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Adrian Leason, Afghanistan, David Lange, Father Peter Murnane, Iraq, Jeff Simmonds, John Minto, justice, Nicky Hager, ploughshares, Sam Land, Terrorism, U.S. Army, Waihopai
The Waihopai Three, with a banner alluding to Isaiah 2.4: "...they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
Two years ago, three men broke into the U.S. Army’s spy base in Waihopai, New Zealand, slashing one of the plastic domes with sickles, causing over $1 million damage, and rendering it disfunctional for a short period. The three men – Adrian Leason, Father Peter Murnane and Sam Land – were pacifists, and chose a means of protest which destroyed the plastic dome, without causing damage or undue risk to human life. Whereas, when the spy dome is in operation, it participates in U.S. attempts to kill and torture Iraqi and Afghan citizens. Writing in a Foreward to Nicky Hager‘s book Secret Power (2006), Former New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange claimed he previously had no idea about the role of the Waihopai spy base in U.S. torture and killings: “…it was not until I read this book that I had any idea that we had been committed to an international integrated electronic network.” The Waihopai spy base was commissioned and built while David Lange was Prime Minister.
Yesterday, the three men were acquitted on all charges!
“Our actions in disabling the spy base and stopping the flow of information helped save lives in Iraq”, said Adrian Leason.
“We damaged property at the spy base in order to save victims of war and torture. It’s all about Jesus’ command for us to treat all people as our brothers and sisters”, said Father Peter.
The acquittal of the three protestors has sent the song “Let’s Shut Down Waihopai!” by Jeff Simmonds to Number One on the New Zealand Activist charts:
Justice – which must necessarily interrupt the systems of justice that create a hegemonic or absolute injustice – has been done. So let’s keep up the momentum. Why should the Waihopai spy base continue to carry out terrorist operations in this country?
“[Corporal Apiata, who won the Victoria Cross in Afghanistan for rescuing a wounded comrade under enemy fire] was no hero compared to Sam, Adrian and Peter… They are real heroes because what they did goes against the mainstream of New Zealand public opinion and was a truly brave, inspiring and courageous action. Unfortunately Apiata is involved in a very dirty war on behalf of America and the people of Afghanistan don’t want him there. I don’t see him as a hero because people have to take personal responsibility for their actions and I am not sure he realises the real reason why he is there in Afghanistan.”
– John Minto
Waihopai spy station deflated
The Dunedin School 
“Whereas, when the spy dome is in operation, it participates in U.S. attempts to kill and torture Iraqi and Afghan citizens.”
what is the basis of that claim?
The Government Communications Security Bureau (which runs Waihopai) released papers under the Official Information Act which provide the basis for the establishment of this fact.
http://ploughshares.org.nz/about/waihopai-the-war-on-terror/
“…which runs Waihopai” It doesn’t still exist does it?
Jeff Simmonds – I remember him on another blog a while ago. I might be wrong, but I doubt it. :-) But I hope I’m not wrong about Waihopai – I thought they closed it down.
So defending ourselves and other against suicide bombers is a bad thing?
Funny thing is it’s probably our “defence” of ourselves that make suicide bombers. That’s the problem when one has an expanded sense of self.
oh man! NZ just keeps getting better. I’m pretty sure the 4 anabaptist activists who snuck in and stalled the Australia-US military exercises in 2009 are going to get pwned here.
Under Key (and under Labour for that matter) NZ SAS troops were/are used to kidnap citizens of other nations to be taken and tortured… so it is not just aiding “U.S. attempts to kill and torture Iraqi and Afghan citizens” but in fact “NZ attempts to kill and torture etc….” ie. we are not just proving the information for the yanks to kill and torture civilians… we as a nation are in on the act ourselves.
Right, Zool.
‘Funny thing is it’s probably our “defence” of ourselves that make suicide bombers. That’s the problem when one has an expanded sense of self.’
Funny thing is, you are talking pseudo-academic tosh. Suicide bombers see the killing of themselves and non-believers as a sacred duty because they come from a very dark and ugly corner of Islam. It is not out fault, we did not create them; you can’t blame this one on Orientalism or Imperialism. This is not the time and place for White Liberal Guilt.
ha! This is great! I have never been called ‘white’ and very rarely been called a ‘liberal’, so I’m really enjoying playing funny buggers with you.
Do you think extremist islam appeared on the horizon without ANY role played by the West? Do you think extremist islam is an interpretation possible without the mess that currently exists in the middle-east (which is admittedly at least partially the fault of crappy governments who blame the West for everything)? Do you think the situation in Gaza is not at least an excuse for rousing the passions of disaffected muslims? Do you not think that this particular variant of islamic theology trades on the linking of disparate elements such as poverty, war, humiliation combined with a very particular narrative of one’s own life and purpose? Can you not see this narrative as compelling and empowering in a novel way for people humiliated and dispossessed?
