Friends,
I have known John LaForge, a Plowshares activist, for many years, and last saw him in October 2019 during the Kings Bay Plowshares trial. And I am glad that he wrote about Dennis DuVall, a nuclear resister. However, I think John’s opening paragraph is a bit off.
For example, I do not agree with this point: “All will solemnly promote the need to pursue a world without nuclear weapons. However, many of the same voices will negate their own words by advocating a wait-and-see, what-about-the-other-guy, business-as-usual support of “deterrence.” I only wish that “All” were against nuclear weapons.” Unfortunately, there is very little coverage of the US nuclear arsenal and the trillion dollar cost of “upgrading” these weapons. And there is even less coverage of the nuclear disarmament movement. The Kings Bay Plowshares have not gotten much attention from the mainstream media.
On the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee’s Zoom conference at 7 PM on August 9, we hope to engage in a dialogue about re-invigorating the anti-nuclear weapons movement. But you do not have to wait until Sunday night, as you can send me your suggestions on what we can do to make the disarmament of nuclear weapons a critical issue of concern. Today, we have these movements—Black Lives Matter, climate chaos and Medicare for All. But outside of our anti-nuke bubble, there is very little fervor to get involved in saving Mother Earth from a nuclear holocaust.
Did you see the mushroom cloud from the explosion in Beirut? Imagine if such an explosion took place in India or Pakistan, and the other country reacted by launching a nuclear weapon. Let’s all get involved in preventing Nuclear Winter by working on abolishing these inhumane weapons of mass destruction.
Kagiso, Max
- CounterPunch.org - https://www.counterpunch.org –
USAF Vet Could Face ‘20 Days for 20 Bombs’ for Protest Against US H-Bombs Stationed in Germany
By John Laforge On August
7, 2020 
Hamburg,
Germany
With this week’s commemorations of the US atomic massacres at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there will be countless hours spent on speeches, sermons, hymns, and warnings; tons of ink spilled in op/eds, editorials and articles. All will solemnly promote the need to pursue a world without nuclear weapons. However, many of the same voices will negate their own words by advocating a wait-and-see, what-about-the-other-guy, business-as-usual support of “deterrence.” (Never mind that Navy Secretary, Cold War hawk and Reagan presidential advisor Paul Nitze publicly demolished the rationale for deterrence 21 years ago, and that the International Committee of the Red Cross has since then declared that the direct medical effects of nuclear war are so vast and overwhelming that they cannot be ameliorated.)
One man who’s
free of this hypocrisy is Dennis DuVall — a US citizen and resident of
Radeberg, Germany, near Nuremberg — who will continue his genuine and
consistent opposition to nuclear weapons on August 4, 2020, as a defendant in
the dock at Justice Court in Koblenz, Germany.
DuVall, 78, is a
US Air Force Veteran of the US War in Vietnam and a longtime member of Veterans
for Peace. Last May 11 he was convicted by a lower court of trespassing and
property damage at the German airbase Büchel — where about 20 US Air Force
hydrogen bombs are maintained and readied for use — and has appealed to the
court in Koblenz. Because he has promised the German court authorities he will
not pay a fine, DuVall if he is again convicted could be jailed.
DuVall’s court
case stems from the much-publicized “go-in” action of July 15, 2018, when 18
people in five groups clipped through the base’s old chain-link fence in
five separate places, in broad daylight, and clamored over razor wire to get
inside. The nonviolent action was part of the long-running campaign in Germany
that demands removal of the remaining US nuclear weapons, cancellation of the
US bombs’ planned replacement, and German government ratification of the new
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
“Büchel
protesters are doing what the nuclear weapons states should have been doing for
the last 50 years. We are honoring the words and spirit of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in stimulating ‘good faith’ debate of nuclear
weapons leading to nuclear disarmament,” DuVall says in a statement he prepared
for court. DuVall is one of at least 93 protesters who currently face charges
for “go-in” protests over the last four years at the German/NATO nuclear
weapons base.
Büchel protesters
contend the 20 US B61 hydrogen bombs (along with the US H-bombs in Italy,
Belgium, The Netherlands and Turkey), violate the two principle articles of the
NPT, as well as other binding international humanitarian laws, and that their
minor disruptions are justified acts of crime prevention. “Trespassing and
damage to a fence are minor offenses that are trivial compared to the threat of
nuclear annihilation readied inside the bunkers at Büchel AFB,” DuVall’s court
statement says.
DuVall has said
he “will refuse to pay a fine for his nonviolent civil resistance,” and
that he “expects to be incarcerated ‘20 Days for 20 Bombs.’”
Photo: Denis Duvall is at left in photo wearing mask, during the July 16, 2020 blockade of Büchel air base’s main gate. Photo by John LaForge.
Article printed from CounterPunch.org: https://www.counterpunch.org
URL to article: https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/07/usaf-vet-could-face-20-days-for-20-bombs-for-protest-against-us-h-bombs-stationed-in-germany/
Donations can be sent to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore
Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206, Baltimore, MD 21212.
Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the
subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to
gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and
everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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