A Call from the Faith-Based Community to Stop Drone Killings

Abby Karish

The following is a letter crafted by CodePink and signed by religious leaders throughout the country. There are two things you can do with such a letter. One is to go to CodePink's new website and sign the letter as as an individual, peace and justice group or as a congregation. The second is to use the letter as a template for crafting a resolution for your denomination or faith body to bring the use of drones to their attention. Some might wish to add the growing use of drones for surveillance in the U.S. as well. The important thing is that faith leaders should be adding their voices and moral authority to the movement to ground the drones.

As representatives of faith-based communities, we are deeply concerned about the proliferation of lethal unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones. The United States is leading the way in this new form of warfare where pilots in US bases kill people, by remote control, thousands of miles away. Drones have become the preferred weapons to conduct war due to the lack of direct risk to the lives of U.S. soldiers, but these drone strikes have led to the death of hundreds of innocent civilians in countries where we are not at war, including Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Some aspects that we find particularly disturbing include:


• The President and his aides draw up a Kill List in which they play the role of prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner. People on this secret Kill List have never been charged, tried or convicted in a court of law, and are given no opportunity to surrender;

• The labeling of all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, thus justifying their murder, is an extreme and macabre form of profiling;

• Drone strikes kill not only their intended targets, but innocent people, including children, violating the sanctity of human life;

• Drone strikes violate other nations’ sovereignty (Pakistan’s elected leaders, for example, have repeatedly called for an end to the strikes);

• Drones in the hands the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command keep the program veiled in secrecy. The lack of transparency and accountability violate the basic tenets of a democratic society;

• Drones make killing more abstract, impersonal, antiseptic, convenient and “easy”;

• The Administration insists that because drones do not risk American lives, Congress need not be consulted, leading to a dangerous abuse of executive power;

• Drone strikes have replaced Guantanamo as the recruiting tool of choice for militants. They fuel anti-American sentiment, radicalize local populations and perpetuate an endless cycle of violence;

• The example being set by the United States that a nation can go anywhere it wants and kill anyone it wants on the basis of secret information is leading to a world of chaos and lawlessness.

The world’s great religions teach us to cherish human life. This impersonal, risk-free killing of people on the other side of the globe runs counter to religious belief and the teachings of our traditions.

We urge our government to put an end to this secretive, remote- controlled killing and instead promote foreign policies that are consistent with the values of a democratic and humane society. We call on the United Nations to regulate the international use of lethal drones in a fashion that promotes a just and peaceful world community, based on the rule of law, with full dignity and freedom for every human being.