Posted on 03/18/2003 10:14:59 AM PST by Inspectorette
Vandenberg flooded with hate mail over 'deadly force' directive
3/18/03
By NORA K. WALLACE
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Antiwar activists angered by the possibility that Vandenberg Air Force Base may use deadly force against illegal intruders have inundated the installation with hate mail.
"Disturbing, misguided behavior," and "unenlightened warmongering" are some printable excerpts from the emotional torrent of mail -- some vitriolic and a few profane -- received by Vandenberg's e-mail server in the past few days.
The mail, as well as a number of phone calls, followed a "deadly force" directive that came to light because of a group of protesters planning so-called "backcountry" forays onto the classified military installation if a war with Iraq occurs.
Members of the Vandenberg Action Coalition and the Military Globalization Project contend Vandenberg is directly linked to the U.S. war effort and say their plans are to disrupt the base's mission and put a kink into the nation's war strategy.
Vandenberg's commander on Monday emphasized that the decree has always been in place at Vandenberg and other military bases, and is similar to that used by civilian law enforcement agencies encountering threats.
The decree does not apply to those who routinely gather at Vandenberg's main gate with picket signs and banners. Col. Robert M. Worley II, 30th Space Wing commander, said deadly force could be used in extreme circumstances, when base personnel are at risk, or if the infiltrators close in on equipment linked to national security, and only if other means of law enforcement have failed.
"We want to make sure people understand that illegally intruding onto base is a risky proposition," Col. Worley said.
He reiterated that base personnel respect the First Amendment rights of people to protest military policies or programs in a peaceful way, and those in uniform will die to defend those rights, he said.
"But we did not swear an oath to protect somebody or support somebody who wants to illegally infiltrate this base and disrupt our mission or destroy our equipment or threaten our people," Col. Worley said. "That's what we're talking about with backcountry incursions, or people coming in by air or sea."
There is a fundamental difference, the commander said, between the two types of protesters.
"If someone illegally intrudes on this base, they need to understand that somebody coming into the backcountry is not assumed to be a protester," Col. Worley said. "It's assumed to be a potential threat. They'll be confronted by security forces. Based on their (the military security) judgment, experience and training, they have to make a judgment in real time. Always the guidance they have is to use the amount of force reasonable to achieve their objective."
Vandenberg, he noted, is at a heightened level of security, and has been since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"Our world has changed since 9-11," Col. Worley said. "I conjecture a few years ago, someone encountered in the backcountry of Vandenberg with a backpack on probably would be seen as either a protester or a lost hiker. Today, given the terrorist threat around our nation, a backpack could be a bomb, a vial of anthrax or some other kind of biological or chemical weapon."
Organizers of the clandestine actions say the directive is not surprising to them, and doesn't appear to be a new policy associated only with this world situation.
"They're just underlining it a bit," Santa Cruz-based organizer Peter Lumsdaine said Friday. "People who have gone in and done major (civil disobedience) actions always realize that guns could be pulled on them " It doesn't seem that different from a typical police department. We predicted something. It's not a radical departure."
I assume your comment was made on the basis that UCSB is the closet university to the base.
Contrary to your supposition this university is the exception to the California political rule.
While the Santa Barbara community and the faculty at UCSB are loaded with these kooks and some of this does spill over to student population, the average student at UCSB is an apolitical hedonist.
UCSB is an undergraduate party school whoes student population seldom allows politics to get in the way of their pursuits. Another sizable percentage are foreign students who don't often pursue US domestic issues.
A Gaucho is not a Golden Bear.
;~)
I suspect the average UCSB student has gone back to being the apolitical hedonist he or she was before 1966 -- and even that the average student was during the Vietnam war, but found it far out to smoke a few joints and go out to demonstrations with their friends, catch some rays, hoot the Unicops, and listen to the music (and tune out the speeches). Meanwhile, the demonstrations and riots were being organized by a group of radicals led by a couple faculty members (one of whom, Richard Harris, was apparently an FBI agent provocatuer) and a number of real communists - including a French student who was a communist who now works for UN, several red diaper babies, and more than one child of the blacklist - most prominent of whom was Becca Wilson, the newspaper editor in 1969-70. I knew most of these people through mutual friends and went to many parties with them, even though I was a libertarian conservative they talked pretty freely around me.
I would bet you have faculty members (some whom I still know) who are busy stirring up the kiddies trying oppose the war.
By the way, did you know the student body voted overwhelmingly in 1969 or 70 to change the name of the teams from the "Gauchos" to the "Roaches" - image a smoking roach. Look it up in the Nexus archives, although it still may have been El Gaucho that year.
For bad or good, student attitudes have changed appreciably in the last 10 years. The faculty and the community, beyond the 50 some odd square blocks of IV have not.
In fact, the antiwar movement doesn't seem to have gotten the traction in the UC system that it once did. Today the Pacific northwest with Evergreen State College at its center appears to be the hotbed.
As an example, the fellow who poured his own blood on the base sign two weeks ago is a middled aged SB area resident who is a boarder line communist using a Catholic charity in Guadalupe as a cover.
Revenge served absolutely cold tastes better than a fine steak with your favorite lady and beer.
I wonder if any friends or relatives of Johnny "Mike" Spann will be waiting for Johnny "Jihadi" Lindh when he gets out in 2022.
I wonder if that "accident" will make the papers.
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