On June 4, 2024, the 174th Attack Wing of the United States Air Force held a Clergy Day for about 100 clergy members at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, New York. The event started at 9:00 a.m. and ended at 1:00 p.m., with a free lunch provided.
The clergy were greeted at an entrance gate of the 174th Attack Wing by killer-drone resisters with signs like “Drones Fly, Children Die” and “Love Your Enemies”; even Pope Francis (a Pax Christi member) was there with his white alb and beanie and sign with photos of children killed by U.S. drones.
All religious denominations were invited, and the largest in the Syracuse area, Roman Catholic, was sent the invitation by the Chaplain at the 174th. The invitation to Catholic priests and deacons came with the Imprimatur of Bishop of Syracuse, Douglas Lucia.
We spoke after the event with two Syracuse-area Catholic priests who did the tour.
Father Tim Taugher, Pastor of St Francis of Assisi Parish in Binghamton, New York, said he was “exhausted after the session.” Fr. Tim was well aware of what the 174th was doing and had participated in several protests at the base over the past 15 years. “The Attack Wing tour was sanitized to the point that I thought I would get sick. The military guides showed no sense of compassion nor remorse for doing what they said was their duty “to eliminate terrorists.”
Fr. Fred Daley, Pastor of All Saints Church in Syracuse, told how the Air Force facilitators of the tour pointed to a large screen showing an MQ9 Reaper Drone hovering at that moment over nearby Lake Ontario. The drone’s optics showed a small boat thousands of feet below.
The Air Force guide noted that the stories about many civilians killed by drones are myths. He then zoomed in on the boat below. A family was on board the boat, and the magnification, even of faces, was very good. “We know who we have to take out. We don’t make mistakes.”
Upstate Drone Action, a peace and justice team, has been doing non-violent actions at the base since 2009. Many dozens of people have been arrested and jailed, and some have spent months in nearby Janesville Penitentiary on trespass charges or obstructing government administration. Upstate Drone Action members have blocked gates along with solidarity members from Syracuse Peace Council, Ithaca Catholic Worker, Veterans For Peace, Pax Christi, Jewish Voice for Peace, CodePink, Peace Action, and others.
The 15-year history of opposition to the base once had its 174th Attack Commandant brag that Afghanistan was their main target. What other people in other lands were targeted is not for public information.
In 2013, 31 people were arrested for lying down at the entryway to the 174th killer drone base. They had delivered a letter to the main gate before lying down: We, the people, charge the U.S. President, Barack Obama, and the full military chain of command, to Commander Colonel Greg Semmel, every drone crew, and service members at Hancock Air Base, with crimes against humanity, with violations of part of the Supreme Law of the Land, extrajudicial killings, violation of due process, wars of aggression, violation of national sovereignty, and killing of innocent civilians.
In 2015, on the 12th anniversary of the attack on Iraq, Ithaca Catholic workers and artists Dan Burgevin and Ellen Grady blocked the entryway with “Great Books,” six-foot-tall books such as Dirty Wars by Jeremy Scahill, and the United Nations Charter.
In January 2016, Jerry Berrigan, the then recently deceased lesser known brother of Phil and Dan Berrigan, stood in 30 life size cutouts to block the entrance to the 174th Attack Wing main gate.
Upstate Drone Action has had many memorable street theater actions at the main gate to the assassination base. On Good Friday, 2017, the entrance was blocked with the crucified Christ and two resisters to Roman authority. Jesus was enacted by Ed Kinane who was in Baghdad as a U.S. citizen observer when the Americans invaded in March 2003.
Investigative reporting by New York Times reporter Azmat Khan revealed the lies of the Pentagon and how they hid civilian deaths by U.S. drones: not just occasional “mistakes” but rather thousands of people killed over the years of U.S. occupation of Afghanistan dating back to 2001.
On August 29, 2021, as Americans were leaving Afghanistan, a parting shot from the U.S. MQ9 Reaper fired on the Ahmadi family of Kabul. The slaughter included seven children and three adults. Whereas drone killings investigated by Ms. Khan were in mostly remote interior regions of Afghanistan with reporters only rarely available, multiple international reporters were in Kabul when the U.S. Reaper drone murdered the Ahmadi family. There was no way the Pentagon could deny this attack.
Was the trigger pulled by a drone pilot sitting on his or her fanny at the 174th Attack Wing in Syracuse? The U.S. Air Force will neither confirm nor deny the crew’s location.
It appears from the limited information released by the 174th Attack Wing that Syracuse is now a major training base for killer drone pilots.
Its main sister training bases are at Creech, Nevada, and Holloman at Alamogordo, New Mexico.
General Atomics of Southern California makes the MQ9 Reaper drone near Disneyland, and Lockheed Martin manufactures the Hellfire missiles just a few miles from Disney World in Florida.
Please find your own metaphor.
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About the Author
Jack is an anti-drone activist.
His plays and novels focus on young men and women who resist war. You can read more at www.bensalmon.org.
Jack can be reached at: jgilroy1955@gmail.com.
