Direct Action

November 10, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Armistice Day First

“After the War a Medal and Maybe a Job.” Cartoon by John French Sloan, 1914

It gets harder to commemorate World War I, because of time and the public’s embrace of or indifference to a permanent war economy.

About the Great War British novelist H.G. Wells wrote on August 14, 1914, “This is already the vastest war in history. … For this is now a war for peace. It aims straight at disarmament. It aims at a settlement that shall stop this sort of thing for ever. Every soldier who fights against Germany now is a crusader against war. This, the greatest of all wars, is not just another war — it is the last war!”

Optimists said it would be short. Instead, it was the worst bloodbath to date with an estimated 16 to 37 million dead. Combat and other acts of war killed at least 7 million civilians and over 10 million military personnel, while diseases, hunger, pogroms and targeted genocide killed millions more. Rather than “for ever” stopping war, the unprecedented wartime profiteering and victor’s imposition of vengeful reparations the set the stage for World War II’s 70 million fatalities, and the nearly continuous string of money-making legalized murder that has continued since. One low estimate is that since “war to end all war,” about 100 million people have died in war zones.

Armistice Day was established in 1919 to revere the peace, and to remember and commemorate WW I’s the suffering, horror, fear, pain, and loss. In 1918, the headlines roared: “Armistice Signed, End of the War!” and Armistice Day was grounded in the near universal revulsion against war’s dreadful costs, futility, graft, pointlessness and particularly against the corruptions of the politicians who prolonged the conflict. Today’s US governments all spend hundreds of billions on weapons production jobs that our xenophobic fearmongering and its consequent wars sustain. As long as US allies keep trading their oil and cash for US guns, even barbaric, medieval dictatorships like Saudi Arabia (which has beheaded 600 prison convicts since 2014) are coddled, pampered, guided and supplied militarily in its ghastly war of deliberately induced pandemics and malnutrition against Yemen.

In September 2014, on a visit to Italy’s largest military cemetery the Pope warned of a “piecemeal” World War III that may have already begun — with dozens of ongoing, undeclared wars, official crimes, state-sponsored fighter jet and drone attacks, and specialized commando raids the world over. A short list of current warring includes US combat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia; civil wars in Nigeria, Maghreb, Libya, and South Sudan; and the Mexican drug war. Pope Francis said about all this, “Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, and destruction.”

“Politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organizing nothing better than legalized mass murder.” — Harry Patch, pictured, the last surviving soldier of World War I, 2007. Photo: Shaun Curry/AFP/Getty Images.

In 1954, Armistice Day was replaced with Veterans Day, and so our public celebration of peace and an end to war became a rally to “support the troops,” a state and federal day off, and a platform for military recruitment. Not everyone was pleased. The novelist Kurt Vonnegut, a World War II veteran and POW, later wrote, “Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ Day is not. So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things.”

Two critics of World War I come to mind. Montana Congresswoman Jannette Rankin said, “You can no more win a war than win an earthquake,” and in his statement during his Court Martial in 1918, Max Plowman said: “I am resigning my commission because I no longer believe that war can end war. War is a disorder, and disorder cannot breed order. Doing evil that good may come is apparent folly.” — John LaForge.

This was written for the Duluth Reader Weekly,

http://duluthreader.com/articles/2018/11/08/15056_armistice_day_first

October 24, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Presidential Nuclear Nonsense

In the 1980s, hundreds of thousands marched in German towns against US intermediate range Pershing nuclear missiles. Upper right banner says: “Missiles out of Heilbronn [pop. 122,000] and off to the Pentagon”

The Reagan Administration’s 1980s crazy talk of “winning” nuclear war with “only” 20 million US dead produced a lot of anti-nuclear activism — all over the world. In Europe, hundreds of thousands marched against the placement of US Cruise and Pershing II missiles in NATO countries.

Fear of nuclear war and anger over presidential ignorance of it also produced the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF. The treaty banned nuclear-armed missiles in Europe with a range of 270-to-2970 miles. About 2,700 missiles were destroyed by 1991, a deal that weapons salesmen like President !#&$! don’t like.

What the British, German, Dutch and Belgian marching masses were so alarmed about was NATO’s plan to destroy Europe in order to save it. Former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt explained it this way: “So-called ‘flexible response’ …. means that the West … says to the Soviet Union: ‘We threaten you with a military defense strategy which foresees the early use of so-called tactical nuclear weapons.’ That means for the Germans that the West in its self-defense would destroy Germany.”

