CodePink Protests Fleet Week, Advocating for Global Peace

By Daniel Rivera, Reporter 

On May 25, San Pedro kicked off Fleet Week,  by welcoming the air craft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson,to port. Amongst the excited crowds of hundreds of people waiting in some cases for 3 hours, and standing just outside the line, a small handful of protestors from CodePink who are protesting the display of militarism with their alternative, Peace Week to celebrate life, peace an end to ongoing conflict. 

“We have been out here for 9 years, ever since the beginning of Fleet Week, to say no to US militarism, which is leading the whole world into militarism,” Rachel Bruhnke said. They want the United States to shift its resources away from millitary spending and towards civilian investment. 

“What helps us is more jobs, jobs, education, healthcare, and homes, the values that say humanity deserve to live, the children in Gaza deserve to live.” John Parker, an advocate with the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice said. Many orgs came out in solidarity with Code Pink, besides the Harriet Tubman Center and the Famillies of Millitary Veterans. 

 The United States spend more on its military than the next 9 nations combined according to the  Stockholm International Peace research Institute while the US ranks 11 in healthcare ranking amongst high income countries according to the Commonwealth Fund.. 

“When we say we are balancing climate emission, we have these global treaties, global climate agreements, they are exempt from the Kyoto protocols, and the Paris Climate Agreement,” Jack Eidt, the host of EcoJustice Radio said.  At the behest of the U.S., reporting military emissions was largely exempted from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the document that set binding emissions targets for nations that signed. The 2015 Paris Agreement overturned the old exemption but still did not require reporting of military emissions.

Most military vehicles use a “single fuel,” which is meant to be used across all vehicles, air or on land but many of those same land vehicles can also still take diesel energy. According to the Watson Institute, the United States Department of Defense use about 77% of all the government energy expenditures and contribute more pollution than Sweden, Portugal and Denmark. 

Palestine is at the forefront of the protests. CodePink  believe that the US is enabling the genocide of Palestinians through it’s actions against any and all international action or condemnation of Israel like threatening the Criminal Court Prosecting Israeli officials of alleged war crimes during the campaign and veteoing all attempts at recognizing Palestinian statehood. 

“All they want is peace so that they can survive the disaster, so that they don’t have to be a number,” Emily Debinie, a Christian Palestinian said. She was born in Nazereth, she explained that people like her are forgotten about in the Israel-Palestine, with Jews versus Muslims when in reality both have very large minorities of both. 

“Last two weeks, Zeitoun neighborhood was under massive attacks, majority christian neighborhood, three churches getting attacked is not self-defense, that is ethnic cleansing,” and “a permanent and immediate ceasefire is required for peace,” she said. Israel has been condemned for indiscriminate attacks on civillians, especially as they begin to probe the outer areas of Rafah but also with the use of munitions aimed at a wide range of civillian targets.

“We see the torpedoes along the harbor. We see the the USS Iowa. It is not a happy symbol, and it’s not a symbol of patriotism for me or a lot of other families who suffered from the wars. We are afraid. Especially because of what hapopened in Gaza,” Pat Alveso said. She is a mother of a marine who has been on six deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and is an advocate with Millitary Families Speak Out, which was formed  in 2002 in opposition to the Iraq War. 

The group is critical of the United States military alliances with Taiwan, Israel and Ukraine involving billions in military equipment and for the first two, continous backing for decades which they believe are aggressive postures to take on the world stage. 

CodePink will be onsite for the entirety of fleet week and up until the 29.