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From: Democracy Now!
Re: Rundown 5-26-03
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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
Memorial Day Special: We speak with a group of Ploughshares
activists. For years these Catholics have tried to raise awareness
about the brutality of war and how specific warships, weapons,
and bases are complicit in the killing of innocent civilians.
INTRO: We speak with four Catholic Workers who were arrested
for boarding the USS Philippine Sea during the 16th Annual
Fleet Week in New York City.
Three Dominican nuns await sentencing for damaging nuclear
site in Colorado
INTRO: The nuns cut the chain securing a nuclear missile
site in northeastern Colorado and entering. They are convicted
of injuring and obstructing national defense, and of inflicting
more than $1,000 of damage to government property.
Five members of the pacifist Catholic Worker Movement face
10 years in prison for peace protests at Shannon Airport in
Ireland
INTRO: The peace activists poured human blood on the runway
that has been servicing the U.S. military, built a shrine
on the runway dedicated to Iraqi children and entered a hanger
to disarm a warplane.
Memorial Day Special: Remembering veteran and peace warrior
Phil Berrigan (1923-2002)
Phil Berrigan, a WWII veteran, lifelong anti-war activist
and founder of the Plowshares Movement, was the first Roman
Catholic priest to be imprisoned for political reasons in
the United States.
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:25 Memorial Day Special: We speak with a group of
Ploughshares activists. For years these Catholics have tried
to raise awareness about the brutality of war and how specific
warships, weapons, and bases are complicit in the killing
of innocent civilians.
Today is Memorial Day, the traditional holiday day to honor
all US veterans.
President Bush is marking the day today by laying a wreath
at Arlington National Cemetery, paying special tribute to
troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The U.S. military death toll so far in the invasion and occupation
of Iraq is 161. That includes accidental deaths, and includes
the forty deaths that have occurred since April 9, the day
U.S. commanders declared Baghdad ‘liberated.’
President Bush will also honor fallen soldiers at Arlington's
Tomb of the Unknowns, where President Bush will speak about
the sacrifices US troops make.
President Bush himself has never served in a war. During
the war in Vietnam, Bush avoided being drafted by volunteering
for the Texas Air National Guard. Almost no member of Congress
has a son or daughter in the military.
President Bush has also designated 11 a.m. today, in each
time zone, as a time for Americans to unite in prayer. He
said in a Memorial Day proclamation: "Each Memorial Day,
we pray for peace throughout the world, remembering what was
gained and what was lost during times of war."
Today on Democracy Now!, we spend the hour with people who
are so devout in their belief in peace that they not only
pray, they act.
They are the Ploughshares activists. For years these Catholics
have tried to raise awareness about the brutality of war and
how specific warships, weapons, and bases are complicit in
the killing of innocent civilians.
They derive their name from a line in the Book of Isaiah
that calls for people to beat their swords into plowshares.
We begin with an incident that occurred only yesterday. Around
4 in the afternoon, four Catholic Workers went aboard the
USS Philippine Sea during the 16th Annual Fleet Week in New
York City.
During a tour of the USS Philippine Sea, the first warship
to attack Afghanistan after Sept 11, they poured their blood
and hammered on the missile hatches that hold Tomahawk Cruise
Missiles. They held up pictures of Iraqi children who had
been injured and maimed by US weapons.
All four were arrested. But they have been released and join
us in our studio for this Memorial Day Special.
- Mark Colville, New Haven Catholic Worker
- Sister Susan Clarkson, Dorothy Day Catholic Worker (D.C.)
- Joan Gregory, 70 yrs old, Catholic Worker Farm (NY)
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:25-8:30 Three Dominican nuns are awaiting sentencing for
plowshares action in Colorado.
We turn now to a story of three Dominican nuns who are awaiting
sentencing for another plowshares action.
On the morning of Oct. 6, 2002 the Roman Catholic nuns cut
the chain securing a nuclear missile site in northeastern
Colorado, and entered.
They hammered on a 110-ton concrete lid covering the Minuteman
III missile silo. They poured their own blood in the shape
of crosses from plastic baby bottles. They sang, and they
prayed for world peace.
A Denver jury convicted them last month of injuring and obstructing
national defense, and of inflicting more than $1,000 of damage
to government property. Prosecutors said they will ask U.S.
District Judge Robert Blackburn to sentence the nuns to five
to eight years in federal prison and tens of thousands of
dollars in fines.
- Carol Gilbert, Dominican nun
- Ardeth Platte, Dominican nun
8:35-8:45 Five members of the pacifist Catholic Worker Movement
face 10 years in prison for peace protests at Shannon Airport
in Ireland. In the early hours of February 3, five members
of the pacifist Catholic Worker Movement cut their way into
Shannon Airport, Ireland. The peace activists poured human
blood on the runway that has been servicing U.S. military
flights, troop and munitions deployments to U.S. military
bases in Kuwait and Qatar. They constructed a shrine on the
runway dedicated to Iraqi children.
The activists then approached the hanger housing a US Navy
plane under repair. They painted "Pit stop of death"
on the hanger's roller door, and began the dismantling of
the hanger. Then they entered the hanger to disarm a US warplane.
Before they were arrested they prayed together.
They now face 10 years in prison. The Irish government is
charging them with $2 million worth in damages to government
property.
While their action was mostly symbolic it led to three U.S.
airlines to halt stopovers in Ireland. The airlines had been
transporting U.S. troops and munitions to Iraq. Fifty thousand
troops also passed through the civilian airport on their way
to the recent war on Iraq.
While the activists face 10 years in prison, they received
a presidential pardon last week – at least a pardon
from a man who plays on president on tv, that is Martin Sheen
start of the show “West Wing.”
