Nukewatch

Working for a nuclear-free future since 1979

by Leave a Comment

Lakenheath AFB Blockader: “I’m here to prevent a crime”

Declaring “We campaign to scrap nuclear weapons,” 250 activists joined a peace camp outside the Lakenheath “Royal” Air Force base in Northeast Britain April 14 to 26, organized by Lakenheath Alliance for Peace. Seven resisters were arrested April 26 during a blockade of the main gate. Besides protesting the return of U.S. B61 nuclear bombs to Britain, the camp drew attention to the U.K.’s role in supporting Israel’s genocide in Palestine, as well as how Lakenheath and the global network of 800 U.S. military bases drive climate breakdown, the Alliance reported. Sophie Bolt, of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said, “Rather than arresting people for peacefully protesting the return of U.S. nuclear weapons to Britain and the base’s role in supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the police should be investigating clear violations of international law being facilitated by both the British government and U.S. bases in Britain.

During a blockade at the end of a 12-day peace camp, activists shut down the main gate to RAF Lakenheath in Northeast England, one of the largest air bases in Europe, which may soon see the stationing of U.S. B61-12 hydrogen bombs. Photo: Jim Scott.

Nuclear weapons don’t make us safer, they make us a target.” The Morning Star online reported, “Last month, CND forced the declassification of [documentation] that U.S. forces are exempt from adhering to British nuclear safety regulations.” Bolt said, ‘There’s no public consultation. This is all being done behind closed doors. It’s a complete nuclear cover-up.’” One placard at the gate read: “I am not here for protest, I am here to prevent a crime.” — Lakenheath Alliance for Peace and CND, April 28; Morningstar online, April 27, 2025 

by 1 Comment

Three Declarations of Genocide and the U.S. Responses

Protester at the 2025 Superbowl halftime show displaying stitched together Sudanese and Palestinian flags, linking the genocides ongoing in both countries — the U.S. has recognized the genocide in Sudan as such, but refuses to name the U.S.-armed genocide in Gaza. Photo: newsbreak.com

Three recent reports by respected international humanitarian organizations have generated global approbation and negative reactions by both the Israeli and U.S. governments.
– Amnesty International

Amnesty International (AI) issued its 296-page report (“You Feel Like You Are Subhuman: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza”) on December 4. Israel immediately called it “a fabricated report that is entirely false and based on lies.” The U.S. State Department echoed the Israeli government in disagreeing with the report. Spokesperson Vedant Patel declared: “We have said previously and continue to find that the allegations of genocide are unfounded.” He gave no reasons for that opinion.

Reviewing the nine-month period from October 7, 2023, AI concluded that Israel committed prohibited acts under Articles II (a), (b), and (c) of the Genocide Convention of 1948, specifically the killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part.

After describing the Genocide Convention’s definition of genocide, AI examined both the specified prohibited actions and the requirement of intent. The report concluded that both benchmarks were met. In his December 7 Counterpunch article (“The Worst of International Crimes”), Jeffrey St. Clair quoted portions of the report that detailed the destruction of life and infrastructure, successive evacuations of residents, and the denial of food and humanitarian assistance. The International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant expressed international condemnation of the same war crimes cited in the AI report.

Human Rights Watch

Not to be outdone, Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued its 179-page report (“Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Deprives Palestinians in Gaza of Water”) on December 19. It focused not on bombs and bullets, but rather on the deprivation of water for the inhabitants of Gaza.

The HRW report cited Israel’s: “Extensive damage and destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure, including the apparently deliberate, systematic razing of the solar panels powering four of Gaza’s six wastewater treatment plants by Israeli ground forces, as well as Israeli soldiers filming themselves demolishing a key water reservoir.” Based on such findings, Human Rights Watch blamed Israel for causing the deaths of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by systematically restricting and targeting Gaza’s water supply. According to HRW, such actions amounted to “acts of genocide.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry denounced the report, accusing HRW of “once more spreading its blood libels in order to promote its anti-Israel propaganda.” It claimed that Israel has worked to facilitate the flow of water and humanitarian aid into Gaza throughout the war. The State Department spokesman said that the U.S. “disagreed with” HRW’s accusation that Israel was carrying out “acts of genocide” by damaging water infrastructure.

