Fridays of Advent 2007

wevigilo December 2nd, 2007

For 33 years I have been living and working with teens
in trouble at the Redwood City Catholic Worker House
in Calif.  As we feed, clothe, shelter and educate the
poor in the name of Christ we ask, “Why are there so
many so poor in the richest country in the world?”
The answer to our question is that the priorities of
our society are wrong.  There is plenty of money for
war and not enough money for education, housing, clean
air, addiction  etc. Our weapons are  wrecking the
environment (even if they are not used) by
contaminating our land, sea and air.  They are also
stealing from the poor by using up our talented
scientist and precious resources.  If our weapons of
mass destruction are ever used again (as in Hiroshima
& Nagasaki) then we will be creating everything I’ve
dedicated my life to alleviate. These weapons  will
cause poverty, homelessness, orphans, hunger and death
on an unimaginable scale.  I vigil at Lockheed not
only because Lockheed Martin is the largest military
contractor in the world; but also because Lockheed
Martin  develops and manufactures nuclear missiles for
the Trident Submarines — a first strike nuclear
option. We can act against these missiles after they
are launched or we can protest their existence NOW.  I
CHOOSE TO ACT NOW.  Larry Purcell

August 24/ September 28, 2007

wevigilo August 19th, 2007

LOCKHEED MANAGES

SANDIA’S ATTRIBUTES

TO GIVE ALL TRIDENTS

A NEW SET OF NUKES

www.WeVigil.org

Shortly after the Trinity test in New Mexico, Manhattan Project Director J. Robert Oppenheimer in late July 1945 started Z Division as the ordinance design, testing, and assembly arm of Los Alamos Laboratory. Z Division quickly outgrew its crowded space so a directive was issued authorizing a new base arbitrarily referred to as the “Sandia Base.” That new base turned out to be near Oxnard Air Field just outside Albuquerque. A facility was constructed and the move was completed in January 1947. In 1949 Z Division became a separate branch of Los Alamo and was renamed Sandia Laboratory.

Los Alamos Laboratory was managed by the University of California but the university was uncomfortable with the engineering part of nuclear weapons. Western Electric Company of AT&T took over management of Sandia Laboratory through a wholly-owned private entity called Sandia Corporation. Sandia Laboratory became Sandia National Laboratory in 1979 with facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Livermore, California; Tonopah, Nevada; and Kauai, Hawaii. Since its inception, Sandia National Laboratory has worked with either Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory or Los Alamos National Laboratory to design and build every US nuclear bomb.

In 1993 Martin Marietta was awarded the franchise to manage Sandia National Laboratory. Two years later that company merged with Lockheed to become Lockheed Martin. Sandia Corporation (not to be confused with Sandia National Laboratory) is now a wholly-owned private company of Lockheed Martin Corporation whose purpose is to manage the laboratory..

For several years, under the George W. Bush administration, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory had been competing on the design concept for a new Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) for America’s nuclear arsenal, starting replacement with the sea-based leg. Of course Sandia would work with whichever laboratory won the design concept.

On 2 March 2007 the US Department of Energy announced that Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories were the winning team. They will now put together a detailed project plan and cost estimate for development and production. Lawrence Livermore will work on the nuclear explosive package. Sandia will be responsible for items like the Arming & Fusing Device and the Neutron Generator. Through its design function, Sandia will also assure compatibility with Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The US Navy will head up the overall project.

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REFERENCES

“Exhibits: End of War; Beginning of a Laboratory, Z Division, 1945-1949,” Sandia History program & Corporate Archives, last modified 11 October 2004. Available at http://www.sandia.gov/recordsmgmt/zdiv.html

Press Release; “Design Selected for Reliable Replacement Warhead,” National Nuclear Security Administration of the Department of Energy, 2 March 2007. Available at http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/docs/newsreleases/2007/PR_2007-03-02_NA-07-06.htm

July 27/August 9, 2007

wevigilo July 18th, 2007

DID YOU KNOW LOCKHEED MARTIN BUILT TRIDENT MISSILES WHICH CAN INSTANTLY DELIVER EXPLOSIVE POWER EQUAL TO 19,200 HIROSHIMA BOMBS? [or 13,440 NAGASAKI BOMBS]

Lockheed Martin is the program manager in charge of producing and maintaining Trident D5 missiles.

