For a certain kind of scientist, the best way to fund your research is to ask Uncle Sam. Among other sources, you can seek money from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, or occasionally, military sources like the Department of Defense. One peace group based outside of Philadelphia thinks funding from the military arms of the government are suspect – especially when the research has applications for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or drones. War News Radio’s Amy DiPierro covers a protest against research at local universities – and finds there’s more to the story than this “follow the money” strategy. 

Everyone wants to get... DRONED!!!

There's been a lot of news lately about the Obama Administration's use of drones, or unmanned military aircraft, to kill alleged terrorists. Critics have said the attacks violate international law and have also killed many civilians. Drones will likely be a major topic in confirmation hearings for John Brennan to be the next head of the CIA.

The drones that fly over Afghanistan are often piloted by people sitting in suburban Syracuse, NY. Those pilots train by flying high over Upstate New York, including the Adirondack Mountains.  North Country Public Radio's David Sommerstein reports on the fine line between military training and a creepy "eye in the sky".

Global Ethics Corner is a weekly 2 minute segment devoted to newsworthy ethical issues. It presents both sides of an issue, asking viewers to weigh the information and make up their own minds.

Budget cuts made it necessary.

This Week on War News Radio: Disrupting Conventions. We hear about this year's protests in Iraq and how they fit into the Arab Spring as a whole. Then, we learn about a British rights group that has filed litigation against the United States for its drone strikes in Pakistan. Finally, we hear about the creation of the Afghan Women's National Soccer team, the challenges they've faced, and the successes they've had. But first, a roundup of this week's news.

Drone warfare to combat terrorism has increased sharply in recent years. Where are we headed with these robotics of war? In this uncut interview, War News Radio's Elliana Bisgaard-Church speaks to Peter W. Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative, senior fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institute, and author of Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, about the topic.

When President Obama promised to scale back U.S. drone strikes targeting militants in Yemen, they stopped for a full seven weeks - only to start again after one militant group issued a high profile threat. War News Radio’s Amy DiPierro finds out why a terror threat hyped in the U.S. barely raised eyebrows in Yemen.

One thing that has always fascinated me is how people who spend their time investigating the dark side of human nature can keep their spirits up. So, naturally, when I spoke with Jeremy Scahill on May 9, 2013, that was a question I asked. I never expected that his answer would be comedy. I won’t ruin the surprise of what form that comedy takes except to say it has a cult following, and that discovering this side of Scahill was both startling and, for me at least, validating. It also shows Scahill as a guy who is capable of lightening up even in Mogadishu.

I spoke with the investigative journalist for “The Nation” about the documentary based on his books, both entitled DIRTY WARS. It’s a harrowing and heartbreaking story of the undeclared wars waged in our name, and of the casualties that, far from eliminating terrorism from the world, will likely increase it. Thoughtful, passionate, and insightful, Scahill, twice winner of the George Polk award, as well as several awards from Project Censored, does more than report on what’s happening now, in film, book, and our interview, he lays out what the future implications are, and why we should all be concerned about events taking place thousands of miles away, and, until now, out of public scrutiny. 

Between them, doctors Jill Stein and Margaret Flowers have been arrested nine times. In the face of injustice and government by the one percent, rather than look the other way and stick to practicing medicine they chose a different approach.

At first they took separate paths. Margaret Flowers fought for single payer health insurance. She works for the organization Physicians for a National Health Program and is a contributor to PopularResistance.org, a website advocating nonviolent direct action against injustice. Jill Stein advocated for campaign finance reform in her home state of Massachusetts, working in 1998 with others in her community to pass the Clean Election Law. She co-founded the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities in 2003 and represented the Green-Rainbow Party for governor in 2002, for State Representative in 2004 and for Secretary of State in 2006. She was the Green Party candidate for president in 2012.

Now Stein and Flowers are both members of the Green Shadow Cabinet, a group of 100 prominent men and women offering alternative policy and speaking out in an organized voice against a dysfunctional government. Stein serves as president and Flowers as secretary of health. Each fights against political corruption and a host of grievances that that have led many people to cynicism and despair. This week on Moyers & Company, Bill Moyers speaks with Stein and Flowers about their personal journeys, what they have learned about our political system along the way and why they continue to fight the good fight.

