Essential Information

A compendium of articles, reports, essays and investigations into the effects of militarism on the environment and human society. Send additional documents to editor@envirosagainstwar.org.

• Featured Reports
• General Impacts of a War in the Gulf
• Human Impacts
• Land Impacts
• Marine and Water Impacts
• Oil and Its Alternatives
• Militarism and Civil Liberties
• The 1991 War
• Weapons of War

FEATURED REPORTS

Floating Chernobyls (Karl Grossman / OpEd News)
Russia has embarked on a scheme to build floating nuclear power plants to be moored off its coasts and sold to nations around the world but critics warn the plants would pose unprecedented hazards in the event of failure while promoting the risks of nuclear proliferation and providing irresistible targets for terrorism.

Now Showing: Countdown to Zero (Hugh Gusterson / The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists)
It is unclear whether nuclear weapons will be abolished, but it is clear that the nuclear abolitionist movement is now being mainstreamed. Exhibit A in this process is the new general release film, Countdown to Zero, made by the same team that brought us An Inconvenient Truth. The movie's slogan: "More than a movie. It's a movement."

Cutting through the Media's Bogus Bomb-Iran Debate (Tony Karon / Al Jazeera)
America's march to a disastrous war in Iraq began in the media, where an unprovoked US invasion of an Arab country was introduced as a legitimate policy option, then debated as a prudent and necessary one. Now, a similarly flawed media conversation on Iran is gaining momentum. The debate's ultimate purpose is to plant in the public mind the idea that a march to war with Iran.

Afghanistan's Dirty Little Secret (Joel Brinkley / San Francisco Chronicle)
Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."

What Obama Might Have Told the Nation (Ray McGovern / opednews.com)
Commentary from a 27-year veteran of the CIA: "President Barack Obama's aides say his speech marking the end of 'combat operations' in Iraq will avoid the vainglorious aspects of President George W. Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech in 2003. We'll see. On the chance Obama might be open to... addressing honestly the worsening quagmire in Afghanistan. I have offered him the following text."

Another False Ending: Contracting Out the Iraq Occupation (Bill Quigley and Laura Raymond / TruthOut)
Another false ending to the Iraq war is being declared. Nearly seven years after George Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech, President Obama has given a major address to mark the withdrawal of all but 50,000 combat troops from Iraq. But while thousands of troops are marching out, thousands of private military contractors are marching in. The number of armed contractors in Iraq will more than double.

KBR to Execute Two Refinery Contracts for Iraq's Oil Ministry (Marketwire via Comtex)
"Halliburton has made a sizeable investment in Iraq," says Halliburton Chair Dave Lesar. Halliburton has been active in the Middle East since 1946. Currently, Halliburton has more than 4,000 employees in the Middle East, and construction on phase I of Halliburton's 400-man base in Burjisia, Iraq is complete.

US Contractors Kill Afghan Children; US Planes Kill Afghan Kids: Coalition Forces Kill US Contractors; Coalition Forces Kill Civilians; US Fires on 2000 Afghan Protesters (PressTV & CNN News Wire & Morning Star)
Riots in Ghazni after two civilians are killed by foreign contractors. US-led warplanes are blamed for killing six Afghan children. Two private security contractors are killed by coalition forces who mistook them for insurgents. US troops fire on thousands of civilians protesting outside the US base at Bagram. Foreign troops kill eight civilians and injure 12 in a 2am raid on a private home.

Greenpeace 'Shuts Down' Arctic Oil Rig (Severin Carrell and Bibi van der Zee / The Guardian)
Demonstrating considerably more strategic wisdom and humanitarian sense than the Israeli Defense Force that attacked a Gaza aide flotilla (and killing several passengers), Greenpeace claims to have shut down an offshore drilling rig in a daring pre-dawn raid. Greenpeace opposes the British company's plan to drill for oil in the Arctic. Four climbers have begun a nonviolent occupation of the rig.

