Tag: collateral damage

How an ex-intel official’s prison sentence exposes the folly of the Espionage Act

The District Court of Alexandria, Virginia on Tuesday sentenced former Air Force intelligence analyst Daniel Hale to nearly four years in prison. He was charged under the Espionage Act for leaking secret documents on the Obama administration’s clandestine drone strike operations in 2014 and 2015. 

The documents, which were published in October, 2015 by The Intercept, exposed the horrific details of U.S. drone warfare in Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan, as well as a rulebook on how the U.S. government adds individuals to its terror watchlists and locates them. In March, Hale pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act. 

It’s frustrating to see that the Biden administration is continuing to use the Espionage Act to crack down on whistleblowers, especially at a time when government accountability and responsible national security policies are urgently needed. For the past two decades, the so-called “War on Terror” has undermined the rule of law and provided cover for the executive branch to wage secret, unconstitutional wars with impunity. Charging those who expose this injustice as spies is not the answer — the administration must pursue meaningful accountability and an overhaul of  U.S. counterterrorism policies. 

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DRONE WHISTLEBLOWER DANIEL HALE JAILED AHEAD OF SENTENCING

DANIEL HALE, a former Air Force intelligence analyst who pleaded guilty to sharing classified documents about drone strikes with a reporter, has been arrested ahead of his sentencing in July.

In March, Hale pleaded guilty to one charge under the Espionage Act, and he faces up to 10 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced in July, but a federal judge has ordered him incarcerated until then for violating the terms of his pretrial release, according to court records.

It’s unclear precisely what Hale is accused of doing, and court documents show that his lawyers objected to his jailing. Minutes from a hearing last week indicated that the prosecution “seeks continued detention at this time” and that Hale’s lawyers argued that “there [are] no actual violations committed by the [defendant] as alleged.”

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Afghanistan: Nearly 1,600 Child Casualties in Airstrikes Over Past Five Years

Almost 1,600 children were killed or wounded in airstrikes in Afghanistan over the past five years, according to a report from Action on Armed Violence (AOAV).

The report analyses data released earlier this year by the UN and found that between 2016 and 2020, there were 3,977 civilian casualties from airstrikes in Afghanistan, 1,598 of which were children. Out of that number, 785 were killed, and 813 were wounded.

About 50 percent of the civilian casualties were caused by the US and its NATO coalition partners. The rest were at the hands of the Afghan Air Force, which is entirely propped up by the US.

From 2018 to 2019, the US dropped bombs on Afghanistan at a higher rate than it did during the height of the surge in 2011. In 2019, the US Air Force was responsible for more than two-thirds of child casualties from all airstrikes.

The Trump administration loosened the rules of engagement in Afghanistan, which led to the uptick in airstrikes. Last year, a report from Brown University’s Costs of War Project found that civilian casualties in airstrikes rose 330 percent from 2016 to 2019 due to the relaxed rules of engagement.

Since the US-Taliban peace deal was signed in February 2020, the US has reduced its airstrikes in the country, although the US has occasionally bombed the Taliban since. In March 2020, US Central Command stopped publishing reports on Afghanistan airstrikes, so there’s no way to know for sure at what rate the US bombed the country that year.

While US bombings decreased in 2020, the Afghan Air Force significantly escalated its airstrikes. The UN found that civilian casualties resulting from airstrikes by the Afghan Air Force during the first six months of 2020 had tripled, compared to the same time period in 2019.

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Drone King Obama Enjoys $11 Million Mansion, While Drone Whistleblower Rots in Jail for Exposing War Crimes

In our upside-down world, good guys often go to jail, and bad guys get promoted and live luxuriously.

Ex-President Barack Obama, a key architect of modern drone warfare, today lives in an $11.75 million, 6,892 square-foot waterfront mansion on a 30-acre property on Martha’s Vineyard, and is regarded by many people as a great moral leader.

Donald Trump, who expanded the drone war even further than Obama, is also enjoying life these days at his $160 million Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

Daniel Hale, by contrast, a principled former Air Force officer and defense contractor who publicly exposed the drone program, will likely be spending at least the next two years in federal prison.

On March 31st, Hale pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of Virginia to one count of illegally retaining and transmitting classified national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act of 1917.

The documents pertaining to the U.S. drone war were transmitted to The Intercept reporter Jeremy Scahill in 2014/5 and published as part of a series called “The Drone Papers.”

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