a part of killing misguided young men who were but mere children on the day of 9\/11.\u201d<\/p>\n

He and other service members were confronted with the privatization of war where \u201ccontract mercenaries outnumbered uniform wearing soldiers 2 to 1 and earned as much as 10 times their salary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMeanwhile, it did not matter whether it was, as I had seen, an Afghan farmer blown in half, yet miraculously conscious and pointlessly trying to scoop his insides off the ground, or whether it was an American flag-draped coffin lowered into Arlington National Cemetery to the sound of a 21-gun salute,\u201d he wrote. \u201cBang, bang, bang. Both served to justify the easy flow of capital at the cost of blood \u2014 theirs and ours. When I think about this, I am grief-stricken and ashamed of myself for the things I\u2019ve done to support it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He described to the judge \u201cthe most harrowing day of my life\u201d that took place a few months into his deployment \u201cwhen a routine surveillance mission turned into disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor weeks we had been tracking the movements of a ring of car bomb manufacturers living around Jalalabad,\u201d he wrote. \u201cCar bombs directed at US bases had become an increasingly frequent and deadly problem that summer, so much effort was put into stopping them. It was a windy and clouded afternoon when one of the suspects had been discovered headed eastbound, driving at a high rate of speed. This alarmed my superiors who believe he might be attempting to escape across the border into Pakistan.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Now, whenever I encounter an individual who thinks that drone warfare is justified and reliably keeps America safe, I remember that time and ask myself how could I possibly continue to believe that I am a good person, deserving of my life and the right to pursue happiness.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Daniel Hale, of learning about children killed by indiscriminate US drone attacks he participated in<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cA drone strike was our only chance and already it began lining up to take the shot,\u201d he continued. \u201cBut the less advanced predator drone found it difficult to see through clouds and compete against strong headwinds. The single payload MQ-1 failed to connect with its target, instead missing by a few meters. The vehicle, damaged, but still driveable, continued on ahead after narrowly avoiding destruction. Eventually, once the concern of another incoming missile subsided, the driver stopped, got out of the car, and checked himself as though he could not believe he was still alive. Out of the passenger side came a woman wearing an unmistakable burka. As astounding as it was to have just learned there had been a woman, possibly his wife, there with the man we intended to kill moments ago, I did not have the chance to see what happened next before the drone diverted its camera when she began frantically to pull out something from the back of the car.\u201d<\/p>\n

He learned a few days later from his commanding officer what next took place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere indeed had been the suspect\u2019s wife with him in the car,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAnd in the back were their two young daughters, ages 5 and 3 years old. A cadre of Afghan soldiers were sent to investigate where the car had stopped the following day. It was there they found them placed in the dumpster nearby. The eldest was found dead due to unspecified wounds caused by shrapnel that pierced her body. Her younger sister was alive but severely dehydrated. As my commanding officer relayed this information to us, she seemed to express disgust, not for the fact that we had errantly fired on a man and his family, having killed one of his daughters; but for the suspected bomb maker having ordered his wife to dump the bodies of their daughters in the trash, so that the two of them could more quickly escape across the border. Now, whenever I encounter an individual who thinks that drone warfare is justified and reliably keeps America safe, I remember that time and ask myself how could I possibly continue to believe that I am a good person, deserving of my life and the right to pursue happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne year later, at a farewell gathering for those of us who would soon be leaving military service, I sat alone, transfixed by the television, while others reminisced together,\u201d he continued. \u201cOn television was breaking news of the president giving his first public remarks about the policy surrounding the use of drone technology in warfare. His remarks were made to reassure the public of reports scrutinizing the death of civilians in drone strikes and the targeting of American citizens. The president said that a high standard of \u2018near certainty\u2019 needed to be met in order to ensure that no civilians were present. But from what I knew, of the instances where civilians plausibly could have been present, those killed were nearly always designated enemies killed in action unless proven otherwise. Nonetheless, I continued to heed his words as the president went on to explain how a drone could be used to eliminate someone who posed an \u2018imminent threat\u2019 to the United States. Using the analogy of taking out a sniper, with his sights set on an unassuming crowd of people, the president likened the use of drones to prevent a would-be terrorist from carrying out his evil plot. But, as I understood it to be, the unassuming crowd had been those who lived in fear and the terror of drones in their skies and the sniper in this scenario had been me. I came to believe that the policy of drone assassination was being used to mislead the public that it keeps us safe, and when I finally left the military, still processing what I\u2019d been a part of, I began to speak out, believing my participation in the drone program to have been deeply wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hale threw himself into anti-war activism when he left the military, speaking out about the indiscriminate killing of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of noncombatants, including children in drone strikes. He took part in a peace conference held in Washington, D.C. in November 2013. The Yemeni Fazil bin Ali Jaber spoke at the conference about the drone strike that killed his brother, Salem bin Ali Jaber, and their cousin Waleed. Waleed was a policeman. Salem was an Imam who was an outspoken critic of the armed attacks carried out by radical jihadists.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day in August 2012, local members of Al Qaeda traveling through Fazil\u2019s village in a car spotted Salem in the shade, pulled up towards him, and beckoned him to come over and speak to them,\u201d Hale wrote. \u201cNot one to miss an opportunity to evangelize to the youth, Salem proceeded cautiously with Waleed by his side. Fazil and other villagers began looking on from afar. Farther still was an ever present reaper drone looking too.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Advertisement for the General Atomics Aerospace drones the US Air Force deploys abroad.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cAs Fazil recounted what happened next, I felt myself transported back in time to where I had been on that day, 2012,\u201d Hale told the judge. \u201cUnbeknownst to Fazil and those of his village at the time was that they had not been the only watching Salem approach the jihadist in the car. From Afghanistan, I and everyone on duty paused their work to witness the carnage that was about to unfold. At the press of a button from thousands of miles away, two hellfire missiles screeched out of the sky, followed by two more. Showing no signs of remorse, I, and those around me, clapped and cheered triumphantly. In front of a speechless auditorium, Fazil wept.\u201d<\/p>\n

