drone protestors

[Michael Bailey]

Thursday, January 27, 2011

       Anti-Drone War Protesters Given Time Served

AP is reporting: "A judge says protesters' moral opposition to drone
warfare overseas didn't absolve them of guilt for trespassing at
Creech Air Force Base in Nevada in April 2009. Las Vegas Justice of
the Peace William Jansen delivered a 20-page ruling Thursday finding a
group dubbing themselves the 'Creech 14' guilty of trespassing at the
base about 45 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The judge sentenced each
to credit for time already served in jail and sent them on their way.

"'Go in peace,' he said."

See Las Vegas Sun report:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/jan/27/creech-14-found-guilty-trespassing-judge-says-go-p

KATHY KELLY, kathy.vcnv at gmail.com, http://vcnv.org
JOHN DEAR, johndearsj at msn.com
JIM HABER, jim at nevadadesertexperience.org,
http://nevadadesertexperience.org
   Haber is co-coordinator of the Nevada Desert Experience. John Dear
is a Jesuit priest. He said today: "Creech Air Force Base is home to
the latest high-tech weapons that use unmanned aerial systems to carry
out surveillance and increasingly lethal attack missions in Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen."

   Kelly, co-founder of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, said today:
"It's criminal for the U.S. people to spend $2 billion per week for
war in Afghanistan that maims, kills and displaces innocent civilians
who've meant us no harm. ...

   "Judge Jansen said we were guilty because drone operations at
Creech Air Force Base don't pose an imminent danger. An airman at
Creech wrote, 'I am 7,000 miles away from the killing … I am 18 inches
away from the killing.' He was referring to his proximity to seeing
human beings dismembered on the video screen.

   "In Afghanistan, I met a family displaced by a drone attack in the
Helmand Province. One man showed me the photos of his children's
bloodied corpses. The drone attack killed his spouse and his five
children. In the Charahi Qambar refugee camp, I sat next to Juma Gul,
a nine-year-old girl whose arm was amputated by the same drone attack.
She was punished horribly even though she committed no crime. We want
to be in solidarity with her."

The Creech 14 are: Fr. John Dear; Dennis Duvall; Renee Espeland; Judy
Homanich; Kathy Kelly; Fr. Steve Kelly; Mariah Klusmire; Brad Lyttle;
Libby Pappalardo; Sr. Megan Rice; Brian Terrell; Eve Tetaz; Fr. Louie
Vitale; and Fr. Jerry Zawada.

For more: http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/01/27-13

-- 
"It is only by abandoning the cliches that we can even define the
tragedy" - William Appleman Williams (_Tragedy of American Diplomacy_)