Drones Protest by Lehigh Valley Peace Activists Saturday

Lehigh Valley peace activists will travel Saturday to a drone protest at the northern end of Easton Road in front of the Horsham Air Guard Station. The protest will be held from noon to 2 p.m.

The demonstration will include large banners and signs decrying plans to establish the drone command center in Horsham. If established, the center would feature computer “drone pilots” who would, by remote-control, launch drone missile strikes against targets and people thousands of miles away. 

The protest will include music, the reading of the names of U.S. drone strike victims in Pakistan and their stories; bell-tolling, chanting, and a 10-foot-long drone replica that will stand near the Horsham Air Guard Station identification logo.   

According to protest organizer Robert Smith of the Brandywine Peace Community, “Drone strikes ‘piloted’ from command centers in the continental U.S. against targets in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia have killed thousands of civilians, many of them children. Remote-controlled killing, delivering death, is all the drone command center in Horsham would do. So much more could be done in our communities if the billions spent on killing people and causing hatred toward the United States were instead used for housing, health care, green technology, any of which would produce far more jobs than a drone war command center in Horsham.” 

In March, the U.S. Air Force announced its selection of the PA Air National Guard’s 11th Fighter Wing for the new drone command center set to begin operation by Oct. 1, 2013, at the Horsham Air Guard Base. 

Monthly protests will continue throughout the summer on the last Saturday of the month from noon to 2 pm at the corner of Route 611/Easton and County Line roads. 

For local information about future protests, contact the LEPOCO Peace Center, Bethlehem (610-691-8730).   

Other protests and educational events, as well as visits with elected officials, are being planned as part of the group’s “Stop It Before It Starts” anti-drone command center campaign.