Schmidt’s description was no exaggeration. In an October 5, 2018 report by the Congressional Research Service, “flexible response” was explained similarly. “NATO’s strategy of ‘flexible response’… is designed,” the C.R.S. wrote, “to allow NATO to … be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict, with the intent of slowing or stopping [opponents] if they … advanced into Western Europe.”

Now, President !#&$! says he will withdraw from the INF treaty because he claims Russia is in violation of it. Russia denies this, noting that research and development is not banned, that its new land-based cruise missile “fully complies” with the treaty’s requirements.

These questions could all be settled with negotiations, but President !#&$! wants to get contracts for new missiles signed and the gusher of military spending pumping, so that electoral votes are bought and paid for this year, and in 2020. Last Feb. 12, the Prez boasted, “We’re increasing arsenals of virtually every weapon. If they’re not going to stop, we’re going to be so far ahead of anybody else in nuclear like you’ve never seen before.” Never mind that the president cannot speak English; he and Congress are handing hundreds of billions of your tax dollars to their friends.

• Boeing took down $14.6 billion for the year 2015, and last February, won a $6.5 billion contract from the Missile Defense Agency to complete an “a new missile field with 20 additional” ground-based interceptor rockets at Fort Greely, Alaska, according to the Washington Post. While missile defense systems have never worked, the Pentagon said the total Boeing contract would reach $12.6 billion through 2023. • Lockheed Martin, the world’s biggest arms merchant, is buried in money with $29.4 billion coming to it in 2015 under 66,000 contracts. • Raytheon was obligated to get $12.3 billion that year, including $31.8 million 464 Excalibur cannon-fired munitions that will also be sold to Sweden, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands. • General Dynamics drank up $11.8 billion building warships. • Northrop Grumman took down $9.5 billion, including the year’s portion of the (projected) $55 billion Long-Range Strike Bomber. • United Technologies nailed a cool $1 billion for a few more F-35 fighter jet engines, but was obligated to get $6.6 billion for its 24,000 contracts in 2015.

With the public demanding affordable health care, better public schools, energy efficient cars, mass transit, and safe energy production, weapons builders could instead be putting their engineering expertise to good use. Enough of our wartime frenzy of bomb-building waste and fraud may again move millions to demand a reversal.

Martin Schulz, leader of the German Social Democrats who campaigned against Angela Merkel last year, was being reasonable in September 2017 when he said, “As chancellor, I will commit Germany to having the nuclear weapons stationed here withdrawn from our country. The cap on nuclear weapons in our country must be zero.” — John LaForge

October 15, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Fall 2018 Nukewatch Quarterly Newsletter

Click the links below to access articles from our Fall 2018 Quarterly Newsletter. Page numbers show the printed pdf version of each page. Individual articles are also tagged by issue category.

Page 6

On the Bright Side

So Long to Japan’s “Breeder” of Radioactive Waste

Walkatjurra Walkabout to Ban Uranium Mines in Western Australia

The Climate’s Already Too Hot for Nuclear Power

Another Worker Exposed at Hapless Idaho Radioactive Waste Handling Site

Page 7

Nuclear Shorts

Killing Our Own: Death Toll from Nuclear Weapons Tests Continues to Rise

Nuclear War On Drugs: Minuteman Missile Base Guards Busted for Using LSD, etc.

Fukushima Cesium Found in California Wines

Pickering Reactors Win 10-Year Extension

Get Your Money Out of There!

October 15, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Nukewatch Delegation Joins Resistance to US H-bombs in Germany

Fall Quarterly 2018

Sixteen of 18 nuclear abolitionists who conducted a mass “go-in” protest at the Büchel Air Force Base in Germany July 15 pose at the base’s south entrance upon being released by the military. The 18, including activists from the US, Germany, The Netherlands and the UK—one in a wheel chair and another on crutches—gained entry by clipping through perimeter fences and razor wire in five separate places, in broad daylight, on a Sunday morning to bring attention to US hydrogen bombs deployed there, and to highlight the lax security surrounding nuclear weapons systems. One regional daily paper asked: “How could this happen?” Photo: Rolf Schlesener.

