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A Peace Movement Victory in Court
"Fourteen anti-war activists may have made history today in a Las Vegas courtroom when they turned a misdemeanor trespassing trial into a possible referendum on America's newfound taste for remote-controlled warfare." That's how one Las Vegas newspaper summed up our stunning day in court on Tuesday, when fourteen of us stood trial for walking on to Creech Air Force Base last year on April 9, 2009 to protest the U.S. drones.
We went in hoping for the best and prepared for the worst. As soon as we started, the judge announced that he would not allow any testimony on international law, the necessity defense or the drones, only what pertained to the charge of "criminal trespassing."
With that, the prosecutors called forth a base commander and a local police chief to testify that we had entered the base, that they had given us warnings to leave, and that they arrested us. They testified that they remembered each one of us. Then they rested their case.
We called three expert witnesses, what the newspaper called "some of the biggest names in the modern anti-war movement:" Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney general under President Lyndon Johnson; Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army colonel and one of three former U.S. State Department officials who resigned on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq; and Bill Quigley, legal director for the New York City-based Center for Constitutional Rights. We presumed they would not be allowed to speak.
All fourteen of us acted as our own lawyers, and were not allowed any legal assistance, so members of our group took turns questioning our witnesses, and trying not to draw the judge's wrath. Lo and behold, the judge let them speak, and they spoke for hours.
They were brilliant. They spoke about the meaning of "trespassing," and the so-called necessity defense and international law, which allows citizens to break minor laws in adherence to a higher law. Ramsey Clark, looking like Atticus Finch on the stand, said it was a duty.
They cited the classic example of someone driving down a street, seeing a house on fire, noticing a child in the third floor window, hearing the screams, breaking through the front door, violating the no trespass law, and entering the house to save the child.
"[People] are allowed to trespass if it's for the greater good -- and there are certainly exceptions [to the law] when there is an emerging, urgent need," said Quigley.
He cited the history of protesters who broke petty laws, from our nation's founders to the Suffragists to the civil rights activists who illegally sat in at lunch counters. In the long run, we honor them for obeying a higher law, for helping to bring us toward justice, he said. Unfortunately, there is a gap between "the law" and "justice," and so, he explained, the struggle today is to narrow that gap. The best test is through "a hundred year vision," he explained. That is, how will this law and ruling be seen one hundred years from now?
The prosecutors challenged each witness, but their questions only enabled the witnesses to speak further on our behalf. When they were asked if they actually knew us, the prosecutors and judges were stunned to hear that they were our friends, in some cases, lifelong friends. When the prosecutors presented our experts' articles from the internet in order to discredit them (such as Bill Quigley's superb Common Dreams piece, "Time for a U.S. Revolution -- Ten Reasons"), that only added fuel to their fire. Bill launched into an eloquent plea for citizens to stand up and work for nonviolent change.
Through carefully crafted questions, the defendants were able to extract several key points from their witnesses:
* Intentional killing is a war crime, as embodied in U.S. constitutional law.
* Drone strikes by U.S. and coalition forces kill a disproportionate number of civilians.
* People have the right, even the duty, to stop war crimes.
* According to the Nuremberg principles, individuals are required to disobey domestic orders that cause crimes against humanity.
After our experts testified, co-defendant Brian Terrell told the judge we would now call five of us to take the stand. The judge said he would not recommend that. So our group huddled together for a minute.
"He's sending us a signal," co-defendant Kathy Kelly said. "He's telling us not to call any more witnesses, that if one of us testifies that we crossed the line under cross examination, he will have no choice but to find us guilty. Let's rest our case." So, despite days of preparation, we did.
With that, Brian Terrell stood up and delivered a short, spontaneous closing statement. It was one of the most moving speeches I have ever heard. Here are excerpts:
Several of our witnesses have employed the classic metaphor when talking of a necessity defense. There's a house on fire, and a child crying from the window and there's a no trespassing sign on the door. Can one ignore the sign, kick down the door and rescue the child?