- Ciaron O’Reilly, is an Irish Australian and one
of the Catholic Worker activists arrested in the Pitstop
Plowhares action in Ireland. He was also a member of the
"ANZUS Ploughshares" which disarmed a B-52 Bomber
in upstate New York during the 1991 Gulf War, and a member
of the "Jabiluka Ploughshares" that disabled uranium
mining equipment in the Northern Territory of Australia
in 1998.
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:58 Memorial Day Special: Remembering veteran and peace
warrior Phil Berrigan
Today is Memorial Day and on Democracy Now! we are going
to celebrate it by commemorating the life of Phil Berrigan,
a WWII veteran and lifelong anti-war activist. Philip Berrigan
was the first Roman Catholic priest to be imprisoned for political
reasons in the United States. Berrigan was first jailed in
1967 for destroying draft files in Baltimore. In 1968 he was
arrested for burning draft files in Catonsville, Maryland,
in a case that became known as the "Catonsville 9."
Phil Berrigan died last December at Jonah House, a community
he co-founded in 1973, surrounded by family and friends. He
died two months after being diagnosed with liver and kidney
cancer, and one month after deciding to discontinue chemotherapy.
During his nearly 40 years of resistance to war and violence,
Berrigan focused on living and working in community as a way
to model the nonviolent, sustainable world he was working
to create. Jonah House members live simply, pray together,
share duties, and attempt to expose the violence of militarism
and consumerism. The community was born out of resistance
to the Vietnam War, including high-profile draft card burning
actions; later the focus became ongoing resistance to U.S.
nuclear policy, including Plowshares actions that aim to enact
Isaiah's biblical prophecy of a disarmed world. Because of
these efforts, Berrigan spent about 11 years in prison. He
wrote, lectured, and taught extensively, publishing six books,
including an autobiography, Fighting the Lamb's War.
Today we are going to hear an audio collage of Phil Berrigan
interviews produced by Pacifica Peacewatch's Scott Gurian
and Laurel Paget-Seekins. It features one of the last recorded
interviews with Berrigan from October, 2002.
- Phil Berrigan commemoration
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
9:00-9:01 Billboard:
“Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death,” Part
2: Award-Winning Director/Producer Jamie Doran Alleges a Media
Cover-Up of US Complicity in the Massacre of up to 3,000 Taliban
Prisoners
INTRO: Jamie Doran says of State Department official Larry
Schwartz, “Larry said and I quote directly, ‘You
have to understand, we’re involved, we’re in touch
with the national [newspapers] on a daily basis – this
story won’t run, even if it’s true.’”
And television industry insiders told Doran, “not now
Jamie.”
9:01-9:06 Headlines
9:06-9:07 One Minute Music Break
9:07-9:58 “Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death,”
Part 2: Award-Winning Director/Producer Jamie Doran Alleges
a U.S. Media Cover-Up of US Complicity in the Massacre of
up to 3,000 Taliban Prisoners
Today, part two of our series on a controversial documentary
film that has already been broadcast on national television
in Britain, Germany, Italy and Australia and been screened
by the European Parliament – but it wasn’t until
Democracy Now! broadcast the film on Friday that the film
was shown nationally in the United States.
The film is "Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death,"
and it provides eyewitness testimony that U.S. troops were
complicit in the massacre of thousands of Taliban prisoners
during the Afghan War.
The film tells the story of thousands of prisoners who surrendered
to the US military’s Afghan allies after the siege of
Kunduz. According to eyewitnesses, some three thousand of
the prisoners were forced into sealed containers and loaded
onto trucks for transport to Sheberghan prison. Eyewitnesses
say when the prisoners began shouting for air, U.S.-allied
Afghan soldiers fired directly into the truck, killing many
of them. The rest suffered through an appalling road trip
lasting up to four days, so thirsty they clawed at the skin
of their fellow prisoners as they licked perspiration and
even drank blood from open wounds.
Witnesses say that when the trucks arrived and soldiers opened
the containers, most of the people inside were dead. They
also say US Special Forces re-directed the containers carrying
the living and dead into the desert and stood by as survivors
were shot and buried. Now, up to three thousand bodies lie
buried in a mass grave.
The film also provides footage of CIA officer Mike Spann
interrogating American Taliban prisoner John Walker Lindh,
just hours before Spann was killed in the famous prison uprising
at Mazar-i-Sharif.
The film has outraged human rights groups and international
human rights lawyers. They are calling for investigation into
whether U.S. Special Forces are guilty of war crimes.
On Friday, Democracy Now! broadcast “Afghan Massacre”
for the first time in the U.S. Today, we’ll broadcast
excerpts of the film and talk to the film’s director
and producer, Jamie Doran.
- “Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death” (excerpts,
including eyewitness testimony that US Special Forces were
complicit in the massacre of up to 3,000 Taliban prisoners,
and footage of CIA officer Mike Spann interrogating American
Taliban prisoner John Walker Lindh)
- Jamie Doran, award-winning Irish filmmaker. Doran has
worked at the highest levels of television film production
for more than two decades. His films have been broadcast
on virtually every major channel throughout the world. On
average, each of his films are seen in around 35 countries.
Before establishing his independent television company,
Jamie Doran spent over seven years at BBC Television.
Link: www.acftv.net
9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie
Karran, Sharif Abdul Kouddous, Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press
with help from Noah Reibel and Vilka Tzouras. Mike Di Filippo
is our music maestro and engineer. Thanks also to Uri Galed,
Angela Alston, Emily Kunstler, Orlando Richards, Simba Rousseau,
Rafael delaUz, Gabriel Weiss, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Karen
Ranucci, Fatima Mojadiddy, Denis Moynihan and Jenny Filipazzo.
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