Shut Down Creech: Short Mid-week Report
TUESDAY UPDATE: URGENT NEWS ADVISORY
for April 6, 2021
Contact: Toby Blomé, 510.501.5412 Maggie Huntington, 602.459.5257
For more details: https://shutdowncreech.blogspot.com Organized by S.F. Area CODEPINK
Photos and Video of Monday’s Action:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IooTZ6xvB-1b3tm3frhD9D6gyzC5Zzny
https://www.facebook.com/chris.knudson.75/videos/3906121089502763/
https://www.facebook.com/chris.knudson.75/videos/3906110802837125/
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=3905651526216386&set=pcb.3905662316215307
PRESS RELEASE:
DAWN TUESDAY PROTEST PLANNED;
MONDAY: ANTI-DRONE PROTESTORS BLOCK
GATES AT CREECH AFB, CONDEMN KILLER
DRONES AS WEEK OF PROTESTS BEGINS
LAS VEGAS/CREECH AFB – Demonstrators – after blocking two entrances to the drone base here Monday – will hold a “DRONE MASSACRE MEMORIAL TUESDAY FROM 6:30 A.M. TO 8:30 A.M. – Activists, will display a long series of banners, stretched along the highway, each highlighting details of past U.S. drone massacres, including statistics on civilian deaths.
Anti-drone protestors used large banners in the early morning Monday/4-5-21 to nonviolently block two entrances into Creech Air Force Base, a key U.S. Drone Base. It was the first day of a weeklong protest to oppose the illegal U.S. remote targeted killing program.
All of the participants participated in the first blockade at the main gate, impeding dozens of cars, while continuously chanting: “Arrest Col. Jones for War Crimes, Not Daniel Hale for Whistleblowing.” and “Stop the killing, stop the terror, stop the drones!” Col. Stephen R. Jones is the drone base commander, and the highest level of command responsible for the alleged war crimes that take place at the base.
“By national and international laws, assassination is illegal,” says Toby Blomé, one of the organizers, “but it has become more normalized, rationalized and justified in American culture, politics and the media, as drone warfare has rapidly expanded. It’s an utterly barbaric and cowardly form of violence that should never have been tolerated, and has made killing way too easy,” she said.
After the first entrance was successfully blocked, three of the participants drove to a second gate. where the commute traffic had been diverted; Using another large banner they blocked the second gate as well. In all, military traffic was held up for over 45 minutes, which caused dozens of cars to be re-diverted back to the main gate, causing an extended traffic jam.
Blockaders held their blockade for as long as they could, without risking arrest, to avoid the higher health risks that exist with jail detainment during the COVID pandemic.
The protesters’ afternoon vigil will support Air Force Veteran, Daniel Hale, the U.S. Drone Whistleblower who currently faces sentencing in July after pleading guilty for secretly exposing war crimes in the U.S. drone targeted killing program. Some of the signs protesters will hold include:
-We Stand with Daniel Hale / Free Daniel Hale, Exposing War Crimes is NOT a crime / Prosecute Col. Jones for War Crimes.
The protests will continue throughout the week, with changing themes to express the protesters outrage and intolerance of the remotely executed violence that takes place daily at Creech AFB, just north of Las Vegas, Nevada.
Many military veterans, now members of Veterans for Peace, will be joining. The event is co-sponsored by CODEPINK and Veterans for Peace.
At Creech, U.S. Air Force personnel, coordinating with C.I.A. officials, are, regularly and secretly, killing people remotely using unmanned armed drone planes, primarily the MQ-9 Reaper drones. Thousands of civilians have been killed and injured, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and elsewhere, since 2001, according to the activists.
In the aftermath of the recent and tragic U.S. massacres by lone gunmen in Georgia and Boulder, activists will hold daily two hour vigils between 6:30-8:30 a.m. and 3:30-5:30 p.m., during commute hours to underline the connection between mass violence at home and the “normalized” mass violence of the U.S. covert drone program and U.S. military.
Following the recent mass shootings in the U.S., Vice President Kamala Harris said “Everyone has the right to go to work, to go to school, to walk down the street and be safe…..a harm against anyone of us is a harm to all of us.”
Over the last 20 years, U.S. armed drones have been used to commit horrible atrocities that have included strikes on weddings, funerals, schools, mosques, homes, farm laborers, and in January, 2020, included direct hits on high level foreign military and government officials from Iran and Iraq.
“Participants in this week’s nonviolent protest at Creech AFB believe that people around the world have the right to go to school, attend weddings and funerals, drive a car or walk down the street and be safe. U.S. foreign policy that rationalizes the right to sacrifice the lives of civilians by remote controlled killing is unconscionable and inherently racist,” said organizers.
These drone massacres have, at times, resulted in the deaths of dozens of civilians with a single drone attack. No U.S. official has ever been held accountable for these ongoing atrocities, yet, an important drone whistleblower, Daniel Hale, who leaked truths about these atrocities faces potentially harsh sentencing in July.
The protest includes daily vigils during commute hours, with different themes each time.
“It is our hope,” said Blomé, “that the military personnel that drive into the base everyday will reflect deeply about their role in this criminal activity that causes innumerable deaths and untold suffering around the globe, and that just maybe some of them will make the difficult but ethical choice to not participate.
“Militarized drones are expanding at an unbelievable rate, replacing conventional warfare, without any meaningful public debate. It is therefore the obligation of the military personnel to embrace their own individual responsibilities.”
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