It was a great privilege for us to hear Ramsey Clark, a master of understatement, who put it best. "Letting a baby burn to death because of a no trespass sign would be poor public policy."
I submit that the house is on fire and babies are burning in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan because of the activities at Creech AFB.
The baby is burning also in the persons of the young people who are operating the drones from Creech AFB, who are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder at rates that even exceed that of their comrades in combat on the ground.
Colonel Ann Wright testified that soldiers do pay attention to what is going on in the public forum, and that they do respond to a "great debate" in the public sphere. There is no great debate going on about drone warfare in our country. Some have noted that the trend toward using drones in warfare is a paradigm shift that can be compared to what happened when an atomic bomb was first used to destroy the city of Hiroshima in Japan.
When Hiroshima was bombed, though, the whole world knew that everything had changed. Today everything is changing, but it goes almost without notice. I hesitate to claim credit for it, but there is certainly more discussion of this issue after we were arrested for trespassing at Creech AFB on April 9, 2009, than there was before.
Judge Jansen, we appreciate the close attention you've given to the testimony you've heard here. The question that you asked Bill Quigley, --"Aren't there better ways of making change than breaking the law?", is a question we are often asked and that we often ask ourselves.
It was a question that was asked of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963 when he was in jail in Birmingham, Alabama. Several clergy people of Birmingham wrote a letter to Dr. King asking him the very same questions that you asked Professor Quigley. Isn't there a better way? Why sit-ins? Why marches, why protests? Isn't negotiation the better way?
Dr. King's reply to these questions -- in his famous Letter from the Birmingham Jail, which is regarded by many as one of the finest things ever written in the English language -- heartily agreed that negotiation is the better way. But, he said that a society that refuses to face crucial issues needs "nonviolent gadflies" using direct action to raise the level of awareness and raise the level of "creative tension" for a society to rise from the depths of monologue to the majestic heights of dialogue, where the great debate that Colonel Ann Wright says we need, can happen.
The house is on fire. And we fourteen are ones who have seen the smoke from the fire and heard the cries of the children. We cannot be deterred by a No Trespassing sign from going to the burning children.
As he finished, Brian burst into tears and sat down. Many in the courtroom wept. Then Judge Jansen stunned us by announcing that he needed three months to "think about all of this" before he could render a verdict. He marked twenty five years on the bench just the day before, he said, and this was his first trespassing case and he wanted to make the best decision he could. There is more at stake here than the usual meaning of trespassing, he noted. The prosecutors were clearly frustrated and disappointed. With that, we were assigned a court date of January 27, 2011 to hear the verdict. As he left, he thanked the fourteen of us and the audience, and then seemed to give a benediction: "Go in peace!" Everyone applauded.
"By all accounts, the Creech 14 trial is the first time in history an American judge has allowed a trial to touch on possible motivations of anti-drone protesters," the local paper said.
While I wish he had immediately found us Not Guilty and sent a signal to the U.S. military that these weapons are illegal, it was astonishing to watch this judge begin with his hostile directives and then slowly listen to the testimony of our friendly experts, and then conclude that he needed more time to seriously consider their argument. That alone was a minor victory. I wish everyone in the United States would take time to reconsider our drone program, beginning with the president, the Secretary of State, Pentagon officials, military officers, and Creech Air Force Base employees. The more one thinks about it, the more we realize how terrifying it is, and the harm it will inflict on the whole world for generations to come.
We saw that future as we walked onto Creech Air Force Base on April 9, 2009. We wanted to rescue the children and civilians who are being killing by our "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles," as they're called.
I hope and pray the judge will "think" about the drones, and issue a verdict on our behalf, on behalf of all the victims of our drones, on behalf of the world's children, that we might reject the drones, learn nonviolent ways to resolve international conflict, and let everyone live in peace.
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41 Comments so far
Show AllThank you all for your dedication to peace.