N Disarmament Conference Closes with Call for Nuclear-Free Middle East (Kohei Okada / Chugoku Shimbun & Hiroshima Peace Media)
Of gravest concern are the nuclear issues vexing Northeast Asia and the Middle East. In the closing session of the final day, government officials from the United States and Iran were at loggerheads over Israel. The former is a staunch supporter of Israel, while the latter is disapproving of its neighbor.

Ex-USSR Awash in Radioactive 'Dirty Bomb' Substances (Agence France-Presse)
The entire territory of the former Soviet Union is awash in radioactive material that was used in Soviet times for some 30 various ministries and services, in medicine or agriculture. Hundreds of thousands of tons of uranium lie in storage at industrial sites -- "one can take bagfuls of them."

The Cost of Weapons: Defense Spending in a Time of Austerity (The Economist)
At this summer's Farnborough air show, outside London, America's most advanced fighter, the F-22 Raptor, announced its power with a thunderous roar. But the fighter is an endangered species. The weapon that US field commanders clamor for these days is the Predator, an unmanned drone able to stay aloft for a day.

Rights Groups File Challenge To Targeted Killing By US (Center for Constitutional Rights)
Will the US government get away with the power to target and kill individuals, including US citizens, far from any armed conflict and without charge, trial, or judicial process? This is the central question in Al-Aulaqi v. Obama, a lawsuit CCR and the ACLU filed today in federal court.

War Veterans/Military Family Members Successfully Blockade Fort Hood Combat Deployment to Iraq (Fort Hood Disobeys)
On August 23 five peace activists successfully blockaded six buses carrying Fort Hood Soldiers deploying to Iraq. Among those blockading were three veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and one military wife. This latest deployment comes less than two weeks after President Obama announced the second end to combat operations in Iraq. The 3rd ACR is a combat regiment.

Iraq's Troubled Young Hearts (Victoria Fine / Al Jazeera)
After 7 years of US occupation and "nation-building," Iraq's decimated healthcare system cannot meet the need for pediatric heart surgery. In all, the waiting list is above 20,000.

Pentagon Plots Attack on Internet in the Name of “Defense� (Ellen Nakashima
 / Washington Post )
The Pentagon is contemplating an aggressive approach to defending its computer systems that includes preemptive actions such as knocking out parts of an adversary's computer network overseas -- but it is still wrestling with how to pursue the strategy legally.

Review: The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's (Andrew Feldman / Foreign Policy in Focus)
This is the paradox of post-September 11 America: While the US government spends hundreds of billions of dollars on war, spying, and covert operations, people in the United States still imagine that they are "the greatest victims on the planet" -- even as US drone aircraft evaporate weddings and funerals across the Middle East.

Torture. Corruption. Civil War. America Has Certainly Left its Mark

 in Iraq (Robert Fisk

/ The Independent)
We should not be taken in by the tomfoolery on the Kuwaiti border -- the departure of the last "combat" troops from Iraq. Nor by the infantile cries of "We won" from teenage soldiers. They are leaving behind 50,000 men and women -- a third of the entire US occupation force -- who will be attacked and who will still have to fight against the insurgency.

Scared Women Are Packing Pistols in Iraq (Nizar Latif, Foreign Correspondent / The National)
Each night before she goes to sleep, Umm Shekar checks to make sure her pistol is loaded and tucks it beneath her mattress. Increasingly worried about being robbed by criminal gangs or insurgents, the mother of six bought the weapon so she could defend herself and her family.

Is the US Pulling the Plug on Iraqi Workers? (David Bacon / TruthOut Report)
The Iraqi government, while it seems paralyzed on many fronts, has unleashed a wave of actions against the country's unions that are intended to take Iraq back to the era when Saddam Hussein prohibited them for most workers, and arrested activists who protested. Arrest warrants have been issued for oil union leaders. At the US Embassy in Baghdad, the largest in the world, an official says mildly, "We're looking into it."

ACTION ALERT: 97 Congressional Candidates Oppose War Spending (Coalition Against War Spending)
Ninety-seven congressional candidates and 34 national organizations are opposing any more funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The 97 candidates are from 29 states and Washington, D.C., and include 32 Greens, 24 Libertarians, 22 Democrats, 7 Independent Greens, 5 Independents, 4 Peace and Freedom, 1 Republican, 1 Socialist, and 1 West Virginia Green. Eighty-four are candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, and 13 for the Senate.