“Once you start speaking truth to power and standing up for the right things, it's very empowering,” Margaret Flowers tells Bill. “After the Occupy movement disbanded and people kept saying, ‘Oh, it's gone, it went away,’ it didn't go away. It inspired others to stand up for their rights. So we see low wage workers all around the country standing up. And now states that are starting to raise their minimum wages. We see anti-foreclosure activists fighting back and people being able to stay in their homes. We see communities creating democratic economic institutions so that they can lift themselves out of poverty. These things are happening. They're not covered in the mass media. They're not funded by the big funders. But they're happening in this country.”

Also on the broadcast, Bill reports back on viewer response to our recent segments on drone attacks and government surveillance and previews the new film “Following the Ninth,” a documentary exploring the worldwide cultural and political influence of Beethoven’s masterpiece, the Ninth Symphony, and its majestic “Ode to Joy.”

AMY DIPIERRO: Yemen is in a crisis. It’s not a crisis caused by extremist training grounds, nor by radical Islamic clerics, nor by U.S. drone strikes.

HILLARY CLINTON: Many wells in Yemen will run dry in as little as 10 years.

DIPIERRO: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking just over a year ago on World Water Day.

CLINTON: Water resources could be targeted by terrorists or manipulated as a political tool. These difficulties will all increase the risk of instability within and between states. So these threats are real and they do raise serious security concerns.

DIPIERRO: As of 2011, Yemen is the seventh-most water-stressed country in the world.  It is home to a growing population and a shrinking water supply. Internal problems – most of all widespread poverty, political uncertainty following the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2012, and economic dependence on water-intensive crops – frustrate efforts to manage water resources. The most immediate consequence for nearly half of the population is the inability to produce or purchase the food they need.

Secretary Clinton and others consider Yemen’s water crisis to be a security threat to the region and to the United States. But beneath this strategic danger, lack of water in Yemen is a local humanitarian challenge.

Then again, it’s easy to overlook a problem that lies under the surface – in the groundwater.

FRANK VAN STEENBERGEN: If you only had rivers, and you would use all of your water from your rivers, the river runs dry.

DIPIERRO: Frank van Steenbergen is Water Resources Director at MetaMeta, a private research and development firm based in the Netherlands. He’s worked on political and technical water issues in Yemen for the past 15 years.

VAN STEENBERGEN: But if you have groundwater it’s like you have a huge bank account, which is built up over many years, but you can…use much more annually than you put back into your account.

DIPIERRO: Hydrologists call this process – “putting money back into the bank account” –  recharge. Since the 1970s, when the government subsidized diesel and offered other incentives for farmers to grow food for exports, new irrigation techniques have depleted groundwater without giving it a chance to “recharge” fully. Experts estimate that up to 90% of Yemen’s water goes to farming – not food staples, but water intensive crops like grapes and qat, a popular, mild, and highly profitable narcotic that Van Steenbergen compares to coffee.

Because building an irrigation system or a well is so expensive, in the 70s, groundwater was often controlled by the wealthy and powerful. There are now about 100,000 wells in Yemen, but Yemen’s former Minister of Agriculture, Nasser Al-Awlaki, says inequality persists.

NASSER AL-AWLAKI: We have an equity problem. The poor is paying a lot of money for water, and if they want to get water, they have to buy it from the rich people who own the wells.

DIPIERRO: Even in the North, where qat is usually grown and strong tribal affiliations translate into better access to water, the resource can be so scarce that disputes over water rights lead to violence.

JESSICA BARRY: When water resources are scarce, this can also create local competition for water.

DIPIERRO: Jessica Barry is the Communications Coordinator and spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in San’aa, Yemen.

BARRY: There have been over the last few years a number of really rather serious clashes between not only local tribes, but between different political parties or different military parties. …it has resulted in very large displacement of communities 9:59

DIPIERRO: Down along the coasts, van Steenbergen says, already impoverished communities are forced to migrate because of water shortages. Leaving behind their farms and villages to live in cities, poverty, unemployment, and overcrowding follow them.