If not, I humbly suggest you perhaps read and travel more. Hehe… or perhaps you think the only solution is to bomb them to make them free?
‘Pseudo-academic tosh’?’ Here, as in so many places, this looks like a coded phrase for ‘difficult arguments I don’t agree with or don’t understand’.
For what its worth, I also want to point out – though in the eyes of most this is something that opens one up to more suspicion – that everyone who writes for this site and most of the people who comment on it are actual academics working in the social sciences and are thus people who discuss these matters with a degree of historical and ideological depth that is simply absent in most contemporary mass media accounts of the problems at hand.
Remy – who is not white and a Marxist proto-revolutionary rather than a ‘liberal’ (a word which means more or less nothing these days) – is absolutely right, as are the great numbers of people – historians, political scientists, scholars of religion, journalists working for people other than Fox or Knight-Ridder – who agree with him. And before you write me off (as you are going to anyway, I suspect) I may be white, but I’m no more a liberal than Remy.
I want to add a bit of more concrete evidence to add to Remy’s general outline of the connections between the behaviour of the West and anti-Western violence. There is good evidence that suicide bombers grow best in conditions of social and economic inequality, conditions that owe a good deal to western imperialism. A single example will suffice: in third world nations that accept International Monetary Fund loans, rates of tuberculosis invariably rise after the loans begin because of the crippling conditions of ‘austerity’ imposed as a condition of the loan, conditions very few first world nations would accept for themselves. This is not liberal guilt; this is simply historical reality.
Furthermore, many of the people who organise suicide bombings – Osama bin Laden chief among them – have lived in, trained in, or been educated in the West. Bin Laden was a civil engineer who was trained by American government in covert warfare against the Soviet Union before striking out on his own. The legacy of colonialism not only creates the conditions in places like Afghanistan that foster the growth of religious radicalism, but the colonial powers actually taught these people the very tricks of their own repellent trade. Western imperialism and the continuing legacy of colonialism absolutely play a role in generating and justifying (for the people who commit it) the sorts of violence people call ‘terrorism’, and to think otherwise is simple historical ignorance.
I was waiting for some rhetorical cruise missles, but obviously peace is suddenly looking good for our military-machine friend.
Remy,
We obviously have better guns …
I do not respond to patronising sneers like “I humbly suggest you perhaps read and travel more.” It is very likely I know a great deal more about this subject than you or anyone else on this thread; I used to work in Defence after all. I am also unwilling to deal with the vast causal leaps which equate being part of an intelligence sharing network with being responsible for the torture of prisoners. You and that bunch of Papist weirdos might also like to consider how many lives are saved by the acquisition of intelligence, the lives of people who otherwise would be killed by religious fanatics of another religion.
“I am also unwilling to deal with the vast causal leaps which equate being part of an intelligence sharing network with being responsible for the torture of prisoners. You and that bunch of Papist weirdos might also like to consider how many lives are saved by the acquisition of intelligence, the lives of people who otherwise would be killed by religious fanatics of another religion.”
So hang on. I know I’m like a white liberal papist patronising scumbag who is against freedom and liberty for our people etc, etc. But isn’t there an apparent contradiction in your two statements above?
You first suggest on the one hand that you do not torture but rather only collect information, and on the other hand you suggest that you must torture. We liberal papist academics call this ‘American exceptionalism’, i.e. Americans live in an exceptional nation in an exceptional time and who fight an exceptional enemy in an exceptional war that requires the use of exceptional tactics. Like former President Bush, you seem to have no problem holding onto both at once. (The work of William Cavnaugh on this issue is thoughtful and instructive; you need to read it)
Oh yes, and anabaptist “papists” sound like an awesome hybrid of nonsense.
“You first suggest on the one hand that you do not torture but rather only collect information, and on the other hand you suggest that you must torture.”
What on earth are you talking about? I do not torture. I am an architectural historian: waterboarding is not part of my research methodology. I did not suggest anything about torture or American exceptionalism. Nor did I suggest that anybody was an Anabaptist Papist.
I do suggest, however, that you read a little more carefully and try not to make too many inferences.
sorry, i don’t mean you, but the “intelligence sharing network” which you so passionately support.
glad to hear that waterboarding is not part of your methodology.
‘I do not respond to patronising sneers like “I humbly suggest you perhaps read and travel more.”’ He does because he just did. And on ‘suicide bombers’ the assertion ‘we did not create them’ suggests that it is very likes he knows a great deal less… and why exactly are peace activists ‘weirdos’?
