Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Prison for Peacemakers in Tacoma, Washington
Two Grandmothers, Two Priests and a Nun Go onto a Nuclear Base
Two grandmothers, two priests and a nun were sentenced in federal court in Tacoma, WA Monday March 28, 2011, for confronting hundreds of US nuclear weapons stockpiled for use by the deadly Trident submarines.
Sentenced were: Sr. Anne Montgomery, 83, a Sacred Heart sister from New York, who was ordered to serve 2 months in federal prison and 4 months electronic home confinement; Fr. Bill Bischel, 81, a Jesuit priest from Tacoma Washington, ordered to serve 3 months in prison and 6 months electronic home confinement; Susan Crane, 67, a member of the Jonah House community in Baltimore, Maryland, ordered to serve 15 months in federal prison; Lynne Greenwald, 60, a nurse from Bremerton Washington, ordered to serve 6 months in federal prison; and Fr. Steve Kelly, 60, a Jesuit priest from Oakland California, ordered to serve 15 months in federal prison. They were also ordered to pay $5300 each and serve an additional year in supervised probation. Bischel and Greenwald are active members of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, a community resisting Trident nuclear weapons since 1977.
What did they do?
In the darkness of All Souls night, November 2, 2009, the five quietly cut through a chain link perimeter fence topped with barbed wire.
Carefully stepping through the hole in the fence, they entered into the Kitsap-Bangor Navy Base outside of Tacoma Washington – home to hundreds of nuclear warheads used in the eight Trident submarines based there.
Walking undetected through the heavily guarded base for hours, they covered nearly four miles before they came to where the nuclear missiles are stored.
The storage area was lit up by floodlights. Dozens of small gray bunkers – about the size of double car garages - were ringed by two more chain link fences topped with taut barbed wire.
USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED one sign boldly proclaimed. Another said WARNING RESTRICTED AREA and was decorated with skull and crossbones.
This was it – the heart of the US Trident Pacific nuclear weapon program. Nuclear weapons were stored in the bunkers inside the double fence line.
Wire cutters cut through these fences as well. There they unfurled hand painted banners which said “Disarm Now Plowshares: Trident Illegal and Immoral”, knelt to pray and waited to be arrested as dawn broke.
What were they protesting against?
Each of the eight Trident submarines has 24 nuclear missiles on it. The Ground Zero community explains that each of the 24 missiles on one submarine have multiple warheads in it and each warhead has thirty times the destructive power of the weapon used on Hiroshima. One fully loaded Trident submarine carries 192 warheads, each designed to explode with the power of 475 kilotons of TNT force. If detonated at ground level each would blow out a crater nearly half a mile wide and several hundred feet deep.
The bunker area where they were arrested is where the extra missiles are stored.
In December 2010, the five went on trial before a jury in federal court in Tacoma charged with felony damage to government property, conspiracy and trespass.
But before the trial began the court told the defendants what they could and could not do in court. Evidence of the medical consequences of nuclear weapons? Not allowed. Evidence that first strike nuclear weapons are illegal under US and international law? Not allowed. Evidence that there were massive international nonviolent action campaigns against Trident missiles where juries acquitted protestors? Not allowed. The defense of necessity where violating a small law, like breaking down a door, is allowed where the actions are taken to prevent a greater harm, like saving a child trapped in a burning building? Not allowed.
Most of the jurors appeared baffled when defendants admitted what they did in their opening statements. They remained baffled when questions about nuclear weapons were objected to by the prosecutor and excluded by the court. The court and the prosecutor repeatedly focused the jury on their position that this was a trial about a fence. Defendants tried valiantly to point to the elephant in the room – the hundreds of nuclear weapons.
Each defendant gave an opening and closing statement explaining, as much as they were allowed, why they risked deadly force to expose the US nuclear arsenal.
Sojourner Truth was discussed as were Rosa Parks, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King.
The resistance of the defendants was in the spirit of the civil rights movement, the labor movement, the suffragist movement, the abolition of slavery movement.
Crowds packed the courtroom each of the five days of trial. Each night there was a potluck and a discussion of nuclear weapons by medical, legal and international experts who came for the trial but who were largely muted by the prosecution and the court.
