3 Nuns face 30 years for WMD search

Questioninggeller

Illuminator
Q
Joined
May 11, 2002
Messages
3,048
Radical Nuns Face 30 Years For Inspecting U.S. Nukes
by John Tarleton
A year after the U.S. began bombing Afghanistan and seven weeks before U.N. weapon inspectors returned to Iraq, three Dominican nuns performed their own weapons inspection on the windswept high plains of northeastern Colorado.

Sisters Carol Gilbert, Jackie Hudson and Ardeth Platte entered Minuteman III missile silo N-8 near Greeley, Colorado at dawn last October 6 wearing white mop-up suits which said “Disarmament Specialists” in front and “Citizens Weapons Inspection Team” in back. After cutting through two fences, they hammered on the silo and on the tracks used to open the silo’s 120-ton concrete lids. They also used their blood to make the sign of the cross on the tracks and on the silo. They concluded their inspection with a liturgy and a burst of songs and hymns.

Within an hour of the first fence cutting, military personnel arrived in humvees with their machine guns pointed at the nuns. The three women were arrested and forced to lie face down in the cold for four hours. They now each face 30 years in prison on charges of sabotage and destruction of government property.

“For some of you this news may be difficult,” the nuns wrote afterward. “We can respond only by telling you that we are breaking through our own fears and intimidation, that we refuse to be immobilized by the intense call to patriotism that masks the lies, theft and killing of permanent war-making."

“If anyone did something like this in Russia or Iraq or Pakistan or India, we would be applauding them,” added Anabel Dwyer, a Lansing, Michigan-based human rights lawyer and longtime friend of Sister Platte. “But if you do it here, it’s criminal.”

The inspection of silo N-8 was the first Plowshares action (see Berrigan page 11) performed on American soil since September 11 and the three nuns have been hit with the heaviest charges ever given to Plowshares activists. Hudson and Gilbert will both have high-powered attorneys when their trials begin March 31 while Platte will argue her case pro se.

“It’s utterly outrageous for the government to have brought sabotage charges against these nuns,” said Scott Poland, a Colorado attorney who will serve as Platte’s legal advisor along with Dwyer. “They’re just trying to cut them off at the knees. If they are convicted, they’ll die in prison.”
Click to expand...

Article continued:
http://www.indypendent.org/articles/nuns.html
 
I hope that they're prosecuted for 30 years or more in prison. I may be against nuclear armament, but my tax dollars(well, parents') went into the construction of the silo, and it shouldn't be defiled by some self-righteous nuns! And that was some "inspection" they did, something of less calibre than that that could be accomplished by teenagers! How childish they were. If they wanted to disarm the US they can complain to their congresspeople, drawing crosses in blood only tells me that they want their own theocracy.
 
“If anyone did something like this in Russia or Iraq or Pakistan or India, we would be applauding them,” added Anabel Dwyer, a Lansing, Michigan-based human rights lawyer and longtime friend of Sister Platte. “But if you do it here, it’s criminal.”
Click to expand...

If done in Russia, Iraq, or Pakistan they probably wouldn't be criminals for long, because they'd be dead.
 
Khalid01 said:
I hope that they're prosecuted for 30 years or more in prison. I may be against nuclear armament, but my tax dollars(well, parents') went into the construction of the silo, and it shouldn't be defiled by some self-righteous nuns! And that was some "inspection" they did, something of less calibre than that that could be accomplished by teenagers! How childish they were. If they wanted to disarm the US they can complain to their congresspeople, drawing crosses in blood only tells me that they want their own theocracy.
Click to expand...

Oh holy f&*(&. MAYBE $10 of "your tax dollars" went to that, MAYBE, probably less than that. Yes, for your $10 you can want women to rot in prison for doing that they think is right :rolleyes: Give me a break.

They may be religious idiots, but they don't deserve 30 years in prison, that's for sure.
 
Malachi151 said:


Oh holy f&*(&. MAYBE $10 of "your tax dollars" went to that, MAYBE, probably less than that. Yes, for your $10 you can want women to rot in prison for doing that they think is right :rolleyes: Give me a break.

They may be religious idiots, but they don't deserve 30 years in prison, that's for sure.
Click to expand...

Who cares if they think it was right? They need to be given 30 years to set an example for the next line of idiots.
 
