Please sign - Disarm Now Plowshares support statement

From the Disarm Now Plowshares -

http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com/

 

Support Letter for Disarm Now Plowshares

We support the nonviolent disarmament action that took place in the U.S. on November 2, 2009 at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor where Trident nuclear weapons are stored or deployed on Trident submarines. These weapons constitute the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the US.  Bill Bichsel, S.J., 81;  Steve Kelly, S.J.,60;  Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, 83; Lynne Greenwald, 60; and Susan Crane, 66, carried hammers into the secure nuclear bunker area  to symbolically carry out Isaiah's injunction to "hammer swords into plowshares." Plowshares actions call for conversion of weapons of war into what is necessary for human life. They also poured out their own blood from baby bottles to make clearly visible the violence the bunkers hide. They sowed sunflower seeds: seeds of hope and international symbols of nuclear disarmament. They walked in the nonviolence of Jesus whose message has often been obscured by the drumbeats of Empire.

During the civil rights and social change struggles in the US, South Africa, the Philippines, Poland, India and many other countries, nonviolent civil resistance has been recognized as a necessary and responsible method for people seeking real justice and peace. In the spirit of these international struggles, the Plowshares cut through the fences at the Strategic Weapons Facility-Pacific to draw attention to the presence and intended use of these weapons.

We join with these five to move away from the catastrophic path of self extinction and away from destroying all life on earth through the mining, production, research, testing, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. Not only are these weapons killing people now through the funding that ought to be used for human needs, but the production, testing and use inflict indiscriminate slaughter, devastation of the environment, excruciating suffering, genetic damage for generations and wholesale destruction of cultural inheritance.

 Nuclear weapons preparation, planning, threat or use violates the most basic tenets of humanitarian law, human rights law and environmental law including the Nuremberg Principles, Hague regulations, Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter. In addition the International Court of Justice in 1996 declared that the threat or use of nuclear weapons stands in opposition to international law. Thus the threat of use of nuclear weapons, the cornerstone of US national security policy, is also a violation of international law.

Consequently, every person has a right and responsibility under the Nuremberg Principles to nonviolently oppose the existence of nuclear weapon systems and call for their abolition. All people can act responsibly in their local areas to eliminate nuclear weapons, as well as demand that the parties to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty at the May 2010 Review Conference set a firm date for the global abolition of nuclear weapons. International bodies such as Mayors for Peace are calling for all nuclear weapons to be eliminated by the year 2020.  As nations turn their swords into plowshares, we become a human family that can eliminate war.

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Fax Number if you want to put the letter on your letterhead and fax it:  253-272-6285
or mail to Disarm Now Plowshares, 1417 South G Street, Tacoma, Washington 98405
or, contact us (and sign the support letter) through http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com