I want to say thank you to those who stood against the missile tests this past weekend. It is one of the most shameful practices of the United States' government, particularly after the human rights violations of the Bikini Atoll debacle. It was also totally surreal to live on Ebeye and witness these killing machines fall from the sky so close to us.
in almost 30 years
by Jim Haber, Coordinator, Nevada Desert Experience
The United States Air Force test-launched a first-strike,
nuclear-capable Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile
(ICBM) early in the morning on February 25 despite the largest
anti-test demonstrations in almost 30 years. The launch took place in
the dark fog of night at 2:46 a.m. from Vandenberg Air Force Base
(VAFB) on the central California coast to the other end of the Ronald
Reagan Missile Range in the Marshall Islands over 4000 miles away.
Testing warhead, bomb and delivery systems all violate the spirit of
working towards nuclear disarmament to which the United States has
obligated itself. The February 24 protest began at 5 minutes to
midnight—the current setting of the “Doomsday Clock” of the Federation
of American Scientist's Bulletin of Atomic Scientists—in the hopes
that public pressure would force President Obama to turn away from his
pro-nuclear budget (with increases for both nuclear weapons and
power). The test-launch of ICBMs makes hypocrites of U.S. foreign
policy planners who demand a stand down of nuclear ambitions from
countries we're hostile to, while furthering the upgrade of our own
weapons of mass destruction. The quantity and quality of U.S. nuclear
weapons dwarf all others; we must not wait for other nations to pull
back but must increase the rate of dismantlement of our own nuclear
weapons.
Daniel Ellsberg, who as a military analyst for the RAND Corporation in
the 1960s developed strategic plans for the Secretary of Defense
MacNamara and who later leaked the lies of Vietnam war planners in
what became known as the Pentagon Papers, crossed the line at the base
and was taken into custody along with 6 other men and 8 women in an
act of civil resistance. “They cannot be allowed to test these
lightning rods of doomsday without arresting American citizens. We
need to push this. It takes public pressure through education and
public protest,” Ellsberg said at the rally before entering the base.
Twenty-nine years ago, Ellsberg was also arrested at VAFB with
hundreds of others who went into the back-country of the huge base to
disrupt launch plans for another ICBM, the MX missile which ultimately
was not deployed, largely due to public pressure. Ellsberg continued
by stating, “No one in this country should have their hands on the
destruction of the world. We can't trust these folks with the future
of humanity.”
(As a student at nearby UC Santa Barbara, the author also went
back-country in 1983 at Vandenberg and was arrested along with
Ellsberg and 55 others at the U.C.S.B.'s administration building in
opposition to the continued management of the U.S. national weapons
laboratories by the University of California.)
Ellsberg also pointed out that Cold War deterrence was based on
various lies and mistakes like when U.S. plans were based on the
thought that the U.S.S.R. had 1000 missiles but actually only had 4 at
that time. Current war plans continue to be based on
misrepresentations, including those regarding Iraq, Iran, North Korea
and the ongoing nuclear programs of Israel, Pakistan and India.
Our peace actions and civil resistance at VAFB, and at the Nevada Test
Site, Y-12 Plant in Tennessee and elsewhere in the expanding nuclear
“bombplex” all are part of an international effort to wake up the
public and our leaders to the immorality, illegality and stupidity of
maintaining nuclear capabilities. The U.S. program encourages
horizontal proliferation. All nuclear weapons must be eliminated.
“Theirs” are bad; ours are at least as horrific. The move to make
ICBMs dual use—meaning they carry nuclear or non-nuclear
warheads—further increases nuclear danger by potentially confusing
adversaries into thinking they're under nuclear attack.
Quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr. are sadly and prophetically apropos
in many situations. In this moment two stand out: “The choice is not
between violence and nonviolence, but between nonviolence and
nonexistence.” Also, “I could never again raise my voice against the
violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without first having spoken
clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my
own government.”
With about a hundred demonstrators braving the damp cold of the
designated protest area outside of Vandenberg, other important
attendees crossed the line in “anti-test”: David Krieger, founder of
the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and his wife Carolee committed their
first-ever acts of civil resistance and were exhilarated by the
experience. Cindy Sheehan who's son was killed as a soldier in Iraq
and who has become an outspoken peace activist also was cited and
released. Judy Talaugon, a grandmother and descendant of the local
Chumash people blessed and welcomed the protesters. Importantly, Paul
O'Toko, an elder from Micronesia and founder of Indigenous Stewards
International, brought a sizable group including several of his
children although they did not engage in the trespass itself. Fr.
Louis Vitale OFM, a frequent presence at VAFB and other demonstration
sites said, “I would gladly give my life even to delay a missile
launch.”
The last test-launch of a Minuteman III was a rare failure
necessitating the destruction of the missile mid-flight. A subsequent
test scheduled for September 21, 2011, the U.N.-designated
International Day of Peace, was postponed as a growing chorus of
international opposition was decrying the contradiction of a
peace-loving nation testing such a thing on that special day.
The next test-launch is now scheduled for March 1, extremely soon
after last Saturday's test. March 1 is the anniversary of the tragic
“Bravo” test of a hydrogen bomb in the Bikini atoll for which the
swimwear received its name due to the brightness of the 20 megaton
blast. That test dropped radioactive fallout on the people of
Rongelap, leading to catastrophic health and genetic problems that
continue to this day, necessitating the on-going evacuation of their
island. It also sparked the Japanese anti-nuclear movement which had
been prevented to exist under the U.S. occupation that followed World
War II. The Lucky Dragon fishing vessel, a Japanese ship, was also
caught in the fallout of the March 1 test, another day that deserves
to be retired from nuclear development plans. (And don't they all?)
Jim Haber is the Coordinator of Nevada Desert Experience (NDE) in Las
Vegas, Nevada which organizes interfaith resistance to nuclear weapons
and war. He is also on the National Committee of the War Resisters
League.
Video of line crossers taken by videographer Ben Johnson with Occupy
Santa Barbara:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://is.gd/vafbp
Photos of the Vandenberg demonstration taken by Mary Lou Anderson and Jim Haber:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/
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