The quanitity of money that my parents have contributed through taxes to maintain that silo is not important. They caused a disturbance in a most silly and fruitless fashion, probably upsetting a good sector of the military security forces, whom were thinking some real dangerous extremists were trying to get their hands on our nukes. Should we allow just anyone to go around upsetting government property because they feel like it, because they won't steal anything, but just dance around and graffiti government property? What if a real terrorist was amongst them, how could we tell? We can't guess peoples' motives when they start prancing around government property. They may want to make a statement, or they may want to start nuclear armageddon. Why risk the human race's existence for anyone? If these nuns get away with it, and we then bar others than America will look especially theocratic. These nuns could have complained about armament much more civilly and legally, but instead they were looking for jail time, it's their own fault.
 
Time to electrify those fences. I'm appalled that they got as far as they did. Security at that base is never going to live down the fact that their perimeter was penetrated by three nuns.
 
Pyrrho said:
Time to electrify those fences. I'm appalled that they got as far as they did. Security at that base is never going to live down the fact that their perimeter was penetrated by three nuns.
Click to expand...
This was my point in a previous thread. What if they were terrorists?
Whoever was in charge of security needs to be replaced.
 
Excellent point subgenius. And yes, these nun's should be in prison. You don't mess with military equipment and nukes, whether you're a nun or not. Especially if you're a nun in my case.
 
i think that they should be given whatever sentence is the standard of the law, whether they are nuns or not.
 
What good is civil disobedience if you don't run the risk of being punished for your actions?

Good job to the nuns. I wish the media had picked up on it more. But they deserve the standard sentence. Hopefully their actions will bring nuclear disarmament back into the spotlight.
 
Sounds like a good movie idea.

Three nuns break into a nuclear facility with hilarious results.
Where is Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane when you need them?
 
“If anyone did something like this in Russia or Iraq or Pakistan or India, we would be applauding them,” added Anabel Dwyer, a Lansing, Michigan-based human rights lawyer and longtime friend of Sister Platte. “But if you do it here, it’s criminal.”

A-hem.

If it were done in Iraq, Russia, or Pakistan, it would have been a violation of Iraqi, Russian, or Pakistani law. As it was done in the US, it was violation of US law.

Of course the US wouldn't have prosecuted them in for breaking Pakistani laws. But do you hear any demands from the Pakistanis to extradite the nuns, so they could be brought to trial in for violating a US law?

So, contrary to the lawyer's self-righteousness, the situation is pretty symmetrical.
 
Thumper said:
What good is civil disobedience if you don't run the risk of being punished for your actions?

Good job to the nuns. I wish the media had picked up on it more. But they deserve the standard sentence. Hopefully their actions will bring nuclear disarmament back into the spotlight.
Click to expand...
The head of security deserves more punishment than they do.
These are old ladies. (This has all been discussed in another thread.)
 
subgenius said:

The head of security deserves more punishment than they do.
These are old ladies. (This has all been discussed in another thread.)
Click to expand...

I tend to agree.
And for obvious reasons (endangering National Security et al...), the old ladies deserve PLENTY of punishment. An hour of unidentified people running around a strategic nuclear launch base... JESUS!
 
blackpriester said:


I tend to agree.
And for obvious reasons (endangering National Security et al...), the old ladies deserve PLENTY of punishment. An hour of unidentified people running around a strategic nuclear launch base... JESUS!
Click to expand...
Let the punishment fit the crime. It was a symbolic act by religious old ladies. Think of your mother. Never could have happened if the security guy was awake. And what was the intent, and the actual harm?
30 years (or even 1 year) for old ladies? Like hackers the a**holes in charge should pay them for showing how lax their security was.
P.S. Justice includes mercy.
 
blackpriester said:


An hour of unidentified people running around a strategic nuclear launch base... JESUS!
Click to expand...
They have been identified.....and there was no intent to do a terrorist act....you don't punish old ladies because of who they could have been (that's someone else's fault)....you punish the jerks who could have let terrorists in.
Can anyone hear me? These were old ladies.
Anyone got mothers out there?
9/11 is not an excuse to execute everyone, except the one's who let it happen.
 
Wow...

First I'm agreeing with Jedi Knight...

Now I'm agreeing with subgenious.

Danng! :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom