Around 50 people gathered in Shannon on Sunday October 9th to remember the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan by the US. Thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed since the invasion on Oct 7th 2001, and millions have been displaced from their homes. Corruption is rife, and the country has no effective infrastructure.

The protestors called on the Irish government to end its support for the failed occupation of a country that has had three decades of armed conflict. Ireland has been involved from the start, with over 600 US troops a day still going to and from Afghanistan through Shannon Airport.

Full report available at:  http://www.shannonwatch.org/blog/decade-war-remembering-victims.

D.C./U.S.A. - Protesters pepper sprayed at the National Air & Space Museum


Protesters pepper sprayed at the National Air & Space Museum
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...nyUI#!

Protesters Pepper Sprayed in DC
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...DKmes

Opednews.com: protesters pepper sprayed at Air Space Museum
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...ect=1

The above 3 youtube links from the below e-mail:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Swanson

Pepper-Sprayed for Peace

By David Swanson
 http://warisacrime.org/pepper

I've been coughing and vomiting, and my head aches from pepper spray.
I'll post videos and photos of why at the link above.

We intended to hold signs and sing inside the Smithsonian Air and
Space Museum, protesting its promotion of unmanned drones, missiles,
and bombs, including its sponsorship by and promotion of weapons
corporations. We don't have any museums promoting health coverage or
education or retirement security.

We had marched from the Freedom Plaza and McPherson Square
occupations, taking over the streets of DC. The museum knew we were
coming. Some of our group got in and dropped a banner. Hundreds of
us did not. Instead, we were greeted at the door with cans of pepper
spray.

There were three sets of entrance doors. I was among the first to
open the third set of doors. A guard shook a can of pepper spray in
front of me and demanded that we back out. But a dozen feet away at
the second set of doors, people were staggering out and collapsing in
pain, having been pepper sprayed in the face. I started to go toward
them, but began coughing and vomiting. A lot of people were effected,
directly or -- like me -- indirectly by the pepper spray.

It is not true that we assaulted the police. Nobody was accused of or
charged with that. I didn't hear about it until later from the media.
A young woman named Thi Le was told she'd be charged with assaulting
a police officer after she was pepper sprayed and handcuffed, but they
switched the charge to disorderly conduct and released her a few hours
later.

It is not true that they only pepper sprayed one person. Many people
were pepper sprayed.

It is not true that the crowd dispersed. The guards locked the doors
and closed the museum. We had not planned to close the museum but to
demonstrate and leave. With the museum closed and one of our own in
custody, we held a rally on the steps as more people made their way
over from Freedom Plaza to join us. We were there for hours.

We will be here for as long as it takes.
Congress comes back to this town on Tuesday.
We're ready.
We're nonviolent.
We're not scared.
We're not discouraged.
We're not fooled.
We've got demands as clear as a blue sky:
Occupy Wall Street
Occupy K Street
Occupy Everything
And Never Give it Back!

Catholic Workers Protest Nuclearism & Drones in Nevada

(Las Vegas, NV, USA) About 100 people held an interfaith Sunday service at
the entrance to Nevada's nuclear testing grounds this morning. After
the prayers, the group walked towards the Nevada National Security
Site (NNSS, formerly called the Nevada Test Site). At 11:30am 37 men
and 22 women were arrested there by Nye County Sheriffs.

Upon release, many of the nuclear abolitionists then went to Creech
Air Force Base (CAFB), where 18 were arrested at 3:00pm by Clark
County police (names listed below in detail).

The activists at both locations were arrested for the same reason of
praying for peace at these two locations in historical Shoshone and
Paiute territory. Most of the arrestees affiliate with the
international Catholic Worker movement, started in 1933 by Dorothy Day
and Peter Maurin.

Over 200 radical pacifists from around North America swelled the ranks
of local activists because of the international Catholic Worker (CW)
gathering in Las Vegas October 7 and 8
 http://www.lvcw.org/gathering2011.htm Today's CW antinuclear,
anti-drone demonstrations mark the 10th tragic anniversary of the US
invasion of Afghanistan. CAFB is the headquarters of the USAF's 432nd
Air Wing of Predator and Reaper drones which operates armed remotely
piloted aircraft in various foreign countries. The NNSS continues to
support the country's nuclear weapons programs, has a mandate to
restart full-scale nuclear bomb tests within two years if so ordered
by the President, and receives and stores radioactive waste on land
that belongs to the Western Shoshone Nation.