Pakistan: A Question of Water (Gwynne Dyer / Common Dreams)
This may not be the most tactful time to bring it up, with much of Pakistan underwater and many millions homeless, but Pakistan's real problem is not too much water. It is too little water -- and one day it could cause a war.

Israeli Soldiers Sell Gaza Flotilla Passengers’ Computers and Steal Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars in Cash (Ann Wright / CommonDreams)
Despite appeals from 750 passengers on the Gaza flotilla to the Israeli government to protect and return their personal belongings -- taken by Israeli commandos on when they forcefully boarded the six ships of the flotilla -- the Israeli government has left millions of dollars of computers, cameras and cell phones and hundreds of thousands of cash unsecured and uninventoried.

War and the American Identity (David Swanson / David Swanson.org)
"Prior to World War II, Americans by and large viewed military power and institutions with skepticism, if not outright hostility. In the wake of World War II, that changed. An affinity for military might emerged as central to the American identity. The methods devised by Allen Dulles and... Curtis LeMay ... [have] allowed presidents to assert and exercise quasi-imperial prerogatives."

GENERAL IMPACTS

What You Will Not Hear About Iraq
(Prof. Adil E. Shamoo / Foreign Policy In Focus & Global Research)

Iraq has between 25 and 50 percent unemployment, a dysfunctional parliament, rampant disease, an epidemic of mental illness, and sprawling slums. The killing of innocent people has become part of daily life. What a havoc the United States has wreaked in Iraq.
/know/read.php?itemid=9811

War and the Environment
(Peace Pledge Union)

Images of Devastated battlefields are all too familiar. The ploughs in Flanders fields still turn up human bones every year. But twentieth century technology, busily applied to the practice of war, has ensured a more lethal harvest. For example, landmines.
/know/read.php?itemid=9413

Osama bin Laden and Environmental Jihad
(Micah M. White / Adbusters Magazine)

In January 2010, as the war against terrorism dragged into its ninth year, Osama bin Laden, the ideological leader of the mujahideen issued a statement that could have been drafted by any Western environmentalist: "Talk of climate change isn't extravagant speculation: It is a tangible fact that is not diminished by its being muddled by some greedy heads of major corporations."
/know/read.php?itemid=9406

Osama bin Laden on "The Way to Save the Earth"
(As-Sahab Media Foundation & Nefa Foundation)

Commentary: "This is a message to the whole world about those who cause climate change and its dangers -- intentionally or unintentionally -- and what we must do. Talk of climate change isn't extravagant speculation: it is a tangible fact which is not diminished by its being muddled by some greedy heads of major corporations. The effects of global warming have spread to all continents of the world."
/know/read.php?itemid=9407

The Global Economic Crisis, The Great Depression of the XXI Century
(Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin Marshall / Global Research Publishers)

In all major regions of the world, the economic recession is deep-seated, resulting in mass unemployment, the collapse of state social programs and the impoverishment of millions. The crisis is accompanied by a worldwide process of militarization, a "war without borders" led by the US and its NATO allies. The Pentagon's "long war" is intimately related to the restructuring of the global economy.
/know/read.php?itemid=9391

Vietnam: War and the Environment
(John Tully / Green Left Weekly)

Vietnam's suffering did not end with the liberation of Saigon in 1975. Perhaps no country since Haiti has come to independence under such adverse conditions -- conditions which included environmental damage on a scale hitherto unseen in warfare. The damage was part of an attrition strategy aimed at driving the peasants into the cities to deprive the National Liberation Front of a population and food base.
/know/read.php?itemid=9340

Healing the Wounds of War in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam
(Nordic News Network & Vice President Nguyen Thi Binh & Prof. Nguyen Trong Nhan )

In 2002. a summit of international experts met in Sweden to call for major efforts to alleviate long-term environmental and human health consequences of the US war against Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. "We cannot ignore the United States' responsibility to help resolve the war of aggression's long-term effects on the people and the environment."
/know/read.php?itemid=9341

