Usher in the "Age of the Healer,” & Abolish the “Age of the Warrior." 4th Annual SHUT DOWN CREECH, September 30 - October 6

Usher in the "Age of the Healer,”  & Abolish the “Age of the Warrior."

4th Annual SHUT DOWN CREECH,

September 30 - October 6

Dear Officers and Members of Veterans for Peace, Chapter 9,

Peace activists have been converging at Creech AFB, near Las Vegas, Nevada. since 2009 in an ongoing effort to resist the illegal and barbaric policies of the U.S. drone assassination program.  San Francisco Bay Area CODEPINK, Women for Peace, has been a leading force in this campaign, organizing week-long protests 2 times a year.  

In 2015, at the inspiration and urging of Col. Ann Wright, we organized our 1st Annual SHUT DOWN CREECH, calling for activists from around the country to join our first “mass mobilization” to stop the drone killing.  National Veterans for Peace answered the call and helped mobilize over 50 members that year, which contributed immensely to the  great success of the event. It was a beautiful sight to witness a sea of VFP flags waving in the sky, in dramatic contrast to the U.S Reaper drones flying overhead during practice maneuvers. We are deeply grateful that Veterans for Peace has played such an important role in our ongoing campaign at Creech ever since.  

This fall we want to expand our presence at the 4th Annual SHUT DOWN CREECH, September 30-October 6, 2018.  Creech AFB is possibly the most important killer drone base in the U.S.  Creech AFB has a huge “batallion” of over 900 drone pilots!  U.S. drone killing and global drone surveillance is expanding at a rapid rate, and U.S. drones have become a primary tool for U.S. global domination.  We must expand our resistance in response.  We are contacting all VFP chapters, requesting help to make this happen.  Together we can make a difference.

The major way we are asking your chapter to support this mobilization is:

1)  To fund/sponsor at least one chapter member to attend all or part of the SHUT DOWN CREECH 2018.  Multiple chapter members are also very welcome. …or...

2)  If your chapter is unable to find a member who can participate, we ask that your chapter find one peace ally in your local community to represent your chapter, and that you will provide financial help to get them to Creech.

If a participant can only come for part of the week, we would suggest making it the latter part of the week, arriving, if possible, no later than Wednesday, since a peaceful, nonviolent action at Creech will be planned for Thursday.

Additional ways to help:

-Talk with your chapter and your community about the growing drone resistance at Creech and encourage other folks to join us.

-Hold a public showing of NATIONAL BIRD, likely the best documentary about the U.S. drone assassination program, to educate your community and encourage others in your community to come to Creech, and to help build a growing resistance in your community.  National Bird is available on Netflix.  U.S. Drone killing, though expanding rapidly, is still a largely covert program, with little mention of it in mainstream media.  This is abominable.  Little by little the truth is leaking out.  We need to help break the silence of this very barbaric and illegal program that murders our international sisters and brothers around the planet.

SPECIAL NOTE:  Two BIG CHANGES at SHUT DOWN CREECH This Year:

1. We’re “flip flopping”!  SHUT DOWN CREECH, (SDC), the “mass mobilization drone resistance” week is moving to the autumn.  Weather is milder, and less windy in the Nevada desert in the fall.  The “smaller” CODEPINK organized week was in the spring this year  (April 1- April 7), and will continue to be in the spring in future years. 

2. Camp Justice, our peace encampment at SDC, is moving to our beloved  Goddess Temple  grounds (3 miles from Creech AFB), and will no longer be set up across from the base.  This will make camping and peacemaking much easier and friendlier:  with running water, showers, a Peace Pavilion meeting area and lots of shade, all at our fingertips!  (This makes for happier campers, and better energy for planning and executing a sustainable peaceful resistance!)

Lastly, Toby Blomé just returned from an awesome week long anti-drone protest at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.  About 2,500 peaceful activists from all over Germany converged at US Air Base, Ramstein, which plays a very critical role in the entire U.S. drone assassination program, allowing the air strikes to occur at nearly real time, to ensure accuracy in the murdering.  The Germans organized their first nonviolent blockade/civil resistance action at Ramstein this year, which resulted in dozens blocking an entrance road, and ultimately, about 12-15 people getting arrested, including two Americans, Toby and Phil Wilayto of UNAC, and a Swiss foreigner.  We need a growing international movement against these barbaric and oppressive tools that help sustain U.S. global domination.  We can learn form the Germans, the South Koreans, the Okinawans and so many others.  Please help us realize our vision to end the era of the  “Age of the Warrior” and  to usher in "The Age of the Healer.”  (Read the inspiring words of Rafael Jesús González, Poet Laureate of Berkeley, and Xochipilli Men's Circle below)

Lastly, dear Veterans for Peace, please trust that we protest at Creech and Beale and Ramstein and all other drone bases because the drone program is also seriously harming many of our very young men and women in uniform who are asked to commit such horrendous crimes against humanity, that goes against their own inner ethics. They are victims of U.S. militarism, as well, and often suffer from very deep moral injury, as sensitively outlined in this important NY Times article by Eyal Press.   

We ask that you please share this letter with your entire VFP chapter membership.

Hope to see some of you at SHUT DOWN CREECH this year.

With appreciation,

Eleanor Levine, Maggie Huntington, Toby Blomé and Ann Wright

For more information, please contact:

Toby Blomé:  ratherbenyckeling@comcast.net

Eleanor Levine:  eastbaycodepink@gmail.com

Inspiring words 

from  Rafael Jesús González, Poet Laureate of Berkeley,   Xochipilli Men's Circle

"We cannot say the purpose these millenniums of the Patriarchy have served, but their lopsided reign is toxic and has maimed and sickened men and women and greatly harmed the Earth. It must come to an end. Women, our grandmothers, mothers, aunts, sisters must now take the reins for we men have made a botch of things. Women must take their power and men must step aside, follow, and support them even as we heal and liberate ourselves by freeing and honoring that which is feminine in our nature: loving, caring, nurturing. We must all free ourselves or none will. The long, long Age of the Warrior must come to an end and we must usher in the Age of the Healer.
Please lead us, our sisters. Together we must heal and heal the Earth or court the demise of all that lives."
Ometeo.
Quilticoyotzin

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