More Arrests at Creech Air Force Base Trying to Stop Drone Warfare

From: The Nuclear Resister

April 2, 2016

from Nevada Desert Experience

Indian Springs, NV – On Friday, April 1, morning traffic at Creech Air Force Base was diverted by dozens of peace and justice activists attempting to shut down the armed drone attack program through nonviolent civil resistance. At 7:45 a.m., eleven peaceful resisters were arrested at the two main gates of Creech. At 10:00 a.m. another six were arrested at the main East Gate while blocking the entrance with “crime scene” tape, referring to the criminal activity of weaponized drone terrorism conducted at Creech, killing thousands of non-combatants and civilians over the past decade.

These arrests, conducted by Las Vegas Metropolitan police, were the last waves of repression this week from Clark County, which has failed to investigate or stop the alleged extra-judicial assassinations conducted at Creech. Fourteen of the justice and peace activists arrested on April 1 received citations for jaywalking, and three received citations for trespassing on federal property.

The 17 activists arrested on April 1 were: Toby Blome, MaryKate Glenn, Shirley Osgood, Chris Nelson, Mahaia Oliveira, Tyler Schaefer, Dennis Duvall, Susan Witka, Fred Bialy, Ron Foust, Arla Ertz, Brian Terrell, Leslie Angeline, Cynthia Papermaster, John Ford, Rene Espleland and Flora Rogers. Some of the activists are being held in jail over the weekend.

Nevada Desert Experience (NDE) is an active non-profit organization in support of this week’s anti-killer-drone protests at Camp Justice. Camp Justice is organized by Veterans For Peace, Code Pink, NDE, and Voices for Creative Nonviolence. For more information, see NevadaDesertExperience.org or call 702-646-4814.

Shut Down Creech Civil Resistance, March 6, 2015

The March 6 Resistance at Creech AFB saw 34 activists arrested for protesting the drone assassination program conducted by the CIA and USAF. Murder is wrong. It us unacceptable. #ShutDownCreech

Ann Wright at Shut Down Creech

Creech arrests, April 4th 2012

The next strategically positioned paradise

As usual, Empire is out to get some islands which most people would consider paradisiacal, to launch drones and spread death and destruction.
The Cocos archipelago in the Indian Ocean, at one time “annexed” by Great Britain and now an Australian territory, seems to be the next big thing for the US navy.

Further reading, here and here.

"Hancock 38" Defendants Found Guilty for Bold Army Base Protest Against U.S. Drone Attacks Abroad

From: DemocracyNow.org:

Thirty-one of 38 accused activists were found guilty on Thursday for their role in a protest against U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The activists were arrested on April 22 at the New York Air National Guard base at Hancock Field near Syracuse, New York, after trespassing to protest the MQ-9 Reaper drones, which the 174th Fighter Wing of the Guard has remotely flown over Afghanistan since late 2009. The protesters draped themselves in white clothes splattered with blood-red pigment and then staged a “die-in” at the main entrance to the base. They said their act of nonviolent civil disobedience aimed to visualize the indiscriminate killing of civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan by drones operated by personnel sitting in front of computers thousands of miles away. The group calls themselves the Hancock 38 Drone Resisters. Following the guilty verdict, four of the activists were sentenced to 15-day terms in prison while a number of others were given fines and community service. We speak to Ramsey Clark, the former U.S. attorney general turned outspoken human rights activist, who testified at the trial that the drones violate international law. We’re also joined by Harry Murray, one of the Hancock 38 and a co-defendant in the trial. “Having a drone control center established at Hancock Air Base has really brought the war home to central New York,” Murray says. “Having people who are actually killing human beings in Afghanistan working right in Syracuse really makes Syracuse and upstate New York a war zone.” Clark says drones are “a weapon of extreme provocation and extreme danger, extreme inaccuracy… International law, I believe, does prohibit the use of drones.”

Guests:
Ramsey Clark, lawyer and former U.S. attorney general.

Harry Murray, one of the Hancock 38 Drone Resisters and a co-defendant in the trial. He is professor of sociology and anthropology at Nazareth College, where he also serves as director of the peace and justice studies major.

Read the whole interview here…

US Drone Warfare: Ethiopia Edition

By Asawin Suebsaeng
In: Mother Jones
Fri Oct. 28, 2011
It’s official: another half-acre, multi-million-dollar US drone base has been confirmed, this one on Ethiopian soil. The Washington Post reports:

The Air Force has been secretly flying armed Reaper drones on counterterrorism missions from a remote civilian airport in southern Ethi­o­pia as part of a rapidly expanding U.S.-led proxy war against an al-Qaeda affiliate in East Africa [al-Shabab in neighboring Somalia], U.S. military officials said…The Air Force confirmed Thursday that drone operations are underway at the Arba Minch airport. Master Sgt. James Fisher, a spokesman for the 17th Air Force, which oversees operations in Africa, said that an unspecified number of Air Force personnel ­are working at the Ethio­pian airfield “to provide operation and technical support for our security assistance programs.”

The Arba Minch airport expansion is still in progress but the Air Force deployed the Reapers there earlier this year, Fisher said. He said the drone flights “will continue as long as the government of Ethi­o­pia welcomes our cooperation on these varied security programs.”

Though the Post story emphasizes elements like the drones’ “Hellfire missiles and satellite-guided bombs,” BBC News reports that, although the aircraft can be fitted with such firepower, American officials speaking to the BBC on Friday “stressed that the remotely-piloted drones were being used only for surveillance, and not for air strikes” and that the Reaper drones were flying unarmed “because their use is considered sensitive by Ethiopia’s government.” (According to Tesfaye Yilma, the head of public diplomacy for the Ethiopian embassy in DC, it’s their explicit policy not to “entertain foreign military bases in Ethi­o­pia.”)

Read the rest here…