From: Foreign Bases Project <fbp@igc.apc.org>
Subject: Militaries War on Environment
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 22:24:47 GMT

/* Written  8:01 am  Nov  2, 1992 by wrl@igc.apc.org in igc:wri.news */
/* ---------- "Militaries War on Environment" ---------- */
THE MILITARIES WAR ON THE ENVIRONMENT
BY JOHN M. MILLER

     THAT humans make war on the environment is a widely used
metaphor, which becomes literally true when nations make war on
each other. From Vietnam to Central America and Afghanistan to the
Persian Gulf, warfare has had grave ecological consequences that
affect not only the environment, but the health and security of
the people who depend on it. And the negative impact of the worlds
armies on the environment neither begins nor ends with a shooting
war.  Every day militaries use up non-renewable resources, pollute
water sources, and contribute to ozone depletion.
     Images from the Gulf War of the smoke-darkened Kuwaiti desert
with oil wells burning out of control was a stark reminder of the
environmental damage of war. Ongoing revelations of radioactive
pollution from nuclear weapons sites in the United States and the
former Soviet Union point to the costs of peacetime military
activity. More recently communities are becoming aware of the
environmental impacts of military bases and the numerous toxic
chemicals they use. All of these revelations have helped lift the
veil from the myriad of ways that militaries wage war on the
environment (and all of us), even when they are not waging war on
each other.
     The recent Gulf War is a vivid case study in the damage that
war can cause the environment. While the hundreds of oil fires
have been extinguished, oil lakes still cover the Kuwaiti desert.
Oil still contaminates the Gulf and little has been done to clean
the hundreds of miles of coastline. Studies to determine the full
extent of the damage to important and fragile ecosystems critical
to a range of animal and plant species have only begun. Heavy
military vehicles and military fortifications have dug up and
packed down the deserts of the region that, lacking water, will
take years to recover. A year and half after the end of the war
little is known about the full extent of environmental damage
caused by the bombing of Iraq's nuclear and chemical weapons
facilities and petrochemical and other industrial sites. The
bombing of Iraq's electrical system caused widespread disruption
of sewage and other critical systems polluting water supplies and
spreading disease. Throughout the developing world, immigrant
workers in the Persian Gulf fled home as Gulf War refugees
increasing stress on rural ecosystems and urban areas.

RESOURCE USE
	  Like the Gulf War, many wars are about access to
	  resources.
Michael Renner of Worldwatch Institute estimates that the worlds
armies use as much energy as the economy of Japan, about six
percent of total use worldwide.  An F-16 fighter burns more fuel
in an hour than the average U.S. car does in one year. Militaries
account for nine percent of the iron and steel consumed each year.
They also use a large proportion of such minerals as beryllium,
cobalt, and titanium. In a self-perpetuating cycle, nations create
armies to gain access to resources that their armies must consume
in order to function.

	  Militaries have a seemingly insatiable appetite for land
	  to train
on. This need has risen steadily as armies have grown larger and
weapons have become more technologically advanced. Modern planes
can fly faster and further. Modern artillery can shoot farther. Up
to one percent of land worldwide is directly used by militaries.
Every year additional land is damaged or made unsuitable for
civilian use. Unbearably loud noises from overflights by jets can
cause health and other problems for residents and wildlife below
training areas. In recent years protests against low-flying jets
in Europe and across the United States are beginning to curb the
impunity with which western air forces disturb those below.
     Large tracts of land are also destroyed during war. Operation
Ranch Hand sprayed 18 million gallons of herbicides on more than
six million acres in Vietnam and a lesser area in Laos and
Cambodia. That land is only beginning to recover. Track marks can
still be seen in the deserts of North Africa, reminders of the
massive tank battles of World War II.
     One of the longest lived legacies from many wars is the
thousands of rounds of unexploded bombs and mines left over from
many wars. These bombs can maim and kill and unless thoroughly
cleared they make use of the land dangerous for decades. German
mustard gas shells, lobbed during World War I, are still
occasionally uncovered. Unexploded ordnance is still a major
problem in Vietnam, sending numerous children and farmers to the
hospital 17 years after the war. Mineclearing is a big and
dangerous business now, with companies vying for contracts to
remove mines in Angola, Kuwait, and Cambodia.

