The Hancock 16

A group of 16 activists arrested last October after protesting the use of drones at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, N.Y., are on trial this month on charges of trespassing and disorderly conduct.

The protesters, members of the Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars, have said they were attempting to educate New Yorkers and personnel at the air base about the effects of drones piloted from the base.

The group says the use of MQ-9 Reaper drones violates international laws and constitutes war crimes. The base was the first in the U.S. to convert from the use of F-16 aircraft to Reaper drones, which can be equipped with 500-pound laser guided bombs and missiles.

While protesters face trespassing and disorderly conduct charges, they view it in a significantly broader context.

Bello says drones violate international laws such as the Geneva Protocols and Convention, which protects civilians around a war zone. The U.S. ratified those treaties with 193 other nations, and the Nuremberg principles say it is a citizen’s responsibility to expose and impede a nation’s war crimes. If an individual fails to, then that individual is complicit.

Of course, the Obama administration sees the use of drones differently. At a speech at the National Defense University in May 2013,  President Barack Obama said the use of drones is covered by both domestic and international laws that were put in place after the 9/11 attacks. Those laws said the U.S. is at war with al-Qaida, the Taliban and their associates, wherever they might be. The speech followed public outcry over the use of drones to commit assassinations of U.S. citizens abroad.

[From http://www.mintpressnews.com/rebecca-myles-meet-hancock-16/177137/]

You can find the names of the Hancock 16 here:

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2012/10/authorities_release_names_of_1.html

Let's put this in context:

• If we posit that Obama ad-Dajjal is correct, then the use of drones is "lawful".
• When the Nazis put people in concentration camps, the action was "lawful", and when those people later died, no "laws" were being broken.
• Had any Germans protested the incarceration, they also would have been arrested and prosecuted for trespass and disorderly conduct, or maybe they too would have been thrown into concentration camps [the Guantánamo of their day].

So the real difference between what Obama ad-Dajjal is doing and what Hitler did is a matter of scale, not substance ... at least so far.

A nation which prosecutes their citizens for such things has achieved spiritual death. Remember that when it's you and your family who are the targets of America's drones. We're no better than the Nazis.