Courage to Resist. April 7, 2016.
At Creech Air Force Base, Indian Springs, Nevada, activists from over 20 states joined together for a national mobilization of nonviolent resistance to shut down killer drone operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and everywhere. Throughout the March 27-April 2 protest over 20 people were arrested participating in several different actions.
At one of the base gates, a group of protestors dressed as angels created a mock-funeral, protesting the drone practice known as the “double tap”, where the US deliberately targets and kills mourners at the funeral of drone-strike victims.
The double-tap is also known to target first responders of drone strikes, the people there merely to help the injured.
At another gate, a silent meditation vigil for peace was held, Popular Resistance reports.
In 2005, Creech Air Force Base secretly became the first US base in the country to carry out illegal, remotely controlled assassinations using the M Q-1 Predator drones, and in 2006, the more advanced Reaper drones were added to its arsenal.
Creech drone personnel sit behind computers in the desert north of Las Vegas and kill “suspects” thousands of miles away. Recent independent research indicates that the identity of only one out of 28 victims of U.S. drone strikes is known beforehand. Though officials deny it, the majority of those killed by drones are civilians.
“We are acting in solidarity with whistleblowers and current drone warriors who have suffered moral injury from their work at Creech, yet who are unable to take this kind of direct action without severe consequences, and on behalf of victims of drone war crimes,” said activist Renee Espeland to IndyBay.
The event was proudly endorsed by Courage to Resist and sponsored by CODEPINK: Women for Peace, Nevada Desert Experience, Veterans For Peace, Voices for Creative Nonviolence and others, and received media attention from local press, and Democracy Now.
“Courage To Resist accomplishes one part of this program of resistance by speaking for and defending the brave souls in the military who do not wish to be part of the perfidy of this administration. It behooves us to do all we can to support Courage To Resist with money and with spine.”
thanks for resisting the abominable drone warfare and campaigning against the draft.
Thank you Courage to Resist for posting this report on the “Shut Down Creech Week” action.
I was arrested at the middle gate, as were Brian and Renee. We shut that Creech entrance for about three hours!
My photo was published in the “Las Vegas Review-Journal” under the headline “Path of Resistance”.
I spent about 7 hours in the Las Vegas jail with my sisters, some of whom were still dressed as angels from the “mock-funeral” action on Highway 95. That was a beautiful sight, in a way: men and women dressed as angels, handcuffed and wearing belly chains, riding to Las Vegas on the police bus. Our eyes were opened at the way people in jail were being treated. We were lucky– out the same day– but many people in that jail were being treated unjustly, cruelly, and it was/is heartbreaking.
Join us at Creech this fall. Stand up to the inhumanity and illegality of the U.S. drone warfare program.
Thank you.
Congratulations to all the protesters.
Drone ‘warfare’ is really disgusting. It’s not actually war, it’s just randomly killing inocent people who can’t retaliate, for no reason.