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.

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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

US Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan
(James Risen / New York Times)

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself. Huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium -- are so big that Afghanistan could become one of the most important mining centers.
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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

Future of US Bases Bolstered in Japan
(Jacob M. Schlesinger & Peter Spiegel / Wall Street Journal )

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama gave up on a bedrock campaign pledge and accepted a US proposal to position American troops in Japan, backing down from a battle with Washington. Under US pressure, Mr. Hatoyama agreed to keep a large Marine presence in Okinawa, despite deep opposition to the US bases that has brought tens of thousands of protesters into the streets.
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ACTION ALERT: End the Occupation of Iraq; Help the Iraqi Victims of DU Poisoning
(Peace Action)

In the seven years since George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, one million Iraqis have been killed and another five million displaced. President Obama has promised to end this occupation. Meanwhile, millions of Iraqis are being harmed by exposure to depleted uranium (DU) used by the US military in ammunition. The US continues to insist the high cancer rates have nothing to do with exposure to DU.
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17,000 Japanese Circle US Base in Peaceful Protest
( Jay Alabaster / Associated Press)

Thousands of Japanese linked hands and encircled a Marine Corps base in Okinawa on Sunday to protest its presence on the island, putting more pressure on Tokyo to resolve an impasse over the base's future.
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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.
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Arms Experts Welcome Congressional Support for Land Mine Ban
(Arms Control Association)

On November 30, 2009, for the first time since the Mine Ban Treaty entered into force, the US officially met with more than 120 other treaty countries. Arm control experts welcomed the pending delivery of letters signed by 68 Senators and Congressmemebers asking President Obama to support review of US landmines policy and eventually join the majority of the world community in abiding by the Mine Ban Treaty.
/know/read.php?itemid=9378

Japan PM Scraps US Base Move Plan
(BBC News)

Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has said it will not be feasible to entirely remove a controversial US base from the island of Okinawa. The US Marines' Futenma base is deeply unpopular with many residents and removing it had been a key election pledge of the prime minister.
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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.
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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

Former Military Bomb Site Has Become a Peaceful Haven
(Carolyn Jones / San Francisco Chronicle )

For 150 years, the Navy used the southwest corner of the sprawling North Bay island to make bombs, grenades, shells, mines, torpedoes, cannonballs and other implements of destruction. Today, thanks to the obsessive efforts of a small cadre of volunteers, visitors are more likely to find poppies, buttercups and wild roses.
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Chagos Island Restoration Campaign Overlooks Islanders Expelled by Pentagon
(RickB / Ten Percent & The Independent)

The indigenous residents of the Chagos islands were forcibly removed to turn the islands into a US military base used to bomb the Middle East. A marine conservation proposal by the Chagos Environment Network has been accused of "greenwashing" ethnic cleansing because it argues that resettling of the island's indigenous human population would be "counter-productive" to the aim of environmental protection.
/know/read.php?itemid=9310

WWII Bombs Continue to Pose Threats in Germany, Britain
(Associated Press & BBC News)

A WWII-era bomb was recently discovered buried under Berlin’s Tegel airport, forcing the cancellation and diversions of dozens of flights. On March 4, a WWII German bomb was unearthed in the British town of Southhampton. In London, there are 100 bombs known to be buried beneath building constructed after the war. Hundreds of WWII bombs remain buried across the UK.
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Tell Me Again, Who Made The Desert Bloom?
(Lawrence of Cyberia / Aletho News)

In December 1945 and January 1946, the British Mandate authorities carried out an extensive survey of Palestine. One of the subjects investigated was land use. The survey found that in 1944-45 Palestine’s farmers produced approximately 210,000 tons of grain. About 193,400 tons of that grain were cultivated on Palestinian farms; about 16,600 tons were cultivated on Jewish farms.
/know/read.php?itemid=9231

Depleted Uranium Radiation resulting from NATO Bombings in Serbia : High Incidence of Cancer
(Ljubica Vujadinovic / Global Research & All Voices )

A leading Serbian expert in the field says the NATO's use of depleted uranium ammunition in it's aggression on Serbia has caused enormous increase in cancer rates and number of newborns with genetic malformations. Four studies conducted so far, on both civilians and those who worked on the spots' decontamination, have shown that the DU exposure causes typical and specific changes on genetic material.
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Japanese Protest Relocation of Washington's Okinawa Base
(Kyodo News Service )