Environmental Warfare in 10 years
(Diane Francis, Editor at Large / the National Post )

Oil company CEOs and Canadian, US and British government officials attending the Global Business Forum in Banff last September heard a chilling forecast of military clashes if there is an environmental meltdown due to climate change.
/know/read.php?itemid=9317

HUMAN IMPACTS

US Contractors Kill Afghan Children; US Planes Kill Afghan Kids: Coalition Forces Kill US Contractors; Coalition Forces Kill Civilians; US Fires on 2000 Afghan Protesters
(PressTV & CNN News Wire & Morning Star)

Riots in Ghazni after two civilians are killed by foreign contractors. US-led warplanes are blamed for killing six Afghan children. Two private security contractors are killed by coalition forces who mistook them for insurgents. US troops fire on thousands of civilians protesting outside the US base at Bagram. Foreign troops kill eight civilians and injure 12 in a 2am raid on a private home.
/know/read.php?itemid=9845

Iraq's Troubled Young Hearts
(Victoria Fine / Al Jazeera)

After 7 years of US occupation and "nation-building," Iraq's decimated healthcare system cannot meet the need for pediatric heart surgery. In all, the waiting list is above 20,000.
/know/read.php?itemid=9836

Torture. Corruption. Civil War. America Has Certainly Left its Mark

 in Iraq
(Robert Fisk

/ The Independent)

We should not be taken in by the tomfoolery on the Kuwaiti border -- the departure of the last "combat" troops from Iraq. Nor by the infantile cries of "We won" from teenage soldiers. They are leaving behind 50,000 men and women -- a third of the entire US occupation force -- who will be attacked and who will still have to fight against the insurgency.
/know/read.php?itemid=9831

Scared Women Are Packing Pistols in Iraq
(Nizar Latif, Foreign Correspondent / The National)

Each night before she goes to sleep, Umm Shekar checks to make sure her pistol is loaded and tucks it beneath her mattress. Increasingly worried about being robbed by criminal gangs or insurgents, the mother of six bought the weapon so she could defend herself and her family.
/know/read.php?itemid=9832

War and the American Identity
(David Swanson / David Swanson.org)

"Prior to World War II, Americans by and large viewed military power and institutions with skepticism, if not outright hostility. In the wake of World War II, that changed. An affinity for military might emerged as central to the American identity. The methods devised by Allen Dulles and... Curtis LeMay ... [have] allowed presidents to assert and exercise quasi-imperial prerogatives."
/know/read.php?itemid=9828

Torture. Corruption. Civil War. America Has Certainly Left its Mark

 in Iraq
(Robert Fisk

/ The Independent)
/know/read.php?itemid=9830

An Exciting New Muslim Country to Drone Attack
(Glenn Greenwald / Salon)

After the US attacked suspected Al-Qaida targets in Yemen with three Cruise missile strikes the Pentagon claimed it needed to increase use of drone aircraft because "Yemen poses a threat to the US." But a US Cruise missile attack on June 7, 2010, killed 41 local residents, including 14 women and 21 children. It appears that it is the US that is a threat to Yemen.
/know/read.php?itemid=9817

Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents
(Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti and Robert F. North / The New York Times)

The Obama administration's shadow war against Al Qaeda and its allies has been quietly expanded to a dozen countries. From the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics, the US has increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the enemy using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives to chase terrorists.
/know/read.php?itemid=9818

LAND IMPACTS

Between the Fence and a Hard Place: The Impact of Israel-Imposed Restrictions in Gaza
(United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs )

Over the past ten years, the Israeli military has expanded restrictions on access to farmland on the Gaza side of the 1949 "Green Line." An estimated 178,000 people -- 12 percent of the Palestinians population -- is being prevented from enjoying full access to ancestral lands located 1,000-1,500 meters from the Green Line. Access restrictions are enforced by opening live fire on people trying to enter the areas.
/know/read.php?itemid=9798

New York Times Spins UN Report on Gaza Suffering
(Jeremy R. Hammond / Foreign Policy Journal)

