[JNV] Sonia departs / Marcus jailed / Nuclear comment

[Justice Not Vengeance]

1) Sonia departs - with thanks
2) Please write to jailed peace activist (by email or by post)
3) A response to the US nuclear threats debate


Dear friends

We hope you find this email useful. We continue to be inspired by
Sonia's example, and by the extraordinary Climate Camp at Heathrow
(http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/) which we are either attending at the
time of writing, or intending to visit, before the camp ends on
Tuesday.

Best wishes

Maya Anne Evans
Emily Johns
Milan Rai
Justice Not Vengeance




*****


1) SONIA THANKS HER SUPPORTERS / BRITISH MUSLIM GIRL SETS OFF TO FILM
IRAQI REFUGEE CHILDREN IN JORDAN


Today, Thursday 16 August, the 12-year-old founder of Children Against
War, Sonia Azad is setting off for Jordan with an adult companion for
three days interviewing Iraqi children (and adults) who have been
forced to flee their country because of the conditions created by the
US/UK invasion and occupation. Sonia, who is a Muslim, intends to
attend Friday prayers tomorrow in Amman, interview refugees at home
and at school, and return on Monday, when she will begin editing her
film.


Justice Not Vengeance is honoured to have been able to assist Sonia in
fundraising, and will be giving further support in editing, producing
and distributing Sonia's film (intended to be 20 minutes long). If you
have any suggestions on how to spread her message further, please do
contact us by email (info  AT  j-n-v.org) or by phone (0845 458 9571).


Sonia, who has been very busy preparing for her trip, has written this
letter of gratitude for us to pass on to everyone who has given her
support:


Dear Friends,

I would like to take this opportunity to say a very big thank you for
suppoting me and donating money so generously towards my project
'Giving a voice to Iraq's refugee children.'

Due to your generosity, I am able to take over =A31000 for the families
living in Jordan as  refugees in desperate conditions.

I look forward to meeting and filming the children.

I will finish this documentay before I return to school.

I assure you I will do my best to carry out this project.

Once again heartfelt thank You!

Peace and Love
Sonia Xx
Children Against the War


You can email Sonia via:
children_against_war  AT  hotmail.com



*****


2) MARCUS IN JAIL - PLEASE WRITE BY POST OR EMAIL



A peace activist who inspected aircraft at Prestwick airport in
Scotland in August 2006 in order to expose the refueling of US arms
supply planes to Israel during the invasion of Lebanon has been
jailed. Trident Ploughshares expects him to be released on Friday 24
August.

Letters (especially colourful picture postcards) are very welcome
before then (the sooner the better!).

Below is Marcus's address, and a report from a court witness:

Marcus Armstrong
HMP Kilmarnock
Bowhouse
KILMARNOCK
KA1 5AA

(emails sent to prisoners@tridentploughshares.org will also be forwarded on=
 to
him)

>>Report on Marcus' case and trial:

During August 2006 US airforce planes, and planes chartered by them,
were stopping to refuel at Prestwick airport while delivering
munitions to the Israeli army. These bombs were then being used in the
indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon and Lebanese civilians.

Protestors gathered at Prestwick. Their aim was to raise awareness
among the population locally and worldwide and to try to stop the
flights.

Information in the press and public channels was incomplete and
contradictory. Some of the issues under discussion were Prestwick is a
civilian airport unsuitable for such military activity There was much
secrecy surrounding the flights. Why? Munitions passing through our
peaceful part of Ayrshire were killing innocent civilians elsewhere.

Shannon airport had already refused permission. Why was it granted at
Prestwick?

On 3 nights in early August some of the protestors broke into
Prestwick and to carry out a citizens inspection of the planes to
establish whether the flights were actually carrying munitions.

8 of these protestors were tried at Ayr sheriff court last week.

Evidence against them was incomplete.

After the first 5 days of the trail 7 were released.

Today (14 August) was the last day of the trial.

The last protestor, Marcus Armstrong, stood accused of breaking into
the airfield and boarding a plane.

Marcus bravely conducted his own defence. He didn't to deny the action
but defended his motives. It was, he said, his responsibility, right
and duty to try to protect the innocent civilians for whom the
munitions were destined.

He was trying to do this by gathering information, raising awareness
and perhaps he would be able to disrupt the flights.

Its a difficult thing for a civilian to defend himself in a court of
law. Marcus remained calm and focussed.

At the end of the day the sheriff found him guilty and fined him =A3750.
(The maximum for this offence is =A35,000)

Marcus maintains that his action was not a criminal offence. He
refused to pay the fine and has chosen the alternative, [immediate]
imprisonment. The term of imprisonment is 28 days, though he is likely
to serve only half of this.



***



3) US Nuclear threats - a response by US activist/author Joseph Gerson

This response was written for Peace News and will shortly be on the
Peace News website http://wwww.peacenews.info

US Nuclear threats - a response by US activist/author Joseph Gerson

This response was written for Peace News and will shortly be on the
Peace News website http://wwww.peacenews.info


The nuclear madness of Clinton and Obama
Joseph Gerson


I was in Hiroshima, participating in the World Conference against
Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, when the latest barrage of nuclear madness
flailed out from the US presidential campaign trail. Almost inured to
Bush's romance of ruthlessness and believing that almost anything else
can only be an improvement, people from nations across the world were
shocked and angered by the statements on nuclear policy made by
Democratic Party Presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton.