While the jury held out over the weekend, ultimately, the activists were convicted.
Hundreds packed the courthouse today supporting the defendants. The judge acknowledged the good work of each defendant, admitted that prison was unlikely to deter them from further actions, but said he was bound to uphold the law otherwise anarchy would break out and take down society.
The prosecutors asked the judge to send all the defendants to federal prison plus three years supervised probation plus pay over five thousand dollars. The specific jail time asked for ranged from 3 years for Fr. Kelly, 30 months for Susan Crane, Lynne Greenwald, 7 months in jail plus 7 months home confinement, Sr. Anne Montgomery and Fr. Bill Bichsel, 6 months jail plus 6 months home confinement.
Each of the defendants went right into prison from the courtroom as the spectators sang to them. Outside the courthouse, other activists pledged to confront the Trident in whatever way is necessary to stop the illegal and immoral weapons of mass destruction.
Bill Quigley is part of the legal team supporting the defendants and was in Tacoma for the sentencing. You can learn more about the defendants at disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com.
57 Comments so far
Show AllWho was the fucking judge?
"But before the trial began the court told the defendants what they could and could not do in court."
Right... because the court isn't interested in the TRUTH... it is interested in the protection of empire.
What would happen to these people if they did mention the "unmentionable" in their closing statements?
It seems that the judge would hold them in contempt and tell the jurors to disregard the statements. I would think that the jurors would get the idea pretty quickly of what was really going on despite the judge's orders, as the court officers gagged the mild mannered senior citizens one by one.
They already risked their lives for our country. What is one more "contempt of court" charge? (If any court deserves contempt, it seems like this court deserves all of our contempt.)
I've gotten out of jury duty by telling them during voir dire that if a judge told me to disregard testimony that seemed significant to me, I would not be able to disregard it. That seemed to totally give the game away and made me unsuitable to adjudicate.
The legal system runs on a lot of preposterous concepts. Instructing people to "disregard" what they've seen and heard is high on my list of them.
I was prepared to ask for a dismissal from jury duty on the grounds that I was tortured by state police detectives. The statute of limitations for war crimes runs out only upon the deaths of the perpetrators, which probably hasn't happened. I can forgive the people who did the crime, they're just people, but if I'm sitting on a jury for one matter and I'm staring at a judge who by rights has to take up the other matter, remember, war crimes are equally binding on all federal and state judges, and if he's the one that's shirking his job, then that's a conflict of interest on my part, and I can't serve. Sorry.
I think they screen jurors visually, and they saw me in prayer all the time. Maybe, maybe not. I didn't look like a good prospect sitting in the jury lounge.
==They were also ordered to pay $5300 each and serve an additional year in supervised probation. ==
Mr. Bill Quigley,
Thanks for the reportage. These persons-of-conscious acted on my behalf. If the church mentioned will set up a fund for contributions towards their fines - I will be glad to donate to that fund.
Anybody else here on Common Dreams feel the same?
Trylon
P.S. How do I renew my subscription to =Ramparts=?
The fines should never be paid as a matter of principle.
These people are innocent and are American heroes.
And an innocent person should not have to pay a fine.
They plead guilty. That was their intention from the beginning. I'm willing to share their financial penalty. Arrogance is not going to help them now. Money will.
Trylon
I don't think that they plead guilty, otherwise there would not have been a trial.
They did take responsibility for their actions, but that does not mean that they admit to a crime. In fact, they did not commit a crime. They were, on principle, trying to address a greater harm, which is not a crime but instead is the responsibility of all citizens.
Follow the link to disarmplowshares - and drill down for information outside your head.
Trylon
"Despite the limitations already imposed on their defense by Judge Benjamin Settle, the Disarm Now Plowshares co-defendants are prepared to present a case to the jury; that their actions on November 2, 2009 were lawful in light of the government’s unlawful actions involving continuing preparations for and threat of use of nuclear weapons, in this case Trident. International law is clear regarding the illegality of the possession and threat of use of nuclear weapons, and the voluntary participation of the U.S. government in international law is well established. "
In or outside of my head, this does not sound like they were pleading guilty.
