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VID-37 Anti-War Activsts, Catholic Workers & Militay Veterans Arrested Blockading Drone Base in USA
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Friday May 06, 2011 08:42 by Solidarity with Hancock 37
Fiction as Reality: Two Perspectives, Two Drones, One Demonstration, and 37 Bodies Fiction as Reality: Two Perspectives, Two Drones, One Demonstration, This is an anti-drone demonstration video report back from Syracuse, |
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Jump To Comment: 1 2Saturday 7 May 2011
by: Nick Mottern, Truthout
In the week leading up to Easter 2011, antiwar organizers in upstate New York held a remarkable series of events aimed at grounding the MQ-9 Reaper drones flying over Afghanistan controlled from Hancock Field in Syracuse, one of several drone bases in the United States.
The culmination came on the afternoon of April 22, Good Friday in the Christian calendar, when 37 protesters were arrested for refusing to leave the main driveway into Hancock Field.
I went to Syracuse on April 21 because of my opposition to drone warfare and to bring to the protest an eight-foot long replica of a Reaper drone that I built and have used in rallies in Washington, DC and New York City, among other places. I did not plan to write about the Syracuse protest, but what I experienced was so unusual in the course of my participation in nearly ten years of antiwar actions on Afghanistan and Iraq that I changed my mind.
I found that the organizers were able to create, for a week, a small world in which people could feel the power of their consciences in confronting official lawlessness and recognized their personal responsibility to do so.
While protesters mentioned the financial cost of our current wars in terms of lost jobs, education and health care, unlike many other antiwar actions, the primary focus in Syracuse was on the illegality and immorality of the wars and killer drone operations and on empathy for suffering and lives lost.
Before discussing the details of the protest that I believe created this world, which - judging from subsequent email traffic - appears to continue to exist in the hearts and minds of the participants, it may be useful to discuss the larger world of US public consciousness regarding war and drones, which the Syracuse action sought to address.
Article continued...
http://www.truth-out.org/hancock-37-v-official-lawlessn...95725
Remaining Hancock 38 Drone Protesters Sentenced
On April 22, 37 people were arrested for lying down in a blocked access road leading into Hancock Air National Guard Base along with a support person. On February 29, the last members of the Hancock 38 were sentenced in DeWitt Town Court by Judge David Gideon. Each defendant was given a 1 year conditional discharge and fined $250.
Kathy Kelly, Ann Wright, Martha Hennessy of NYC Catholic Workers, Elliott Adams, past President of Veterans for Peace and Jules Orkin appeared in front of Judge David Gideon in DeWitt Town Court yesterday evening.
Kathy Kelly of Voices for Creative Non Violence, who had not been previously tried because she was in Afghanistan, India and Australia supporting youthful Afghan peace activists, plead guilty to the two counts of Disorderly Conduct so that she would be free to return to her work. However, she did not elocute to the charges as she was unwilling to make false statements before the court.
Each of the defendants made a uniquely powerful sentencing statement. Kathy Kelly told the stories of Afghan victims of Drone strikes; Martha Hennessy spoke for our youthful Afghan friends, who said that they would like to live in peace. They asked “Aren’t we human beings like you?” Retired Colonel Ann Wright and Elliott Adams spoke from their experience in Military and Government roles about the dangerous proliferation of the Drones and aggressive US foreign policy.
Jules Orkin enumerated instances where the government of the UK and the United States asserted their support of the first amendment rights to assemble in public and to ask for redress of grievances, the most recent examples being quotes from President Obama and Hillary Clinton talking about the rights of the people of Syria and Libya.
The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars will continue to resist the use of drones. As we argued in court, drone warfare violates the Nuremberg Principles and other international, as well as moral, laws. We resist those who would normalize the use of robotic assassins as mode of warfare and reject the policy of dehumanization of peoples in other land.