Local farmers protested the proposed relocation of US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to the Kagoshima Prefecture island of Tokunoshima at a rally held in Kagoshima Prefecture that drew some 4,200 local residents – one-sixth of the island’s population. "We cannot expose our children to noise and crime. We don't need a base here on this island of children, longevity and mutual corporation," said a 39-year-old housewife.
/know/read.php?itemid=9214

Can Anyone Pacify the World's Number One Narco-State?The Opium Wars in Afghanistan
(Alfred W. McCoy / Tom Dispatch)

The Obama administration is now trapped in an endless cycle of drugs and death in Afghanistan from which there is neither an easy end nor an obvious exit. American commanders seemed strangely unaware that Marja might qualify as the world's heroin capital -- with hundreds of hidden labs processing the local poppy crop into high-grade heroin. The surrounding fields produce 40% of the world's illicit opium supply.
/know/read.php?itemid=9216

UN Chief Calls Israeli Settlements Illegal
(BBC News)

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said Israeli settlement building anywhere in occupied territory is illegal and must stop. Mr Ban is in the Middle East to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders and press them to resume peace talks. Israel's controversial announcement of plans to build 1,600 more homes in East Jerusalem has inflamed tensions in the region.
/know/read.php?itemid=9172

Middle East "Quartet" Calls for Settlement Freeze
(Al Jazeera & Sources)

The so-called Quartet of Middle East negotiators -- The United Nations, the US, the EU and Russia -- has demanded that Israel halt all settlement activity and denounced Israel's plan to build new housing in East Jerusalem. In the statement, the Quartet condemned "the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem".
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How Food and Water are Driving a 21st-century African Land Grab
(John Vidal / The Observer)

Rich countries faced by a global food shortage have bought up stretches of African land twice the size of Britain. The foreign companies are swarming the continent, seizing lands the local residents have used for centuries. There is no consultation. The deals are done secretly. The only thing the local people see is people coming with lots of tractors to invade their lands.
/know/read.php?itemid=9154

Obama's Surge vs. Afghanistan's Eco-System
(Mickey Z / Planet Green)

Commentary: "The environmental costs of war are no secret but the stakes continue to rise with the US using weapons such as depleted uranium. Afghanistan now has 33 species on its endangered list. However, the National Environmental Protection Agency expects that list to grow to over 80 species by the end of the year.
/know/read.php?itemid=9058

Following The Mineral Trail: Congo Resource Wars and Rwanda
(John Lasker / Toward Freedom)

In 2000, Rwanda, an African ally of Washington, produced 83 tons of coltan from its own mines but found a way to export a total of 603 tons that year, according to figures from the National Bank of Rwanda. The Rwandan army, which at the time was receiving funding and training from the US military, made $250 million selling stolen Congolese minerals, most likely purchased from their shadow militias.
/know/read.php?itemid=9054

The Deadly Debris Of War
(Dorothy Bryant / The Daily )

Year after year, innocent civilians (many of them children) are injured and killed -- in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Georgia/Abkhazia, Kosovo, Mozambique, Nagorno Karabakh, Somaliland, and Sri Lanka -- by the debris of past wars: landmines; large caliber ordnance; ammunition, from shells to bullets; and weapons, from assault rifles to heavy weapons systems.The 21-year-old HALO Trust is working to reduce these dangers.
/know/read.php?itemid=9033

(Ann Wright / Information Clearing House & Ben Lynfield / The Independent)

In March 2009, the US gave Egypt with $32 million for border security projects. Now details are emerging that US funds will be spent to build an underground steel wall that will be 6-7 miles long and extend 55 feet straight down into the desert sand. The steel wall is intended to cut the tunnels that go between Gaza and Egypt. The goal: to prevent the movement of food, merchandise and weapons into Gaza.
/know/read.php?itemid=8969

The Pentagon Is Going Green
(Renewable Power News)

Pentagon is going for a long-term strategy to reduce greenhouse gases by deploying renewable sources of energy. The solar installation in California’s Mojave Desert and minor initiative such as a 30 MW geothermal plant at Fallon Naval Air Station in Nevada are only a few calls.
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Colombia's Robber Barons Ruling Jungles with Guns and Whisky
(Rory Carroll / The Guardian)

Farmers in Chocó province say mining and logging firms are pushing them off the land by force or trickery. To make money in Colombia's jungles it helps to have three things: guns, whisky and a river. Hardly conventional business tools, but this is not a conventional environment. There is armed conflict, abundant natural resources, extreme poverty, isolation — and fortunes to be made.
/know/read.php?itemid=8903