Let's review:
==The fines should never be paid as a matter of principle.
These people are innocent and are American heroes.
And an innocent person should not have to pay a fine.==
You wrote this in response to my suggestion that CD participants might want to help defray those fines, as a gesture of sympathy and appreciation for their bravery and commitment. Your response makes you a jerk. Follow this.
The fines have been assessed, must and will be paid. They express a leniency on the part of the judge, who could have slapped them with ten years in prison. Folks here on CD should stop shitting on the judge.
These people are NOT innocent. Not even THEY think so. They deliberately broke the law, and expected to be captured and punished. That makes them martyrs, not heroes. There is a semantic difference.
Seven million innocent people were sent to gas chambers. What planet do you live on where your concept =innocent people should not have to pay fines= has meaning and testicular weight?
Should a fund be established, don't you dare contribute one PENNY to it.
Trylon
I probably should not reply to an abusive answer, but your premise is not correct on their guilt and I feel compelled to respond.
Consider:
A house is on fire and a person breaks a window to rescue a child who would otherwise perish. Is that person guilty of breaking, entering, and kidnapping? Should that person get the death penalty? If this judge had been presiding, the only evidence that the jury would have been able to hear would have been that the person broke into the house and kidnapped the child. No mention of the fire would be allowed. How would the jury have responded? That person did not commit a crime. That person would be a hero who risked his or her life.
In this case, the danger to society is far worse than the death of a single child and cutting a fence to rescue our nation is a necessary action. These people are not guilty of ANY crime and the jury should have been able to hear their defense. These people are heroes who risked their lives. They knew they were in danger of being shot or being arrested because they know that our government does not hesitate to break the law. The problem here is that it is our government who is in the wrong, not these individuals who have placed principle above their own personal safety.
I would be very surprised to hear that these principled and good folks would pay a fine for a crime they did not commit. They did cut the fence and enter (which they admit), but that was not a crime in this case.
Earth to bystander, earth to bystander. Your philosophy is not what is at stake here. This story is not about YOU.
What is at stake is the well being of five brave souls, who have broken law to attempt the making of a better world for all of us. Monetary fines have been assessed against them. Suggesting that they refuse to pay the fines is dick-headed and arrogant. We can show our appreciation to these brave souls by paying the damn fines.
N.B. You will not get the last word, nor prevail in this dispute. Cry into a terrycloth towel, blow your nose, then try a different topic.
Trylon
Earth to Trylon. These people have no intention of paying these fines so stop with the browbeating. The court really has no way of collecting it. This was all a kabuki dance.
Thank you peggyforpeace.
Although Trylon is right about one thing:
We will never get in the last word.
He has to resort to name calling and ridicule because there is absolutely no factual or logical basis for his statements.
You cannot be compelled to pay. That equals a debtors prison. I have not paid many (MANY) tickets and fines. Ya know what? They actually go away after awhile!
Depending on your state, traffic tickets can keep you from renewing your license. Other than that you are not compelled to pay a fine or civil (whatever it's called).
A judge basically decides the amount, but can't enforce payment. Just takes spine - get a notice in the mail, toss it out; get a call, hang up. It's a collection agency and they get tired and then give up after a bit.
"Is it really that easy"?
For me, here in Washington - yup!
I still owe the "war taxes" that were tacked onto our phone bills to pay for the Vietnam war back in the 70's. Those specific taxes were imposed to directly pay for the war.
Like many others, I would deduct the taxes when paying the phone bill. The telephone company would then cheerfully forward your name to the government so that the FBI would know who the terrorist peaceniks were who refused to pay for their bombs.
You can't be compelled to write a check, or to hand over cash, no. But if the government decides the amount is worth pursuing, they CAN garnish wages, seize and auction property, compel the bank to write them a check from your account, etc.
Judges CAN enforce payment. If they couldn't the losers in civil suits could stymie the process by refusing to pay the judgments against them. If it were that easy, you can bet insurance companies, etc. would simply refuse to pay the judgments against them.
NONE of the defendants have assets. They'll have a pretty darn hard time getting that blood from a turnip. As far as I know none have bank accounts either. Good luck to "the system" in getting money from any of them.
