 |
Art Laffin's Closing Statement |
Judge, Keary, as you already heard from several defendants, our action on September 20 was morally and legally justified. Disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly are intent crimes.The government has failed to submit any evidence to show that our intent was criminal. On the contrary, the evidence we put forth in this case shows that the intent of our action was to prevent a crime, not to commit a crime. We should never had been arrested in the first place.
Our action was in accordance with God's law, "Thou Shalt not kill" and and International laws which mandates every citizen to prevent crimes against humanity from occurring. Our acts were clearly lawful.
The U.S. has been engaged in an immoral and illegal war against Iraq since 1991. On September 20, we acted to save lives. Since our action, numerous U.S. soldiers died and countless Iraqi's have died as a result of U.S. occupation. This past week the Washington Post showed yet again the beautiful faces of those soldiers who have recently died in Iraq. I'm also holding up before you photos of a seriously wounded Iraqi child and an Iraqi father grieving over the deaths of his three children who are about to be buried. In one of his famous songs Bob Dylan asks "How many deaths will it take till we know that too many people have died?" How many more people have to die before we end this immoral and illegal war?
We stand in a long nonviolent tradition of people of faith and conscience thoughout history who have engaged in acts of nonviolent resistance to war, state-sanctioned violence and injustice. One such person is Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we are celebrating at this time. We must heed his words more than ever before.
"A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death... Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism...We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam (today we can substitute Iraq for Vietnam) and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight."
Judge Keary, the government has failed to prove that we are guilty of violating the law. We appeal to you to find us not guilty and to join with us in working to end this criminal U.S. war in Iraq and to help create the beloved community. Thank you.