Two priests get prison for protest at Huachuca

[bones_IV]

What’s this?

Two Catholic priests will spend the next five months behind bars for trespassing at the U.S. Army’s Fort Huachuca last year.
A federal judge in Tucson sentenced the priests — the Rev. Louis J. Vitale, 74, and the Rev. Steve Kelly, 58 — Wednesday after they pleaded no contest to the trespassing charges.
A no-contest plea means the defendant does not admit or deny the charges, but it has the same effect in the legal system as a guilty plea.

The San Francisco Bay Area clerics, who had faced up to 10 months in lockup, were arrested last Nov. 19 while protesting military-intelligence training at Fort Huachuca, about 75 miles southeast of Tucson.
The pair wanted to deliver a letter to the post’s top commander at the time, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, stating that the fort trains personnel in torture methods, something the Army denies.
U.S. Magistrate Héctor C. Estrada said he was reluctantly sending the priests to prison. He said he would have preferred that they do community-service work and remain under court supervision while living in their communities.

Linkazstarnet.com/metro/206877%20Two%20priests%20get%20prison%20for%20protest%20at%20Huachuca

 

[Dale_M]

Had Vitale and Kelly been delivering pizza rather than a letter questioning torture methods to Fort Huachuca, they would never have been arrested, said William Quigley, a prominent New Orleans human-rights attorney who represented both priests.

Well, I guess that’s their mistake. They should have had a pizza with them!

As the article suggests, Fr. Vitale and Fr. Kelly are long time activists. Jonah House, a community promoting non-violence and resistance, has a short bio on them:

Fr. Louie Vitale is a member of Pace e Bene, whose mission is “to develop the spirituality and practice of active nonviolence as a way of living and being and as a process for cultural transformation.” Fr. Vitale is also a co-founder of the Nevada Desert Experience, a faith-based organization that has opposed nuclear weapons testing for a quarter of a century. Fr. Vitale recently served six months in jail following his arrest at the Ft. Benning vigil in November, 2005, and was ejected from congressional hearings in September after speaking out against the Military Commissions Act.

Fr. Steve Kelly is a member of the Redwood City Catholic Worker community and has served time in federal prison for the nonviolent direct disarmament of nuclear weapon delivery systems. In December, 2005, Kelly served as chaplain for Witness to Torture, a delegation of over two dozen U.S. anti-torture activists who defied the U.S. embargo of Cuba with a peaceful march through that nation to the gates of the Guantanamo Bay navel base and prison camp.

jonahhouse.org/Huachuca.htm

The letter they were trying to present to Major General Barbara Fast announced that their protest at Fort Huachuca was in conjunction with the protest then occurring at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Ft. Benning, Georgia (formerly known as the School of the Americas).

If anyone is interested in the blow-by-blow details of Fr Vitale’s and Fr. Kelly’s court case you can read about it at:
tortureontrial.org/

It even has photos of the protest!

 

[Ender]

Two Catholic priests will spend the next five months behind bars for trespassing at the U.S. Army’s Fort Huachuca last year.

Good - don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. Removing them from their positions of influence over their home parishes will probably be beneficial.

Ender

 

[Richardols]

Good - don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.

Okay. But, for many people, doing the time is acceptable, such as during the struggle for civil rights era.

Removing them from their positions of influence over their home parishes will probably be beneficial.

Why? If the Army is teaching torture techniques, it is only right to protest such.

I know that Fort Huachuca was the base where the Army taught Human Intelligence gathering (HUMINT) aka the techniques for spying. I’d hope that the base wasn’t up to what is forbidden.

Would you deny priests the right to protest against an execution if they believed that the Catholic Church discouraged the death penalty?

 

[tomarin]

Why? If the Army is teaching torture techniques, it is only right to protest such.

i would like to know what the evidence is that the priests were acting upon, before passing judgement.

 

[Richardols]

i would like to know what the evidence is that the priests were acting upon, before passing judgement.

A few documents would do wonders to either support or deflate their claims.

 

[LRThunder]

Okay. But, for many people, doing the time is acceptable, such as during the struggle for civil rights era.

Why? If the Army is teaching torture techniques, it is only right to protest such.

I know that Fort Huachuca was the base where the Army taught Human Intelligence gathering (HUMINT) aka the techniques for spying. I’d hope that the base wasn’t up to what is forbidden.

