Kill Chain: Drones and the Rise of High-Tech Assassins

Author(s): Andrew Cockburn

Verso, London, 2015, pp. 336 (pb)

Critical assessment of today's 'military industrial complex' and also the role of drones in the US wars in Afghanistan and in targeting 'terrorists'.  Cockburn documents the technological failings of drones, often unable to distinguish targeted individuals from others nearby, and the 'trigger-happy' attitudes of some soldiers using them.  Both led to numerous mistaken deaths.

See also: Frew, Joanna, 'Drone Wars: the next generation', Peace News , 2618-2619, June-July 2018, p. 4.

Frew summarizes a new report, issued by Drone Wars UK, on development and use of armed drones by a 'second generation' of nine states (including  China, Iran and Turkey) and several non-state actors developing and using armed drones.  (The first group was the US, UK and Israel.)  The report also estimates that a further 11 states would soon be deploying drones, and that China was increasing export of them.  Frew stresses the urgent need for international controls, and queries whether existing controls on exports (already being undermined in the US) were adequate.                                                           

Digging Up Trouble: The Environment, Protest and Opencast Mining

Author(s): Huw Beynon, Andrew Cox, and Ray Hudson

Rivers Oram, London, 1999, pp. 288

General analysis of impact of opencast (strip) mining which spread in Britain in the 1980s. Chapter 7 ‘Changing Patterns of Protest’ (pp. 167-206) looks at the collaboration between the National Union of Miners’ Support Groups and environmental groups to oppose mines creating pollution, and examines the turn from conventional protest to direct action.

The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate

Author(s): Andrew Dessler, and Edward Parson

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2019, pp. 282

This is the third, substantially revised and updated, edition of the volume first published in 2005 and reissued in a 2nd edition in 2009, by two US professors, specialists in atmospheric sciences and environmental law respectively. It explores climate change as a new type of environmental problem, the interplay of science and politics, the policy debates about climate change and possible approaches to tackling the problem. The book is designed to be suitable for undergraduate courses. 

The Tiananmen Papers

compiled by Zhang Liang and edited by Andrew J. Nathan and Perry Link

Editor(s): Zhang Liang, Andrew J. Nathan, and Perry Link

Little Brown and Abacus, London, 2001, pp. 679

Secret Party papers leaked to the west provide details of the meetings, negotiations and communications between the top leaders about how to deal with the protests, and the triumph of the hardliners over Zhao Ziyang, General Secretary of the Party, who wished to be conciliatory. Western scholars generally accepted the papers as authentic.

The Voyage of the Lusitania Espresso

Author(s): Andrew McMillan

In: Thomas Weber, Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan, Nonviolent Intervention Across Borders: A Recurrent Vision (A. 5. Nonviolent Intervention and Accompaniment), pp. 73-100

Critical account by Australian participant of Portuguese initiated act of solidarity with East Timorese victims of Indonesian occupation and repression: to sail a boat from Darwin to Dili in 1992 and lay a wreath in Santa Cruz cemetery in memory of 50 killed there attending a funeral in November 1991.

Where We Have Hope: A Memoir of Zimbabwe

Author(s): Andrew Meldrum

John Murray, London, 2004, pp. 272

Personal account by Guardian journalist of Zimbabwe’s politics and people since 1980. Chapters 12-19 (pp. 114-241) cover the rise of the MDC, the debate about the new constitution, resistance and repression, and Chapter 20 describes his own expulsion from the country.

Stop the War: The Story of Britain’s Biggest Mass Movement

Author(s): Lindsey German, and Andrew Murray

Bookmarks, London, 2005, pp. 286

Book by organizers of the Stop the War Coalition, created in 2001 after the September 11 attacks in the USA, which demonstrated against the Afghan War. It played a central role in mobilizing up to a million people to march in London in February 2003 and continued to demonstrate against the presence of western troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Although the role of the Socialist Workers Party in the Coalition was sometimes criticized, it succeeded in mobilizing large numbers of British Muslims in peaceful protest and in drawing in people from a broad political spectrum.

The internationalisation of Nonviolent Resistance: The Case of the BDS Campaign

Author(s): Andrew Rigby, and Marwan Darweish

In: Journal of Resistance Studies, 45-71., Vol 4, No 1, 2018, pp. 45-71

The article examines the factors promoting significant international solidarity with specific campaigns against injustice. It does so through a study of the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign launched by Palestinian civil society bodies in 2005. The article compares the BDS movement with the international campaign against apartheid in South Africa (an inspiration for BDS) and discusses why BDS has been less effective.

Popular Protest in Palestine: The Uncertain Future of Unarmed Resistance

Author(s): Andrew Rigby, and Marwan Darweish

Pluto Press, London, 2015, pp. 215

Two experts on Palestine examine the history of Palestinian political resistance to the creation of the state of Israel from the late 19th century to 1939, and provide a balnced assessment of the phases of primarily unarmed popular resistance to Isreali domination. They cover the First Intifada and (after the mainly armed resistance of the Second Intifada) the growth of nonviolent forms of protest since the building of the Separation Wall in 2005. 

Axes of Solidarity: diasporas

Author(s): Andrew Rigby

2006

Abstract

Diasporas play an important role in supporting movements at home and as international lobbies, but they also can replicate internal conflicts.

The Internationalisation of Nonviolent Resistance: The case of the BDS campaign

Author(s): Andrew Rigby, and Marwan Darwiesh

In: Journal of Resistance Studies, Vol 4, No 1, 2018, pp. 45-71

Two experts on Palestine discuss what factors can increase the impact of international solidarity in aiding resistance struggles. They focus on the Palestinian-inspired Boycott Divestment and Sanctions and compare it with the earlier global anti-apartheid movement, analysing  key factors that gave the latter significant leverage. They conclude by stressing the need for a dynamic relationship between internal resistance and external solidarity.

Living the Intifada

Author(s): Andrew Rigby

Zed Books, London, 1991, pp. 233

Account of the ‘unarmed resistance’ of the First Intifada and also an analysis in the context of theories of nonviolent action. Addresses the issue of leverage when the regime has no direct dependence on a population but would rather expel them. See also: Andrew Rigby, The Legacy of the Past: The Problem of Collaborators and the Palestinian Case, Jerusalem, PASSIA – Palestine Academy for Study of International Affairs, 1997 , pp. 94 , which considers the issue of ‘collaboration’ in more detail.

Available online at:

https://www.civilresistance.info/rigby1991

Unofficial nonviolent intervention: Examples from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Author(s): Andrew Rigby

In: Journal of Peace Research, Vol 32, No 4 (November), 1995, pp. 453-467

Also available (with discussion of issues raised) as ‘Nonviolent intervention’ in Michael Randle, Challenge to Nonviolence (A. 1.b. Strategic Theory, Dynamics, Methods and Movements) , pp. 51-74 (online at http://civilresistance.info).

On more recent interventions in Palestine (excluding International solid-arity) see also Ann Wright, ‘The Work of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI)’ and Angie Zelter ‘International Women’s Peace Service in Palestine’ in Howard Clark, People Power: Unarmed Resistance and Global Solidarity (A. 1.b. Strategic Theory, Dynamics, Methods and Movements) , pp. 135-42.

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