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As America mobilizes for the new war: Greens have undermined US military for years

By Alan Caruba
web posted September 17, 2001

As America begins to mobilize to win the war against terrorism, the quality and capability of our Armed Forces is going to become an important priority. For the years of the Clinton-Gore administration, following the Gulf War, the destruction of our military was the priority. Helping in that process were the faceless bureaucrats, many still in place, pledged to environmentalism at any cost.

"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." He was referring to the desert tortoise.

Soldiers on 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. This insanity has been repeated on every military base in the nation in one fashion or another.

The US Defense Department oversees and controls 17 million acres of US 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. 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.

The national and international environmental movement-the Greens-has been engaged in undermining the US military for years and 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 US military to switch from lead-based ammunition to that requiring 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.

For several years now, the United States Army has been testing and considering the overhaul of its ammunition under intense pressure from the Greens within the Clinton-Gore administration that did everything in its power to undermine our military. There is no reason to doubt that they remain in place under the new Bush administration.

In 1999, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) pointed out that "The Clinton-Gore team has bled the military such that the Army is short $3.5 billion worth of basic ammunition alone."

Rep. Hunter reported that the combined shortages for Marines, Navy and Air Force had caused "critical shortages of spare parts, equipment and training." At the time he was saying this, some 11,000 military personnel were on food stamps! Mission capability rates, barely two years ago, had fallen below 70% across the boards for all services.

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, you can read "Army Green Takes On A Whole New Meaning" (www.americanpolicy.org/more/armygreen.htm) by Peyton Knight, an article posted on the Internet site of the American Policy Center.

In May 2000, Insight magazine published an article, "The Greening of the Military" by Catherine Edwards that should have initiated hearings in Congress and calls for the total rejection of the way environmentalists have undermined the military. It noted that a report by the Cato Institute, issued on the eve of Earth Day, warned that there was "a high risk that efforts by the Clinton administration to turn environmental issues into a national-security concern will result in the militarization of environmental policy."

In 1993, under then-Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, an Office of Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Environmental Security as created. Its mission was to address issues such as "environmental degradation and the role of the military." The only thing the military is supposed to degrade is the enemy's ability to wage war.

The office has been run by a former environmental lawyer, Sherri Goodman. As recently as last year, the office was bragging about protecting the environment of military personnel and their families, despite the fact that many bases have long since fallen into disrepair. Her office pushed for "environmentally sound technology and management programs within the Department of Defense." It actually claimed that, behind the threat of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, were "environmental factors."

We all recall how concerned Saddam Hussein was for the environment when he ordered countless Kuwaiti oil pumps set ablaze. It created a cloud so black and so big it could be seen from outer space. To suggest that Saddam, Yassir Arafat, Osama bin Laden, or any other crazed Middle East despot has the slightest concern for the environment is typical of the irrational view Greens have of the real world.

What has occurred, in reality, is the diversion of US military personnel to undertake environmental projects that have nothing to do with the security of the United States or our fighting forces stationed overseas.

In just the few ways enumerated here, we can see how, once again, the Greens have infiltrated our military establishment, just as they have done in our nation's schools, and throughout federal and state government agencies. In every case, they have instituted programs that will continue to have serious consequences for our national security and sovereignty.

It is time to identify and root out these enemies of our military and to rescind the DoD Office of Environmental Security as a first step toward restoring our nation's ability to wage war effectively against its enemies at home and abroad. ESR

Alan Caruba is a frequent contributor. He writes a weekly column, "Warning Signs", posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center. © Alan Caruba, 2001

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