Hoa binh
Bless you all, the 14 who spoke and acted for so many more, the expert witnesses and the judge who listened, and all of us who are not protesting and the prosecutors who were doing their job but surely heard. In the hope that more people hear, that we can see what every religion teaches: Do no harm, thou shall not kill. Love thy neighbor.
Excellent work successfully raising a discussion in places where no discussion was taking place, and getting some to step outside the socially constructed "reality" that limits our ability to hear dying children scream.
Here's to a diversity of tactics.
webwalk,
Those are two succinct and powerful sentences, and all of this nonviolent direct action and the subsequent judicial effort are rooted in those three graphic words: "dying children scream."
Congratulations, and thank you, John Dear, and to the rest of the "Creech 14." I salute your courage and conviction. You should be proud of what you've accomplished, by exposing the truth about these murderous drone attacks to the light of day.
Thank you..you are humanity's angels..stop the hate,xenophobia,exceptionalist cult type thinking that allows us to kill people because they look and think different than the greedy human exploiters and manipulators..how long do we need free speech zones for all except the lying corporate propagandists and their media enablers
Well done.
Let's hope that Judge Jansen examines, and is inspired or emboldened by, the Ploughshares cases in Scotland and England, where the tryer of fact-- a jury-- acquitted activists who trespassed and damaged property in the cause of nuclear disarmament.
Thank you Kathy Kelly and the rest of you who trespassed in order to help save innocent people from getting burned up by these death drones. Judge Jansen: " Go in peace". Blessed are the peace makers.
Wonderful job. Thank you for your dedication.
Finally, a context where the devalued term "heroes" actually applies. Blessed are the peacemakers, indeed.
Tears come quickly for all who are the peacemakers. Peace is very possible.
Peace and justice with a side of humanity thrown in? Is it possible in a US Court of Law? The truth, as the law, of the defendents going up against the lies and immorality of the government that wars for greed and claims the high ground with money and not right? May truth win at least sometimes. Tony
In Martin Luther King's "Letter From a Birmingham Jail", mentioned in this article, Dr. King writes:
"I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."
Let's hope that Judge Jansen possesses a bit of the wisdom of Dr. King.
Someday a question will be asked: what did the American people do during drone murders of innocent civilians? The 14 deserve our gratitude.
If only more Americans could experience the incredible communion of spirit and solidarity when like-minded people to come together for public dissent, we would have far more civic activism in the U.S.
Many more Americans need to experience the transformational power of activism if we are ever to experience true participatory democracy in the U.S. You should try it, you will never be the same.
The problem is, we are all cathedral builders, rarely seeing the completion of our work. In this case, the defendants got a little taste of the fruits of their efforts. I felt so privileged to have been there in the courtroom with activist friends and to be able to share in the celebration.
This is marvelous news. I hope that the amicus brief I posted on Common Dreams was at least =available= to the 14 defendants, if not the judge.
Its point was the absurdity of militarists going ape shit when non violent people walk across a line to enter their sanctuaries for a non violent purpose -- but otherwise cooperate with civilian authorities to hold non violent protesters as prisoners on a military base and use whatever violence is desired to control them.
In April 1970 Ramsey Clark was present in Washington DC for Dewey Canyon III - antiwar protest by street theater by Vietnam Veterans Against the War - - when John Kerry was still in navy uniform. Thank you for demonstrating to Americans the meaning of =integrity=. What an amazing person you are, Ramsey!
Having served once as defense attorney for one of a group of peace activists similarly charged with misdemeanor trespassing by stepping "across the line" onto a US military base to engage in nonviolent antinuclear protest actions, this news account from Creech AFB is indeed a breath of fresh air. Several aspects of this account of last week's court proceedings in Nevada merit mention.
First, the right to jury trial in federal court for what are labeled "petty offenses", with minor exception, simply does not exist. All such trials are bench trials, with the fact finding undertaken and the verdit rendered by the Judge, not a jury of ordinary citizen peers.
