Community Corner

Drone Protest Planned for Saturday at Horsham Air Guard Station

According to protest organizers, "Drone strikes 'piloted' from command centers in the continental U.S. have killed thousands of civilians, many of them children..."

Protesters of the planned Drone War Command Center at the Horsham Air Guard Station will be out in force Saturday afternoon. 

Members of Brandywine Peace Community, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and various peace and anti-war groups, including BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action, Lehigh-Pocono Committee of Concern (LEPOCO), Green Party of Philadelphia and Greens of Montgomery and Bucks Counties, and Veterans for Peace plan to gather Saturday at 12 p.m. at the Horsham Air Guard Station. 

The protest will be set up at the northern end of the Easton Road front of the Air Guard station. Organizers said they will carry large banners and signs, decrying plans to establish the drone command center in Horsham.

According to a release, the protest is to "denounce the center from which computer 'drone pilots' can, by remote-control, direct Reaper drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and launch their missiles against targets and people thousands of miles away." 

Saturday's event will include music, the reading of the names of U.S. drone strike victims in Pakistan and their stories, bell-tolling, chanting, and a ten-foot long drone replica standing near the Horsham Air Guard Station identification logo.

Organizers said the drone war command center at the Horsham Air Guard Station was set to "open" on October 1, but has two years to be fully operational and ready for combat. They said after tomorrow's event they plan to hold protests at the base as well as around the greater Delaware Valley region the last Saturday of each month, beginning in March of 2014. 


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