Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June/July 2022, pp. 59-60
Waging Peace
IN A GENERIC Palo Alto, CA industrial park sits Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center, where the military contractor does research and development for its space division. It is here where, according to the company’s website, they “create game-changing technologies.”
Nobody would argue with that assertion, as the company has many notable accomplishments, such as the development of “foundational technology that fired the first submarine-launched ballistic missile.” More recently, the company was instrumental in the development of the now controversial stealth F-35 joint strike fighter jet, as well as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), an anti-ballistic missile defense system designed to shoot down short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles.
It is precisely because of these developments that activists and pacifists from Code Pink, Pacific Life Community, the San Jose Peace and Justice Center and the Raging Grannies marched to the Advanced Technology Center on April 15 to present a petition signed by 4,100 people urging the company to shift from weapons development and manufacturing to peaceful industries. The petition represents the desires of more than 100 worldwide organizations that have endorsed the #StopLockheedMartin campaign.
The group of 20 activists marched from a major intersection in the downtown area to the facility, where they were met by a security detail that barred them from entering the property. Before turning over the petition to a company security official who promised to pass it along, three members of the group read a general statement aloud next to the Lockheed Martin sign that identifies the property.
Lockheed Martin has long been known for bloating U.S. defense spending. For the F-35 program alone, in 2007 the company self-reported overbilling the government to the tune of $265 million in an “accounting error.”
The company’s weapons are also notorious for being used in attacks that result in civilian deaths. In one of its more infamous and deadlier moments, one of the company’s 500-pound laser-guided Mk 82 bombs called the GBU-12 Paveway II was used by the Saudi Arabian military in August of 2018 to bomb a school bus in Yemen, killing dozens of children.
The demonstration concluded with the Raging Grannies singing a song about how the company’s drones are used by the U.S. Air Force and CIA in their ongoing campaigns around the globe:
“Now killing’s a breeze when you’re safe overseas and your victims are dots on a screen, with your mouse you take aim like a video game, and you can’t hear their terror-filled screams.
Drones, drones in the sky, with the purpose of killing they fly, and their bombs when they hit off the target a bit, many innocent people will die.”
—Phil Pasquini
