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drone whistleblower Cian Westmoreland
Rootsaction.org. 1 July 2016
With great humility but great hope, I’m writing to you from a hostel
room somewhere in Berlin, attempting to reach out to tell you something
that I and others like me know -- but governments and weapons companies
would prefer you didn't question.
My name is Cian Westmoreland, and I am a former U.S. Air Force
communications technician who built the signals relay station for
receiving and transmitting data -- used in airstrikes -- obtained over
240,000 square miles of Afghanistan.
I discovered that in the time I served there, my system was a key
component used in bombings from drones and other aircraft that killed at
least 359 innocent civilians. This was a number derived from a UN
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan report for the year 2009.
Knowledge of my "life's work" at that time took me down a painful path
of tremendous guilt, hopelessness, isolation, and nightmares to what
ultimately culminated in me looking over a bridge at the Rio Grande,
with the plan of taking my own life in October 2015. It was news of a
bombing -- using my equipment -- of an MSF hospital in Kunduz,
Afghanistan, that brought me there that day.
I committed myself to the VA to protect me from harming myself. Less
than a month later, on November 18, 2015, I decided to join fellow drone
whistleblowers Brandon Bryant, Michael Haas, and Stephen Lewis in
speaking out as a group for the first time.
We drafted a letter to President Obama, General Michael Hayden, and CIA
Director John Brennan urging them to stop the extrajudicial bombings,
reminding them that this policy is creating more terrorists than it is
eliminating. For all of us, there is no turning back.
In the past month, I have been connecting with people around the globe,
touring with drone surveillance whistleblower Lisa Ling with a film she
is in called "National Bird," directed by Sonia Kennebeck, to educate
the public about what the drone program really is, and to represent
those people who have been psychologically and physically traumatized by
drones on all sides of these strikes.
As the recipient of the first Drone Whistleblower Fellowship of the
RootsAction Education Fund, I ask that you consider supporting my work
through this fellowship. If you
donate, your tax-deductible contribution will help to strengthen my
efforts for peace.
Sincerely,
Cian Westmoreland
.
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