Those arrested at CAFB, awaiting release from jail and prosecution, are:
Matt Campbell (24) from Arizona
Huntley Hoffman (25) from Arizona
Nancy Mancias (41) from Arizona
Betsy Lamb (72) from Arizona
Fr. Jerry Zawada, (74) ofm from Arizona
John Heid (56) from Arizona
Toby Blome (56) from California
Mike Wisniewski (62) from California
Christine Nelson (64) from California
Fr. Louis Vitale, ofm (79) from California
Mary Moody (47) from Iowa
Brian Terrell (56) from Iowa
Rosalie Riegle (74) from Michigan
Rebecca Lambert (28) Minnesota
Theo Kayser (21) from Missouri
Robert Majors (24) from Las Vegas, Nevada
Jim Haber (49) from Las Vegas, Nevada
Rachel Winch (27) from Wisconsin

For more info and updates contact:
Brian Terrell brian AT vcnv.org, Catholic Worker,
-----

Statement from Las Vegas Catholic Worker Gathering
(On the 10th Anniversary of the U.S. Bombing and Invasion of Afghanistan)

We Catholic Workers from around North America gather in Las Vegas on
this 10th anniversary of the U.S. bombing and invasion of Afghanistan
with the theme “From Empire to Servanthood.” We renounce all
war-making as a affront to the God of Creation and we reject the false
gods and religion of Empire that dominate our national spirit. We call
on our church and nation to join us in repenting for the violence the
U.S. has inflicted, and make reparations to all of its victims at home
and in Afghanistan as well as in Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere.
At this critical point in history, when we face unending wars, nuclear
perils, occupations, and economic collapse, when human life and
creation itself has become so devalued and killing has become the
norm; when greed, exploitation, racism and discrimination are at the
heart of social injustice; when our earth and environment is
endangered as never before; we recommit ourselves to the God of
creation that calls us to revere all life as sacred, and to resist the
way of violence, oppression, and empire.

As we hear the cry of the suffering and the poor of our country and
world, we demand that all resources being squandered for weapons and
war be instead spent to meet urgent human needs.

As the U.S. government continues its immoral and illegal occupation of
Afghanistan and Iraq, and its murderous drone attacks, especially in
Pakistan, we recall the words of Dorothy Day regarding U.S. war-making
during World War II:

"We are at war, a declared war, with Japan, Germany, and Italy. But
still we can repeat Christ's words, each day, holding them close in
our hearts, each month printing them in the paper... We will print the
words of Christ who is with us always, even to the end of the world.
"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those
who persecute you ...” In The Catholic Worker we will quote our Pope,
our saints, our priests. We will go on printing the articles which
remind us today that we are all called to be saints, that we are other
Christs, reminding us of the priesthood of the laity...We are still
pacifists. Our manifesto is the Sermon on the Mount, which means that
we will try to be peacemakers."

Yes, we are still pacifists. In the name of Jesus who calls us to love
unconditionally and be peacemakers, we call on all followers of Jesus
to embrace and practice the Gospel of Nonviolence. We urge our church
leadership to break their silence and prophetically proclaim Christ's
gospel by calling the entire nation to repent for the war crimes we
have committed. We invite them and all followers of Jesus to join us
in making the following appeal to the political, military and economic
power structure of our nation:

--end all U.S. war-making and and military intervention throughout our
world, especially in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Pakistan.

--stop all drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen.

--stop demonizing Arabs and Muslims.

– and the US backed Israeli occupation of Palestine and support
self-determination for the Palestinians.

--disarm and abolish all conventional, biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

--close and/or convert all nuclear and conventional weapons
facilities, military bases, and military training centers like the
SOA/WHINSEC.

--stop the U.S. militarization of space.

--convert our war-based economy to one centered on serving the common
good, alleviating poverty and protecting the environment.

--initiate an equitable redistribution of the earth's resources.

--work to reverse global climate change and bring about environmental justice.

--cultivate respect for the health of the land that feeds us and
honors the people that lived on it before us.

--end the practice of torture.

--close the Guantanamo U.S. military prison, the Bagram prison in
Afghanistan, all secret black sites and detention centers, and end
indefinite detention.

--end all ROTC training programs at all levels in Catholic and public schools.

– and we must end the “war on the poor” at home by: abolishing the
death penalty, ending the practice of mass imprisonment, stopping
prisons for profit, providing housing, jobs, adequate food and health
care for ALL, taking down the wall on the US/Mexico boarder and
insuring and protecting human rights of all immigrants.

Mindful of all political prisoners, including those Catholic Workers
and other resisters imprisoned for acts of peacemaking, we commit
ourselves to nonviolently resist all forms of state-sanctioned
violence and oppression. In our efforts to come out of and resist
U.S. Empire we concluded our weekend gathering by doing nonviolent
direct actions at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site and at Creech AFB, a
center of U.S. drone warfare. In solidarity with sisters and brothers
around the world calling for an end to political repression, corporate
domination and militarism, we seek to build a new society in the shell
of the old. We commit ourselves to help create the Beloved Community
where all God's people can live together in peace with justice.
 http://www.lvcw.org/gathering2011.htm

VIDEO (15 mins)

Catholic Worker liturgy outside of Gallipoli Barracks,Brisbane, before arrests of Jim Dowling, Sean O'Reilly, Cully Palmer, Christel and Andy for blockading the gates. Australian troops deploy regularly from the barracks to the War on Afghanistan

See  http://youtu.be/H3xujqGMv6Y



**Report from Catholic Worker blockade of Gallipolli Barracks, Brisbane, Australia
by Jim Dowling, Peter Maurin CW Farm

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/10/486393.html?c=on#c273917