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Creech Air Force Base: A Place of Disbelief, Confusion and Sadness
While many Americans spent their Thanksgiving holiday sitting around the table feasting on turkey and slumbering over the TV to watch football, members of CODEPINK Women for Peace used this Thanksgiving holiday to raise awareness about the war in Afghanistan.
Creech Air Force Base, just north of Las Vegas, is the headquarters of the Air Force's Predator and Reaper "hunter-killer" unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), commonly called drones. The base is one of the epicenters on the war in Afghanistan.
Beginning November 24, a dedicated group of CODEPINK women began holding a creative non-violent presence outside of the east gate of Creech Air Force Base every morning in the shivering desert cold and warm afternoons. The nine-day presence included a mourning mother's costumed funeral procession with child-like coffins, a four-day fast, climate change action and civil disobedience. They were joined and supported by members of the Las Vegas faith-based, veterans and military family communities.
Each day they witnessed, young Air Force pilots commuting into the base to fly the UAVs to scout over the Pakistan and Afghanistan border and launch Hellfire missiles into the region often missing their intended targets, resulting in the deaths of many innocent people including children. Most problematic are attacks in regions where coalition forces don't even go and most of the dead are civilians.
There is a disturbing contrast between aggressor and victim. The aggressor zooming around Las Vegas in a posh automobile, living a luxurious life style and launching missiles onto a target that is far away and the victim located in a village or inside a building on the Afghanistan Pakistan borders. There are over 200,000 people in internally displaced camps (IDP) in Afghanistan because of US bombardment and war. The number one enemy in Afghanistan is poverty.
For many of those holding a presence outside of Creech Air Force Base, there is a look of total disbelief, confusion, and sadness. As the US troop presence in Afghanistan increases, the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) program will ramp up.
Read about the actions in the local spotlight here and in the news here.
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23 Comments so far
Show AllNot to mention Obama's illegal acts of wider war being perpetrated across the borders of Pakistan and Iran!
The military industrial media complex will not end the Ir-Af-Pak occupation without a fight. They are counting on it for their eternal revenue stream.
In order to fight terrorism we will need to fight our own State Deptartment our own government and our own military. We are the greatest terrorist nation on earth.
In order to fight terrorism we will need to fight our own State Deptartment our own government and our own military. We are the greatest terrorist nation on earth.
Yes, they are the ones who create the so-called terrorism in the first place. Fighting back against murdering foreign invaders is not terrorism, the mujahadeen are freedom fighters. This time they are not fighting the Soviet Empire, now the US Empire. Same war, different empire.
The new number one enemy in Afghanistan is America! America and Israel are the two great terrorist states on the planet and we, the members of the international community need to Boycott, Divest and sanction these countries until they decide to join the civilized world!!!!
What inhuman child killers make the Predator and Reaper?
??? Northrop Grumman? Boeing? Raytheon?
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems. Gotta love that name.
Hey what's all the fuss?, now is the time to buy stock. Imperialism is good for vulture capitalists, good for bidniz ya know.
It's part of the corporate culture in the USA. Profit from murdering poor people by remote control; and profit from the ill-health and early death of people (The MIC and the Ilness and Death Profit Industry) Isn't that lovely?
Instead of Predator/Reaper we can call them Vulture/Leech.
back to the stone age on the gilded wings of science! who said this ? winston churchill? obama is reifying this famous saying. see y'all in new hampshire. all protests should start there.
Nevada--now that is appropriate--gambling is legal--it would have to be--good odds too--you know if you kill enough people you will get some you could call terrorist--after all who's gonna know if indeed they really were--unless of course you can take the word of a murderer?
0necaptjim obswerves:
"Nevada--now that is appropriate--gambling is legal--"
********
So is prostitution--they fit together quite nicely don't you agree?
Poet
plow shares not arms! imagine all the money that could have
gone to solving real problems in the world for the
entire planet. watched the remake of the day the earth
stood still. sure hope they come soon. we can't police
our selves nor act human in the least.
Do I detect some radical militant energy?
Go for it ! May the monkey wrenching begin!!!
Hit them in their pocketbooks, it's all they care about !
You will find many "christians" on that base that get up off their knees, the name 'Jesus' fresh on their lips, and man the controls of those drones...
Their understanding of the teachings of that man obviously incomplete.
IMAGINE WHEN THEY CONFRONT THE TRUE POWER OF HIS LOVE, FACE TO FACE
"(demonstraters) were joined and supported by members of the Las Vegas faith-based, veterans and military family communities."
Channel that Love.
A few months ago I heard an interview of one of these brave warriors. He said that it was better
flying the capitalist birds of pray from Las vegas instead of the middle east. The reason, he
could kill in the morning and go have lunch with his kids.. I doubt that I will ever forget it.
Yearn,yearn my heart,my Soul for what peace might be!
In this visage of high tech murder is this not of hell that I see?
Where is the land of free or how is a cumputer guided snuff job a worthy career?
Are these the brave of this land who profess defence,yet espouse dirty boxer fear?
Predator and reaper;names to add to AF legend along with the "enola gay" of WWII infamy and murder
This I feel is our Rubicon and peace will go no further.Tony
Sounds like there needs to be a Drone and Predator watch at Creech like the SOA Watch down at Ft. Benning. Bravo to the Code Pink women for their pluck and determination!
Poet
No country on this Earth is so blood-thirsty as the US. No country on this Earth is so cold-hearted, uncaring, violent, arrogant, ignorant as is the US. The bully of our planet.
"The aggressor zooming around Las Vegas in a posh automobile, living a luxurious life style and launching missiles onto a target that is far away..." Now that's a PERFECT war. That's a war you can maintain with minimal losses to the perps while operating in complete comfort with all mod cons. Heh, maybe we can destroy the entire planet and END war forever that way...
the drones will come home one day...in ever-increasing numbers and horrific capabilities...not even the drone-pilots children will be safe, as the controls move to other hands...
This is a very good point.
The drones primarily operate to prevent killers from feeling the impact of their actions. This is necessary because they are killing to enslave and destroy people very like themselves. The more obvious that mutual humanity becomes, the more necessary the drones.
One might cite also the new anti-crowd weapons technology.
It's all headed home.
I think we urgently need new Geneva Conventions as a first step.
They must disallow any terror weapon, defined as anything that can kill or maim from a position so distant or protected that an ordinary person using personal weapons cannot realistically prevent its use.
That would exclude aerial bombs, rockets, mines, tanks, ground attack by aircraft or ship, booby-traps, robots, and quasi-robots. Anyone who uses or orders the use of such a terror weapon must be arrested by the first person who can get close enough, and turned over for trial.
That would ensure that the ones going to their daily horror work in LV wouldn't have a moment's peace.