The Times article gives weight to the Israeli claim that its activities in the Gaza Strip are matters of self-defense against Palestinian aggression and terrorism. The UN report, however, notes that much of the "aggression" is in response to Israel's incursions and destruction of Palestinian land and property. The loss of potential agricultural income in Gaza is estimated at over $50 million annually.
/know/read.php?itemid=9799

Alarms Sound over Trash Fires in War Zones of Afghanistan, Iraq
(Maria Glod / Washington Post)

Hundreds of military service members and contractor employees have fallen ill with cancer or severe breathing problems after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. They say they were poisoned by thick, black smoke produced by the burning of tons of trash generated on US bases. Some 241 people from 42 states are suing Houston-based Kellogg Brown & Root, which operated the so-called "burn pits."
/know/read.php?itemid=9752

Going Organic in Gaza
(Jon Elmer / Al Jazeera)

A key official has stated the goal of Israel's embargo of Gaza: "We need to make the Palestinians lose weight, but not to starve to death." A government white paper details the minimum caloric intake required, based on age and sex, to keep Gazans hovering just above malnutrition levels. In response, the citizens of Gaza are turning to organic agriculture to raise healthy food in their own backyards.
/know/read.php?itemid=9753

New Report Finds Israeli Settlers Have Seized 42 Percent of the Occupied West Bank
(Catrina Stewart and David Usborne / The Independent)

As President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Washington, a report reveals 42 percent of Palestinian territory is now controlled by Israeli settlers. Jewish settlers, who claim a divine right to the whole of Israel, now control more than 42 percent of the occupied West Bank, representing a powerful obstacle to the creation of a Palestinian state.
/know/read.php?itemid=9591

Israel's Defense Minister Criticises Plan to Demolish Palestinian Homes
(Aron Heller / Associated Press)

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak criticized a plan to raze 22 Palestinian homes to make room for an Israeli tourist center in disputed east Jerusalem as "the kind of action that undermines trust and potentially incites emotions and adds to the risk of violence." Barak added that Jerusalem officials were "not displaying common sense or good timing, and not for the first time."
/know/read.php?itemid=9622

Nicaragua's Landmine Success
(Al Jazeera & Elizabeth Beery Adams / Mine Action Information Center)

Nicaragua’s civil war of the 1980s left the country ridden with landmines. Since 1989, a number of organizations have been working in Nicaragua to overcome obstacles and improve the country’s landmine situation.
/know/read.php?itemid=9549

Impact of the War on the Environment
(Svetlana Turyalay and Elchin Hajiyev / Azerbaijan International)

Whenever people think of war, they usually reflect on the tragic loss of human life, they rarely consider the loss and damage done to nature. We've had considerable losses of human life during these six long years of war with Armenians. An estimated 20,000 Azeris have died -- many of them civilians.
/know/read.php?itemid=9539

MARINE AND WATER IMPACTS

Floating Chernobyls
(Karl Grossman / OpEd News)

Russia has embarked on a scheme to build floating nuclear power plants to be moored off its coasts and sold to nations around the world but critics warn the plants would pose unprecedented hazards in the event of failure while promoting the risks of nuclear proliferation and providing irresistible targets for terrorism.
/know/read.php?itemid=9846

ACTION ALERT: Shell Drilling Threatens Arctic and Eskimo Communities
(Greenpeace & Amnesty International & Defenders of Wildlife)

Just like BP dismissed the risk of a blowout with its Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf, Shell is saying the same thing about their proposed Alaskan Arctic rig. The truth is that Shell's plans in Alaska are even riskier than BP's. A spill in the Chukchi Sea could spell disaster for the people, polar bears, whales and other wildlife that rely on the Chukchi to survive.
/know/read.php?itemid=9446

US Navy Conscripts Dolphins to Hunt for Terrorists
(John Coté / San Francisco Chronicle)

Dolphins that can detect mines buried on the seafloor. Sea lions trained to cuff the leg of a waterborne saboteur. It sounds like the stuff of a James Bond film, or at least Austin Powers. It's actually the culmination of more than 40 years of US Navy research that was showcased in San Francisco Bay as part of a statewide exercise simulating suspected terrorist attacks on ports.
/know/read.php?itemid=9418

