John Burroughs
Direct actionists are sometimes faulted for not doing, or not doing well, all the other things needed besides sitting on the road. The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action is a model for doing everything well, as I experienced last week in the Seattle area in connection with a trial of the “Ground Zero Three.”
From January 22 to January 26, 2007, three individuals with the Ground Zero Center - Brian Watson, CarolAnn Barrows, and Shirley Morrison - were on trial in a local court in Port Orchard, Washington, for their anti-Trident direct actions in May and August of 2006. They were charged with the misdemeanor of obstructing traffic into the Trident nuclear submarine base at Bangor, Washington, “without lawful authority.” Unusually, the judge allowed David Hall, former national president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, and me to offer expert testimony on January 24. The defendants also testified at length about the reasons for their actions. The jury, while sympathetic as revealed by post-trial comments, failed to seize the opportunity and instead convicted, as the Kitsap Sun reported.
Another Kitsap Sun story described my testimony. It is somewhat garbled, but does convey the gist. I certainly did not say that international law allows use of nuclear weapons defensively! Nor did I indicate that citizens who fail to write letters in theory could be convicted of complicity! I did not get to all of it, and simplified quite a lot, but if you’re interested here’s the written outline of my testimony.
Beyond the trial, the Ground Zero Center is doing a magnificent job of organizing, and participation and interest is on the rise. On January 15, 2007, Martin Luther King Day, 12 people were arrested at the submarine base, with over 200 there in total. In connection with the trial, they organized several events. I did a talk on “From Auschwitz to Trident” on January 20 at the Seattle Town Hall, with about 200 in attendance. You can see it on YouTube; the slides for the talk are here. I also was on Seattle’s National Public Radio affiliate KUOW on Jan 24, with a Center for Defense Information expert, Philip Coyle - here’s the audio.
It was sobering for me personally, for all the time I spend on these issues, to think about the eight or nine Trident submarines based at Bangor. Based on Natural Resources Defense Council estimates in the Nuclear Notebook, November/December 2006 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, each carries 144 warheads, six per each of the 24 Trident II missiles on a submarine. The warheads mostly are 100 kiloton, about seven times the yield of the bomb with which the U.S. destroyed Hiroshima; some are around 450 kilotons, 30 times the Hiroshima bomb. About one-half of the subs are thought to be on patrol at a given time. The buildup of the more capable Trident II missiles in the Pacific clearly is aimed at exerting additional leverage on China, with the posture of readiness to actually wage nuclear war by striking enemy nuclear forces familiar from the Cold War era. For more on this, see the January-February 2007 Nuclear Notebook by Robert Norris and Hans Kristensen.
phone ringtone prepaid free alltelfor alltel motorola ringtones t720hacks 7100g mp3 ringtones forringtones rehman r adownload a600 samsung ringtone freemarch ringtone imperial airport mp3ringtone 17 khzfree 200 sanyo scp ringtone Map
ct wildlife action in torringtonbollywood amr ringtonefree 2116i ringtone nokial1400 jackson alan lg ringtonesringtones alltel lg ax8600 bluetoothcellularone brothers allman ringtonebarrington home american mortgage jersey new107 meriden st harrington Map
porn hairy extremeporno extreme housewifeporn kreme anal extremeporn extreme analextreme porn cartoonsholland from extreme pornreviews extreme pornporn sites extreme Map
February 2nd, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Dr. Burroughs,
You said that the I.C.C. concluded that “the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally contrary to international law.” But you also said the I.C.C. could not say whether international law forbids nuclear weapons “in an extreme circumstance of self-defense.”
You said that the Nuremberg principles of individual responsibility were used and can be used to put a person on trial who committed or was complicit in crimes against peace, crimes against humanity or the planning and preparation of a war of aggression–– although you said this was not likely. Still, wasn’t it the threat of these past convictions that created the principles of individual responsibility … that motivated the defendants to act? Please let me know what you think because the case was interesting for me to cover and I regret getting anything wrong.
