The other weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to go to the School of the America Watch (SOAW) in Columbus, GA with Nancy Mancias. It was an absolutely amazing weekend, and if possible, I definitely plan to go again next year!

The weekend started in Lumpkin, GA for a rally and march to the Stewart Detention Center. Stewart Detention Center is actually the largest, for profit immigrant holding center in the country. Here we gathered and listened to speeches and music about discrimination faced by the Latino community in regards to immigration law. We heard from a man who actually used to work at the detention center. He described the abuse and corruption committed by the detention center and by ICE.

The rest of the weekend was in Columbus at the Columbus Conference Center. There were a variety of workshops held covering a wide range of topics. The first workshop we went to was about war criminal accountability where we were shown videos on torture committed by the US. After that we went to a very informative workshop on improving research skills. The highlight of Friday night was at 9:30, when members of the Creech 14, including Brian Terrell, put on a short play based off of their trial.

Saturday was filled with more interesting workshops as well. In the morning there was a rally going on outside the gates of Fort Benning. There was great music playing, people giving speeches, a performance with puppetistas, and so much more.

And Saturday was our big day! At 9:30 that night, Nancy and I, along with Brian Terrell and Father Louis gave a workshop called “Stop drone strikes: resisting remote control sanitized death.” We had a pretty good turn out with a significant amount of women. Martin Sheen was even in the audience for part of our workshop!

Besides our workshop, the Sunday rally outside of Fort Benning was the most exciting part of my weekend. There was a moving vigil held for innocent people who have passed away from violence. Those on stage would sing the names of the deceased, while participants would carry white crosses and place them in front of Fort Benning’s gate.

After the vigil was over, a large group of people sat quietly outside the gate. It was an emotional site, with many people crying. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, a woman walked up to the gates! She was going to cross over in an act of civil disobedience. Someone brought her a ladder and a little piece of carpet to protect her from the barbed wire at top. As she climbed up, everyone was cheering for her in solidarity. She reached the top, tossed her heels over the fence, and hopped over. Once on the other side, she was arrested. Watching this woman was inspiring for me. And it got the crowd really excited. All of us began singing, chanting, and dancing in unison. I really felt connected to a group of people that I had never met before. It was really amazing to see and experience.

This was the end of our trip and we headed back to Atlanta to catch our flight back to San Francisco. It was really a great weekend. I met and talked to so many interesting people. Nancy and I even tried soul food for the first time, so delicious! This was definitely a weekend I will never forget!

By Nancy Mancias

U.S. drone warfare is the topic of an upcoming dark comedy for FX, focusing on drone pilots in Nevada who commute to war and “bomb the hell out of the Middle East”. Although the description doesn’t specifically name the air base, one can only assume the project is centered on Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada where pilots commute from Las Vegas. With the series appropriately titled Drones, the producers will find there’s a lot of darkness to the issue than comedy.

Reports indicate drone pilots are suffering from alarming levels of combat related stress. Creech AFB has counselors and chaplains on hand to support the mental strain of pilots transitioning from video game combat to civilian life. LA Times reporter David Zucchino writes, “The psychological challenges are unique: Pilots say that despite the distance, the video feed gives them a more intimate feel for the ground than they would have from a speeding warplane. Some say they would prefer to be in Afghanistan or Iraq to avoid the daily adjustment from the soccer field to the battlefield.”

An extremely dark moment in piloting drones took place when the American military released a report confessing the deaths of 23 Afghan civilians killed by a U.S. drone strike operated by pilots based at Creech AFB. The strike took place the morning of Feb. 21, 2010 in southern Afghanistan. The drone operators tracked a number of civilian vehicles for three and a half hours, reportedly only seeing military-age men through the real time video feed, though analysts sent computer messages to the operators that children were present. The Air Force personnel responsible for the deadly drone strike were given a reprimand.

Standing along the highway while drone pilots are driving into Creech AFB are anti-drone demonstrators with signs and banners condemning the use of drones for assassination. Creech AFB at one point was the epicenter of drone warfare but with the ever moving industry the expansion of drone bases continues to grow. Alternet.org reports that there is an estimate of 60 bases across the globe engaging in U.S drone missions. In a U.S. Air Force report, there are close to a hundred current and future unmanned aerial sites.

As A.V. Club reporter Sean O’Neal writes about the dark comedy Drones, “it might garner only several thousand protests.” If so, let’s only hope the protests will change public and political opinion and halt the U.S. from waging a Terminator-type assassin war.