Doctors Without Borders

A third report (33 pages) published by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on December 19 is entitled “Gaza: Life in a Death Trap.” It centers on the systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system and the repeated forced evacuations of residents. In the words of the report, “MSF has witnessed 14 months of repeated attacks on civilians, the dismantling of essential civilian infrastructure including healthcare facilities, and a systematic denial of humanitarian assistance, seemingly underpinning Israel’s campaign to unravel the very fabric of society in Gaza….The consequences of these impediments are made even more harmful due to the uniqueness of a war being waged on a besieged area from which nobody can escape.”

According to MSF Secretary General Christopher Lockyear, “What our medical teams have witnessed on the ground throughout this conflict is consistent with the descriptions provided by an increasing number of legal experts and organizations concluding that genocide is taking place in Gaza.”

In response, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman accused MSF of “lying and misleading the public.” The U.S. response likewise denounced the report. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said with respect to MSF: “Even within their report, they make pretty clear that they don’t have the legal authority to determine intentionality.”

Why has the U.S. government repeatedly denied allegations of Israeli genocide in Gaza? In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attack, when he pledged to “stand with” its U.S. ally, Biden may have been driven by his decades-long admiration of Israel. The Israeli Defense Force’s scorched Earth bomb and missile attacks on Gaza have continued unabated throughout the Gaza Strip, and Israel has severely limited the provision of water, food, medicines, and other humanitarian aid. Now the death toll (not counting those buried under the rubble) has risen to more than 45,000. Yet Biden repeatedly refused to stop arming the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). His massive transfers of U.S.-made lethal weapons enabled Netanyahu, now an indicted war criminal facing ICC arrest warrants, to intensify his relentless bombardments of Gazan civilians.

If and when the war in Gaza is deemed a genocide by the International Court of Justice, Biden and his Secretaries of State and Defense could be (and, in my view should be) liable for complicity under the Genocide Convention of 1948. Americans should understand that Biden’s legacy is not all domestic triumph. It is even more a shameful foreign policy legacy of destruction and death.

— L. Michael Hager is cofounder and former Director General of the International Development Law Organization in Rome.

by Leave a Comment

Members of New Coalition Educate Minn. Public Utility Commissioners at Hearing

By Nukewatch Staff

The Nukewatch-inspired Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Mississippi River* crashed the February 18 meeting of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission in St. Paul, and several members boldly interrupted the proceedings. The PUC was considering Xcel Energy’s so-called Integrated Resource Plan for long-term electric power generation. Speaking out against Xcel’s nuclear-power-heavy plans, Sarah Martin, with coalition partner Women Against Military Madness, George Crocker with the North American Water Office, and Nukewatch’s Kelly Lundeen forced the commission to recess three times after continuing to speak out about the PUC’s endangerment of public health and the environment by permitting the accident-plagued Monticello and Prairie Island nuclear reactors on the Mississippi River to operate.

Members of the Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Mississippi educating the public and disrupting the Minnesota PUC hearing, Feb. 18, 2025.

Speaking without notes, Crocker said to the commissioners in part: “You are regulating a murderous set of machines, that kill three to six or more people every month, according to CDC analysis, in Wright, Sherburne and Goodhue Counties. You are culpable, and we are here to inform you that we will not tolerate your culpability in the murder — the serial killings as it were of our friends and neighbors — by the routine, radioactive releases that occur in order to continue operating those nuclear reactors….”

*The growing coalition so far includes: Indigenous Earth Protectors, North American Water Office, Rainbow Warrior Collective, RISE Coalition, Women Against Military Madness, Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom, and Nukewatch

by Leave a Comment

Will DOE Shirk Proper Clean-up of Santa Susana Field Lab?

By Nukewatch Staff

The U.S. Department of Energy proposed new guidelines for its plan to clean up contaminated soil at the Santa Susana Field Lab, in California, poisoned by weapons testing and the partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor in 1959. The site, in Simi Valley, is about 30 miles from Los Angeles and was home to early, experimental nuclear reactors. The area is managed by Boeing, the DOE, and NASA. Boeing will produce a plan for soil cleanup to be publicly reviewed this summer. All three have been accused of using faulty science to push for shoddy cleanup requirements.

Parents Against Santa Susana Field Lab, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Physicians for Social Responsibility — Los Angeles Chapter, and the Committee to Bridge the Gap are among the environmental advocacy groups denouncing the DOE’s new guidelines. The groups point out that for the roughly 700,000 people who live within 10 miles of the DOE site, lower standards for cleanup create long-lived risks. For more information on the DOE plan, public comments, or scoping meetings, go online to www.ssflareaiveis.com/seis.

