3 AMERICAN HEROES SENT TO PRISON

[Jcrowley]

Blood-Pouring Anti-Nuke Clowns Sent to Prison
Weapons of Mass Destruction Protected
By Bill Quigley
11/17/06

Three men protesting the presence of weapons of mass destruction in North Dakota were sentenced to federal prison terms of over three years and ordered to pay $17,000 in restitution by a federal judge in Bismarck. The three dressed as clowns and went to the Echo-9 launch site of the intercontinental Minuteman III nuclear missile in rural North Dakota in June 2006. They broke the lock off the fence and put up peace banners and posters. One said: "Swords into plowshares - Spears into pruning hooks." They poured some of their own blood on the site, hammered on the nuclear launching facility and waited to be arrested.

The Minuteman III missile has over 20 times the destructive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima and can reach a target within 6000 miles in 35 minutes. The men called their action the “Weapons of Mass Destruction Here Plowshares.”

Dressed in faded black striped prison uniforms and blue cloth slippers, they appeared before the federal court for sentencing. Fr. Carl Kabat, 73, a catholic priest from St. Louis with a life-long history of resistance to nuclear weapons was sentenced to 15 months in prison. Greg Boetje-Obed, 52, a former Navy officer living with his family in the Catholic Worker community in Duluth Minnesota was given a 12 month and one day prison sentence. Michael Walli, 58, also with the Loaves and Fishes Catholic Worker in Duluth received 8 months. All were ordered to pay $17,000 restitution.

During their trial, the men openly admitted try to disarm the nuclear weapon. They pointed out to the jury that each one of these missiles was a devastating weapon of mass destruction, a killing machine precisely designed to murder hundreds of thousands. Testimony by experts about the illegality of these weapons of mass destruction under international law and their effects were excluded by the court and never heard by the jury.

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15646.htm

[Strawman]

1. How do I vote for one of these guys for Pope?

[patrice]

2. If it weren't for people like this, there would be no Anti-war movement.

[Pavulon]

3. Calling Darwin...

Lucky they did not take three in the chest. Lets go break into a secured site that stored nuclear devices.

People get shot all the time running the gates at military bases IN THE US.

[Syncronaut Seven]

4. I believe they were prepaired for that possibility, that's what makes them heroes

Compared to the price of global thermo-nuclear war, what did they have to lose?

[Pavulon]

5. I do not disagree with their cause

just the method. They are lucky to be in prison. You want to kill yourself fine, do it. Dont make some airman live the rest of his life having shot someone who wanted media attention.

[Jcrowley]

7. Your analysis

of what happened here is really quite shortsighted and completely ignorant of who these people are and what is at stake.

Your sympathies for the poor airman are distorted to say the least and your belief that these folks are looking for media attention as their motive is completely wrong.

The future generations will be applauding these three men long before they will applaud bombardiers.

[Syncronaut Seven]

8. Any airman who made a choice to fire on peacefull protesters

SHOULD live with the fallout.

The concept of sacrifice for the common good is lost on you, isn't it.

That any given airman might have to make that decision bother you?

The men who were sentenced today have had to make tougher decisions, guaranteed.

You equate deep moral conviction with whoring for attention? That's pretty pathetic bub.

[dysfunctional press]

6. well...their LIVES for one thing.

they had a much better chance of being shot at than of ever witnessing a global thermo-nuclear war.