By Felice and Jack Cohen-Joppa

The demand of many Germans to rid their country of US nuclear weapons was again manifest by a 20-week-long series of protests at the Büchel Air Force Base in the Moselle River valley. The sponsoring group, Büchel is Everywhere: Nuclear Weapons-Free Now!, is a nation-wide coalition of 50 peace and justice groups dedicated to nonviolent civil resistance for nuclear abolition. Groups are invited to take responsibility for blockades and other creative protests during particular weeks, while camping on a plot of land next to the base, purchased five years ago by the coalition.

“Civil disobedience is forced on us because the government pays no attention to polite requests for dialogue or to petitions for a nuclear-free Germany. Major social changes, like the ousting of U.S. nuclear missiles from Europe in the 1980s, all require civil resistance to finally be accomplished,” said Marion Küpker, international coordinator for Büchel Is Everywhere!

After cutting through chain link and NATO wire fencing with 15 others on July 15, Marion, John and Ann unfurled a banner from DVG-VK (German Peace Society of War Resisters), the country’s oldest and largest peace organization.

As they did last year, Wisconsin-based Nukewatch brought a delegation of American nuclear abolitionists to join International Week at the camp, to demand that the small arsenal of US nuclear weapons stockpiled for NATO use at Büchel be sent back home.

After extensive planning in public meetings, and in broad daylight on Sunday, July 15, eighteen people—seven from the US, six from Germany, four from the Netherlands and one from England—cut through the perimeter fence in five places. They entered without interruption and walked around carrying banners, some for over an hour. One group got as far as the base runway before being apprehended. Three people, including Susan Crane, a Catholic Worker from California, walked through two unlocked interior gates and into a high security zone containing four suspected nuclear bunkers. The three climbed atop one bunker where they remained unnoticed for an hour. Guards finally took notice when they unfurled a banner: “Disarm B-61 Nukes”—a reference to the model number of the 20 nuclear weapons estimated to be there.

All 18 activists were eventually discovered, arrested, searched, ID’d and then released over four hours later with no charges, just an order to stay 100 meters away from the base for 24 hours. Their blockade of the gate 12 hours later brought no repercussions.

At the air base’s main gate, CeeCee Anderson from Atlanta, far left, joined members of the Youth Work Camp in displaying the 3-D illustration of a missile prevented from blasting off by chains of resistance.

A Quakers’ group action on July 23 involved timing and coordination. While some blocked the main gate in a routine way, others were poised for entry. On cue, a third group of three fence cutters went to work severing the wires, allowing a group of seven to walk through and get on the runway just as the Tornado jets that would carry the B-61s were to be taking off for practice. Once they’d cut the fence, that group slipped away to alert the base that protesters “are on your runway” and to stop the war games.

Those on the runway were detained, had their IDs checked and were released but were told they may face charges.

Later, a high-ranking air force pilot escorted by a local police officer came to the camp to complain. It was the first time in 20 years of the campaign that a pilot had ever approached the protest camp. With no sense of the irony, the officer scolded organizers, warning that the runway occupation action had endangered protesters and pilots.

“The base’s 20 thermonuclear bombs that pilots are training to use are a threat to the entire biosphere,” replied the campers, “so get your priorities in order.”

Nukewatch coordinator John LaForge remarked, “Yes, it’s hard to break into jail here in Germany. The civil police are so sophisticated that they go to extreme levels to pretend that nothing happened and that nuclear weapons bases are secure. Even German citizens who get prosecuted for ‘trespass’ and ‘damage to property’ (fences) have to refuse to pay fines at several levels to get a couple of days in the jug.”

During an action August 6, “Weapons Inspectors” reached this weapons bunker that was surrounded by an additional level of security razor wire causing suspicion that the nuclear weapons were being stored there.

Two days later, Crane, LaForge, German organizers Marion Küpker and Gerd Büntzly went to the chief prosecutor’s office in Koblenz, asking that the charge of trespass against Büntzly be dropped, unless the same charges are brought against the four Americans, including Crane and LaForge, who joined Büntzly for a go-in action to the nuclear bunkers in July, 2017. Last January, Büntzly was fined for the offense.

