Calling them “dangerously irresponsible,” US District Judge Robert Blackburn last week sentenced three nuns to prison for up to three years for swinging a hammer at a Minuteman III nuclear missile silo and smearing their blood on it in the form of a cross. Prosecutors said the nuns, all close colleagues of the late peace activist Philip Berrigan, showed a blatant disregard for the law. The nuns argued that the Minuteman is a first-strike weapon prohibited by international law. Peace activists believe the felony convictions are unduly harsh and intended to have a chilling effect on other protestors.

Meanwhile, a few days before the nuns–members of the Sacred Earth Network, a national nuclear disarmament group–were sentenced, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham defended the Bush Administration’s growing nuclear weapons programs in the Washington Post. Abraham cloaked the White House’s decision to build new nuclear weapons in a haze of euphemism, alternately referring to these unprecedented new killing machines as “new challenges,” “low-yield weapons,” “advanced concepts” and “weapons concepts.”

Nevertheless, even through the haze, it is clear that by reviving the nuclear arms race at home, the Administration‘s policy shift will dangerously undermine efforts to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world.

This is one more issue that, despite rational opposition across the political spectrum, the White House seems determined to ram down the country’s throat. The American public is opposed to building new nuclear weapons. The military didn’t even ask for them. Even, Rep. David L. Hobson,the Republican Chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water expressed concern that the Bush Administration is planning to spend tens of millions of dollars to build new nuclear weapons before there is even a need for them.

So, three Roman Catholic nuns, who want to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction, will report to prison for multi-year sentences on August 25th. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration is scrambling to launch a new global nuclear arms race. Who’s “dangerously irresponsible”?