Greens undermine America’s military

Published December 1, 2001

“Endangered species has power to halt war training” was the headline on an article in an October 2000 edition of the Washington Times. Written by Steve Miller and datelined Fort Irwin, California, the article began, “What may be one of the most formidable threats to national security today has a craggy face, scaly arms and, well, he likes a little grass now and then.” Miller was referring to the desert tortoise.

Soldiers at the Army training center’s battlefield were instructed to call a commander if a desert tortoise crawled out of a hole. At that point, the entire training exercise would stop. Such insanity has been repeated on every military base in the nation in one fashion or another.

The U.S. Defense Department oversees and controls 17 million acres of U.S. land, down from 30 million acres after World War II. It has been losing the fight for space to train a modern military for years.

Whose security top priority?

When asked about the need for national security, a spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management (the same one that shut off water to the farmers of Klamath Valley) was quoted in the article as saying, “It is not in our purview to make a determination related to national security. Ours is to make sure the Endangered Species Act is complied with.”

There are hundreds of government employees throughout its many agencies who are little more than covert agents for the environmental movement. Their concern is not for national security, but for the security of an endangered species or some other environmental mandate that makes it impossible to train and equip our military to protect our nation at home or on foreign shores.

And then there’s Rep. Bob Filner, Democrat from the 50th District of California, the San Diego area, now in his fifth term. This is a district in which you will find a large contingent of U.S. Navy ships, part of our Pacific Fleet. You will also find there the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center and Naval Air Force.

In June, Filner introduced the “Military Environmental Responsibility Act” (H.R. 2154), which seeks to remove all military exemptions from existing environmental, worker, and public safety laws and regulations. Apparently, Filner is not aware that being in the U.S. Marines, Air Force, Navy, or Army is a very dangerous occupation and that part of the job description is being willing to die for the defense of the nation. Worse, his bill would put every element of our military under the thumb of the Environmental Protection Agency!

Stealth attack by environmentalists

The national and international environmental movement–the Greens–has been engaged in undermining the U.S. military for years. Few have taken notice of it. The Greens represent an instrument of foreign and domestic Socialist agendas, all of which are aimed at undermining this nation’s economic viability, its sovereignty, and its military strength and readiness.

One of the most egregious examples has been the campaign to force the U.S. military to switch from lead-based ammunition to tungsten. This “Green ammo” was said to be necessary because of the “environmental threat” of lead bullets and other shells. The bullets fired from standard-issue M-16 rifles have always been made of lead, as was virtually every other bullet ever fired by our military going back to the days of the American Revolution.

The Green mandate for tungsten bullets ignored the fact that this metal costs vastly more than lead, easily twice as much. It also ignored the fact that the greatest source of this metal is Red China. For more information about this outrage, see “Army Green Takes On A Whole New Meaning” by Peyton Knight, an article posted on the Internet site of the American Policy Center (www.americanpolicy.org).

The Green attack on our military includes a propaganda campaign, as does all environmentalism. One example is “America’s Defense Monitor” (ADM), a weekly television series produced by the Center for Defense Information and broadcast on an estimated 65 Public Broadcasting System outlets and cable stations. If you visit the center’s Web site (www.cdi.org), you can order videos of anti-nuclear programs such as “Radioactive America,” “The Military-Industrial Squeeze,” and “Dark Cloud: Our Strange Love Affair with the Bomb.” As if our nuclear strength did not deter the Soviets for decades until their system finally imploded.

One ADM program is entitled “An Environmental Industrial Complex?” This program argues against ballistic missile systems, fighter planes, and new submarines, suggesting that spending the money on solving environmental problems would be better. All of their programs are intended to convince viewers way too much money is being spent on our military.

Shortly after the September 11 attacks, the Earth Island Institute pulled from its Web site an editorial that cited U.S. energy and environmental policy as the reason for the attacks. “If we were to redirect our economy to operate on clean renewable energy . . . we would not only be on the path to mitigating climate change, we would also be on the path to eliminating one of the major causes of terrorism,” wrote Gar Smith. “One way to respond to terrorists is to listen to the message they are trying to send.”

Smith also chided the U.S. for being “the world’s reigning Superpower.” He later characterized the tone of the editorial “as self-righteous arrogance,” saying it was “very inappropriate in tone.” I would submit it clearly reflected the true feelings of the environmentalists who determine that movement’s policies.

Of course it makes sense to ensure we have clean air and clean water, and restrict unnecessary emissions and the wastes generated by a modern society. But it doesn’t make sense to run that society like a totalitarian government. And this is the essential evil of radical environmentalism.


Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, and founder of the National Anxiety Center (http://www.anxietycenter.com)–“a response to all the ‘Earth is Doomed!’ stories in the media.”