All too often, this means the defendants will be denied a meaningful opportunity to present evidence of their genuine defense: I did what I did as an act of conscientious First Amendment freedom of expression, and therefore the government cannot try to criminalize my nonviolent, symbolic actions by treating it as the equivalent of criminal trespassing in defiance of the authority of the military base commander. If the Judge puts the blinders on, and limits the proofs to where was the property line, was there warning given, and do we have the right perpetrators, the "trial" will be perfunctory and a quick conviction nearly certain. The reported willingness of Judge Jansen to actually take the time, take the proofs under advisement, and make a ruling in January is indeed a victory in and of itself worth celebrating.
Second, it appears that the US Attorneys office used the standard prosecutorial technique of getting a fast pretrial ruling before the trial ever began declaring testimony about international law, the common law defense of necessity, the defendants' motives, etc. was all irrelevant, immaterial, and inadmissible. Somehow nonetheless, in this case Ramsey Clark, Ann Wright, and Bill Quigley did get to testify, and apparently much of the evidence that was supposed to be precluded was presented anyway, some of it in response to the government attorneys' cross examination. Amazing.
Third, these self-represented citizen defendants probagbly made a very wise choice to NOT take the witness stand. What more was to be gained? Infinitely worse, on cross examination what would be extracted would in effect be a full confession: of course I stepped over the line - I just told you why my conscience told me to do so. This development would severly undercut any chance of the trial court finding the government's proofs insufficient to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
I look forward to hearing how this all works out come January. It is perhaps most telling that even though testimony came in saying drone warfare was illegal, I see no reference to any government rebuttal evidence saying that targeted assassinations without a declaration of war is legal.
Bill from Saginaw
The present and previous DOJs would fit rather nicely into Hitler's Nazi regime where discrimination against Jews, experiments on disabled people and children, and the mass murder of Jews, Romas, communists, homosexuals, and any others who "didn't fit in" were all declared "legal".
That's why Nazi judges were among the most notorious criminals tried at the post-war Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals.
If true justice existed here, scores of Bush/Cheney and Obama/Biden administration members would be on trial for countless war crimes, especially the mass murders of civilans, including "dying children screaming".
But true justice, like true equality, is an ideal no longer even dreamed of here in the United States of Aggression and Selfishness.
Thank you.
The Creech 14 are truly peace warriors.
I also commend of the courage and intelligence of these 14. They give my grandchildrens' generation a better chance at a better world.
To those at Creech: It is your sworn duty to find out who decides on the people to be killed, and why. You swore to obey legal orders, pure and simple. It's more than just saying an oath once...it's an on-going duty to be awake in your service to our country. It is the duty of the chain of command to provide the information their people need to carry out orders with a clear conscience.
Consider. What are the most credible threats to the power-elite?
-To not have an enemy (Emanual Goldstein scenario).
-To have a lot of hard questions asked/answered about the obvious absurdity of the official 911 whitewash.
-To have people pop up who know some of those answers, and have them actually get MSM coverage.
"National security"?, resources?, oil?, Al qaeda?
Hell. Sugar, trans fats, derivatives, and an unexpected visit to a hospital are greater threats to our people than semi-organized bands of former goatherds.
Do some reading and thinking on your own. Connect the dots. Be good officers, your country needs you.
I am grateful to the members of the Creech 14 who have put their life and freedom on the line to save innocent civilians from illegal wars, immoral economic sanctions, unconstitutional weapons especially drones. Drones=execution without a trial.
You are beautiful Americans, thank you. Is there anything we can do to help you? I know Kathy Kelly wrote a local Judge a letter in support of a friend of mine who was on trial for violating the economic sanctions against Iraq. Although it made no difference, tragically the judge showed no mercy, but I shall always be grateful for Kathy's courage. Is this something we should do for Creech 14?
Here's my take on this: Between now and January, a lot can happen to the judge (think Ross Perot and the threat to kill his daughter). I wager that in January, all 14 will be found guilty as charged.
I love to hear of moral victories like this - thank you! And I am envisioning a positive outcome in January.
thank you from the bottom of my heart....