Trident D5 missiles are deployed on 14 Trident submarines which conceivably, in an emergency, could launch their missiles even while the submarines are in port.

There are 24 missiles on each submarine which means 336 missiles are deployed.
[24 missiles/submarine x 14 submarines = 336 missiles.]

Each missile can carry 8 warheads which means 2,688 nuclear bombs deployed.
[8 warheads/missile x 336 missiles = 2,688 warheads.]

Each nuclear bomb has an explosive power equal to at least 100,000 tons (100 kilotons) of conventional explosives. (Some missiles carry 475-kiloton bombs.) That means at least 268,800 kilotons of explosive power are deployed on Trident submarines.
[100 kilotons/warhead x 2,688 warheads = 268,800 kilotons.]

The Hiroshima bomb is estimated to have been 14 kilotons. Hence, the explosive power deployed on Trident submarines equals 19,200 Hiroshima bombs.
[268,800 ÷ 14 = 19,200.]

The Nagasaki bomb is estimated to have been 20 kilotons. Hence, the explosive power deployed on Trident submarines equals 13,440 Nagasaki bombs.
[268,800 ÷ 20 = 13,440.]

May 25/June 22, 2007

wevigilo May 3rd, 2007

DID YOU KNOW LOCKHEED MARTIN PROVIDED INTERROGATORS TO “EXTRACT” INFORMATION FROM DETAINEES AT GUANTANAMO, AFGHANISTAN, AND IRAQ?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology business management graduate Sydney Martin founded The Sytex Group Inc. in 1988 and became its CEO. Based in Doylestown, PA, this new information technology company got off to a slow start. It earned only $1,500 the first year, but by 2004 Sytex had grown to over 3,000 employees and revenues had reached $425 million.

Just weeks after the 9/11 attack, Sytex began hiring interrogators on contract. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Marc Michaelis was in charge of this operation. At that time he advertised job openings for 120 “intelligence analysts.”

When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, a company known as CACI was under the gun for providing inexperience civilian contract interrogators. A July 2004 report by the Army Inspector General said a third of CACI contractors were not properly trained. That same report pointed out the two out of the four Sytex contract interrogators at Bagram, Afghanistan, had not received the necessary training.

CACI’s contract with the government expired in September 2005 but that company made no plans for renewal. Instead it entered an agreement with Sytex to work as a subcontractor. By that time Sytex had been taken over by Lockheed Martin.

On 31 March 2005, Lockheed Martin announced it had completed the purchase of Sytex for $440 million. (The original offer was $462 million but was reduced when subsidiary MacAulay Brown had to be spun off as a separate company to prevent a monopoly on certain products if it became part of Lockheed Martin.)

Marc Michaelis continued with his contract interrogator recruiting job under Lockheed Martin. Still linked to the Lockheed Martin/Sytex website are job opportunities for six HUMINT managers (Human Intelligence which is a euphemism for prisoner interrogation), four Intelligence Database Analysts, four Counter-Intelligence Operations Specialists, one Senior Military Operations Analysts to monitor counterintelligence missions, and one Counterintelligence Collection Operations Instructor. These are high-paid positions requiring years of experience and they infer a considerable number of subservient interrogators to keep them busy.

Corporation Watch said: “Sytex, and thus Lockheed after the takeover, appears to have subsequently emerged as one of the biggest recruiters of private interrogators. In June [2005] alone, Sytex advertised for 11 new interrogators in Iraq, and in July the company sought 23 interrogators for Afghanistan.”

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REFERENCES:
Pratap, Chatterjee; “Meet the New Interrogators: Lockheed Martin,” CorpWatch, 4 November 2005. At http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12757&printsafe=1
“Lockheed Martin Announces Completion of Amended Sytex Acquisition,” 31 March 2005. Available at http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=16686&rsbci=0&fti=0&ti=0&sc=400
Sytex internet site (Lockheed Martin Positions Redirect Page) at http://www.sytexinc.com Follow the link at the bottom of the page which says “For all other career opportunities with Lockheed Martin please click here.”

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