It remains to be seen how badly Barack Obama's self-inflicted wounds
will be. First he played cowboy sheriff and G.W. Bush - threatening
unilateral military attacks against a sovereign and already fragile
nation - Pakistan, but attempted to soften the blow by pledging not
use nuclear weapons against Al Qaeda. Someone was planning to hit
south Waziristan with nuclear weapons?


He then further demonstrated incompetence and ignorance by saying that
he would not use nuclear weapons against civilians. Nuclear weapons
can be used without inflicting Hell on earth and taking countless
civilian lives?  Has he not heard of fall-out or considered the fact
that the US tactical (as opposed to "counter-value" strategic) nuclear
weapons include many Hiroshima-size A-bombs?


Hillary Clinton then went on to confirm what many long suspected: that
in its approach to the world, the US's terrorizing first strike
nuclear weapons are always on the table, saying: "I don't believe that
any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the
use or non-use of nuclear weapons." That means that US presidents
should never remove the nuclear threat when dealing with other
nations.


This is consistent with other statements she has made on her
presidential campaign trail. Last February, as she was leaving the New
Hampshire high school where she had just formally launched her
campaign with a carefully-staged event, a young peace activist caught
her going out the door. She asked Senator Clinton: "When you say that
all options must be on the table with Iran, do you really mean that we
should be threatening all of that country's women and children with
genocide?" The Senator's chilling response was: "I meant what I said."


The Obama and Clinton statements - like President Bush's nuclear
threats and campaign to post-modernize the US nuclear arsenal and
vastly expand the US nuclear weapons production infrastructure -
violate commitments the US has made in the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty, and they stand in stark defiance of the International Court of
Justices' advisory ruling on the use and threatened use of nuclear
weapons.


They also reflect the banality of evil. Regardless of what their
personal beliefs about the existence and actual use of nuclear weapons
may be, to rise to the pinnacle of power of a nuclear-enforced empire,
they and other aspiring politicians have found it necessary to
demonstrate that they are tough enough to defend the empire with
nuclear weapons.


You can't build or maintain an empire without terrorizing people
across the planet.


However, like symbolic politics, engaging in the banality of evil
results in true evil. Statements and threats create expectations. When
their bluffs are called George Bush and future US presidents may
believe it necessary to back up their words by carrying out their
threats.


Since the nuclear annihilations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, during
international crises, confrontations and wars, every US president has
prepared and threatened to initiate nuclear attacks -- primarily to
maintain US hegemony in East Asia and the Middle East - most recently
during the run up to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.


In several cases: The Cuban Missile Crisis, the 1976 "Ax Incident" in
the Korean Demilitarized Zone, and Bill Clinton's 1994 nuclear threat
against North Korea, the world came perilously close to nuclear
catastrophe.


These US threats and the refusal of the US and other declared nuclear
powers to fulfill their Article VI Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
commitment to negotiate the complete elimination of their nuclear
arsenals are the primary forces driving nuclear weapons proliferation,
which in turn, further increased the dangers of nuclear war. As
Mohamed El Baradei of the International Atomic Energy Commission and
Nobel Laureate Joseph Rotblat frequently reminded us, because no
nation will long tolerate an equal imbalance of terror, the only way
to prevent proliferation is to end nuclear "hypocrisy" and move to
abolish all nuclear weapons.


Understandably other nations want to redress this imbalance - most by
demanding implementation of Article VI of the NPT. Some, however,
having given up on the NPT, have sought or seek their own deterrent
nuclear arsenals: India, Pakistan, North Korea, and now possibly Iran.


To staunch nuclear madness in Washington, Iran's apparent nuclear
weapons programme, and the possibility of nuclear weapons
proliferation across the Middle East and elsewhere, political
candidates and the rest of us should be singing a different tune: The
US and other nuclear powers must honor their "irrevocable" commitment
to implement Article VI of the NPT, beginning with credible steps to
fulfill the 13 steps agreed at the 2000 NPT Review Conference.


Ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and negotiating a Fissile
Materials Cut Off Treaty would be a start. The US must also cease
turning a blind eye toward Israel's provocative and genocidal nuclear
arsenal and actively join the campaign for the creation of a  nuclear
weapons free zone in the Middle East as called for in the 1995 NPT
Review Conference and by Arab nations since then.


These are hardly radical notions. Even the war criminal Henry
Kissinger, Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz, and Clinton
Secretary of Defense William Perry have concluded that the embrace of
the nuclear double standard is a losing strategy and have called for
the US to honor its Article 6 abolition commitments.


Another world is truly possible.


>> Joseph Gerson is author of "Empire and the Bomb: How the US Uses
Nuclear Weapons to Dominate the World" and Director of Programs of the
American Friends Service Committee's New England Regional Office. >>