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Bushwhacking Mother Nature
US Environmental Destruction Abroad
by Heather Wokusch
www.dissidentvoice.org
January 20, 2004
While
some German politicians are worried about the closing of US military bases
in their regions, others fear nasty surprises will surface after the
Americans depart. The United States has consistently valued military power
more than the environment - but at what price?
Some in the White House argue that US national interests transcend greenie
niceties, and this certainly was the case with Bush's 3-day stay at
Buckingham Palace last year. US security forces trashed the Royal Gardens,
historic statues and even the palace itself in an effort to provide the best
environment for the president. The Queen's ensuing outrage didn't seem to
bother Washington: if US self-protection mandates despoiling a patch of land
far away, then so be it.
The issue of US military bases overseas arouses similar conflicts. According
to Gary Vest, an assistant deputy undersecretary of defense for
environmental security, "There is not a [US] military base in the world that
doesn't have some soil or ground water contamination. That is just a given."
A classic case involves the Clark and Subic bases in the Philippines,
which after closing in 1992, were discovered to be veritable death traps:
wells had been poisoned by insecticides, industrial waste and toxic metals
had been buried in random landfills, and petroleum had leaked from
underground tanks. As a result, ground water and nearby agricultural lands
were contaminated, and Filipinos living at or near the bases suffered from
disproportionately high rates of illness.
It gets worse: while the cost of decontaminating Clark and Subic was
estimated to be $1 billion, the US claimed to be exempt from any clean-up
liabilities, and even refused to provide technical assistance and pertinent
documents.
Germany's tough environmental laws and strategic importance have ensured
more favorable treatment thus far, but significant problems remain. In 1999,
a US Department of Defense inspector general said base cleanup costs in
Germany could total at least $1 billion.
Yet another black mark in the US environmental record abroad concerns toxic
weaponry dumped on countries such as Afghanistan. Via independent monitoring
of weapon types and delivery systems, the Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC)
indicated that "radioactive, toxic uranium alloys and hard-target uranium
warheads were being used" by US-led coalition forces during 2001's Operation
Enduring Freedom. UMRC's follow-up assessments of
uranium contamination in Afghan civilians' urine samples found
"abnormally high levels of non-depleted uranium," 400% to 2000% higher than
normal population baselines.
Put bluntly, in addition to littering the Afghan countryside with cluster
bombs and a seismic shock warheads, it appears US-led forces helped
irradiate the local environment, with unspeakable civilian health
implications.
Same story in Iraq. In the 1991 Gulf War, depleted uranium (DU) bullets and
shells were widely used by US forces because of DU's ability to cut through
conventional armor plating on tanks. DU-weaponry burns upon contact,
emitting radioactive dust which can then spread across a large region.
Experts at the Pentagon and the United Nations estimate that while 375 tons
of DU were used in Iraq during the Gulf War, up to
2,200 tons of DU were dumped on the country by US-led coalition forces
during the 2003 invasion. DU remains destructive for 4.5 billion years.
But military bases and the War on Terror and aren't the only justifications
given by the US for its assault on the global environment; its War on Drugs
has dealt Mother Nature a separate death blow.
The White House has mandated a sharp increase in funding for aerial spraying
of coca and opium poppy crops abroad, despite evidence that domestic drug
treatment programs are 20 times more effective than eradicating drug supply
at the source.
Aerial eradication, a process by which toxic herbicides are indiscriminately
dumped from airplanes onto the land and water below, flies in the face of
logic. A United Nations' study, for example, found
that coca cultivation in Colombia tripled between 1996 and 2001, despite
nearly one million acres of Colombian land having been sprayed during that
time.
More alarmingly, an herbicide commonly used in US-sponsored Colombian
eradication programs is Roundup Ultra, a broad-spectrum Monsanto product
which destroys food crops, water supplies and Amazonian bio-diversity along
with the intended coca and poppy plants. According to its
warning label, Roundup Ultra should not directly come into contact with
bodies of water, people, grazing animals, and desired crops; regardless, the
US is funding Colombia to spray such herbicides over hundreds of thousands
of hectares each year.
The theme is clear: too often America's War on Fill-in-the-Blank becomes a
war on the environment, a trumped up justification to rape and pillage
Mother Nature in the name of increased personal security.
And too often this approach backfires into a spiral of destruction and
resentment.
It's safe to say George W. Bush will not be invited back to Buckingham
Palace anytime soon - consider that door slammed. Given the ongoing attacks
on American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, it would appear US interests are
not welcome there either. And it's doubtful that aerial drug eradication in
Latin America will lead to much else than hungry locals enraged at Yankee
destruction of their habitat.
The White House has to learn that it's impossible to secure a sustainably
safe environment through the destruction of nature and endangerment of
people abroad.
Heather Wokusch is a free-lance writer with a background in clinical psychology. Her work as been featured in publications and websites internationally. Heather can be contacted via her website: http://www.heatherwokusch.com. This article (C) Copyright by Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
Other Recent Articles by Heather Wokusch
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