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Earth
Day In The Shadow Of War
Militarism
And Environmental Destruction Go Hand In Hand
by
Mark Engler
April
23, 2003
With
Kyoto in shambles and environmental laws under assault, Earth Day 2003 hardly
possesses the feel-good air that hovered over the celebrations of the 1990s.
More than ever, honoring the natural world impels us to resist those in power.
With festivities taking place in the shadow of war, this Earth Day must also be
a call for peace.
The
environment has long been a silent casualty of war, suffering before, during,
and after actual combat takes place. And, from assaults on ecosystems in the
Persian Gulf to regulatory exemptions for U.S. military activities here at
home, the current war provides fresh lessons about how militarism goes hand in
hand with ecological destruction.
Historically,
the environmental impacts of military actions have drawn little attention.
Self-proclaimed pragmatists like to shrug off the complaints of tree huggers as
irrelevant next to grave matters of state. But while their reasoning may carry
some weight in a case of obvious genocide, it is dishonest not to weigh often
crushing environmental damage in the same balance with international interests
and the human toll of war.
Even
as the shooting in Baghdad dies down, past and future wars continue to claim
victims on the environmental front worldwide. For example, the military
industry's development and testing of weaponry produces an endless stream of
hazardous waste. Such activity has contaminated over 11,000 "hot
spots" on 1,855 military facilities in the United States, according to the
Defense Department's own documents.
New
data on the poisonous herbicides used to kill off Vietnam's jungles and crops
paint a grim portrait of how war devastates ecosystems and poses persistent
threats to human health. Just this month, a story broke indicating that Agent Orange
was applied far more recklessly than originally estimated -- meaning citizens
and soldiers alike suffered far graver exposures to dioxin.
Even
after active conflicts end, military waste wages a lingering cold war on the
natural world. A 1993 State Department report identifies landmines and other
unexploded ordnance as "the most toxic and widespread pollution facing
mankind."
Operation
Desert Storm perpetuated this sad history. The Gulf War of 1991 resulted in
some 65 million barrels of spilled oil, which killed tens of thousands of
marine birds in the Persian Gulf and seeped through the desert into sensitive
water sources. Meanwhile, in Iraq's cities, bombing devastated sewage and water
treatment facilities.
Most
significantly, the 600 oil fires set by the Iraqi army burned for up to nine
months, releasing millions of tons of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide into
the atmosphere. This pollution caused dark, greasy rains to fall as far as
1,500 miles away.
"The
first Gulf War was the biggest environmental disaster in recent history,"
former Earth Island Journal editor Gar Smith recently told The Washington Post.
Lacking
the massive oil fires and extreme infrastructural damage that marked the first
Gulf War, the current clash may not prove as environmentally disastrous as some
feared. Nevertheless, with controversial depleted-uranium weaponry in use and
with ecosystems still reeling from the last conflict, revelations of
environmental damage may emerge, as they have with past wars, for years to come.
Two
years ago the World Health Organization began exploring whether the depleted
uranium from munitions used in Desert Storm were causing spikes in cancer,
kidney diseases and other congenital disorders among Iraqis. The Pentagon says
the weapons are safe -- but just this month the Royal Society issued a scathing
indictment of these claims and called for the United States and Britain to
remove hundreds of tons of the substance to protect Iraqi citizens. If such
suspicions prove correct, these civilians must be considered casualties of war
and counted along with those who died in air strikes. This would mean, of
course, that the true body count from the current war will take years to
assess.
Even
relatively minor environmental disruptions in Iraq can have wide-ranging
impacts, especially on biodiversity. The Persian Gulf harbors more than half of
the marine turtle species in the world, all of which are listed as
"endangered" or "threatened." Sixty species of waterfowl
and nine different birds of prey spend their winters in Iraq's delicate
wetlands. "From a biodiversity point of view," the noted
ornithologist Phil Hockey told Grist Magazine, "this is the worst possible
time of the year to have a war there."
The
U.S. occupation of Iraq could itself invite despoliation. Global oil companies
are eager to develop virgin oil fields in Iraq, aiming to double the country's
production to around six million barrels a day by 2010. Conservation and
renewable energy is unlikely to rank high in the agenda as they undertake this
massive new extraction. And progressives, while they push for Iraqi
self-determination and support the country's control of its own profitable
resources, should feel ambivalent about Iraq's stable economy coming at the
cost of lowered oil prices and continued U.S. dependence on fossil fuels.
Putting
aside its impacts abroad, the war in Iraq may deal a cruel blow to
environmental protections in the United States. Never one to miss a moment of
political opportunism, the Bush administration now argues that requiring the
Department of Defense to comply with environmental laws will hurt the troops'
"training readiness." The White House has therefore asked Congress to
exempt the armed forces from a wide swath of regulations -- a goal generals
have pursued for years.
Given
the ease with which the Marines rolled across the Iraqi desert, it's hard to
see how our environmental laws have hampered the military's ability to face
current threats. Nevertheless, the legislation puts the screws into the Clean
Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act and
Superfund, to name a few. In fact, it's "a rollback of almost every major
environmental law on the books," says Michael Jasney, senior policy
analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Of
course, many environmentalists already opposed the president's overseas
adventurism. To them, the inevitable human costs seemed as unjustifiable as the
conflict's toll on the natural world. Yet, in the end, bringing an ecological
perspective to the military debate may prove necessary. Only by challenging
America's enormous appetite for oil, along with its imperial ambitions, can we
preempt a war -- both human and ecological -- without end.
Mark Engler, a writer based
in Brooklyn, has previously worked with the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human
Progress in San José, Costa Rica, as well as the Public Intellectuals Program
at Florida Atlantic University. Research assistance for this article provided
by Katie Griffiths. This article first appeared in Tom Paine.com (www.tompaine.com)