Killer Drone Base Blockaded To Oppose Remote-Controlled Killing of Humans

It's fashionable to say that there is no longer a peace movement in the U.S.  But it isn't true.

What is true: corporate media entirely ignore the direct actions, conferences, marches, and publications of the peace movement.

Here's my reporting on the most recent actions in a decade plus of vigorous resistance against flying killer robots deployed by the U.S. Weaponized drones have killed thousands of civilians in numerous countries during the U.S./NATO 'War on Terror". Now, reports that Russia is using Iranian drones in Ukraine has led to the U.S. calling for (even more) sanctions on Iran. Like kicking them out of the World Cup? I guess when you have no shame, hypocrisy doesn't even register.

Two Grandmothers & a 3rd Female Arrested at Creech Assassin Drone Base North of Las Vegas

Killer Drone Base Blockaded to Oppose Remote-Controlled Killing of Humans

LAS VEGAS, NV – Anti-drone activists, here for a weeklong protest at a U.S. assassin drone base just north of Las Vegas, increased their resistance on Wednesday, October 19, with a peaceful nonviolent blockade of the entrance road into Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, NV that lasted nearly two hours – three protestors were arrested.

Dozens, maybe hundreds, of vehicles were stalled on the highway trying to enter the base. Protestors hope to motivate Air Force personnel involved in the US drone program to follow their conscience and no longer participate.  

Protesters held life-sized cardboard cut-outs of 4 of the 7 children from the Ahmadi family who were killed by a US drone attack in Kabul in August 2021, and held two signs that read:  “A Call To Conscience” and “Can You See, You Are Murdering Me.” 

 

Two grandmothers and a third elder female were arrested, detained for over 30 minutes, and ultimately cited and released.

Thousands of unarmed civilians have been killed in U.S. drone strikes according to independent investigative NGOs, including hundreds of children.  

“Assassination is illegal by both International and national laws,” said Toby Blome, one of the organizers.  "By carrying these cardboard figures with the names and ages of some of the children killed (Ayat, age 2; Sumiya, age 2; Benyamin age 3, Armin, age 4,) it is our hope to memorialize and humanize the drone victims and to emphasize the tragic side of the  secret, US drone program that should never have been developed.”  

Participants in the weeklong protest are calling for a worldwide international ban of all armed and militarized drones.

Anti-war cable TV spots on CNN and MSNBC, produced by BanKillerDrones.org, and featuring voice-over by actor Martin Sheen, have been airing, including this weekend, Oct. 15 and 16 in President Biden’s weekend hometown, Wilmington, DE. The commercials, as well as counseling resources for drone operators, may be found at  https://bankillerdrones.org.

Protestors charge militarized drones are rapidly proliferating around the globe, with dozens of countries now possessing their own armed drones, unmanned planes that, controlled from afar, are used to remotely fire their deadly missiles against "suspected targets."  

Through prolonged protests, activists, from as far away as New York, California, and Hawaii, intend to communicate their grievances to the Pentagon and federal government about the alarming issues that assassin drones raise, including high civilian death rates, violations of international laws, moral injury to drone operators, and the rapidly increasing destabilization of international relations. 

Participants will show the current conflict in Ukraine, with Iranian-made drones used by Russia competing with Turkish-made drones used by Ukraine, as a perfect example of the worsening global instability that is created by these militarized drones.  

Protestors are seeking an international ban to prohibit killer drones worldwide. “Overwhelming evidence supports that weaponized drones do not make us safer, but instead they create more enemies abroad by terrorizing communities and killing innumerable innocent bystanders,  ultimately helping to recruit individuals into radicalized militant organizations,” argues Toby Blomé, one of the organizers of the bi-annual extended protest called “Shut Down Creech."

Members of Shut Down Creech are part of a network of anti-Drone groups collaborating under the umbrella organization, Ban Killer Drones, working to ban the use of armed drones globally.  Throughout the week,  other U.S. anti-drone groups held simultaneous protests at U.S. drone control bases in Pennsylvania, Iowa, New York and Arizona, and elsewhere in solidarity with Shut Down Creech week, and as a united front calling to halt the use of armed drones.

The U.S. has never held high-ranking military officers accountable when U.S. drone attacks have caused the killing of innocent lives, like the August 2021 US drone attack in Kabul, Afghanistan that killed seven members of the Ahmadi family, including children. Instead, drone whistleblower Daniel Hale is currently serving the 2nd year of his 45 month sentence for leaking military documents that exposed drone war crimes, and the resulting high civilian death toll.

"When whistleblowers are imprisoned, and war criminals are protected then we have a truly failing democracy,” said Blomé.

As a complementary event to Shut Down Creech week, the sneak preview of new drone documentary Battles beyond the Horizon  was shown Thursday night at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.  A post-film panel discussion included Shut Down Creech activists, including retired U.S. Army Colonel and former U.S. Diplomat, Ann Wright, now turned full-time peace activist.