Welcome to my neighborhood.
Lewis-McChord joint base (army & air force combined), Whidbey Island AFB, Bremerton navel/nuclear base, Bangor submarine/nuclear base -- fuck, who knows what else. All in a ~50 mile radius. And this was when Reagan was taunting the Soviets! How stupid was that motherfucker? WAY stupid - because he was living 2000 miles away.
***
People don't want wind farms "in their back yard".
People don't want solar farms "in their back yard".
Look what I have no choice of in MY back yard!
Oh, and the hanford nuclear reservation just over the mountains.
I guess that's why east of the mountains they vote republican and on the west side here mostly democrat.
I am so totally sympathetic to you Unforgiven......I live on the west side of the mountains just a few miles away from the Lewis-McChord military base. Several times a week there is thunderous artillery fire that sounds like we are under attack and bombs are being dropped. Machine gun fire and missile fire can be heard all the time. Military helicopters fly overhead half the day......it's like a war zone! And this....in the middle of beautiful land surrounded by mountains, Mt. Rainier, big tall cedar and pine trees. It's an obscenity in my opinion! Many people here have the opinion that....they are "protecting our freedoms."
I live by an air force base and have to put up with the noise of the jets. They will do touch and goes for hours. I hate the noise and think of how much money is burned per second so they can practice. I think our military is the dumbest thing ever invented. While many people work long hours just to survive the military squanders our taxes.
They also spend lots of money wasting ammo.
Like your folks around you my coworkers have family in service protecting my freedom. Bullshit. When I ask them what we would do if another nation attacked us and we would defend ourselves would WE be called insurgents? They just quote 9/11 at me. When I try to tell them it was an inside job they all start screaming. Even is 9/11 was done by terrorists, we deserved it. How many countries have we invaded? How many people have we killed for no reason?
One bumper sticker read " If you can't stand behind our troops stand in front of them". People really are stupid. Let's cut SS and all social programs so our MICC can invade other countries.
Righton, mr unforgiven. And all these folks in the military complex in WA are 7% of the state's economy-- We're the Mercenary State. And what they are doing is completely unnecessary and immoral. None of the US' wars since at least WW2 have been self defense. The U.S. has killed millions of innocent people in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq. Those people never attacked the U.S. So why did we kill them?
90% of victims were noncombatants -horrific deaths-- burned to death, buried under buildings, shot with automatic weapons, artillery, blasted by explosives, often dying lingering deaths from infection or disease, or starvation.
The US military has not served America. They disserved. The reputation and standing of the soldiers, the veterans, and the Congress and President institutionally AND INDIVIDUALLY, comes from the character of their actions, not by wishful thinking.
And they are completely unreformed, building and planning the next mega-death war.
Besides the obvious here, I would like to comment on the Crux of the Court Case. Let me see if I got this straight. A bunch of Senior citizens, Priests, Nuns, and assorted peaceniks, with no military training, broke into a Triply fenced High Security US Nuclear Weapons Dump. IMHO, they should Courts Martial all the Military Officers & Guards for Gross Malfeasance in the the non-Performance of their Duty. Then, give the Nuns a Medal.
Considering that this is "post-9.11" and that the US is engaged in three military actions, the idea that senior citizens and nuns can go gallavanting around inside a nuclear weapons dump for hours on end is preposterous. And considering that some $42 billion is spent on direct "security" to parry those who are far more skilled than this bunch, demonstrates what a total farce the Federal Government has disintegrated into.
It's just mouth gapein' amazing. I'm beginning to wonder if fooling around with nukes causes some kind of early onset dementia. Seems like all these folks in charge of radioactive junk are just walking around playing with their willies while their watch is going to hell.
Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies from Norway, has a book detailing why US world hegemony will not last beyond 2020. I saw a great 54 minute interview with him on YouTube. There are various videos of him giving a great analysis as to why this is inevitable. It will not be easy to be living in a crumbling empire, and the symptoms around us grow increasingly evident each day. We ought to be spending our time and resources now on surviving the Japanese nuclear crisis, and the environmental crises caused by the chemical and other corporate industries.
