Peace activists defend break-in at US Navy base

Seven Catholic peace activists who broke into a nuclear submarine base in Kings Bay, Georgia, last year stood before a federal judge on August 7 to argue that the charges against them should be dismissed.

The activists, known as the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, are charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor and face up to 25 years in prison each for trespassing on the US Navy base that houses six Trident submarines carrying hundreds of nuclear weapons.

The defendants, mostly middle-aged or elderly, are residents of Catholic Worker houses, a collection of 200 independent houses across the country that feed and house the poor. The Kings Bay 7 are part of a 39-year-old antinuclear movement called Plowshares, inspired by the prediction of the biblical prophet Isaiah that the nations of the world shall “beat their swords into plowshares.” Its activists have made breaking into nuclear weapons bases to hammer on buildings and military hardware and pour human blood on them a signature action.