Crane and LaForge, equipped with a radiation monitor, made one last inspection for nuclear weapons on Hiroshima Day, August 6. They clipped through the perimeter chain-link fence and through a more secure razor wire fence inside to reach a set of previously uninspected airplane shelters. They spent an hour atop one of the shelters, recording measurements. After climbing down to inspect a second bunker, they were observed and detained by a large number of soldiers who forced them to lie face-down at gunpoint for about an hour until civilian police arrived.

“We hoped to confirm that the US has removed its nuclear bombs in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but our investigation was halted by the military,” Crane said. “The extra razor wire around the bunker, the near access to the jet runway, and the massive heavily armed military reaction to us indicates the U.S. nuclear weapons are here,” she concluded.

“Weapons Inspectors” Susan Crane and John LaForge first cut through chain link fence before entering German Air Force Base housing US nuclear weapons.

Then the “Weapons Inspectors” cut through and step over thick razor wire using a rug.

After having their identities confirmed by both military and civilian police, they were driven separately to the main gate. They waited in custody until their passports were returned, and then civilian police released Crane and LaForge at the gate.

For more information, visit nukewatchinfo.org and buechel-atombombenfrei.jimdo.com (German language).

—Reprinted with permission from the Nuclear Resister #189, Sept. 1, 2018, p.5. John LaForge contributed some reporting.

October 15, 2018 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Peace Camp Participants Share Some Recollections

Fall Quarterly 2018

The US delegation to Büchel:

CeeCee Anderson, Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions and Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), Atlanta, Georgia
Susan Crane, Redwood City California Catholic Worker
Anthony Donovan, New York, NY
Dennis DuVall, Rosstal, Germany (formerly of Prescott, Arizona)
John LaForge, Nukewatch, Luck, Wisconsin
Max Smay, Snake River Alliance, Boise, Idaho
Ann Suellentrop, Physicians for Social Responsibility & ANA, Kansas City, Missouri
Bonnie Urfer, Nukewatch, Luck, Wisconsin
Victor White, Veterans for Peace, Oceanside, California

For the second year in a row, Nukewatch organized a US delegation to the German peace camp outside the Büchel Air Base, in conjunction with Gewaltfreie Aktion Atomwaffen Abschaffen (Nonviolent Action to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) and Marion Küpker, coordinator of the group’s five-month-long series of actions. International Week, July 10-18, was an exciting and rebellious time of discussion, planning, training, blockades, “go-in” actions, and anti-nuclear solidarity. Other internationals came from Italy, Spain, England, The Netherlands, Austria, and even New Zealand. For our part US delegates arrived in camp from New York, Idaho, Wisconsin, California, Georgia, and Missouri. Susan Crane from the Redwood City, CA Catholic Worker came for a month to be part of the camp staff and I did the same for six weeks. Ann Suellentrop of Kansas City got to Germany early and did a speaking tour of seven cities on the subject of resistance to the Kansas City Plant and its production of non-nuclear parts for US nuclear weapons.

A few of the US delegates replied to Nukewatch’s invitation to share a short recollection of their experience of International Week. —JL

In the center of camp, internationals from Germany, the US, the UK and The Netherlands discussed preparations for the large “go-in” action that took place July 15.

Bonnie Urfer

Variety describes my Büchel experience. The camp had color. It had the persistent flapping of bright banners in the wind and I walked through flat jungles of chalk drawings, tents and tie-dyes under blue skies. Women in Black, Men and Women, children and old folks, people as varied as the nations, states, ideologies, habits, enthusiasm, creativity, interests, talents, projects, emotions and experiences showed up at Büchel. Büchel is Everywhere.

Peace Camp outside of Büchel Air Force Base, Germany.

Friends, comfort, food, chores, chats, and resistance to nuclear weapons embody my reflection of this year’s “Nuclear Weapons-Free Now!” peace camp in Germany. This camp turned out to be as invigorating as last year, and was made even better by the introduction of a camp shower which made bonding with dozens of others in hot summer days even more pleasant.

I made new friends. Petra, I love you and thank you for all of the delightful kitchen time and the variety in meals. Max, you are not forgotten. Hubert, thanks for bringing Kami.

The gathering turned into a reunion of many precious friends made last year and of those I knew from the US—brought together for the single purpose of getting H-bombs removed from Germany. Since the vast majority of Germans want those weapons removed, I felt constantly in good company.

