Around two dozen peace and anti-militarism activists, under the umbrella of CodePink‘s #CutThePentagon campaign, rallied outside Senator Jack Reed‘s downtown Providence office on Friday, before marching to the office of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in protest of the $768 billion defense budget that is poised to pass the United States Senate before Christmas. The proposed budget is a $27 billion increase from the current year’s military budget.

Activists demanded that Senators Reed and Whitehouse vote against this expenditure and more broadly move to reduce future military authorizations and budgets. The activists noted that this increase in military spending comes at a time when President Biden’s Build Back Better legislation is being reduced and scaled back.

Activists also advocated

• AGAINST the $650 Billion in military weapon sales to Saudi Arabia, a government engaged in war against the Yemeni people;
• FOR Senators Reed and Whitehouse to support and work to ratify the 2021 United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons; and,
• AGAINST the removal of key provisions in the legislation, championed by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (Democrat-New York), “that would have taken commanders out of the decision to prosecute most major crimes.”

The coalition of anti-war Rhode Island groups present at the rally included East Bay Citizens for Peace, No Endless War or Excessive Militarism, Action Corps RI, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Justice Team, Pax Christi RI, RI Anti-war Committee, RI Poor People’s Campaign and more.

Jonathan Daly-LaBelle emceed the speaking portion of the protest. He introduced Nancy Hood of the group East Bay Citizens for Peace.

“I’m fed up” said Nancy Hood. “And I find it morally reprehensible that my government is spending more of my tax dollars every year to give to the bloated Pentagon budget.”

Speaking on the United States’ continued support of the Saudi War on Yemen, David Oppenheimer said, “It’s appalling. We’re going to have a 90 day investigation to see if the Saudis have bombed civilian targets in Yemen.

“That in itself is ridiculous. We’ve had reports. They can show you the serial numbers on the bombs.”

“I understand the military industrial complex -that many local and the federal delegation, defense organizations and groups – are invested in this war machine,” said Enrique Sanchez, an educator in Providence Public Schools. “Because that’s what drives our economy. There’s money to wage war in the Middle East, money to stage coups in Latin America and Africa…”

“Year after year, no matter who’s in office, the military spending goes up,” said Andrew Poyant, a candidate Providence City Council. “And there’s so many things that aren’t getting funded. Right now, with Covid still running rampant, we aren’t making sure that people in the global south have equal access to vaccines as we have here. That is the defense that we need to be spending money on…”

The $776 billion that they spend on the military will create a certain number of jobs,” said Greg Gerritt. “But if you took that $768 billion and spent it on almost anything else – solving climate change, ending hunger, building housing, building schools, staffing schools – we would create more jobs.”

The United States has ignored a treaty, ratified by over 54 countries, that would ban nuclear weapons, said William Smith. “Actually, under Trump, they said they would never, never join it,” noted Smith. “But we’d like to see our country join this treaty and make nuclear weapons illegal.”

“I am here to protest the way Senator Reed has single-handedly gutted Senator Gillibrand’s very important bill which would have protected our servicewomen and servicemen in the military from sexual assault,” said Rhode Island resident Susannah Halloway. “He has taken out the two key provisions of [Gillibrand’s] bill. He did it behind closed doors. He did it after he indicated he would not do it, so he’s a liar.”