It would be interesting to learn what the jurors think of their weekend's work now, after they've been exposed to the publicity leading up to and surrounding the trial...during which they were held in a thought-free zone into which only the facts the prosecution and the court wanted them to have were permitted.
On the other hand, I don't think I'd want to get inside the minds of the prosecutors who labored so mightily...and so avidly...to get these people put away in prison and fined (which fines, you know...and the prosecutors know...are not going to be paid, leading to further harsh punishment). Except at their trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, it would be best not to know what goes on in the minds of prosecutors.
In any crime novel there always has to be motive and opportunity.
These senior citizens had opportunity due to the pathetic security on the nuclear weapons.
But shouldn't the jurors have wondered about motive? Shouldn't they have wondered what would have inspired their grandmothers to break into a military base?
I guess they are not paid to think.
(On a side note, maybe the reason the security is so lax is because the government wants nuclear weapons to be able to be stolen for use in future false flag operations. Look at what happened recently when several nuclear bombs were "accidentally" mistaken for training devices and flown out of the base. I guess we will never know what happened there because so many of the airmen involved met with unfortunate accidents.)
What a farce! Sounds like these peacemakers were railroaded by a kangaroo court. The judge and jury are the ones that need to be incarcerated.
Judge, Jury, and whoever was charged with quarding these horror weapons. That wasn't exactly the dirty dozen.
Columnist Chris Hedges sidestepped what to do about the impending disasters propelled by the boy king, George W., until he began to say protest was the only way. I totally agree, although the thought of being in jail again--ever--in my life likely would make me suicidal. But having Nazi-like thugs taking away my health insurance and going to the ER where 20-year-old doctors stick tubes up my groin and knives all over my body also makes me suicidal. If I'm going to die from another bout of acute respiratory distress syndrome because of not having insurance, or if I'm going to have to eat dog food in my old age, I may opt for the way out that Clint Eastwood took in "Gran Torino" (watch it. Great movie.) I've always believed Frederick Douglass was right. Hedges confirms it for me below:
We have tolerated the intolerant—from propaganda outlets such as Fox News to Christian fascists to lunatics in the Republican Party to Wall Street and corporations—and we are paying the price. The only place left for us is on the street. We must occupy state and federal offices. We must foment general strikes. The powerful, with no check left on their greed and criminality, are gorging on money while they busily foreclose our homes, bust the last of our unions, drive up our health care costs and cement into place a permanent underclass of the broken and the poor. They are slashing our most essential and basic services—including budgets for schools, firefighters and assistance programs for children and the elderly—so we can pay for the fraud they committed when they wiped out $14 trillion of housing wealth, wages and retirement savings. All we have left is the capacity to say “no.” And if enough of us say “no,” if enough of us refuse to cooperate, the despots are in trouble.
“Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reforms,” Frederick Douglass said in 1857. “The whole history of the progress of human history shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of struggle. ... If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will...”
Garlanddegr..I am concerned about your health and would like to suggest a mixture of turnip juice and watercress. It is an extraordinary tonic for respiratory problems. You'll need to find your local food co-op or soemthing to help you with that. Work a couple hours a week and you can get help with food costs, if you are lucky enough.
Thanks for your inspiring post.
We unfortunately have "tolerated the intolerant" and as the intolerable becomes the constant in the equation, have we really any choice but to find the courage of conviction as these people did (& as Bradley Manning), arm ourselves with our moral outrage, and take to the streets in an organized strategy to instate the moral ethos so absent in this account and in the system that protects thieves and imprisons those who represent the very values we aspire to?
What a fucking jury. Are these people idiots? Dumber than yeast.
Years ago, I was called for a similar jury duty. They had a set of questions that made it virtually impossible for a progressive or sympathetic person to be selected. "Where you ever in a peace demonstration," for example. That automatically disqualified you. There were a number of other questions, too. By the time they were finished, practically the whole room was dismissed.
To paraphrase Thoreau, with these people now in federal prison, what are the rest of us doing out here?
President George W. Bush’s U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle
ordered all of them taken to prison immediately. Do not pass GO...
