Peace Groups to Protest Cluster Munitions at Weapons Factory 

Share

A coalition of U.S. peace organizations will hold a rally on Saturday, July 22 at 11 a.m. ET at the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant “to oppose sending cluster bombs, and all weapons, into the Ukraine War.”

See “Scranton ammunition plant makes artillery shells for the war in Ukraine,” when the Secretary of the Army visited the weapons factory earlier this year.

The groups state: “the production of 11,000 artillery shells a month cannot keep up with the demand for killing. …

“That the U.S. would even consider sending cluster bombs into the Ukraine War, supposedly to make up for the lack of artillery shells, is horrifying and also clarifying.

“It reveals to the world just how little the U.S. cares for Ukrainian people and their futures and the futures of the Russian people. Corporations reaping bloody profits from cluster bombs are the only beneficiaries of this tragic policy and this war. … The Scranton Army Ammunition Plant is operated by General Dynamics, the fourth largest U.S. weapons producer, with revenue of $38.5 billion in 2022. …“Cluster bombs prove how ready the U.S. is to turn Ukraine into a desperate, barely governable country like Afghanistan or Iraq, where it also used cluster bombs, as one more way to dominate those nations and control their resources.“Cluster bombs expose the lengths to which the U.S. government is willing to go, the suffering that it is willing to cause, and the proxies that it is willing to exploit in its ceaseless effort to dominate the planet. “We must note as well that precedents set by the United States on the use of cluster bombs and the deployment of nuclear weapons to other countries are being used as excuses by Russia to do the same, and that the last remaining taboo — that against the use of nuclear weapons, must be upheld for the sake of continuing life in Earth.”The rally takes place in Biden’s hometown and they have asked him to attend. The groups call on him to “announce that the U.S. wants an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and the start of negotiations to end the war, and an immediate halt to all U.S. weapons shipments into the Ukraine War and the removal of U.S. nuclear weapons and weaponized drones from Europe.” The speakers at the rally include David Swanson, executive director, World BEYOND War; Martha Hennessy, granddaughter of Dorothy Day and formerly imprisoned nuclear war protester and Dennis Hill, Black Alliance for Peace. Among the other endorsers are the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Veterans For Peace, CODEPINK, Pax Christi USA and Ban Killer Drones.