Demining: One of Modern War’s Deadliest Legacies
(United Nations )

Every year, landmines kill 15,000 to 20,000 people — most of them children, women and the elderly — and severely maim countless more. Scattered in some 78 countries, they are an ongoing reminder of conflicts which have been over for years or even decades. Yet despite this random carnage, they continue to used as weapons of war.
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The Armed Plunder of Madegascar
(Karin Brulliard / Washington Post Foreign Service)

Security in Madagascar has broken down since a coup in March and traffickers have smuggled out record numbers of rare Ploughshare tortoises for sale to Asian and European collectors. A lemur-poaching racket is providing the rare primates, roasted, to restaurants in port cities. Most troubling, is a brazen plunder of protected forests by armed bands of illegal loggers who loot prized hardwoods for a "timber mafia" that exports them to lucrative furniture markets in Asia and the US.
/know/read.php?itemid=8891

Army Agrees to Clean Up Pollution A-Bomb Site in New Jersey
(R. Greenway/ ENN)

The EPA has signed an agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Energy to complete the cleanup of the Middlesex Sampling Plant site in Middlesex, NJ. The property was used by the Atomic Energy Commission as part of the nation’s early atomic energy program to handle various radioactive ores.
/know/read.php?itemid=8886

Congolese Environmentalist Wins European Prize
(Selah Hennessy / Voice of America)

The four winners of the Swedish award known by many as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize' have been announced, and one of the winners is the Congolese environmentalist Rene Ngongo. Ngongo tells VOA he will use the prize money to continue the fight to protect the rainforest in DRC. Ngongo and his team have suffered ongoing intimidation from war-time combatants.
/know/read.php?itemid=8887

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

Dangerous Levels of US Dioxins Found at Major Airport in Vietnam
(Ben Stocking / The Associated Press & DIOXIN2006)

New environmental tests confirm extremely high levels of dioxin, the toxic ingredient of Agent Orange, in people, fish and soil near a former US air base where American troops stored the herbicide during the Vietnam War. "Time is of the essence" to finish cleaning up the site, now home to the Danang airport, where dioxin levels in the soil, sediment and fish were 300 to 400 times higher than internationally accepted levels according to the Canadian environmental firm Hatfield Consultants.
/know/read.php?itemid=8746

Iraq’s Draining Water War: Fertile Crescent Could Vanish by 2100
(Phil Sands and Nizar Latif / The National & Fred Pearce / The New Scientist)

As bombs continue to tear apart its towns and villages, Iraq is now in the grip of an environmental crisis that experts and officials warn may do what decades of war have not been able to – destroy the country. The new war on Iraq, says one member of the country’s parliament, “is a war of water.” Is it the final curtain for the Fertile Crescent? The Mesopotamian cradle of civilisation seems to be returning to desert.
/know/read.php?itemid=8714

The Dilemma of Palestinian Settlement Builders
(Heather Sharp / BBC News)

Work is hard to come by for Palestinians trapped in the Occupied Territories. Much of the paying jobs involve working for Israel and one of the major sources of employment for Palestinians is helping build Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. As one anguished worker noted: "Everything, all the settlements — even most of the Wall — was built by Palestinians."
/know/read.php?itemid=8674

Horror Of US Depleted Uranium In Iraq Threatens World
(James Denver / Rense.com )

American use of DU is "A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time. "US Iraq Military Vets "are on DU death row, waiting to die." According to British radiation expert Dr. Chris Busby, "the radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. It's going to destroy the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain."
/know/read.php?itemid=8652

Israel Destroying Gaza’s Environment and Turning Mediterranean into a "Septic Tank"
(Motasem Dalloul / Al Jazeera & Islam Online & Reuters)

There are three main causes for the environmental pollution of the Gaza Strip: the use of cooking oil for fuel (due to the fuel shortage caused by the Israeli blockade), rubbish accumulating in the streets, raw sewage dumped into the sea. The Mediterranean is often called the world's most polluted sea and the waters around Tel Aviv offer a reason why —140 tons of heavy metals and130 tons of pesticides are discharged into the sea under government licenses.
/know/read.php?itemid=8647

Idle Iraqi Date Farms Show Decline of Economy
(Timothy Williams / New York Times)

Late July and early August is date harvesting season in Iraq, when within the span of a few weeks the desert sun turns hard green spheres into tender, golden brown fruit prized for its sweetness. ut here in Iraq, one of the places where agriculture was developed more than 7,000 years ago, there are increasing doubts about whether it makes much sense to grow dates — or much of anything for that matter.
/know/read.php?itemid=8634

