from Upstate Drone Action
photo by Heriberto Rodriguez
Hancock Reaper Drone Base Entrance Blocked by Huge Dollar Signs Dripping with Blood
7 Arrested Delivering War Crimes Indictment to Hancock Reaper Drone Base
At 9 a.m. on Monday, September 25, seven members of the grassroots group Upstate Drone Action once again were arrested as they delivered a citizen’s war crime indictment to the chain of command at Hancock Air Force Base in New York. Upstate Drone Action also placed a huge dollar sign [$] dripping with “blood” in the main entrance way to the base. The six-foot-high dollar sign dramatizes what the group believes determines the many overseas wars the Pentagon/CIA engages in: corporate greed.
Ann Tiffany, Ed Kinane, Rae Kramer and Julienne Oldfield (all from Syracuse, NY), Dan Burgevin and Mark Scibilia-Carver (both from Trumansburg, NY) and Harry Murray (from Rochester, NY) were arrested and released within an hour. Charged with trespass and disorderly conduct, they will be arraigned in the DeWitt town court October 3 through 5.
photo by Heriberto Rodriguez
Hancock Air Force Base – on East Molloy Road, in the town of DeWitt, county of Onondaga, state of New York, just north of Syracuse – hosts the 174th Attack [sic] Wing of the NY National Guard. The 174th is one of two Reaper drone Attack Wings in New York state. Piloted from Hancock, the MQ9 Reaper drone is an unmanned, satellite-directed assassin flown over Afghanistan. The CIA also uses such airborne robots for its clandestine, illegal, lethal missions over northwest Pakistan and other majority-Islamic nations and oil lands.
According to Julienne Oldfield, “The Hancock Reaper terrorizes whole communities, generating desperate refugees.” Mark Scibilia-Carver adds that “U.S. taxpayers fund this terrorism, keeping the pot boiling and creating enormous ill will toward the United States – instead of funding health, education and infrastructure here.”
Today’s action at Hancock’s main gate is simply one episode in Upstate Drone Action’s persistent nonviolent campaign to expose Reaper drone war crimes. Since 2010, there have been some 200 anti-Reaper arrests at Hancock in about a dozen such street theater actions. These have resulted in extreme bails, maximum fines, Orders of Protection, and incarcerations, as well as some acquittals.
photo by Charley Bowman