We're going to see this kind of judicial 'logic' more and more, in every instance whether it's protesting nukes or pot laws or bank fees or GM foods. The juries are the key, and as long as they're filled with either dumbed down citizens or just not allowed to hear ALL the evidence surrounding the 'crime', there's no chance for justice. OUR lawyers need to figure out a way to break through this glitch in the justice system that lets judges deny the jury's considerations of the circumstances leading up to technically 'criminal' actions.
Many people here are deluded. They think we "have freedom." They say "we aren't being rounded up for the things we say here" and they ask "is it fascism yet?" They imagine that police states only exist over there - in those foreign countries with "evil dictators." Those "evil dictators" and police states are as often as not clients of the ruling class here, creations of the same people who rule over us. It seems more gentle here only to the relative few, those who operate as the palace guard in exchange for comfort, security and status.
There is no way to tell you are living in a police state when you never test the boundaries. The degree to which people are experiencing "freedom" is the exact degree to which they are staying in line, complying and obeying.
We are not being rounded up for the things we say here because very few here are saying anything that poses even the slightest threat to the rulers.
If you think we have freedom, and if you think it is not so bad here, you might want to consider just whom it is you are working for, just what it is you are doing to gain that illusion of freedom.
The Catholic Church is an empire unto itself (and rich). Why have they not defended their own people or paid their fines?
Personally, left the church 45 years ago and never looked back.
The Catholic Church is too busy covering for pederasts, oppressing women and gays, and blessing Newt Gingrinch's third marriage.
Friends from Jonah House know this pain too. The ignorance and arrogance of the police state only nails one more into the coffin of their own demise. I wish I could say something positive, but these are the people currently running this country. Death is in their agenda.
Friends from Jonah House know this pain too. The ignorance and arrogance of the police state only nails one more into the coffin of their own demise. I wish I could say something positive, but these are the people currently running this country. Death is in their agenda.
"..but said he was bound to uphold the law otherwise anarchy would break out and take down society."
Well, guess what, Judge, that's exactly what needs to be done. This government has destroyed this nation. Its money. Its infrastructure. Its schools. Everything. And now we have another rogue present, another puppet whose strings are being pulled by forces we can now start to clearly see. All supported and abetted by the Press in the United States. (And yes, that includes lemmings like Rachel Maddow and her partner in crime Lawrence 'The Fake' liberal, O'Donnell).
As far as those sites go, I have to wonder if there's anything at all in them. They're probably empty anyway.
I big thanks to the men and women who now sit in federal prisons. They are the true patriots, not only of the United States, but of the world.
God bless e'm all.
We must have imported some Aussies....
Any differences between what happened and a kangaroo court were purely accidental. purely
But we continue to vote Demo and Repubs into office. We MUST stop that. Vote AGAINST the party preference, vote 3rd party, vote to support freedom and DO NOT vote for anyone supporting wars, Obama, corporate protections, etc. which means ANYONE currently in Congress.
What should be pointed out is that a prosecutor usually has a lot of leeway in the cases that he or she desires to prosecute. It would seem that the prosecution was hell bent upon making an example of these senior citizens who somehow managed to break into what was supposed to be a highly guarded military facility. It should also be noted that Judge Settle is the same judge who had ruled that Lt. Ehren Watada should not have to be retried for refusing to deploy to Iraq in 2006. That being the case, perhaps Judge Settle felt, implicitly if not overtly, that he was not going to allow more anti-war protesters to be given a break under his watch. Perhaps the last thing that he desired was to allow these dangerous geriatrics to be let loose on the streets of the United States. As we see, thinking for one self and protesting against the militant policies of one's government can end up having serious repercussions.
It certainly is reassuring to see Judge Settle protect the citizens of Washington state against seniors who were going to somehow terrorize the citizens of that state because they dared to think for themselves by questioning and challenging the bellicose policies of their government. Conformity must be the battle cry of the State.
"I am not a number. I am a free man!"- as proclaimed by #6 in The Prisoner.
The fascist amerikan empire and its allies of destruction- Britain et all have two years max; their empires are collapsing NOW ! Those who have caused the most suffering WILL suffer the most; there will be a lot !