The hubbub of camp repeatedly included action planning, banner painting, blockades of the base gates, fence transgressions, rallies, and then doing it all again. I helped cut through the fence and occupied the base school yard, an action that would result in months if not years in prison if done in the US. In Germany, police served tea and escorted us off the property. It’s a pleasure to be arrested in that country and everyone, including you dear reader, has a chance to join-in next summer. The bombs are still there in spite of our colossal efforts.

Even the sounds offered a wide-range of reflection. Every day except weekends, the massive jets take off from the base saturating the airspace with thick thunder. Once the pilots finished for the day, sweet guitar, harmonica, drums, flutes and voices filled the air. Between war plane takeoffs, presenters presented, travelers shared stories, and conversations in a circle around the campfire constant. We ate together, sang, painted, chatted, and laughed.

Camp art supplies- umbrella base and yarn

The hard work of Marion Küpker and John LaForge, Wolfgamg, Beate, Thomas, our wonderful camp cooks Petra and Stephanie, the talented camp tenders, Rainer, Martin, Hubert, Heiko, and so many others, made this event, filled with a variety of events, worth attending. Special thanks to Sharon Cody for making possible this journey filled with the colors of the rainbow and peace.

From left: CeeCee Anderson, Max Smay and Ann Suellentrop spoke at a press conference in the large meeting tent about resistance to nuclear weapons in their communities of Atlanta, Boise and Kansas City, respectively.

Susan Crane:

Peter Kropotkin is often remembered for his ideas about mutual aid: about the power and energy that is released when people work together. Instead of Darwin’s ideas of competition and survival of the fittest, Kropotkin liked to study nature to witness how life thrives where there is cooperation. He studied bees and ants, observed flocks of birds and studied human history. He found that in the struggle to cooperate, in mutual aid, we build a hive, a colony, a future.

And that is what I saw at the Peace Camp. People able to make their own decisions while working together sparked bursts of energy. Respect for each individual’s contribution, and the love of direct action with others created a safe place to imagine actions. Mutual aid was practiced by internationals and 50 peace groups coming together, across languages and borders, with nonviolence and fierce determination to make this planet home for our 7th generation of grandkids.

I didn’t get to meet people from each of these 50 groups, but I was astounded with the diversity of people who came at different times to focus on the abolition of nuclear weapons and getting the US nuclear warheads out of the Büchel air force base. It was heartening to work with the DKP, the “no money for war” tax resisters, the artists, the Quakers, the work camp youth from Mutlangen, the Lutherans, the Dusseldorf Peace Group, and the individual people who came to contribute so much to the camp who could build and fix anything. Kropotkin was right: “Mutual Aid” is the answer.

Anthony Donovan:

The Peace Camp’s July 15th action was a great honor to take part in—to bring attention to the unspeakable horror and the sheer illegality of this hidden industry, and to our colleagues the Kings Bay Plowshares now challenging US courts for similar actions. I arrived in Büchel without doubt in my heart for good reasons. I was inspired in this work by Sisters Ardeth Platte and Carol Gilbert, with whom I shared a month-and-a-half of daily meetings at the UN during the negotiations for the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Ardeth and Carol left the day after the treaty’s breathtaking adoption (July 7, 2017), to hand the treaty directly to Büchel Air Base’s commanding officer. It was their enthused recommendation along with a call for support, recognizing some 93% of German citizens who want our bombs out. My early morning routine each day at Büchel’s gate would be putting up Nukewatch’s banner U.S. H-Bombs Out of Germany. For years I’ve been waiting for one ally in NATO to say, “US we appreciate you, but not these most dangerous lies.” The intimate bonds of newly formed wider community remain with the deepest gratitude.

Dennis DuVall:

The “go-in” direct action was the high point and most fun of International Week at Büchel. I was inspired by the solidarity in planning and doing the action. I look forward to future actions to remove the B61 H-bombs from Germany, and to disrupt and prevent the US and NATO from replacing existing H-bombs in Europe with 250 smaller, low-yield H-bombs, the B61-12. The “modernized” B61-12 is said to be more “usable,” meaning it’s more likely to be used, making global resistance to nuclear weapons more urgent than ever, in Büchel and everywhere.

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Fall Quarterly 2018

By Felice and Jack Cohen-Joppa

Fall Quarterly 2018

Bonnie Urfer

Susan Crane:

Anthony Donovan:

Dennis DuVall:

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