A blog about a criminal enterprise
A reflection on the trial of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7
By Brian Terrell
“Whether nuclear weapons are actually illegal under international or domestic law (a doubtful proposition) is not relevant or an appropriate issue to litigate in this case,” so ruled Judge Lisa Godbey Wood of the US District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, late on Friday October 18. This last minute order, restricting the defense of seven antinuclear activists at a trial that began Monday morning the 21st,
Current events concerning Turkey and the Kurds in Syria remind me of a conversation I had with a US Air Force colonel almost 17 years ago in a courtroom in Des Moines. To refresh my memory, I dug deep into my closet and dusted off the transcript of the case, “STATE OF IOWA, plaintiff vs. CHRISTINE GAUNT et al.,” in which I was a defendant, heard in February, 2003, the month before the US invasion of Iraq. The following quotes from that dialogue are verbatim per the transcript.
The case concerned
A response to Lincoln Rice and “The Catholic Worker as Institution”
Brian Terrell, Strangers and Guests CW Farm
Lincoln Rice and Maria Bergh presented a powerful roundtable discussion at the national Catholic Worker gathering in Rochester this summer concerning racism and the CW movement. This followed a similar discussion with several Midwest CWs at Mary House in New York last year. Good advantage was taken of these opportunities for meaningful and constructive dialogue. I was particularly
November 15, 2018
On November 14, the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives blocked a resolution that its supporters say would end U.S. participation in the war and famine in Yemen. It is unclear, however, what effect this resolution would have on the ground even if it were passed into law. It imposes no limits on arms sales to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. It does not propose any oversight or limitation of activities CIA or of private contractors from the U.S. in
An invitation from the Nevada Desert Experience, April 13-19, 2019
On Indigenous People’s Day, formerly known as Columbus Day, October 8, 2018, Nye County, Nevada, prosecutors and Sheriff’s deputies ended a three decades old policy concerning arrests of protesters at the Nevada National Security Site, NNSS, formerly known as the Nevada Test Site, 60 miles from Las Vegas.
From 1986 through 1994, two years after the United States put a hold on full-scale nuclear weapons testing, 536 anti-nuclear
On August 14, a report from a grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania identified 300 Catholic priests across the state who had sexually abused more than 1,000 children. “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades,” the grand jury wrote in one of the broadest inquiries into church sex abuse in U.S. history. Five days earlier, on August 9, in northern Yemen, a Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit
“the evasions and obfuscations of these two willing technicians of state terror are chillingly similar”
By Brian Terrell
On May 9, Gina Haspel, Donald Trump’s choice for head of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified at her Senate confirmation hearing in Washington, DC. Some senators questioned her about her tenure, in 2002, as CIA station chief in Thailand. There, the agency ran one of the “black sites” where suspected al-Qaida extremists were interrogated using procedures that
On January 20, 2018, in Columbia, Missouri, more than 1600 people participated in the Solidarity Rally and March, hosted by Our Revolution: Mid-Missouri. I was one of five speakers invited to address the gathering, my contribution on the topic of foreign policy. This is, more or less, what I said-
Friends, I am honored to be here with you today as we rally to “oppose the Trump agenda,” one year into his extraordinary and even terrifying administration. Not for generations has the public discourse
On Thursday, January 11, the sixteenth anniversary of the opening of the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba was marked by a coalition of 15 human rights organizations gathered in Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House in Washington, DC. An interfaith prayer service was followed by a rally featuring song and poetry and addresses by activists from the sponsoring organizations, including attorneys for some of those detained at Guantanamo, few of these charged with
On December 11, in response to the growing humanitarian crisis in Yemen, more than 50 concerned people including representatives of various peace, justice and human rights organizations and communities, gathered in New York City’s Ralph Bunche Park, across First Avenue from the United Nations. Our message, which was communicated on signs and banners and by speakers addressing the rally, was simple and direct: end the war crimes being committed by the military of the United States along with