— The Acorn, Jan. 24, 2025; Calif. Dept. of Toxic Substances Control

by 4 Comments

U.S. Anti-War/Anti-Poverty Activist Ends 7.5-Month Prison Term in Germany

By John LaForge

Solitary nonviolent witness appears painfully ineffective in the age of state terrorism and vigilante shooting sprees. Yet Susan Crane of Redwood City, California, who was released from prison in

Susan Crane and John LaForge in 2018, at the main gate to Büchel Air Base as part of Nukewatch-sponsored delegations to International Action Week.

Koblenz, Germany, on January 17, after spending 7.5 months incarcerated over protest trespass convictions (and refusing to pay fines), has perhaps influenced thousands of people in Europe and the States with her example. Crane’s prison time stemmed from a string of bold protests against the U.S. nuclear weapons stationed at Germany’s Büchel Air Force Base southeast of Cologne, a provocative and destabilizing deployment that is barely even mentionable in mainstream press.

On June 4, 2024, Crane began serving a 230-day sentence at the Wöllstein-Rohrbach prison, the longest term yet imposed in the decades-long campaign of protests demanding the ouster from Germany of the free-fall, U.S. gravity bombs known as B61s stationed at the base. Dutch peace activist Susan van der Hijden from Amsterdam served 115 days together with Crane for similar convictions. The two spent most of their sentences at an “open prison” which permits daytime work release. The “free time” permitted by the “open” institution allowed Crane to speak to visitors and groups and even present a lecture at the local university.

Crane, 81, is a life-long peace activist who has endured lengthy prison sentences in the United States for “Plowshares” disarmament actions at state-side nuclear weapons sites, and is the first U.S. woman to be imprisoned in Germany in the “Büchel is Everywhere” campaign. She was convicted of several trespass charges after joining six “go-in” actions at Büchel. Once on the base, Crane and others warned military personnel that both the stationing and support of the U.S. hydrogen bombs there, and the ongoing threat to use them, are unlawful. Tornado fighter jet pilots of the German Air Force’s 33rd Tactical Air Wing at Büchel routinely train to drop the U.S. H-bombs on targets in Russia, most recently in operation “Steadfast Defender 24” — provocatively staged in the midst of the NATO-armed war in Ukraine, and a public nuclear attack threat just as terrifying as any issued from Moscow.

In a few go-in actions, Susan carried a banner charging, “Büchel Air Base is a Crime Scene.” According to legal scholars like the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, the U.S. transfer of nuclear weapons to Germany violates the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) which forbids any “transfer to any recipient whatsoever [of] nuclear weapons.” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says the U.S. H-bombs at Büchel are the 170-kiloton B61-3, and the 50-kiloton B61-4. The U.S. atomic bomb that incinerated Hiroshima in 1945 was a 15-kiloton device.

Crane wrote in a statement before entering prison last June, “I thought the German courts would listen to the reasons we went onto the base, and understand that our peaceful actions were justified as acts of crime prevention. But international law was not respected or enforced.”

Crane, who has two adult children and four grandchildren, has devoted her life in California to serving the poor and homeless as a member of the Redwood City Catholic Worker community. In a statement last March, Crane wrote, “I see people living in camps, living in cars, and I see working people who don’t have enough income for basic needs like rent, food, or medical care. Then, I think of the money wasted on war-making by the U.S. and NATO nations, and that 3% of the U.S. military budget alone could end starvation around the world.”

Susan’s personalism of individually — and against all odds — addressing overwhelming poverty on one hand, and confronting nuclear madness on the other, confounds the shock-immune public that perks up mostly at news of the latest catastrophe.

If instead of today’s atrocity, Susan’s example of both helping and warning, of “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable” could go “viral,” our future would be brighter.

A fourth U.S. peace activist has been incarcerated in Germany over protests at the Büchel Air Base, after John LaForge, Dennis DuVall, and Susan Crane. Brian Terrell, a long-time Catholic Worker and human rights activist from Maloy, Iowa who works with the Nevada Desert Experience, served 15 days in the Wittlich Prison south of Cologne, from February 26 to March 12. Welcome back Brian!

Contact Us

(715) 472-4185
nukewatch1@lakeland.ws

Address:
740A Round Lake Road
Luck, Wisconsin 54853
USA

Donate To Nukewatch

News & Information on Nuclear Weapons,
Power, Waste & Nonviolent Resistance

Stay Connected