War and the Environment
(Peace Pledge Union)

Images of Devastated battlefields are all too familiar. The ploughs in Flanders fields still turn up human bones every year. But twentieth century technology, busily applied to the practice of war, has ensured a more lethal harvest. For example, landmines.
/know/read.php?itemid=9413

Castro on Spill: Corporations Unstoppable
(Associated Press)

Cuban's Fidel Castro says the spreading oil slick fouling the Gulf of Mexico is proof that the world's most powerful governments cannot control large corporations that now dictate the public's destiny.
/know/read.php?itemid=9379

US Legacy in Iraq: Violence, Devastation, Corruption, Desperation
(Stephen Lendman / OpEdNews)

The Gulf War was an environmental disaster. It destroyed power and chemical plants; factories; dams; water purification facilities; sewage treatment systems; oil wells, pipelines and refineries. Twenty years of war, sanctions, and occupation left vast parts of the country's land, water and air poisoned by pollutants, including depleted uranium, chemicals, toxic metals, oil, bacteria, and other contaminants.
/know/read.php?itemid=9331

Climate Change Is Killing Kenya's Wildlife and People: Water Wars Have already Begun
(Lindsey Hilsum / BBC Channel 4 News)

Kenya faces its worst drought for more than a decade, with crops and livestock destroyed. Will people in the north of the country become among the first victims of climate change? Samburu warriors in their beads and finery now have mobile phones, and more of them carry AK 47s to supplement their spears and traditional knives, so raiding over water, cattle and pasture is more deadly.
/know/read.php?itemid=8869

Deforestation in Kenya Could Lead to 'Water War'
(James Morgan / BBC News)

Deforestation in Kenya's Mau watershed is stoking tribal tensions. Maasai farmers are angry with the predominantly ethnic Kalenjin settlers upstream, accusing them of "stealing" the forest and the water. And there is a real fear that human suffering could precipitate a civil conflict. An explosion of simmering ethnic tensions after elections last year left some 1,300 people dead across the country and now the loss of downstream water is putting livestock — and people — at risk.
/know/read.php?itemid=8817

OIL AND ITS ALTERNATIVES

KBR to Execute Two Refinery Contracts for Iraq's Oil Ministry
(Marketwire via Comtex)

"Halliburton has made a sizeable investment in Iraq," says Halliburton Chair Dave Lesar. Halliburton has been active in the Middle East since 1946. Currently, Halliburton has more than 4,000 employees in the Middle East, and construction on phase I of Halliburton's 400-man base in Burjisia, Iraq is complete.
/know/read.php?itemid=9844

Greenpeace 'Shuts Down' Arctic Oil Rig
(Severin Carrell and Bibi van der Zee / The Guardian)

Demonstrating considerably more strategic wisdom and humanitarian sense than the Israeli Defense Force that attacked a Gaza aide flotilla (and killing several passengers), Greenpeace claims to have shut down an offshore drilling rig in a daring pre-dawn raid. Greenpeace opposes the British company's plan to drill for oil in the Arctic. Four climbers have begun a nonviolent occupation of the rig.
/know/read.php?itemid=9838

Danish Warship Blocks Greenpeace Arctic Oil Protest
(Severin Carrell and Kirsty Scott / The Guardian)

In a standoff chillingly reminiscent of Israel’s confrontation with a relief convoy heading to Gaza, the Danish navy is bearing down on the Greenpeace ship, the Esperanza, warning that it will be boarded by armed personnel if it breaches the exclusion zone to protest deep-sea drilling in the Arctic.
/know/read.php?itemid=9809

Renewable Energy at Work in War Zones
(Bill Scanlon / National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

It's tough to erect wind turbines or solar panels when the enemy keeps blowing things up. Still, Lt. Col. Brian Stevens of the Texas Army National Guard is determined to try. Stevens leads a group of 66 soldiers who want to help bring sustainable agriculture and renewable energy to rural Afghanistan.
/know/read.php?itemid=9776

"America's Vital Interests": Code Words Meaning Other Nations' Critical Resources
(Michael Payne / OpEd News)

