Tag: cancer

The U.S. government’s assault on children

Posted on by kathiemm

We’ve heard considerable rhetoric recently about the vileness of subjecting children to poison gas–and vile it is. So are other means by which children are maimed and murdered, and the government of the United States is complicit in vile acts against the world’s children.

For example, being burned to death–as happened to thousands of children in the World War II firebombing of cities in Japan and Germany–is ghastly, whether it kills or scars for life.

Being born with birth defects related to Agent Orange, or being killed or maimed by unexploded ordinance (a continuing scourge for children in Vietnam) is a legacy of U.S. government intervention.

An article in the Independent reports, “Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.”

According to a 2012 Children’s Defense Fund report [opens as pdf], “In 2008, 2,947 children and teens died from guns in the United States and 2,793 died in 2009 for a total of 5,740—one child or teen every three hours, eight every day, 55 every week for two years.” Any government that does not fight the gun lobby is complicit.

There is an international chemical weapons convention to which our government has alluded in trying to make its case for bombing Syria.

There is also a convention that prohibits the use of anti-personnel mines, which the U.S. has failed to ratify. How does a government that has authorized widespread “collateral damage” have the moral authority to unilaterally punish other violators of international conventions?

Let us hope and pray that the current administration listens to the millions of American voices calling for a nonviolent alternative to raining terror on children and other innocent civilians in yet another Middle Eastern country.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Double-duty death: War and environmental destruction

Posted on by patdaniel

Book review of Barry Sanders’ The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism
By Pat Daniel, Ph.D., managing editor of Engaging PeaceThe Green Zone: The environmental costs of militarism

We are all too familiar with war’s impact on people and politics, but how often do we consider its damage to the Earth? The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism provides a frightening glimpse of the ecological menace known as the U.S. armed forces.

Barry Sanders’ research met obstacles at every turn. Information is secret, not measured or recorded, not available to the public. Nevertheless, this Pulitzer Prize nominated author substantiates a sobering and terrifying conclusion: The U.S. military is not only the greatest polluter on the planet, but also is playing the lead role in speeding us toward a global warming catastrophe.

The Green Zone is a must-read for members of both the peace and environmental movements. The arts community, too, will be awakened by the stunning images contributed by students of Pacific Northwest College of Art. Here is just a sample of the horrors that Sanders exposes, primarily from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Radiation poisoning

We fight conventional wars—not nuclear—right? Wrong.

  • Most U.S. munitions are made with depleted uranium that leaves behind radioactive dust. Easily absorbed, the dust is responsible for alarming increases in deaths, cancers, birth defects and other medical problems among citizens in war-torn countries, as well as U.S. veterans. Indigenous wildlife endures similar impacts.
  • Because of the long half-life of radioactive residue, the ecological destruction will continue for decades or centuries to come.

Air, soil and water contamination

  • Fragile soils, agricultural lands and natural vegetation have been destroyed by the impact of heavy vehicles, or made unusable by firebombing, land mines and unexploded cluster bombs.
  • Toxic chemicals from weapons, vehicles and military targets such as fertilizer plants pollute the air, fresh water supplies, and ocean habitats.

Energy use and carbon pollution

Ironically, while the U.S. military devotes much of its efforts toward insuring the flow of oil supplies, the institution itself is the world’s largest consumer of fuels:

  • In military speak, fuel consumption is measured in “barrels per hour,” “gallons per minute,” and “gallons per mile.”
  • The M-1 Abrams tank gets 0.2 miles per gallon; the Apache helicopter, 0.5; the Humvee, 4.0. The F-16 Fighter Jet uses 28 gallons per minute; the B-52 Stratocruiser, an astonishing 500 gallons per minute.

As Sanders demonstrates, if every aspect of the non-military sector instantly stopped generating greenhouse gases, the military’s carbon footprint alone will propel the world toward catastrophe.

“Indeed, if scientists are correct in telling us that we must reduce the burning of fossil fuels by seventy percent…then surely they must see the obvious: We must put a stop to war.”

Pat Daniel, Ph.D., managing editor of Engaging Peace