Steph – in most times and places, peace activists are undoubtedly quite weird – that is, highly unusual, exceptional, abnormal, a minority, an irregularity, a peculiarity. Deviants. Yet, there is no natural reason why this should be the case.
Paul has fundie-atheist tendencies which break out sometimes, and which well might account for his difficulties in rationally discussing the issues raised by Christian pacifists. It’s a shame, because New Zealand (as you probably know) has a fine and rich sub-cultural tradition of Christian pacifism, from Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi of Parihaka to James K. Baxter’s dad, Archibald Baxter, author of the disturbing We Will Not Cease. There is much to learn from here.
But, just to cater for prejudice, here’s another pacifist, Not A Christian. In a letter written to The Guardian in 1917 he repeats what has been dismissed prematurely as “pseudo-academic tosh” (per Paul), i.e. that “it’s probably our “defence” of ourselves that make suicide bombers” (per Remy):
“The conscientious objector does not believe that violence can cure violence, or that militarism can exorcise the spirit of militarism. He persists in feeling ‘solidarity’ with those who are called enemies, and he believes that if this feeling were more widespread it would do more than armies and navies can do to prevent the growth of aggressive imperialism.”
– Bertrand Russell
Great man old Berty. Stuck to his empty holsters for his whole life.
But they are not pacifists; you insult the memories of New Zealand’s pacifists by naming these people among them. They commit acts of aggression which might endanger the lives of others. That is not pacifism.
I call them weirdoes because they are obsessive. They read that NZ has an intelligence sharing capacity with the USA, so (being fanatically anti-American) they draw the inference that NZ is complicit in the torture of suspects. They discover that the spooks here have increased their numbers in response to the 9/11 attacks (a rather obvious and necessary response to a global terrorism threat) and decide that the spooks are all part of a vast American conspiracy.
This reasoning, like much of that displayed on this page, is fallacious. But these people are not to be stopped by mere facts or reason. They know they are right, they know that their deeds are righteous. Never mind that other people may be harmed by their actions. They have God on their side.
Being a pacifist is not the same as being apathetic and doing nothing. You have confused the two.
And another thing: you can prate on all you like about the West bringing this upon itself, but that is not going to save anybody from some nutter with a bomb on a plane. The aforementioned pseudo-academic tosh is frankly irrelevant.
I’m enjoying witnessing to this Christopher Hitchens + Sam Harris style Neo-Con apologist reasoning as it unfolds… hehe:
– We are humane, they are evil. Therefore, we must “acquire” information from them by any means necessary.
– We are reasonable, they are nutters. Therefore, we can only speak with force.
– We have Godless Reason on our side, you have God/Allah/White Liberal Guilt. Therefore, you are unreasonable.
– We are waging a just war, they are pacifists. Therefore they are violent.
The Kazakhstani philosopher Borat, who also demonstrates a similar kind Neo-Con manner of reasoning would say, “I hope President Bush wins his War of Terror… I hope you drink the blood of every man woman and child in Iraq… is niiiiiiice!”
Your (non-)explanation reminds me of the famous reasoning of a great American philosopher. He likewise rejected any high-falutin’ explainations behind religious violence. He reasoned, with great profundity, that these folk simply acted for no reason at all. Dem folks were just plain evil, he sez:
“I see things this way: The people who did this act on America, and who may be planning further acts, are evil people. They don’t represent an ideology, they don’t represent a legitimate political group of people. They’re flat evil. That’s all they can think about, is evil. And as a nation of good folks, we’re going to hunt them down.”
– George W. Bush
I think George W. may have followed that with the line that further analysis wasn’t required, because that was just ” pseudo-academic tosh”. However, I may have made that last bit up. After all, we all prefer convenience and pith over difficult and nuanced thought, don’t we?
Do you think Americans watch Starwars and think that the Empire is supposed to be the good guys?
Remy, do calm down, please. You could do with a bit of reason. This is the first time I have been called a Neo-Con.
Hehe first time I’ve been called a white liberal too. We’re both learning new things about ourselves ;-)
Tyrone, I find your last post frankly insulting to me. I do not not like your imputations that I am some sort of hick and that I am a supporter of George Bush II. Perhaps if you were to address the points I made rather than to spew out the usual liberal drivel, we might have a constructive argument. Perhaps if you had any understanding of intelligence gathering or of strategic issues, you might be able to make some useful arguments. But clearly you are not prepared to deal with any challenge to your dogma, so I shall not waste my time here any more.
the old ‘usual liberal drivel’ refutation? quoting George? – it might not be very trendy to be a Georgy supporter but it seems he agrees with him anyway… just doesn’t apparently ‘support’ him.