Thankyou!
The charge of criminal trespassing. Pardon me....exactly who are the criminals here! Judge Jansen: " there is more at stake here than the usual meaning of trespassing ". " One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws ". Martin Luther King Jr.
What a beautiful news commentary, Father John Dear!
Thanks for sharing this, and thanks to Common Dreams!
It was heartening in reading Brian Terrell's eloquent statement. It's good to hear that he is well. I met him years ago when he and others operated the Davenport, Iowa, Catholic Worker House of Hospitality.
Las Vegas Judge Jansen is given credit for allowing this testimony. As the judge uses these three months "to think of all this," the judge will get an earful from the US political and military and business and religious establishment, and we all fear the worst with their collusion.
Wisdom was shown in the judge's entertaining of this testimony, and for that I'm grateful.
We'll all see how this pans out on January 27, 2011.
Godspeed, Best wishes, Bill in Dubuque
Thanks so much to all of you--the 14, those who testified. I will follow this closely and hope that the judge continues to exhibit wisdom. What a precedent setter this has been and will continue to be... My hope for peace is increasing.
John Dear has been one of my heroes for years. I look forward to hearing of his latest activity. Ann Wright is also one of my heroes. What a powerful partnership they are! Her awesome military experience complements his long history of faith-based peace activism so well. Kathy Kelly makes it a triple-play. Wow. I am SO happy this judge allowed so much intelligent, thoughtful, and honest discussion. Too often, these brave actions go unnoticed. Thanks to all of them for continuing with their efforts to reduce the great suffering caused by war.
Regarding the worst cases of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)of drone operators he mentioned: Veterans have told me,after the Vietnam War, soldiers who planned the bombing strikes from their remote locations also have some of the worst cases of PTSD. It seems to have something to do with the fact they can only imagine the damage their actions caused. Those who witnessed the carnage of their own actions have one image to focus on. Since our imaginations can go in all kinds of directions, those with no specific memory can have a mind full of all kinds of images.
What is the US doing, anyway, using remote-controlled weapons? War is not a video game. There is no "reset" button.
Inspiring account by a true hero of the peace movement. Peace Action New York State will be honoring Father Dear at our annual William Sloane Coffin, Jr. Peacemaker Awards in New York City on October 8. Further details at www.panys.org/COFFIN2010/savedate.htm.
Heartfelt thanks to all who participated in this inspiring action.
Can we believe this happened? Really? In an American courtroom. I don't cry easy but I can't stop now.
God bless you fourteen and bless us because we know our prayers will be answered. There's a lot to do yet but the world looks different today.
Didn't many of us weep with joy and with hope in reading this enlightening court case? My thoughts are like yours, Stillhoping; we shall overcome!
There are some clips on YouTube such as
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPuwoDrDD4U
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I just watched a film called "Bomb Harvest", about the massive bombing of Laos by the U.S. and the continuing deaths and injuries from unexploded bombs and cluster bomb "bombies", and the film shows a clip of the American pilots being led in prayer to their false "god" by their chaplain, beseeching the Almighty for mission success.
Sickening.
The U.S. had no morally justifiable reason to drop some 3.5 tons of high explosive per Laotian citizen- more bombs than people!. But it was done, and with solemn prayer.
Obscenity!
It's mentioned in "Bomb Harvest" that perhaps the reason was that there were a lot of bombers and pilots and bombs available, and so they were used.
This made me think about the drones today. They are a product, and a high-dollar one, and every time one is made, it makes someone a lot of money, and every time a mission is flown and rockets or bombs sent in, a lot more money.
To keep the money flowing, the drones have to be used, and their use expanded, like any other product.
Therefore the MIC will, and already does, need targets- human targets- or the demand for the drone hardware, software, and ordnance would go down, and so would profits.
They would be shot at us here at home if the government saw any reason to do so, and that is something that is probably just a matter of time. Some new Waco or other event, or a peace demonstration; and a drone will hit it. For the government, problem solved, so to speak. Because the rest of the population can be conditioned to accept even the killing of their fellow citizens on home soil. Propaganda works frighteningly well, as we have seen the past nine years.