Activist Vera Anderson, from Las Vegas, now a graduate student in New York, states it simply and directly, “All human beings have the right to life!”  

An open letter to the commander of the base Col. Schmidt and to President Biden was hand delivered to base personnel in an effort to call for an immediate ceasing of all drone attacks, and calling for an international ban by all nations.

“People need to realize that not only are a lot of civilians being killed, the drones are terrorizing entire communities by their mere presence in the sky,” said Fred Bialy, a retired emergency room physician participating in the week of protest.  "Weaponized drones are steadily proliferating around the globe…they should be banned completely,” he added.
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FMI

Toby Blomé 510-501.5412, Virginia Hauflaire 602-403-7576

US Drones Still Kill And Terrorize People Around The World, And A Few People Care

Source: VFP Madison website

I will not be enthused about the warmongering Democratic Party reclaiming the White House. They, along with Republicans, and Independents like my Senator Angus King, have voted for higher and higher military budgets used to execute people without judge or jury involvement. The judge only gets involved penalizing the few brave and hardy souls who put their bodies on the line to bring attention to this moral travesty performed at the US taxpayers' expense.

Here's a report back from Wisconsin on the trial of some of a group of seven who resisted the continued use of flying killer robots to terrorize children and their families: Bonnie Block, Joyce Ellwanger, Joy First, Bob Graf, Jim Murphy, Phil Runkel, all of Wisconsin and Brian Terrell, of Iowa. All were arrested for trespass on November 12, 2019, in a protest at Volk Field, a Wisconsin Air National Guard base that trains personnel to operate the RQ-7 Shadow Drone. 

Source: VFP Madison report on denied motion to delay trial due to covid

Report from Bob Graf

Reflexive Justice

Today [November 16, 2020] Phi Runkel, Catholic Worker Archivist, and I were convicted of trespassing on the Volk field military base in Juneau County, Wisconsin on November 12, 2019.

The court procedure reminded me of the military training of soldiers, to kill reflexively without the use of conscience. 

 

Volk Field is a training base for the RQ-7 shadow drones base.  These are small drones that set up the operation of Killer Drones and the killing by Apache Helicopters in the eight wars that the US is engaged in presently.    A statement we gave at the time when we entered the base is attached.

Five of the seven of us who entered the base, due to serious Covid 19 concerns were not present for the trial at Juneau County Courthouse.   Those not present had sent the judge statements of why they were not there and why they entered the base that day.  The Judge quickly dismissed their concerns and order them convicted of trespassing and they were fined.

The district attorney then presented the case against Phil and me.  He had two defense witnesses, a security chief for the base and a Sheriff’s deputy who had issued the trespassing citations.  He also showed on a large screen a body cam the deputy had taken of our arrest.

When it came to our testimony we were warned by the Judge that he would show some leeway but that he should stick to the issue of trespass as he narrowly defined it.  Both our testimonies were based on religious convictions of conscience.  Phil tried to bring in international law and testimony of others, including Ramsey Clark, the former attorney general of the USA.  Our testimonies were constantly interrupted by the Judge and considered not relevant.  We both got about ½ to ¾ of our testimony (attached below) 

During our testimonies and after the Judge kept saying how he agreed with some of our values and convictions but they were not relevant to the trial.  This reminded me of my research on “reflexive killing” the practice of training a soldier to kill on instinct or, command orders without consideration for conscience.  Now I know why a panel of military command officers refused to consider a Catholic West Point’s ethic teacher’s plea to have them state that “reflexive killing was justified.  Despite the terrible toll this type of killing played on the minds of returning veterans they could not admit of the harm this practice played.  They just ignored it as we largely ignore the killing by drones in the eight US wars of today.  

When Phil tried to state that the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg declared that “Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience imposed by the individual State” he was cut off.  

The Judge said over and over again that he understood and sympathized with our views but that they had nothing to do, like reflexive killing with our trial.  Society, politicians and media ask us, like the Judge to separate our conscience from our action of killing on reflex or by drone.  We had just witnessed the court version of reflexive killing, Justice without conscience.  I pray for all drone operators, their victims and all of us who are silent to drone killing. 

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From: Max Obuszewski <max-2@comcast.net>

Friends,

 When I go to court to challenge my arrest for protesting, I play a lawyer.  However, I am far from an expert in law.

 

Nevertheless, I do know that besides being immoral, U.S. killer drone strikes are unconstitutional.  A drone pilot is the judge, the jury and the executioner.  The victim is denied due process as s/he has been denied the right to challenge in court the evidence amassed against this individual determined to be a “terrorist.”

 

How does this argument get into a court of law? Several of us, including Joy First, filed a complaint against killer drone strikes with the U.S. Attorney in Alexandria, Virginia.  Outside of a two-hour meeting with two U.S. attorneys, our complaint went nowhere.  

Let me know if you have a strategy to get a court that would entertain the notion that U.S. killer drone strikes are illegal?

 

Kagiso, Max