Seven anti-war activists raid Georgia nuclear submarine base with hammers, bottles of blood
The perpetrators are members of the Plowshares Movement, a Christian Pacifist group that has staged similar protests before.
Last month I reported that a Travis Air Force Base had been stormed by a man driving a flaming pick-up.
The man was identified as 51-year-old Hafiz Kazi. A review of current news items show that no additional information has been posted on Kazi’s motive.
Now another base has been the target of a break in, and this time the perpetrators are Catholic.
Seven Catholic peace activists were detained early Thursday at the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia after entering the installation to protest nuclear weapons.
The protesters were “carrying hammers and baby bottles of their own blood” when they entered the base, according to a statement from fellow activists. “They also brought an indictment charging the U.S. government for crimes against peace,” it said.
A Kings Bay spokesman said the anti-nuke group entered without authorization and smeared what appeared to be red paint on buildings and signs around the base.
The base is the home port of several submarines capable of launching nuclear-tipped Trident missiles. The activists detained for this raid are Elizabeth McAlister, Mark Colville, Clare Grady, Martha Hennessy, Jesuit Fr. Stephen Kelly, Patrick O’Neill, and Carmen Trotta.
Several members have a long history of anti-war stunts prior to this incident.
…Kelly has spent over 10 years of his life detained for similar protests, and Hennessey is the granddaughter of Catholic Worker Movement co-founder Dorothy Day. Patrick O’Neill is the founder the Fr. Charles Mulholland Catholic Worker House in North Carolina, and a longtime NCR contributor.
McAlister is also a longtime proponent of antiviolence and civil disobedience cases and a co-founder of the Jonah House in Baltimore. According to a book written by her daughter, Frida Berrigan, McAlister and her husband, the late Philip Berrigan, spent 11 years apart in detention during their marriage.
The Plowshares Movement is a Christian Pacifist movement that has staged similar protests in the past.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this story is how readily this protesters entered the base.
It’s possible the seven activists were there for hours before they were caught, and [Kings Bay public affairs office spokesman Scott] Bassett confirmed security measures at the base are being reviewed.
“I believe they walked on,” Plowshares supporter Jessica Stewart said. “They went through a fence and walked on. Surprisingly, considering it’s a nuclear installation, I don’t think it was difficult for them to gain access.”
How bad is it when a group of aging, Catholic hippies break into a supposedly secure military installation? Let’s hope the Department of Defense is crafting more robust security measures in the event this incident inspires others to try something similar, but with an entirely different set of goals in mind.
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Comments
As Thomas Jefferson said….those that beat their swords into plowshares will be plowing for those that didn’t.
Available on YouTube is Jerry Falwell’s debate at Oxford on nuke disarmament. Who has the nukes is most important. The Nations least likely to use them are the targets of these groups.
Useless idiots.
If they had any balls, they’d be breaking into one of Kim Young-un’s secret nuclear weapons bases in North Korea, and smear their blood in the name of peace.
I’m sure the NorKos would help them with the blood smearing.
Kings Bay is a huge base. There are several layers of security. They likely only broke the first layer and didn’t go any further. The sub base itself also has its own layer of security including high fence with extensive barb wires, gravel barrier, motion detectors, and armed guards. The nuclear storage has all of the above and literally has “guard towers” with armed personnel against infiltrators. If they were in either locations, I’d be concerned but if they weren’t, I don’t think anything will change.
Interesting knowledge of the base. Sadly, so many people are incessantly looking for a reason to be alarmed or angered that your points may go unnoticed. Any breach is bad. But over the internet the outrage mob would have you believe the Plowshares gang could have had nearly free access to anything they wanted, including “dirty” materials.
The naval air stations I’ve been on have the same type of layered internal security. They’re crawling with civilian employees that necessarily move on and off the bases pretty easily, but restricted facilities are protected. There are times during big deployments when civilians vastly outnumber naval personnel on a daily basis. Civilians moving about normally draws no attention unless they show up where they’re not supposed to be.
And I would not be surprised if they broke that first layer of security and intentionally acted up in order to get caught. Their objective was (at least it appears) to virtue-signal on a grand scale rather than actually place themselves in a position where they could be shot.
And in all possibilities, this could have been a Phelps-type gesture, i.e. show up and be obnoxious in such a way that the security force sent to restrain you gets over-hyped and does something stupid enough that the group can sue. Whenever Fred’s bunch shows up somewhere, that is *exactly* what they are praying for.
Wondering why the DoD stopped shooting base intruders instead of letting them get so far?? These people were wondering around smearing blood. Another incident at Travis had a man drive through the gate and get on top of the 4-story clinic roof threatening to jump off before they talked him down. Another incident recently had someone drive their POV onto a base, onto the flight line and attempt to drive their car up the ramp of a CV-22 Osprey. WTF is happening that these idiots are getting so far without being confronted and stopped? Understand it would be bad PR for civilians to be getting shot by security. Even worse would be these crazies actually getting inside a nuclear submarine and causing damage.
Security puts manpower and firepower where needed. Turning the base into max security isn’t needed or desired for all operations. There have been serious lapses as in those nuke armed B-52s sitting on open tarmac a few years back. If the present jokers had gotten close enough they would be playing a central role in a requiem mass.
Now, that said..Adak Island was a total security fortress.