The drones are really just an advancement in artillery, and a logical development. Which is not to say they are good. They are evil made most efficient. They are in many ways the "warrior"'s eternal dream, going back to the first stone or stick used to put distance and anticipate and prevent injuries from hand to hand combat. The arrow, the spear, the firearm, the rocket, the smart bomb, and now the drones.
By putting as much distance between the killer and the killed, not only does the killer stay out of danger but he can, theoretically, distance himself mentally and emotionally as well.
However, as Kathy Kelly described (for more on this see the video mentioned above), the operators of drone are in fact not immune from the negative psychological effects of committing cold-blooded murder.
Sure, the training always tries to get soldiers to shrug off all ideas of the enemy as human, and with much success, but not everyone can be completely stripped of compassion and morality, and no no can be so stripped without the gravest personal consequences to sanity. Murder has always been meant to be forbidden because it destroys not only the victim but the murderer himself. Death by drone is murder. It is not a massage. It is not democracy, it is not rebuilding the country. It is nothing good. It has no virtue. It is filthy murder.
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Hitler, invading Poland, ordered his Einsatzgruppen (death squads), to show no mercy, no compassion- but only to kill
without mercy.
What is the difference between that and the drones? Only distance, only even more impersonality, even more complete and utter dehumanization of the "enemy". Whether this "enemy" is a child, a mother, an innocent, a saint, has no bearing.
What the Air Force does with these drones is pure evil, despite its high-tech videogame glamor.
Our society has devolved, or decayed, backwards to a point as corrupt and base as Roman times with their gladiators and lions eating people before an audience for their viewing pleasure.
Now we watch gun camera videos on our televisions.
And as Kathy Kelly has said, we can see the "squirters", as they are called, the people trying to escape the cruel American "Death from Above". We may see the bodies or their parts.
In this way and others, the military snuff film has become a kind of mainstream entertainment for American civilians. For all the soccer moms and working dads and grandmas, and the little kids in their schools: This is what they now learn, and it seems normal.
And you know that so many Americans cheer it when they see it.
This country is very very spiritually sick. One can sometimes forget how sick it really is, until examples of pure sanity, like the courageous Creech 14 activists show
us the IN-sanity of the American war-making machine so clearly.
I can only believe by now that the real intention of the U.S. policy in Iraq and Afghanistan is little short of planned genocide.
The bombings in Laos,Vietnam,
Cambodia, also, apparently planned genocide- or close enough.
Still killing, decades later.
As will happen from these wars in the Middle East. Decades of death, gift of the mad Americans.
I am ashamed.
I expected nothing from Bush. I "looked
into his soul" and saw the blackness and the blind ambition and the willingness to betray himself, and us, for fame, or power, or his daddy's lost affection.
But after Bush, I had the "hope and
change" fever, until it was shown to be a fraud, a trick, smoke and mirrors.
I am ashamed Obama does not immediately stop the slaughter.
I am shocked HE is not ashamed.
If he won't stop it, and he won't, I have no use, no use at all for him. He is also with the murderers and the hypocrites who blaspheme and kill and lie and steal. He has chosen his side.
He has the authority to stop some evils and he is not even bothering to mention them.
I heard on that same video, Kathy Kelly saying that that 850 Afghan children are dying each day now.
Why isn't something like that on every news network day after day after day, until the people would rise up and force the government to stop the madness?
That is to me the most tragic thing of all- few Americans care, and few know, and of those who know, too many actually like the slaughter.
But I never will accept or love it. I hate war, especially elective war for profit.
This day I feel a huge relief to know that the courts can now be more open to TRUTH TELLING.
Thank you for this glorious day John Dear. Thank you.
And I know that Carol, Ardeth, Jackie, the Berrigan family, the Corrie family, and thousands who have crossed the line, are cheering all over the world.