VAN STEENBERGEN: Basically, the people who were affected were poor people, with very little political standing, yeah, and often a very limited understanding of what was happening. So – sad, but true – they’ve just left their villages.

DIPIERRO: Where can you find a solution to water scarcity if the starting point is so complex? Mark Jansson manages the Federation of American Scientists’ International Science Partnership, a project in which scientists from the United States and Yemen collaborate to solve water and energy issues. He says he knows where not to start.

MARK JANSSON: Ultimately, I’d say it’s a little condescending to sort of conflate U.S. National Security priorities such as combatting terrorism with the human need for water.

DIPIERRO: The instinct in Washington, DC, he says, is to put water on the national security agenda. That category would start a domino effect, mobilizing a bureaucracy of counterterror experts armed with security solutions. But making water a national security issue is a double-edged sword.

JANSSON: Securitizing the issue is one way to sort of focus the government’s attention on a policy priority. But I would say we should be very careful about breezily associating water security with the war on terror. Our ability to meet challenges with Yemenis in a shared fashion is really predicated in large part on separation of that work from counterterrorism and other national security efforts the United States is involved in.

AL-AWLAKI: Unfortunately, the American government after the 1990s, they somehow disappeared from the scene regarding the water issues in Yemen.

DIPIERRO: Al-Awlaki, Yemen’s former Minister of Agriculture.

AL-AWLAKI: After the Gulf War in 1991, they stopped completely their aid to Yemen, and this time they came, but they were only much concerned about security issues, giving government ammunition and logistical support to fight so-called terrorism.

DIPIERRO: This is exactly the concept of American aid in Yemen Jansson wants to change by having American and Yemeni scientists collaborate on issues other than counterterror. Barry at the Red Cross agrees that it’s crucial to work together, but Yemenis must take the lead in solving the humanitarian problem of water crisis with humanitarian solutions.

BARRY: What is really important to keep in mind is that the communities are able to help themselves. Communities should be given the means to help themselves, and more importantly, they should be involved in the solutions to their own problems.

DIPIERRO: Van Steenbergen already sees evidence of Yemenis taking charge of their water. He says young farmer-leaders are interested in combining new technology for irrigation with ancient patterns of conservation. He says tribes have developed a way to mediate local disputes, preventing feuds within communities by having members of neighboring tribes raise complaints in local courts. If these community plans are sustainable, he says, they could point to solutions for water shortages elsewhere.

VAN STEENBERGEN: We should fight those groundwater crises where they occur. They will be a big global problem, so if we know how to deal with it in the hot spots, we’re doing the right thing.

DIPIERRO: Once, says Van Steenbergen, he asked a retired government official why scarce water went unaddressed by then-President Saleh. The official said one reason is that there are easier issues to face – like terrorism.

VAN STEENBERGEN: Because, he says, a) you get a lot of money to work on it and b) it’s not a big problem.

DIPIERRO: Yemen, today, is in crisis. Or rather, it is trying to balance water and food crises with a terror threat that can seem easier to handle by comparison. For War News Radio, I’m Amy DiPierro.

Word of Mouth is New Hampshire Public Radio's show about new ideas, emerging trends, and unexplored history.

In this hour, an exploration of "Art in the Real World."

A Segment: Dronestagram/Trinity

An artist creates an online gallery of landscapes of drone strike locations before they were hit. A fascinating combination of journalism and art that creates a new view of a largely secret war. And the author of the graphic novel "Trinity" discusses illustrating a turning point in U.S. history, the top secret WWII Manhattan Project, which resulted in the atomic bomb.

B Segment: Amos Kennedy/Pianos in Public/Eiffel Tower Music

Artist, activist and self-proclaimed "humble negro printer" Amos Kennedy talks about his work and why he sells it for just fifteen dollars. Dartmouth's arts center celebrates its anniversary with a community installation of pianos. And a composer known for making music with a bridge turns his eye toward transforming the Eiffel Tower into a gigantic instrument.

C Segment: New Sounds from Arab Lands/Castle in the Clouds

New Sounds From Arab Lands on creating music inspired by disparate traditions. And a New Hampshire man follows his artistic dream, which happens to be building a castle on a remote mountaintop.