"Protecting America's vital interests," a very patriotic thought, are code words for gaining control of another nation's or a region's critical resources, primarily, petroleum. Using these code words is a clever way of getting the American people to support our military actions in foreign lands without really explaining what those vital interests are.
/know/read.php?itemid=9762

Isolating Iran Is Part of the 'Great Energy Game'
(Kourosh Ziabari / Rebel News)

Analysis: "Iran, as the Persian Gulf region's only non-Arab nation, Israel, as the world's sole Jewish state, and a host of fragile Arab countries, who are being immersed in the waves of the West's economic turmoil, find their destiny intertwined, with each party trying to surmount the other. All this makes for a worrying, rivalry in the Middle East."
/know/read.php?itemid=9737

Big Oil Makes War on the Earth
(Ellen Cantarow / Tom Dispatch)

If you live on the Gulf Coast, welcome to the real world of oil -- and just know that you're not alone. In the Niger Delta and the Ecuadorian Amazon, among other places, your emerging hell has been the living hell of local populations for decades.
/know/read.php?itemid=9662

Iraq War Veterans Join Environmentalists in the Oiled Gulf of Mexico
(Bryan Walsh / TIME Magazine)

A handful of Iraq veterans -- and even some and retired generals -- are in Louisiana as part of Operation Free, a young advocacy group that has begun pushing a green message not so much on environmental grounds, but on national security ones. They point out that the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency have published reports highlighting the danger that a warming world will post to America's security.
/know/read.php?itemid=9656

MILITARISM AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

Cutting through the Media's Bogus Bomb-Iran Debate
(Tony Karon / Al Jazeera)

America's march to a disastrous war in Iraq began in the media, where an unprovoked US invasion of an Arab country was introduced as a legitimate policy option, then debated as a prudent and necessary one. Now, a similarly flawed media conversation on Iran is gaining momentum. The debate's ultimate purpose is to plant in the public mind the idea that a march to war with Iran.
/know/read.php?itemid=9848

Afghanistan's Dirty Little Secret
(Joel Brinkley / San Francisco Chronicle)

Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."
/know/read.php?itemid=9849

Rights Groups File Challenge To Targeted Killing By US
(Center for Constitutional Rights)

Will the US government get away with the power to target and kill individuals, including US citizens, far from any armed conflict and without charge, trial, or judicial process? This is the central question in Al-Aulaqi v. Obama, a lawsuit CCR and the ACLU filed today in federal court.
/know/read.php?itemid=9834

Pentagon Plots Attack on Internet in the Name of “Defense�
(Ellen Nakashima
 / Washington Post )

The Pentagon is contemplating an aggressive approach to defending its computer systems that includes preemptive actions such as knocking out parts of an adversary's computer network overseas -- but it is still wrestling with how to pursue the strategy legally.
/know/read.php?itemid=9837

Is the US Pulling the Plug on Iraqi Workers?
(David Bacon / TruthOut Report)

The Iraqi government, while it seems paralyzed on many fronts, has unleashed a wave of actions against the country's unions that are intended to take Iraq back to the era when Saddam Hussein prohibited them for most workers, and arrested activists who protested. Arrest warrants have been issued for oil union leaders. At the US Embassy in Baghdad, the largest in the world, an official says mildly, "We're looking into it."
/know/read.php?itemid=9833

Israeli Soldiers Sell Gaza Flotilla Passengers’ Computers and Steal Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars in Cash
(Ann Wright / CommonDreams)

Despite appeals from 750 passengers on the Gaza flotilla to the Israeli government to protect and return their personal belongings -- taken by Israeli commandos on when they forcefully boarded the six ships of the flotilla -- the Israeli government has left millions of dollars of computers, cameras and cell phones and hundreds of thousands of cash unsecured and uninventoried.
/know/read.php?itemid=9827

War and the American Identity
(David Swanson / David Swanson.org)

"Prior to World War II, Americans by and large viewed military power and institutions with skepticism, if not outright hostility. In the wake of World War II, that changed. An affinity for military might emerged as central to the American identity. The methods devised by Allen Dulles and... Curtis LeMay ... [have] allowed presidents to assert and exercise quasi-imperial prerogatives."
/know/read.php?itemid=9828

