Interview on Civil Resistance at Vandenberg Air Force Base

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Interview on Civil Resistance at Vandenberg Air Force Base
by David Krieger
February 28, 2012

David Krieger, Fr. Louis Vitale, Daniel Ellsberg after their arrest at Vandenberg RICK WAYMAN: What made you decide after 30 years of working as President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation to get arrested protesting this missile launch?

DAVID KRIEGER: I felt it was necessary. The leaders in charge of our nuclear policies aren’t reacting swiftly enough and with serious determination to end the intolerable threat posed by these weapons of mass annihilation, and so more is needed from citizens. This is an action I took as a citizen, which I hope says to the members of the NAPF and to the public that more is needed – that words are not sufficient. We must speak with our actions as well.

It’s far past time that we stop accepting nuclear weapons as part of our national security strategy. Nuclear weapons do not make us more secure. They undermine the security of their possessors, and the security of innocent people throughout the world. What we know now from scientific studies is that the use of a few hundred thermonuclear weapons on cities would lead to putting smoke into the stratosphere that would block a significant percentage of sunlight from reaching the earth for 10 years or more. This would lead to crop failures and mass starvation that could result in the extinction of the human species and most other complex forms of life. How could anyone who cares about the future and cares about their children and grandchildren be indifferent to that?

RICK WAYMAN: How did you feel when you were approaching the green line and in the act of being arrested?

DAVID KRIEGER: I felt really good to be a part of a community of individuals willing to take risks to end the insanity of nuclear testing, nuclear threats and the ever-present danger of nuclear weapons use by accident or design. I also felt good to be taking this action with my wife and my good friend Daniel Ellsberg. Also Fr. Louis Vitale, who has set a great example as a religious and moral leader by being arrested hundreds of times for this cause; and Cindy Sheehan, a spirited woman whose son died in the Iraq War.

RICK WAYMAN: How were you treated during your time in detention?

DAVID KRIEGER: The young soldiers were like automatons – they were carrying out their orders to put handcuffs on us, search us and detain us, but they appeared to be ordered not to engage in conversation with us. For the most part, the soldiers were respectful, but the orders from their leaders left a lot to be desired; for example, after processing us, they dropped us off at 4:00 a.m. in an empty shopping center four or five miles from VAFB where our cars were located. This struck me as unnecessary harassment.

RICK WAYMAN: Do you know what penalties you’re facing?

DAVID KRIEGER: No. All I know is that they have charged us with entering military property and they told us we will be notified as to when we are to appear in federal court.

RICK WAYMAN: Do you intend to plead guilty or not guilty?

DAVID KRIEGER: My plan at this time is to plead not guilty by reason of necessity. I walked toward the base along with the others to try and stop a far greater crime, the reliance upon and potential use of weapons that can destroy cities, and potentially cause the extinction of complex life on the planet. With nuclear weapons we can do to ourselves what a meteor hitting the earth did to the dinosaurs. I hope that increasing numbers of people in the US and around the world will awaken to the necessity to speak out and act for nuclear weapons abolition.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

More articles by David Krieger

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Tanya Wagner03-02-2012 11:42

Why is reason such as is reflected in Krieger's interview so wanting in the seats of government? For all that humanity has been through over the millennia, and the atrocities perpetrated against each other in every century...isn't it a sad irony that our technical capabilities have developed exponentially, while our primoridal urges have changed very little. The result is that we are still killing each other, but now so much more effectively.

Peter G Cohen: aerie2@verizon.net03-09-2012 18:03

Dear David, I admire your courage and determination, even though We disagree about means. I think it mush more important to reach out to our fellw citizens with an information campaign than to get arrested on a little travelled road in the middle of the night. Having lived under Kennedy's "sword of Damocles" for more than 60 years, the American people have repressed their rational fears of nuclear annihilation and now concentrate on such issues as women's right to control their own health and reproduction. This is a triumph of carefully managed ignorance and misinformation promoted at great expense by the rich nuclear industry. Part of what the people don't know is that modern weapons are hundreds of times more powerful than those "tested" on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They also don't know about the nuclear winter you mention. They don't know that Chernobyl killed hundreds of thousands of people from its fallout. They don't know that stillbirths, pre-term babies, retarded children, breast and dozens of other cancers and heart disease can all be caused over time by radiation ingested in the human body. They don't know that clouds of tiny radioactive particles can travel around the globe and fall on friend and foe alike. They don't know that over 60,000 American workers or their surviving families have been compensated for radiation received at work by the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. And finally, they don't know that, by definition, any use of nuclear weapons would be a Crime Against Humanity. We are spending about $50 billion a year on nuclear weapons and delivery systems in preparation for committing such a crime. Under the Nuremburg Principles it is the duty of every individual who is aware of a War Crime to resist that crime. Crimes Against Humanity are deemed even more serious, yet we allow our tax dollars to be used in preparation for committing such a crime. As we have by far the world's greatest conventional military, we do not need nuclear weapons for our defense. What we need is to take the lead in developing and signing the Nuclear Weapons Convention, which is now before the United Nations. We need to show our good faith,our moral leadership and our love of God's Creation by unilaterally reducing our nation's stockpile of these suicidal weapons

Rick03-09-2012 22:25

Peter, I disagree with your characterization of David's arrest as not being educational in nature. The story was on the front page of the Santa Barbara News-Press for two days in a row. This interview and many other articles hve appeared on many websites. David and Daniel Ellsberg have an op-ed running next week in a major national newspaper. If/when this case goes to trial in federal court, people will hear about it. That sounds like the makings of an educational campaign to me.