Toxic Chemicals & Hazardous Waste

     While negotiations on a treaty to ban the possession of
chemical weapons recently ended, militaries wage chemical warfare
daily on their own citizens by using some of the most lethal
chemicals known--not to wage war but to prepare for it. Solvents,
PCBs, pesticides, heavy metals, alkalies, propellants and
explosives then need to be disposed of safely. According to the
Pentagons Defense Environmental Restoration Program, 17,482 toxic
hot spots have been found at the 1,855 domestic installations.
(The U.S. does not provide figures for its overseas military
bases.) A toxic hot spot is a place where hazardous waste
contamination poses a potential threat. Areas around many
conventional and nuclear production facilities are also
contaminated. The costs of cleaning up these sites are
astronomical and estimates vary widely, anywhere from $50 billion
to $200 billion.
     As a number of militaries begin post-Cold War reductions, the
need to isolate and clean up chemical pollutants will delay
alternative uses at many military bases. Also delayed will be the
economic recovery of communities around the bases, adding to
pressure to leave bases open or conduct shoddy clean ups.
     There is every reason to believe that contamination at the
bases of other militaries is as bad or worse. Germany recently put
former Soviet soldiers awaiting repatriation to Russia  to work
locating dumps created in East Germany. No oversight from host
governments and poor record-keeping or a lack of any records mean
that an unknown number of toxic time bombs are scattered
throughout eastern Europe.
     The disposal of chemical weapons poses a number of special
environmental hazards. After World War II, stocks of chemical
weapons were haphazardly dumped in several ocean areas. Now the
U.S. and Russia have adopted incineration as the preferred
disposal method, ignoring and inadequately researching safer
alternatives. The U.S. moved chemical weapons from Okinawa and
Germany to Johnston Island in the Pacific in 1972 and 1990.
Pacific Islanders now fear that the U.S. will incinerate its
entire stockpile of chemical weapons at Johnston, ignoring their
wishes and well-being.

Nuclear  Contamination

     Toxic and nuclear contamination from nuclear weapons
production and testing have created life-threatening conditions in
many parts of the world.  Nuclear tests have spread deadly
radioactive isotopes worldwide. Contamination from test sites,
military nuclear reactors, warhead assembly plants, and
haphazardly created waste sites is migrating into water supplies
and the air, threatening the communities and ecosystems around
them. Safe ways to clean up and dispose of millions of tons of
radioactive waste produced by uranium mining, weapons production,
and now, the dismantling of nuclear warheads remain elusive.
Contamination at U.S. nuclear weapons facilities alone may cost
$200-$300 billion to clean up over the next 30 years. Nuclear hot
spots in the South Pacific, U.S., former USSR, China and elsewhere
will threaten the health of many for years to come.
     Indigenous peoples ave especially suffered from the nuclear
arms race.  Their lands and waters in North America, the Pacific,
the former USSR, Australia, and elsewhere have been irradiated by
nuclear tests by the major nuclear powers. It is still not safe
for Marshall Islanders to reinhabit their original islands. In
Australia, aborigines received little or no warning before British
tests irradiated them in the 1950s.
     Above ground nuclear testing contaminated the atmosphere, but
many underground nuclear tests leak radiation as well. Other
military activities are affecting the atmosphere as well. The
military is responsible for over two-thirds of U.S. use of the
ozone-depleting chemical CFC-113. While the Pentagon is moving
away from CFC use, the high cost of changing military
specifications is stalling the conversion to safer chemicals in
the U.S. and abroad, because many other nations follow the U.S.
lead when it comes to technical requirements in weapons
production. Exhaust from solid-fuelled rockets and missiles
injects large amounts of ozone harming hydrochloric acid directly
into the upper atmosphere.

