Mary Papenfuss - Veterans vs. Trump: Pipeline Will Never Be Built
U.S. military veterans
have thrown down the gauntlet to the Trump administration, vowing that the Dakota Access Pipeline will “not be completed— not on
our watch.” Veterans Stand, a group of vets who have vowed to protect
the pipeline protesters of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation and supporters,
ominously threatened the possibility of more “boots on the ground” at the
site — but also repeated their commitment to nonviolent action. The group
is capable of calling up several thousand veterans to the protest site.
“We are committed to
the people of Standing Rock, we are committed to nonviolence, and we will do
everything within our power to ensure that the environment and human life are respected,”
spokesman Anthony Diggs told CNBC. “That pipeline will not get completed. Not
on our watch.”
The latest defiant
declaration follows the arrest Wednesday of nearly 80 protesters camped out at
the demonstration site near the town of Cannon Ball, North Dakota, amid
the Trump administration’s determined press to push through the controversial
pipeline. Local law enforcement said the protesters were arrested when they
moved from one of their camps onto land owned by pipeline operator Energy Transfer Partners.
The renewed pressure
on the protesters drove donations to a GoFundMe site established last week by
Veterans Stand to $105,000 in six days. Trump late last month signed
an executive order to advance construction of the pipeline just weeks
after the Army Corps of Engineers had held up the pipeline by calling for a new
environmental review that could taken up to two years. Financial
disclosure filings by the president have revealed that as recently as last
summer he owned shares in Energy Transfer Partners, and company CEO Kelcy Warren
contributed $100,000 to elect Trump, Mother Jones reported.
The arrests at the
protest site occurred the day after Acting Secretary of the Army Robert Speer
ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to abandon the environmental review
and grant Energy Transfer Partners the final easement it needs to complete the
last stretch of the $3.7 billion, 1,172-mille-long pipeline. Protesters have vowed
to stand their ground. The Standing Rock tribe says the planned section of the
pipeline where they’re encamped would travel through sacred burial grounds,
would violate an 1857 treaty and would threaten precious water resources. They
have vowed to launch a new legal challenge to the pipeline, arguing that the
Army Corps of Engineers lacks the authority to halt the environment review that
it had just launched weeks ago.
Before Trump moved
into the White House, the Corps denied the easement to the pipeline company in
early December, declaring that the best option would be to consider other
routes by conducting a thorough environmental review.
Forgiveness
Ceremony Unites Veterans And Natives At Standing Rock ... In
celebration of Standing Rock protesters' victory