Would you deny priests the right to protest against an execution if they believed that the Catholic Church discouraged the death penalty?

They can protest, without trespassing.

 

[Ender]

If the Army is teaching torture techniques, it is only right to protest such.

They army doesn’t now and never has taught “torture techniques.” This is sanctimonious grandstanding at its worst.

Would you deny priests the right to protest against an execution if they believed that the Catholic Church discouraged the death penalty?

“Protesting” is not what they were jailed for as you well know. I approve of them being held legally accountable for their illegal behavior.

Ender

 

[Cristiano]

They army doesn’t now and never has taught “torture techniques.” This is sanctimonious grandstanding at its worst.

You are either unaware of what the army is about, or in denial, or lying. Just because they do not practice its use that does not mean that some people in the army are not working on that. That also includes the use, innovation, and design of forbidden classes of weapons.

 

[krokal]

They army doesn’t now and never has taught “torture techniques.” This is sanctimonious grandstanding at its worst.

“Protesting” is not what they were jailed for as you well know. I approve of them being held legally accountable for their illegal behavior.

Ender

You think interrogators and SoA instructors were just taught how to have a tea party with the suspect? You’ve got to be kidding me.

What Rosa Parks did was illegal, that doesn’t mean it was wrong, however. Do you support the jailing of Martin Luther King? He did break the law.

 

[Ender]

You think interrogators and SoA instructors were just taught how to have a tea party with the suspect?

I think you have no idea of what the SoA did or what WHINSEC does. Are you aware that all of their manuals are in their library? Did you know that the public is allowed to visit the school? Were you aware that Fr. Roy Bourgeois, one of the founders of the SoA protest movement, had a standing invitation to visit the school and declined? (As of about five years ago, I haven’t bothered with this topic once I satisfied myself that the charges were false.)

You are armed with nothing but allegations; you have no facts to substantiate them. Information regarding the truth of the charges made about the school(s) is available on line if you take the time to look for it.

Ender

 

[krokal]

So this article from the Washington Post is a pure lie then?

U.S. Army intelligence manuals used to train Latin American military officers at an Army school from 1982 to 1991 advocated executions, torture, blackmail and other forms of coercion against insurgents, Pentagon documents released yesterday show.

Why has half of Latin America withdrawn (or are withdrawing) its soldiers from WHINSEC? For kicks?

 

[Ender]

So this article from the Washington Post is a pure lie then?

Not exactly, it is based on a situation that did exist. In the early '90’s the Army realized that some of its training manuals contained sentences or phrases that either violated Army policy or were ambiguous and could be interpreted in ways that did not accord with that policy. Over the next several years the manuals were changed, the offending sections were reworked or removed, and the Army attempted to recover as many of the old manuals as they could.

After this was done the situation was reported on by the media - e.g. the article you cited from 1996 … which stated that the manuals had ceased being used after 1991. I’m sure the manuals advocated aggressive interrogation techniques similar to what is being used today. What you refer to as torture is probably a lot closer to the interrogation techniques used by Chicago police during prohibition.

This, however, is probably the most serious failure of SoA but let’s not overlook the fact that it was the Army that discovered the problem and resolved it without outside pressure, or, most especially, that what was found was changed because it was counter to Army policy.

So, how does a situation that was discovered and resolved by the Army 16 years ago in a school (SoA) that has been completely revamped (WHINSEC) relate to what is being done today?

Ender

 

[RLT]

Those SOA "protest’ are probably a great place to see people denouncing violence at the same time wearing Ernesto Guevara shirts.


anyways I’m sure 5 months in jail will be very productive.

 

[mlchance]

Do you support the jailing of Martin Luther King? He did break the law.

He did break the law, and I do support his jailing, as did Dr. King himself. Read Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Dr. King is quite clear that in order for civil disobedience to be effective, those engaging it must submit to the law’s authority to punish. This idea isn’t new. It goes all the way back to Socrates.

What’s more, the School of the Americas doesn’t teach torture techniques. I served under a former commandant of the SoA. No, they’re not in the tea party business, but if one is suggested the only two choices are tea parties or torture, then one is guilty of torturing both logic and the truth.

– Mark L. Chance.