"Pitstop" Ploughshares

STATEMENT OF FAITH
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We come to Shannon Airport to carry out an act of life-affirming
disarmament in a place of preparations for slaughter.

Like the railway tracks that ran to the town of Auschwitz, the runway at
Shannon has been militarized for service on an assembly line of death.
The train tracks at Auschwitz brought people to their deaths, the runway
at Shannon brings death to the people. The Irish Government acts in
contravention of the Irish Constitution, International Law and divine
mandate to service U.S. military aircraft, troop and munition
deployments.

The U.S./British war on the Iraqi people, and for Iraqi resources, has
been long and varied.The U.S./U.K. military has claimed over 2 million
Iraqi lives
* in their financial and military support for the Saddam Hussein
regime in the '70's and '80's
* in their hi tech bombing campaign of 1991
* in the 12 years of crippling sanctions imposed on the Iraqi people
* and now their plans to conquer and occupy Iraq

US/UK weapons manufacturers also continue to fuel the daily grind of
death and destruction inflicted on the Palestinian people.

SWORDS INTO PLOUGHSHARES
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We come to Shannon Airport around the Feast of St. Brigid, to disarm and
disable the war machine. We hope to begin to take up the runway and
ground military aircraft. We hope to be joined in this act of
disarmament by those who encounter us. Citizens, police and soldiers
wielding hammers brought down the Berlin Wall; we hope all will pitch in
to take up this runway and ground planes servicing the war machine. We
find this easier to envision than the further slaughter of Iraqi
children that U.S. British and Irish governments wish us to consider.

We act inspired by Brigid and Irish traditions of healing and
peacemaking. We carry out Christ's commandment to "love our enemies" by
nonviolently resisting the slaughter of their children. We attempt to
enflesh the prophesy of Isaiah Ch 2 and Micah Ch 4 "to beat swords into
ploughshares".

We respond to the call of the prophets of Modern America. Catholic
Worker founder Dorothy Day, who encourages us "to fill the jails with
nonviolent resistance to war"; Martin Luther King, who warns us that we
are confronted by "a choice between nonviolence and nonexistence". Fr.
Daniel Berrigan, who observes: "We have assumed the name of peacemakers,
but we have been, by and large, unwilling to pay any significant price.
And because we want peace with half a heart and half a life and will,
the war, of course continues, because the waging of war, by its nature
is total - but the waging of peace, by our cowardice is partial."