Fourteen peace activists risked arrest at a West Coast nuclear weapons base early Monday morning in a nonviolent protest against the continued deployment and modernization of the Trident nuclear weapons system. The Trident submarine base at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, just 20 miles from Seattle, Washington, contains the largest concentration of operational nuclear weapons in the US arsenal. Each of the 8 Trident submarines at Bangor carries as many as 24 Trident II(D-5) missiles, each loaded with up to 8 independently targetable thermonuclear warheads. Each warhead has an explosive yield up to 32 times the yield of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. […]

Many still believe that the atomic bombings were necessary to end the war with Japan; they accept President Truman’s assertion that the nuclear bombings saved the lives of a half-million US troops. In fact, the consensus among historians is that the A-bombings were NOT necessary to bring an end to the war. In President Eisenhower’s autobiography Mandate for Change, he recalls his reaction to U.S. Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, upon hearing of the successful atomic bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. Eisenhower told Stimson that he believed “that Japan […]

For the fourteenth year, peace activists will address the public display of warships and warplanes in our community. Why would we demonstrate for peace at a Seattle maritime festival?  Because the celebration of warships in our harbor helps bring about the normalcy of modern war. The fleet arrival at Seafair is a public relations and recruiting event for the U.S. Navy.  Previous years have brought Trident nuclear submarines complete with nuclear warheads and Navy warships used to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles in the first and second Wars on Iraq and the War on Afghanistan.  The fleet is displayed for four […]