Never knew Adak existed until I heard a Chief threaten a malcontent with banishment to that fine naval vacation destination.
Walked right in, unbelievable
It’s amazing how we think places or people have intense security.
I am a “nobody” but I have had absolute access to Bill and Hillary Clinton and others many times working on campaigns, yes I was a Democrat till 2008, long journey to disillusionment and Independence, but another story.
I always was amazed at the lack of security
But nuclear weapons?
When I was in the Navy I was stationed at a small base in Japan. The base itself was guarded by Navy security police and civilian Japanese guards.
I was a watch officer at a small facility on one part of that small base. Since this particular facility was designated “vital to U.S. national security” we had a detachment of Marines providing security. And as a watch officer I had deadly force authorization. What that meant is I was entirely responsible if there was anything questionable about the shooting. Not the Marine.
I can imagine some intruder getting on the base itself. But I can’t imagine them getting past my Marines.
“Kelly has spent over 10 years of his life detained for similar protests”
!0 more should fix him right up.
I worked at one time at an MIT “lab” which was on an airbase. It meant little; it was just another building which loads of people drove to, parked, walked in, slept in their offices for eight hours, then went home. Standard business procedure. The only thing different from everything else in the Route 128 area was that along the road there was a little shack with a guard—and not an exciting one, like, say, a guy with a rifle—who looked briefly at an ID with a photo which looked vaguely like me. That was about it. If I wasn’t on the road and was walking instead across nice mowed grass, nobody would have checked even that much.
In other words, “security” on at least part of the base was somewhere between minimal and nonexistent, at least where the lab was. And it’s hard to see why it would matter; we weren’t even within sight of any aircraft and never saw any military personnel. But the lab was indeed “on” the base.
I went to an airshow on that base a few years later. At least there were airplanes there; but no security at all. Why any would be needed isn’t at all clear.
NATO Site 5 in Fliegerhorst Kaserne (Erlensee, just outside Hanau,FRG) lost its nuke weapon storage certification in 1986 due to a fence and photograph security failure.
I entered one of the 2 companies responsible for guarding it just as the pullout (decertification) happened there.
“Ahmed, Mahmoud, Hamood, quick, listen to this. I’m gonna quote from an article about these cursed infidels getting on a sub base, ‘Surprisingly, considering it’s a nuclear installation, I don’t think it was difficult for them to gain access.’ End of quote. Insha’Allah, are you guys thinking what I’m thinking?”
Love their outfits, they’ll look really good while picking up trash along the highway.
Pacifists with hammers? What am I missing here.
They appear to be self-righteous idiots who should be serving food in a prison setting when not working on the highway clean up.
“If I had a hammer…” These dummies are really stuck in the past. Peter, Paul and Mary are long gone. I guess they miss the good old days of being tools of the USSR.
Back in 86, right before the Libyan air raid, some CND people got onto the US F-111 base–Lakenheath, but i don’t recall now.
They got all the way to the weapons bunkers due to some unfortunate security lapses. The SPs rounded them up (they could have shot them). Had they done so, it might have fouled up British cooperation with the raid (Operation El Dorado Canyon).
Apparently, plowshares and pruning hooks can also mean hammers and bottles of blood.
But the author nailed it: “Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this story is how readily this protesters entered the base.”
smh
McAlister, the former (through his death) Sister-in-Law of the infamous Jesuit radical (I know, repetitious) Fr. Daniel Berrigan. Her husband, Phillip Berrigan, campaigned with his older brother Daniel against the war in RVN and other radical Leftist causes.
My wife was a Naval Reservist attached to a Subron fleet in Groton, CT. Because she was only there two weeks a year and not known to the general population they often used her for security tests. They would switch her ID card out for someone that didn’t look like her at all (other race, even) and see if she could get into the subs with supposed material that the Commanding Officer had to sign off on. More often than not the sentry just waved her on thru into the sub with the assumption that if she got that far into the base she must be okay.
I’m assuming this was long ago and the problem was fixed, right? Or did you just inform the world of sensitive, classified information about security vulnerabilities?
It was about 20 years ago… and if the Navy hasn’t fixed it by now then there is no hope for the future of our country.
This is of a piece with the abject FAILURE of my Navy to protect it’s ships and sailors from harm in the Pacific. Now my Navy can’t even keep ancient protesters from breaking into a nuclear submarine base.
Frankly the Navy base police departments are and have always been an utter joke.
They call themselves “anti-war” but if they really were then they would protest our enemies. That they target us for their ire shows their true purpose: the maximize the ability of leftist regimes to do us harm.
Article should differentiate between Catholic and Christian. Christian teaching allows for self defense, personally, locally, and nationally. These are simply fringe wackadoodles. (No offense meant to normal wackadoodles)
Rinardman, excellent observation, NOKO is where all “peace” protesters should be.
Some of them appear to be holdovers from the vietnam era protesters and have much less to do with Christianity than ardent socialism. A bad case of arrested development.
I had four years of Jesuit highschool education which occasions me to suggest taking that Jesuit priest, strip him naked except for his Roman collar and give him twenty lashes followed by a good ‘ole tar and feathering.
I hope there are charges brought against them to the fullest extent that would apply. I can understand passion, even a bit misguided as this is, but this is a crime and should be punished as such. Hopefully it includes jail time.