Headlines fill the news about U.S. expansion of secret drone bases in Africa, Middle East, Central Asia and beyond, but little is mentioned about the military land grab for expansion in southern Colorado, northern New Mexico. Labeled by the Not 1 More Acre campaign as the “largest Joint Forces Future Combat Systems training site in the world”, the Army has its eye set on seizing generational ranch land for unmanned aerial development, low altitude flights and robotic weaponry testing.

The military acquisition would take up 94,000 square miles of mostly private property, displacing thousands of Coloradans, yet the civilian airspace for a robotic flight zone is a whole nother grab bag. The flight zone would reach across state lines, across sovereign indigenous nations, across national parks, going as far north as Aspen, Colorado to as far south as Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Air Force Special Operations have launched a civilian campaign, staging public forums in areas most impacted by the airspace takeover. Military personnel are laying out a proposal and even drafting their own environmental plan where fate will be decided in Washington D.C., but opposition to the Air Force’s ambitious acquisition has swelled.

Devon Jackson with the New Mexico Independent writes about the Air Force’s public turnout, “As has been the case at other meetings held over the past year, more opponents than supporters showed up.” This could be partly due to the strategic efforts of ranchers and activists associated with the Not 1 More Acre campaign. With a passion in her voice, campaigner Jean Aguerre charges on to her next move in specifically reaching out to “non-affiliated women voters” to show up to the public forums. Somehow Aguerre and the team at Not 1 More Acre have managed to outsmart the military, having an impressive list of successes to show for it.

Courtesy of Not 1 More Acre! website

• In 2007, Not 1 More Acre! fostered an overwhelming (383-34) bipartisan Congressional vote to ban funding for any activity related to expansion at the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, a ban that Not 1 More Acre! has successfully petitioned Congress to renew each year since.

• In 2009 Not 1 More Acre! won a Federal Court Order under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) enjoining the Army from expanding training at the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site. Not 1 More Acre! provides unrelenting legal defense against violations of the court order to uphold the integrity of laws banishing Transformation from Pinon Canyon.

• In 2011, when the four-year-old funding ban prohibiting military expansion at Pinon Canyon was stolen away from the appropriations bill, Not 1 More Acre! alerted opponents across the nation. Thousands of taxpayers stood up and spoke out demanding restoration of the Congressional funding ban. Their swift and sure action caused the House to restore the funding ban for another year.

• Not 1 More Acre! and Grassland Trust actively engage Freedom of Information Act requests for records that serve the public interest by revealing government’s plans, contracts and activities advancing military takeover of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico including the last intact shortgrass prairie remaining in the American Great Plains.

Time has long passed to gain success over military encroachment in Indian Springs, Nevada, home of Creech Air Force Base. Situated on a beautiful desert landscape, built in the early 1940s for gunnery training, the base has become part of a rapidly growing movement of drone bases sprouting up across the nation. Yet with alternative strategies, campaigners with the Nevada Desert Experience host continuous demonstrations outside the base. Jim Haber, coordinator with the campaign, told an audience at the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, Michigan “we are trying to stop a runaway train”.

Indeed, with the drone industry moving at lightning speed and the Department of Defense ready to divvy out taxpayers cash to contractors, Nevada Desert Experience and other organizations ready themselves to challenge the front lines of Creech Air Force Base. At a recent gathering of Catholic Workers, 18 activists were arrested for blocking the entrances to the air base.

While grassroots organizations are obstructing the military takeover of southern Colorado, northern New Mexico ranch land and obstructing the entrance to a major drone base, one wonders how communities in Africa, Middle East, Central Asia and beyond are dealing with the land and air encroachment for U.S. drone warfare. Even though the media focuses on drone base expansion aboard, the struggles on the ground in those communities could be similar as those in the U.S.

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International held its annual conference in Washington DC along with a press conference at the National Press Club. In an ongoing attempt to educate the public about the use of unmanned drones and tax payer money used to purchase these deadly machines, CODEPINK cofounder Medea Benjamin hijacked the press conference to tell the truth about armed drones and question the experts on civilian casualties. CODEPINK continues to hold drone manufacturers accountable for civilian deaths. Protests against these merchants of death have included General Atomics, Northrop Grumman and AeroVironment.

