Peace activists at Beale denounce drones

They got smiles, chuckles, peace signs and some angry comments from motorists driving onto Beale Air Force Base.

Six stalwart peace activists — one carrying a baby doll covered in fake blood, another playing protest songs on a folk guitar — also took part in an unexpected cross-cultural dialogue while standing at the approach to Main Gate on North Beale Road on Tuesday morning.

Beside a large banner that read, "Kill the Drones, Not Innocent People. Support Peace," the demonstrators, who had come from as far away as Seattle and as close as Smartsville, voiced anti-war sentiments, and specific anti-drone — unmanned aerial vehicle — protests.

"Do drones make the world a safer place?" asked Eleanor Levine, who left her Oakland home at 3:30 a.m. in order to position herself for Beale's rush hour. "The answer is 'no.'"

"Every time they (armed drones) bomb a wedding by mistake," said Jeff Gottesman of Nevada City, "they create a hundred new suicide bombers."

"They need to be thinking about what they're doing, and looking at their conscience," Levine said of the U.S. military.

The protesters — members of Bay Area CodePINK Women for Peace , and the Peace Center of Nevada County — were undeterred by the fact that armed drones are not operated out of Beale. The base is home to the RQ-4 Global Hawk, an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft.

Other UAVs such as the MQ-9 Reaper are equipped with Global Positioning System-guided weapons systems and are operated from Creech Air Force Base outside Las Vegas, and elsewhere.

The small demonstration did not go uncontested.

Glenn Gould of Linda pulled up alongside the protesters to offer his own perspective on missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the U.S. military, in general.

Giving members of the armed forces at Beale a hard time, he said, is not the way to go.

"A lot of these people have no choice but to join the military," he said. "There ain't no jobs out there."

He agreed on one point.

"I don't think we should be there," Gould said of conflicts in the Middle East.

His reasons, however, differed from those of the demonstrators.

"Bring them freedom and what do they do?" he said. "They start killing each other."

Gould, a self-described tea party member and lifetime member of the National Rifle Association , took on Toby Blome, one of the demonstration's organizers from the Bay Area, who donned a pink beret and made references to the Vietnam War.

People had fought and died for the freedom that allowed her to protest, Gould told her.

"War did not bring my freedom," Blome responded tersely. "The soldiers laid down their guns."

"It was our government that lost that war. Period," Gould argued.

Gottesman redirected the history debate to the Middle East.

"We're fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida," he said. "Do you know who funded those guys in the first place? We did."

"We have the right to get Bin Laden's butt and hang it from the nearest tree," said Gould.

A musical break took the protesters back with an anti-Vietnam War tune.

"We'd love to have some of the tea party people come and join us," Gottesman said of the demonstration. "They (tea party members) don't like the idea of spending trillions of dollars on wars that are just making Halliburton rich at the expense of the U.S. treasury."

"Think of this as a reconnaissance action," he said, jokingly.

"We're going to make this a monthly vigil," said Levine.

"I don't care for liberals," Gould said, shaking his head. "But everyone has a right to their own ideas."

CONTACT Nancy Pasternack at 749-4712 or at npasternack@appealdemocrat.com .