Paul – I certainly wasn’t “imputing” that you were a hick or supporter of George W. Bush. You’ve imputed the wrong thing here.
Rather, my point was that each of you begins and ends your explanations of religious violence with something that seeks to preclude the fuller explanation. In your case, the tactic is to write off the suicide bomber as a “nutter”. It is a rationalisation which precludes further explanation by an immediate and comprehensive appeal to irrationality. In George’s case, the tactic is to write off the suicide bomber as “evil” incarnate. George’s rationalisation precludes further explanation by reifying his subjective moral judgment as a Supernatural Thing. In both cases, you preclude any explanation which in fact does any explanatory work: why did these people decide to become suicide bombers.
This is like noting Marx’s statement about religion being the opium of the people, without going on to see what Marx says just after that. As Tariq Ali says: “Marx famously wrote of religion as the ‘opium of the people’, but the sentence that followed is forgotten. Religion was also ‘the sigh of the oppressed creature’ and this partially explains the rise of religiosity in every community since the collapse of Communism.”
Is Marx’s recognition that people opt for such varieties of religion as a result of oppression more “pseudo-academic tosh”? Or is he, and Tariq Ali, asking the right questions?
If you don’t believe me, Tariq, or Karl, then watch a movie. Did Said and Khaled in the movie Paradise Now become suicide bombers because they were “nutters” or “evil”? Or was it because of their wider circumstances, the absence of any hope or possibility under the Israeli occupation? Is this movie more or less “realistic” than the “evil nutter” terrorists portrayed in Hollywood extravaganzas?
Having said my piece, I’ve been staying out of this, Paul, but I think I can help to clarify a bit what is going on here (though Tyrone’s last reply is very, very clear):
1) I will not accept the charge of ‘fallacious’ reasoning from anyone who throws out facile labels like ‘liberal’ or ‘pseudo-academic tosh’ or ‘neo-con’ (and I’m looking at you, Remy, on this one) as if this was a part of any sort of reputable argument. Not only do such labels lack any descriptive meaning – they are instead fiercely normative – but using them also brings the user in line with the historically blind and intellectually bankrupt level of political debate in the mainstream mass media. This is not argument of any sort; this is throwing rotten tomatoes at a stage where no one is actually standing.
2) What is at issue here is simple: you seem to be arguing that religious violence (and calling someone a ‘nutter’ as Tyrone says, is to automatically dismiss their perspective and to retreat to a pre-determined stance towards whatever actions said ‘nutter’ might be performing) is something we can stop with better intelligence and better weapons; on the other hand, most of us are arguing that, to deal with religious violence, or anti-Western violence of any stripe (including home-grown political extremists like the OK City bombers), we need to take a longer historical perspective that examines the root causes of violence, not merely its contemporary manifestations. This is why your history with Defence is to this latter position irrelevant unless it adds to your broad historical perspective. Preventing one act of violence without addressing the causes of the cultures of violence that foster such action is not the same thing as understanding it, or preventing further acts. By going blithely forth in the same manner – by invading ‘terrorist’ states, etc. – only perpetuates the cycle of violence and ensures that there will be more of it. The point here, at least as I see it, is that looking only at the present is not good enough, and it never will be.
Tyrone’s recommendation of Paradise Now is a good one, to which we can add The Wind that Shakes the Barley and The Battle of Algiers, to name a couple of the better films that deal with this topic. Also, though you’ve already found this insulting, I’d track down any book written by Howard Zinn (rest in peace), Bruce Lincoln, or Mark Juergensmeyer. In the academic world, recommending a book, article, or other text to someone is more a gesture of assistance than insult.
You are right Eric and I do beg your pardons. I think the neo-con slur was a symptom of my growing stupefaction at, as Steph says, apprently ‘progressive’ arguments that at once distance themselves from the likes of Bush and Cheney while tacitly creating the moral legitimacy for the possibility of what has happened since 02/03 (as Zizek argues). I did not mean to simple tar Paul with that brush, and it is easy to slip into empty labelling. So I repent.
May I also add Adam Curtis’ documentaries to the list of good resources on this, especially The Power of Nightmares, which deals with the rise of extreme Islamism as the mirror of new conservative politics in the USA. The Trap: What Happened to Our Dreams of Freedom? is also worth a watch. Both are widely available for viewing and download online.
and Talal Asad’s very insightful book On Suicide Bombing
What I don’t get is that people are so shocked these days by religious military groups, or training camps run by religious groups… but so open to secular military groups.
Why the big push to stop religious violence… surely the VAST majority of violence is committed by the (supposedly secular) states?
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