David
February 2nd, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Thank you, John, for letting us work with you on this VERY IMPORTANT issue to all of us on Planet Earth. May more of us understand that Weapons of Mass Destruction are here, are basically by International Law, illegal, and our obligation as citizens of this country is to stand up to say, “Dismantle them, build NO MORE”. Peace, Shirley Morrison
February 3rd, 2007 at 8:58 am
David - thanks for your full and vivid coverage in the Kitsap Sun. The Seattle papers did not cover the trial that I know of, so it’s all the more important that you did. I went over international law applying to nuclear weapons pretty quickly, in an hour and one-half or so, including responding to questions from the defense attorney and the prosecutor. It’s hard to make everything crystal clear in that environment and that amount of time, and I don’t have the transcript so I don’t know exactly what I said, especiallly in responding to questions. As mentioned in the post, what I prepared in advance is at http://lcnp.org/disarmament/declaration_barrows.pdf
The sentence that most concerned me in your January 25 story re international law linked in the post was this: “Burroughs said international law does allow the use of nuclear weapons for defensive purposes.” A bit above that, though, you did capture my main conclusion: warheads of the size deployed on Trident sub, 100 or ~450 kilotons, cannot meet the requirement of discrimination between civilians and military targets. That is true whether the weapons are used offensively or defensively. This is important, because governments will always say they are acting in self-defense. (Regarding your January 27 story linked in the post, I did talk about Nuremberg prosecutions for planning and preparing a war of aggression, but this was to illustrate the point about complicity discussed below; however, it’s illegal/criminal to use Trident weapons whether in a war of aggression or a war of self-defense.)
The confusion about self-defense arises from the fact that the International Court of Justice said that it could not reach a conclusion, one way or the other, about threat or use in an extreme circumstance of self-defense in which the very survival of a state is at stake. Thus the ICJ was uncertain about that circumstance (it is NOT an exception). However, the Court makes clear elsewhere that humanitarian law imposing the requirement of discrimination applies in that circumstance. That supports my conclusion about the illegality of threat or use of Trident warheads.
It is unfortunate that the ICJ created this ambiguity about self-defense in an extreme circumstance. It would have been better if the Court had adopted the position of three dissenters, that threat or use is definitively illegal in all circumstances, or if the Court had just said threat or use is generally illegal, but they were not in a position to judge all possible scenarios. It is well established that humanitarian law applies in all circumstances and applies equally to aggressor and defender states.
The other point of concern to me in your story, much less important, that I certainly did not intend to convey, and imagine I did not, is that citizens without any connection to the nuclear weapons enterprise could theoretically be subject to prosecution for complicity if a weapon was used if they had not registered their opposition by protest, writing a letter, etc. Rather it is persons connected to nuclear weapons, the president, the commander of a sub, sailors on a sub, maintenance workers, manufacturers, etc. who in theory could be prosecuted following a nuclear use. Obviously we don’t want to find out. And in the aftermath of a nuclear use or nuclear war, prosecution would be unlikely. If there was prosecution, based on the Nuremberg trials and the approach of the new International Criminal Court, it likely would be persons in a position of responsibility, like the president, sub commander, head of company that manufactures the missile, etc. who would be prosecuted, not sailors or maintenance workers. In any case, not citizens without any connection to nuclear weapons other than paying taxes and voting. Citizens do have, in my opinion, moral and political complicity if they do not act to oppose Trident and other nuclear weapons.
February 5th, 2007 at 11:59 am
The ICJ dealt with nuclear weapons generally, not with Trident, which ipso facto violates the rules and principles of humanitarian law in any circumstance. Please refer to the Faslane 365 website for information about UK actions regarding the Trident and specifically the Lawyers Blockade Declaration which gives a summary of the facts and law.
Anabel Dwyer Board of Directors
Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy