The report begins: "The National Air and Space Museum in Washington was closed Saturday after anti-war demonstrators swarmed the building to protest a drone exhibit and security guards used pepper spray to repel them, sickening a number of protesters."
A protester, sprayed in the face with pepper spray at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, 10/08/11. (video image: OpEdNews)
Guards Pepper-Spray Protesters at DC Drone Display
09 October 11
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he National Air and Space Museum in Washington was closed Saturday after anti-war demonstrators swarmed the building to protest a drone exhibit and security guards used pepper spray to repel them, sickening a number of protesters.
Smithsonian spokesman John Gibbons said a large group of demonstrators, estimated at 100 to 200 people, arrived at about 3 p.m. and tried to enter the National Mall museum. When a security guard stopped group members from entering, saying they could not bring in signs, he was apparently held by demonstrators, Gibbons said. A second guard who arrived used pepper spray on at least one person and the crowd dispersed, he added.
A number of groups have been demonstrating in the city in the past week. The group that arrived at the museum Saturday included individuals taking part in the October 2011 Stop the Machine demonstration in the city's Freedom Plaza, which has an anti-war and anti-corporate greed message. The group also included protesters affiliated with Occupy DC, a group modeled on the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City. Occupy DC has been holding marches and meetings in Washington's McPherson Square.
David Swanson, 41, of Charlottesville, Va., said he was among dozens of people sickened by the pepper spray. He said he got sick even though he was outside the building when the spraying began.
"I began choking and vomiting and got a headache," Swanson said.
Swanson, who says he has been part of the Freedom Plaza protest, says protesters were not looking to shut down the museum but to make a point about the massive military spending and the use of deadly drones. He said the security officers got aggressive after some protesters unfurled a protest banner inside.
He posted videos on his blog, warisacrime.org, that shows a security officer yelling "Get back" as pepper spray is apparently used. Several people fell to the ground outside in agony as others coughed, rubbed their eyes and fled the building.
Pete Piringer, a DC fire department spokesman, told The Associated Press on Saturday evening that medics treated or evaluated a dozen people at the scene but that no one was seriously hurt by the pepper spray.
Legba Carrefour, who is working with Occupy DC, said a number of individuals joined the march to the museum following an afternoon meeting of the group.
Ann Wilcox, a lawyer working with Stop the Machine, said a 19-year-old woman from Madison, Wis., was arrested by police. She paid a fine and was released later Saturday. Wilcox said the protesters went to the Air and Space museum to demonstrate against a drone exhibit.
The museum has an exhibit, "Military Unmanned Aerial Vehicles," that covers the history of unmanned aircraft and their current use as offensive weapons. Drones are often called the weapon of choice of the Obama administration, which quadrupled drone strikes against al-Qaida targets in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, up from less than 50 under the Bush administration to more than 220 in the past three years.
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Go Spain!!!!!
"In May 1968, the Israeli government paid US$3,323,500 (US$22.6 million 2015) in compensation to the families of the 34 men killed in the attack. In March 1969, Israel paid a further $3,566,457 to the men who had been wounded. On 18 December 1980, it agreed to pay $6 million as settlement for the final U.S. bill of $17,132,709 for material damage to Liberty herself plus 13 years' interest".
Wonder what kind of compensation the US Government gave to the governments of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos after US Gen. Curtis LeMay said the US Military would, "bomb them (SE Asians) back to the stone age", and actually ended up killing about 3 million of those citizens in a false flag war.
Radical Muslim savages are blowing up everything in sight and this place instead chooses to go on bender on a tired notion of Spain
reigniting its own proud Inquistional heritage with this idiotic indictment, Worse, these stupid articles are the rallying dog whistle for the same clutch of roach posters that scatter their spew forth whenever another Israel smear hits these pages. 3 radical Islamic scumbags stabbed a Jewish teacher in Marseilles today..YET NOT A Frickin WORD about it on these pages of perpetual vitriol towards Israel and Jews. Israel for all its warts, is still a tiny productive democracy in an ocean of scum degenerate regimes that put women
In gunny sacks and generally perpetuate teeming populations
of brainless poverty ruled over by a few super rich and paramountly selfish families or depots. For all this mewling about the poor oppressed Palestinians, when they controlled Jerusalem no Jews were allowed and raw sewage ran in the "holy" streets.
And if given the chance, they'd have it back that way and all the
Jews driven into the sea. They bet and lost. Deal with their deceit.,
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/05/ultra-orthodox-jewish-sect-belz-women-driver-ban-illegal-equality-commission
I don't care whose "side" you're on, language of this kind does nothing to promote either peace or kindness in the world.
"Let there be anger management, and let it begin with me."
If you're unaware of the level of overt hostility that informs your every comment, you're seriously in need of therapy. The "raw sewage" with which you seem obsessed has its source in your own mind. Try a little gentleness.
The "indingenous" Palestinians, instead of staying put, heeded the siren call of their savage brethren, a coalition of brave Arab horde nations ..."clear out, while we murder all these Jews and then
come back to your land and have theirs too!" .so they did and the
military Mensas w/ a 20-1 advantage bent on mass slaughter....
Got Beat?.....the poor indigenous "bet and lost"...deal with it
...had it gone according to the odds, all the Jews would be gravemarkers nobody would care, and sewage would still run in the streets of Jerusalem...
United Ststes territory and yet this tiny splinter where there is more
Productivity and democracy than on any of those vast expanses of
Wastelands. suppression of women, ignorance and impoverishment.
yeah they need to have it...for what? Raw sewage as ran in the streets of Jerusalem when they controlled it?
Garzon is a courageous hero.
BDS NOW.