The Nuclear Resister

by the Bradley Manning Support Network. July 30, 2013

“We won the battle, now we need to go win the war,” shared defense attorney David Coombs following today’s verdict. “Today is a good day, but Bradley is by no means out of the fire,” he said to dozens of emotional supporters outside of the Fort Meade, Maryland military courtroom. Coombs expressed subdued optimism going into the expected month-long sentencing phase of the court martial that will determine how long Bradley Manning will remain in confinement.

Bradley Manning had previously accepted responsibility for providing classified information to WikiLeaks, actions covered by ten of the 22 charges. Military judge Colonel Denise Lind found him guilty of 20 of those 22 charges, so PFC Manning still faces the possibility of over 100 years behind bars.

from The Morning Bulletin

Four peace activists were arrested on July 19 blockading the Caroona Street gate of Western Street Barracks, Rockhampton (Queensland, Australia).

Their intention was to disrupt the Talisman Saber war rehearsals by putting their bodies on the road in front of military supply vehicles, activist Graeme Dunstan said.

He said those arrested are Andy Paine, Jim Dowling, David Sprigg  and Robin Taubenfeld, all of Brisbane.

photo by Bee Lloyd

Protesters at new Kansas City facility seek to open a door to a nuclear-weapons-free world

from Jane Stoever

On July 13, about 80 people sang and prayed at the entry road to a new facility in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. By 10:15 a.m., two dozen protesters had crossed the property line and were soon arrested.

The five-building facility, the Kansas City Plant, at 14510 Botts Road in Kansas City, Missouri, will by next year house the operations of the current Kansas City Plant (at Bannister and Troost in KC), where 85 percent of the non-nuclear parts for U.S. nuclear weapons are made or procured.

Nuclear Resister summer prisoner support bulletin

Please write to judges and officials this summer in support of six imprisoned anti-nuclear and anti-war activists. Invite some friends over and sit down to write letters together, or perhaps you can include it as an activity at your peace group’s next meeting.  Click on the links below for information on the support actions needed.

You can also write a note of support to these and other activists behind bars (addresses here).

Greg, Michael, Jack and Megan in Knoxville, May 4, 2013. Photo by Felice Cohen-Joppa

From the Coordinators of the Nuclear Resister   –     June 2013

Dear friends,

Although it was almost 30 years ago, we remember quite clearly hearing the news that Fr. Carl Kabat and Helen Woodson were sentenced to 18 years in prison for using a sledgehammer, jackhammer and household hammer with two others to disarm a nuclear missile silo in Missouri.  It stands as the longest prison sentence for a nuclear disarmament action to date.  

In September, the most recent group in the Plowshares tradition to use hammers to beat swords into plowshares – the Transform Now Plowshares – will be sentenced.  Sr. Megan Rice, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed, convicted by a jury of sabotage and depredation of government property at Tennessee’s Y-12 nuclear weapons complex, are already in jail and each faces up to 35 years in prison.