Jailed alumnus denounces war in plea for nonviolence

Ever since several friends and I were jailed for hammering on an F15-E nuclear bomber at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in December, people have been asking me: Why did you do it? Are you against all wars--even fighting the Nazis? What good can come from your anti-nuclear action? How effective was it? Why not try legal channels to bring about peace and justice? Was it worth it?

Let me be clear: I am against all killing. Period. I am against war, murder, machine guns, Trident submarines, bombs, F15-Es, nuclear bombs, executions and the Pentagon (national headquarters for the preparation of nuclear war). Killing is never justifiable. Ever. War is never justified--whether as a religious crusade, revolution or nuclear strike.

We are not meant to kill one another. We are created to love one another.

What about the Nazis? If the United States had not waged war against Hitler, the whole world would be dominated by brutal violence, the culture complains. On the contrary, the world is on the brink of violent destruction because of our military madness. I believe that Hitler and the Nazis should been actively opposed from the beginning. The Nazi rise to domination should have been prevented, but very few challenged them. Fascism became policy because people were duped into believing there was nothing they could do. Year after year, the German people obeyed, did what they were told and let Nazi violence go unchallenged.

The great prophet of nonviolence, Mohandas Gandhi, insisted that the Nazis should have been resisted nonviolently. You can't fight the Nazis by becoming Nazis. Americans did just that. They adapted the Nazi philosophy of mass violence, and now we are just like them--violent to the core.

We need to learn the lessons of history, to renounce war if we want to end war. The Nazis won the war. The United States adopted their desire for domination and global violence by pursuing, developing, using and maintaining nuclear weapons. What the Nazis did to the Jews and various minorities, the United States is planning to do to the world. The United States began the Cold War and has led it ever since, from Los Alamos to Hiroshima to today. The Cold War was not accidental. It is policy. It's deliberate. U.S. plans for nuclear war continue at this very moment around the country, including Seymour Johnson Air Force Base.

Forty million people starve to death each year because of the way we First World people live and because we spend the world's resources ($13 trillion since World War II) preparing for destruction. Today, the Pentagon is concocting new enemies, new wars and new ways to use our nuclear arsenal. After all, war is big business. Killing is profitable.

The question then is not why take a public stand for peace, but how to do it. My friends and I have tried legal avenues for years without raising any serious response. So we turn to nonviolent direct action. The abolitionists, the suffragettes, India's independence movement, civil rights and anti-war activists teach us a powerful lesson: Positive social change only happens when good people break bad laws and accept the consequences.

John Dear, Trinity '81, is awaiting trial at the Chowan County Jail.