National Security
     Militaries citing "national security" have hidden their
environmental crimes behind a veil of secrecy. In many nations,
the military is often exempt from environmental rules and
regulations either by law or by custom. In recent years, Congress
and grassroots protest have increasingly brought military
activities under the environmental laws and regulations that apply
to others, but the Pentagon and Department of Energy continue to
resist efforts to treat them like any other polluter. And most
environmental laws contain loopholes that allow the president to
cite a national emergency to exempt the military.
     Military harm to the environment is not confined to its
direct impacts.  Hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide are
spent preparing for war.  Military spending continues to consume
monetary, human and other resources short-changing environmental
protection, development and other social needs.  Billions must now
be spent cleaning up military messes.
     Many politically involved militaries protect, promote, and
often directly benefit from environmentally destructive projects
and activities.  They are used to suppress opposition to harmful
projects, stifling environmental debate. The wholesale destruction
of the Amazon began under the military dictatorship in Brazil.
Burma's military is cutting down its teak forests, trading the
wood for arms and cash to support its dictatorship. In the name of
anti-communism the Philippine army suppressed dissent against
environmentally destructive forestry, hydroelectric and other
projects during and after the Marcos dictatorship.

New Image
     Many of the worlds militaries, seeing which way the public
opinion winds are blowing, are working to improve their
environmental practice and image.  Here in the United States, the
Pentagon regularly proclaims this or that environmental
innovation. Several years ago, the Senate passed the Strategic
Environmental Initiative (SEI), Senator Sam Nunn's (D-GA) proposal
to fund the military to release environmental data and do
environmentally useful work. But the military mindset on this
matter was revealed when, after a long delay, the Pentagon
proposed that the first project under SEI find a more
environmentally benign way to produce plutonium triggers for
nuclear weapons.
     At Pentagon conferences during the build up toward the Gulf
War, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney put the best face on DoD
environmental practice, admitting the need to remedy past mistakes
and championing efforts to recycle, substitute non-toxic materials
for harmful ones, and preserve nature on military bases. But
Admiral David Jeremiah, vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
made clear that there are limits to how gently armies can adapt to
the environment. When forced to choose, the military's mission
comes before environmental protection. War and preparation for war
are "always inherently destructive and inefficient," he said.
     A major international opportunity to deal with impacts of the
     military on the environment was lost last spring when the UN
Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) sidestepped
these problems. The U.S.  delegation worked hard to keep military
matters off the agenda of the Earth Summit and proposals holding
nations accountable for how their militaries handle their
hazardous waste safely and contaminate the environment with their
weapons of mass destruction were watered down or deleted.

	  If the official conference was intent on giving the
	  military an
environmental blank check, non-governmental organizations meeting
outside were not so ready to do so. The NGOs negotiated their own
agreement on militarism, the environment, and development.
Condemning the failure of UNCED to deal with military questions,
the NGO "treaty" demanded "an end to the exploitation of women,
children, and other peoples marginalized by dominant military
systems." The alternative blueprint pledges groups to work for
environmentally sound demilitarization and the peaceful resolution
of conflicts. The treaty's action plan calls for a comprehensive
nuclear test ban and promises greater information sharing about
the impacts of militarism and support for indigenous peoples
opposition to the use of their lands and airspace for military
purposes.
     Many things can be done to alleviate some of the most
environmentally harmful practices of militaries--measures that
must be taken as steps toward disarmament regardless of whether
bases remain open or are closed. But in the end militaries will
have to be eliminated to finally bring an end to their war on
nature and us.

     John M. Miller is a member of the War Resisters League
Executive Committee and Coordinator of the International
Clearinghouse on the Military and the Environment/ARC, PO Box
150753, Brooklyn, NY 11215; (718)788-6071, e-mail: fbp@igc.org.

******** From November/December 1992 (Vol.9 #6) issue of the
Nonviolent Activist, publication of the War Resisters League, 339
Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012. e-mail: wrl@igc.org.
Subscriptions: $15/year.

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