In hopes to raise awareness around human rights, students and teachers at a high school in New Zealand spent their lunchtime dressed as Guantanamo detainees. Guantanamo detainees have been subjected to harsh interrogation treatments such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, physical and mental assault and torture. The students were also raising funds for the local Amnesty International chapter.

The CODEPINK accountability campaign has launched a move Dick Cheney’s book photo contest to counter his new book ‘In My Time’, which is scheduled to hit the shelves of local bookstores on August 30th. A Facebook group has been created, along with bookmarks to insert inside the book. Photos of the book move will be posted on the website. In an early interview release, former Vice President Dick Cheney told NBCs Jamie Ganged that “There are gonna be heads exploding all over Washington” when the book comes out. It’s unspeakable that Cheney continues to support waterboarding.

Dick Cheney reveals in his new book, how he was the lone voice in pushing for a military strike on suspected nuclear reactors in Syria. In a NYTimes article, Cheney indicates how he fought against softening President Bush’s speeches around Iraq and puts the blame on the ‘terrorist’ for the challenges the U.S. faced in Iraq.

In the fall, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will release a new book. In her roles as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, Rice approved and apologized for numerous war crimes on behalf of the Bush Administration. Using visions of mushroom clouds and other scare tactics, she convinced the American public of the necessity of waging an illegal war. She also allowed torture to displace diplomacy as the hallmark of the US foreign policy.

Barack Obama, during his campaign, promised to end the war in Iraq, close Guantanamo, and end torture, among other commitments for peace. American voters have recognized the costs of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Libya–lives lost, international cooperation thwarted, and tax dollars squandered. The Obama administration has authorized unmanned drone attacks in Pakistan, in direct contravention of international law, and an attack in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of many civilians. Watch the CODEPINK intervention team engage President Obama outside the White House.

He didn’t say that after nearly a decade in Afghanistan, there are more US troops there than ever. The “drawdown” doesn’t even return the troop head count to what it was before the “surge” of December 2009.

He didn’t say that there are 100,000 military contractors in country, making money for Xe/Blackwater, DynCorp and other war profiteers. He didn’t say that after this “reduction” the US troop level will still be much higher than during any year of the Bush administration.

The president did not see fit to mention that numbers of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, calling for a quicker end to the US war in Afghanistan have gone sharply up over the past year. He didn’t refer to the vote by the US Conference of Mayors for a Bring Our War Dollars Home resolution on June 20, though it has been all over the mainstream media.

The president did acknowledge that the dollar cost for both Iraq and Afghanistan is already at the one trillion dollar mark. He acknowledged the deaths of over 1500 Americans (most of them very young) in Afghanistan. He said that the US would continue to be involved militarily in Afghanistan until 2014.

He did not say one word about the drone strikes that have killed, traumatized and enraged Afghan and Pakistani civilians. He did not mention the many voices calling for US and NATO troops out of the country, not in 2014, but NOW.

The president did not tell us, because he cannot, what we most want to hear: when will this war be behind us, and who will be the last American to die in a country wracked by corruption and warlords?

For those keeping track at home, the numbers publicized today do not account for all taxpayer money wasted on the “Global War on Terror.” See, when you put the CIA in charge of drone attacks on a sovereign state, you can ignore Congressional oversight or public disclosure of the actual cost.

So, yay, they’ve acknowledged that recruiters might be lying, since veterans face high levels of unemployment once they return to the States. And though Republicans think it would be heresy to offer help to the rest of the unemployed, they seem to be willing to fund a program to help unemployed vets.

But, they continue to spread the malicious lie that the deficit is the greatest threat to security here in the US. We should all attend in-district meetings to let them know that the lack of funding for schools, the ever-rising cost of healthcare, and pernicious unemployment are the true threats to human security.

At least our country’s mayors understand the connection between the endless wars abroad and the lack of money here at home. They’re meeting this weekend in Baltimore and the Metro Economies Policy Committee will be reviewing the War Dollars Home Resolution. You read that correctly. Our mayors understand that the choice to leave the US military, contractors, and over-bloated embassies in Iraq and Afghanistan directly impacts the ability of the federal government to fully support vital domestic needs, like promoting job creation and developing a new economy based on sustainable, renewable energy.

Can you get to Baltimore this weekend to join us as we support the passage of this historic resolution? We’re co-sponsoring a Teach-In on Friday and Poor People’s Human Rights March on Saturday. We look forward to being in action with our sister CODEPINKers and the Maryland Fund Our Communities Coalition.