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