Yemen 'Abandons' Human Rights
(Andrew Wander / Al Jazeera)

Under pressure from the Pentagon, Yemen has engaged in police and military actions that have lead to massive violations of human rights. Amnesty International says that over the past year, the Yemeni government has carried out vicious military campaigns, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings under the banner of the US "War on Terror" against Al-Qaeda.
/know/read.php?itemid=9821

WEAPONS OF WAR

The Cost of Weapons: Defense Spending in a Time of Austerity
(The Economist)

At this summer's Farnborough air show, outside London, America's most advanced fighter, the F-22 Raptor, announced its power with a thunderous roar. But the fighter is an endangered species. The weapon that US field commanders clamor for these days is the Predator, an unmanned drone able to stay aloft for a day.
/know/read.php?itemid=9841

Space Warfare: Preparing the "Battlespace" for a New Imperial Adventure
(Tom Burghardt / Global Research)

General Lance W. Lord, then-commander of the Air Force Space Command told an Air Force conference that "space superiority ... is our destiny... Space superiority is our day-to-day mission. Space supremacy is our vision for the future." And with no public debate whatsoever, new weapons programs spawned in the bowels of the Pentagon's black budget parallel universe are on coming on-line.
/know/read.php?itemid=9810

Leaking Sarin Rocket Discovered at US Military Depot
(Global Security Newswire / Nuclear Threat Initiative)

The US claimed Iraq had stockpiles of WMD rockets armed with Sarin nerve-gas. The claim turned out to be false. Now the Army reports that a leaking Sarin nerve agent-filled rocket had been discovered -- inside the US, during inspections of chemical weapons storage structures at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky.
/know/read.php?itemid=9778

US Weapons Sale to Saudi Arabia Said to Reach $60 Billion
(Tony Capaccio / Bloomberg.com)

A proposed US weapons sale to Saudi Arabia of Boeing Co. F-15 fighter jets also includes as many as 132 Boeing Apache attack helicopters and United Technologies Corp. UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters that bring the total value of the package to around $60 billion, according to a government official familiar with the plan.
/know/read.php?itemid=9779

Chinese Missile Could Shift Pacific Power Balance
(Eric Talmadge / Associated Press )

The USS George Washington supercarrier recently deployed off North Korea in a high-profile show of US sea power but China has developed a "game-changing" weapon -- a powerful carrier-killing missile called the Dong Feng 21D that could be launched from land with enough accuracy to penetrate the defenses of even the most advanced moving aircraft carrier at a distance of more than 900 miles.
/know/read.php?itemid=9734

Global Cluster Bomb Ban Enters into Force -- Without US
(Voice of America & Fire Dog Lake)

A landmark treaty banning cluster bombs became binding international law Sunday. The treaty now has been signed by 107 nations, and 37 of those have ratified the document, including Britain, France, Germany and Japan. However, major cluster bomb-producing nations, including China, the United States, Israel and Russia do not support the accord, arguing the munitions have legitimate military uses.
/know/read.php?itemid=9714

Document Reveals Military Was Concerned About Gulf War Vets' Exposure to Depleted Uranium
( Mike Ludwig / Truthout)

For years, the government has denied that depleted uranium, a radioactive waste added to munitions used in the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars, poisoned Iraqi civilians and veterans. But a little-known 1993 Pentagon document written by then-Brigadier Gen. Eric Shinseki, shows that the Pentagon was so concerned about DU contamination that it ordered testing for all personnel exposed to the toxic substance.
/know/read.php?itemid=9702

How US-made Weapons Fuel Mexico's Drug War
(Nick Miroff and William Booth / Washington Post)

Grenades made in the United States and sent to Central America during the Cold War have resurfaced as terrifying new weapons in almost weekly attacks by Mexican drug cartels. US grenades are being diverted from dusty old armories and sold to criminal mafias, who are using them to destabilize the Mexican government and terrorize civilians, according to US and Mexican law enforcement officials.
/know/read.php?itemid=9672

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