A week after the conference Hale was offered a job as a government contractor.\u00a0 Desperate for money and steady employment, hoping to go to college, he took the job, which paid $ 80,000 a year.\u00a0 But by then he was disgusted by the drone program.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a long time, I was uncomfortable with myself over the thought of taking advantage of my military background to land a cushy desk job,\u201d he wrote. \u201cDuring that time, I was still processing what I had been through, and I was starting to wonder if I was contributing again to the problem of money and war by accepting to return as a defense contractor. Worse was my growing apprehension that everyone around me was also taking part in a collective delusion and denial that was used to justify our exorbitant salaries, for comparatively easy labor. The thing I feared most at the time was the temptation not to question it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen it came to be that one day after work I stuck around to socialize with a pair of co-workers whose talented work I had come to greatly admire,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThey made me feel welcomed, and I was happy to have earned their approval. But then, to my dismay, our brand-new friendship took an unexpectedly dark turn. They elected that we should take a moment and view together some archived footage of past drone strikes. Such bonding ceremonies around a computer to watch so-called \u201cwar porn\u201d had not been new to me. I partook in them all the time while deployed to Afghanistan. But on that day, years after the fact, my new friends gaped and sneered, just as my old one\u2019s had, at the sight of faceless men in the final moments of their lives. I sat by watching too; said nothing and felt my heart breaking into pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour Honor,\u201d Hale wrote to the judge, \u201cthe truest truism that I\u2019ve come to understand about the nature of war is that war is trauma. I believe that any person either called-upon or coerced to participate in war against their fellow man is promised to be exposed to some form of trauma. In that way, no soldier blessed to have returned home from war does so uninjured. The crux of PTSD is that it is a moral conundrum that afflicts invisible wounds on the psyche of a person made to burden the weight of experience after surviving a traumatic event. How PTSD manifests depends on the circumstances of the event. So how is the drone operator to process this? The victorious rifleman, unquestioningly remorseful, at least keeps his honor intact by having faced off against his enemy on the battlefield. The determined fighter pilot has the luxury of not having to witness the gruesome aftermath. But what possibly could I have done to cope with the undeniable cruelties that I perpetuated?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy conscience, once held at bay, came roaring back to life,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAt first, I tried to ignore it. Wishing instead that someone, better placed than I, should come along to take this cup from me. But this too was folly. Left to decide whether to act, I only could do that which I ought to do before God and my own conscience. The answer came to me, that to stop the cycle of violence, I ought to sacrifice my own life and not that of another person. So, I contacted an investigative reporter, with whom I had had an established prior relationship, and told him that I had something the American people needed to know.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Hale, in \u201cNational Bird\u201d documentary.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Hale, who has admitted to being suicidal and depressed, said in the letter he, like many veterans, struggles with the crippling effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, aggravated by an impoverished and turbulent childhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cDepression is a constant,\u201d he told the judge. \u201cThough stress, particularly stress caused by war, can manifest itself at different times and in different ways. The tell-tale signs of a person afflicted by PTSD and depression can often be outwardly observed and are practically universally recognizable. Hard lines about the face and jaw. Eyes, once bright and wide, now deep-set, and fearful. And an inexplicably sudden loss of interest in things that used to spark joy. These are the noticeable changes in my demeanor marked by those who knew me before and after military service. To say that the period of my life spent serving in the United States Air Force had an impression on me would be an understatement. It is more accurate to say that it irreversibly transformed my identity as an American. Having forever altered the thread of my life\u2019s story, weaved into the fabric of our nation\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n

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To read more about Daniel Hale and his crucial role as a whistleblower, see Chris Hedges\u2019 July 12 article, <\/em>\u201cBless the Traitors.\u201d<\/em> <\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize\u2013winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for\u00a0<\/em>The New York Times,\u00a0where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for\u00a0<\/em>The Dallas Morning News,\u00a0The Christian Science Monitor, and<\/em> NPR. Until this month, he wrote a weekly column for the online magazine\u00a0<\/em>Truthdig. He is the host of the Emmy Award-nominated <\/em>RT America show\u00a0<\/em>On Contact.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – scheerpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

27 Jul 2021 – Daniel Hale, a former intelligence analyst in the drone program for the Air Force who as a private contractor in 2013 leaked some 17 classified documents about drone strikes to the press, was sentenced today to 45 months in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":190356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[867,1161,1188,2163,120,2614,1106,267,1126,260,487,1050,504,651,1105,780,769,91,86,112,109,287,880,95,70,126,118,492,172,921,75],"class_list":["post-190353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance","tag-anglo-america","tag-arms-industry","tag-arms-race","tag-collateral-damage","tag-conflict","tag-daniel-hale","tag-drones","tag-geopolitics","tag-hegemony","tag-history","tag-human-rights","tag-imperialism","tag-international-relations","tag-justice","tag-military-industrial-complex","tag-military-intervention","tag-military-supremacy","tag-nato","tag-occupation","tag-pentagon","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-state-terrorism","tag-us-military","tag-usa","tag-violence","tag-war","tag-war-on-terror","tag-west","tag-whistleblowing","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}