Sr. Ardeth Platte Writes From Danbury Prison: October 2004
Ramblings and Reflections
Newsletter 15
To dear friends,
Peace be within us, within our country within the world.
Good News
· Shirley Way, SOA Watch peacemaker, faithfully completed her sentence and traveled home to western New York on Sept. 17 th . Gratitude to her for her Quaker spirit, which shone through her many presentations of alternatives to violence and her SOA/WHINSC talks - her spirit warms us.
· By the time you receive this newsletter, her codefendant, Betsy Lamb, will have completed 6 months and returned to Maryland. Betsy taught Spanish-speaking women GED preparation and taught many women Scriptures. What gifts generously shared!
· I will await with open arms all women designated to Danbury from arrestees at Ft. Benning on Nov. 21 st .
· One half to three-fourths million people demonstrated in New York City at the Republican National Convention site and more than 1800 were arrested for civil disobedience. The urgency of the times places responsibility on our shoulders. The organizing and presence was a grand sight to behold.
· On September 8 th , the first day of my 50 th jubilee year, women had a surprise gathering and shared ice cream and nuts – a great celebration. My gratitude to you also for the cards, letters and assurance of prayers.
· Oral arguments will be offered by our lawyers on Oct. 1 st in the 10 th Circuit Court in Denver for our Appeal. Your support by prayer, funds, and presence are deeply appreciated. Thanks again to our brilliant and dedicated lawyers.
· On Oct. 2 nd many hundreds of people will again mark the 49 Colorado missile silos for disarmament and demand no more threatening of genocide, of mass extermination in our names. If we want other nations to dismantle weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. must do the same.
· Civil disobedience continues at the Sudan Embassy in Washington, DC to bring attention to loss of life in Darfur. Let us express our abhorrence of this genocide and our sorrow with suffering people.
· Sept. 27 - Oct. 2 was set aside as an international week for opposing the weaponization, nuclearization, and militarization of outer space. Since I am unable to participate this year in a forum, demonstration or resistance action I will devote this newsletter to the cause of keeping space for peaceful purposes.
· If you have not read The Ambushed Grand Jury by Wes McKinley and Carol Balkany by the Apex Press, NY, I encourage you to do so. Ask for it at the library, Xerox the Citizen's Grand Jury Indictment form in it and send it to the suggested address.
Douglas Roche writes in The Human Right to Peace:
The Mayor of Hiroshima warned that we stand today on the brink of “the actual use of nuclear weapons.” That terrifying prediction ought to galvanize the public to demand a total ban on nuclear weapons, and it ought to energize governments to negotiate and implement a Nuclear Weapons Convention. The very idea that a small group of wealthy and powerful individuals should have the power over government policies that spend billions of dollars on military overkill while so many people remain in life-threatening poverty is intolerable.
Outer Space Warfare Planned
Sisters Jackie, Carol and I received the document, 1997 Vision for 2020, hot off the U.S. Space Command press, and the Long Range Plan for implementation arrived a short time later. It was terribly disturbing to learn that the Pentagon was seriously pursuing empire building in outer space. Planners looked at the conquest of this 4 th frontier as essential; that is the domination, control, ownership, and exploitation of space, along with limiting access to other nations.
Why we committed nonviolent direct action
We were and remain convinced that the government's direction in space is illegal, defiant of treaties and immoral, making the United States ‘god of the heavens'. It occasions a whole new arms race, challenging other nations to a costly defensive (shield) and offensive (sword) competition for warfare in outer space.
Our Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares actions in 2000 and 2002 in Colorado reflect our rejection of the ongoing research, development, construction, testing and deployment of the “kill chain” capacity to wage war from, into, and through space in our names. We do not accept the strict cloak of secrecy and hidden deception in the governmental black budget, false portrayal of the complex system as a defensive program – for peaceful purposes and the good of humanity. It is not.
In 2000 our witness at Peterson AFB at an open and public air show showed the connection between the bombing of Iraq with an F18 fighter plane and the use of space technology for targeting and communication from space (Milstar receiver). In 2002 we placed “Vision for 2020”, laws and treaties defining it, along with the international laws regarding weapons of mass destruction, on the Minuteman III missile and made the connection of these in the “kill chain”. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have used space resources/assets extensively for target selection, bomb guidance, etc. Once again the United Nations has communicated the illegality of the intervention in Iraq, US war crimes.
The US Space Complex
Name changes for the space endeavors occur with presidential changes – from Strategic Missile Defense, “Star Wars”, Ballistic Missile Defense, National Missile Defense to Missile Defense Agency (MDA) today.
1. The headquarters of the US Space Command has been combined with the US Strategic Command located at Offutt AFB in Omaha, NE. The latter has custody over the US silo-based nuclear arsenal (including the 49 missiles in Colorado)
2. Bases in Colorado:
a) Peterson AFB, home of the AF Space Command which controls Malmstrom AFB, MT; FE Warren AFB, WY; Minott AFB, ND; and CO's major silo fields.
b) Schriever AFB with its radomes and satellite dishes conducts war games, simulates acts of war and controls military satellites.
c) Cheyenne Mountain continues the war room for planning wars, has an extensive computer capacity, etc.
d) Buckley AFB – radomes connected with surveillance and spying network and space warfare.
Other Bases: Vandenberg, CA; Cape Canaveral, FL; Ft. Meade, MD; Beal AFB, CA; Ft. Belvoir, VA; Kirtland AFB, NM; Ft. Greeley, AK has the first of 16 planned ballistic missile interceptors.
World-Wide Bases: Pine Gap, Australia; Menwith Hill, Great Britain; Kodena-Sobe, Okinawa; NORAD installation in Canada.
3. Spy and war fighting satellites are used for voice and electronic communication and eavesdropping interceptors, picture taking in, on and below Earth's surface. Lasers are being developed to zap targets at the speed of light, to be used in combat, stability operations and homeland defense. These weapons are offensive (first strike) also.
4. The 2005 year budget adds $ 9.7 billion to an already $ 100 billion cost for the defensive part of this failure system, no actual success in place.
The use (unilaterally) of space from which to spy, eavesdrop, do surveillance, target sites, communicate in battlefields, guide bombs, manipulate weather/climate, conduct nuclear or conventional war from land, sea, air and space damages U.S. relations with other countries, undercuts national security and undermines global stability. Thousands of pieces of debris in space, experimentation with nuclear powered reactors, plutonium payloads (eg. on Cassini) present grave danger, risk too much and are criminal.
Please request more information, join in forums and actions and lend support to:
1. Citizens for Peace in Space, PO Box 915, Colorado Springs, CO 80901 (719-389-0644 bsulzman@juno.com )
2. Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, PO Box 652, Brunswick, ME 04011 (207-729-0517, cell phone 207-319-2017, www.space4peace.org , globalnet@mindspring.com
My “doing time” with great joy is due to your and my communities' prayers, love, encouragement and support.
Always grateful,
Ardeth Platte 10857-039
Federal Correction Institution
33 1/2 Pembroke Station
Danbury CT 06811