Dangerous Untreated West Bank Wastewater
(Stephen Lendman / Global Research )

Israeli West Bank and Jerusalem settlements produce about 91 million cubic meters of wastewater annually, more than double the amount from Palestinian communities. Yet most of it goes untreated. As an occupying power, international humanitarian law requires it be done, yet Israel violates its obligations across the board making Palestinians suffer grievously as a result.
/know/read.php?itemid=8534

US Role in Massive Aerial Herbicide Spraying Revealed
(Jason Leopold / The Public Record)

Despite years of ongoing, critical public health controversies in Colombia and Ecuador over the US-assisted aerial herbicide spraying of coca and poppy crops while trying to reduce illegal cocaine and heroin production, US State Department officials are pursuing that very same spraying strategy. Untold thousands of Colombians and Ecuadorians have become sick from the blended chemical spray and critically valuable maize, yucca and plantains have been destroyed in large swaths of the fertile country.
/know/read.php?itemid=8528

Israel’s Wall Must Come Down
(David Morrison / David Morrison.com)

Five years ago, on 7 July 2004, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s construction of the Wall in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) to be “contrary to international law. The Court went on to order Israel to “cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall” and “dismantle forthwith the structure” already built. Israel thumbed its nose at this ruling and continued to build the Wall, despite a near unanimous demand by the international community that it should comply.
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Dangerous Untreated West Bank Wastewater
(Stephen Lendman / Global Research)

Israeli West Bank and Jerusalem settlements produce about 91 million cubic meters of wastewater annually, more than double the amount from Palestinian communities. Yet most of it goes untreated. As an occupying power, international humanitarian law requires it be done, yet Israel violates its obligations across the board making Palestinians suffer grievously as a result.
/know/read.php?itemid=8533

UNESCO: US Seriously Damaged Historic Babylon
(Kim Gamel / Common Dreams )

S troops and contractors in Iraq inflicted serious damage on Babylon, driving heavy machinery over sacred paths, bulldozing hilltops and digging trenches through one of the world's greatest archaeological sites, experts for UNESCO said Thursday. "The use of Babylon as a military base was a grave encroachment on this internationally known archaeological site," said a report which the U.N. cultural agency presented in Paris.
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A Sickening Situation
(Katie Connolly / Newsweek)

KBR, the company contracted to provide waste-disposal services at US bases in Iraq, has allowed the burning of batteries, unexploded ordnance, gas cans, mattresses, rocket pods, and plastic and medical waste (including human body The resulting fumes — containing carcinogenic dioxins, heavy metals, and particulates — have sickened and disabled US soldiers and iraqis exposed to the toxic smoke.
/know/read.php?itemid=8471

A Fight for the Amazon That Should Inspire the World
(Johann Hari / The Independent)

While the world nervously watches the uprising in Iran, an even more important uprising has been passing unnoticed — yet its outcome will shape your fate and mine and will determine the future of the planet. Here's the story of how it happened — and how we all need to pick up this fight.
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Scientist, Environmentalist and Eco-Prophet James Lovelock Warns of ‘The Vanishing Face of Gaia’
(James Murry-White / Green Prophet)

As the 90-year-old author prepares to take up Richard Branson’s offer of a place upon a Virgin Galactic flight in space, he is at his simplest and most direct in this book. Highly critical of European green politics and environmentalism, he offers what he believes are the only solutions for partial human survival through the onslaught of climate change. “Our gravest dangers are not from climate change itself, but indirectly from starvation, competition for space and resources, and tribal war.”
/know/read.php?itemid=8442

Gold and Depleted Uranium: Destroying Indigenous Populations from the US to the Middle East
(Dahr Jamail / t r u t h o u t | Perspective)

"We call gold the metal which makes men crazy," says Charmaine White Face. "Knowing they could not conquer us like they wanted to ... because when you are fighting for your life, or the life of your family, you will do anything you can ... so they had to put us in prisoner of war camps. I come from POW camp 344, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. We want our treaties upheld, we want our land back."
/know/read.php?itemid=8429

Indigenous Protest and State Violence in the Peruvian Amazon: How the Media Misrepresents
(John Gibler / Huffington Post)

When police surround and attack a group of peaceful protester from land and air, the responsibility for violence is clearly on the aggressors and their unjustifiable and disproportionate use of force. But the media presented a different picture. The Los Angeles Times article, "Insurgents threaten Peru's Stability," for example, represents the Indigenous protesters as "insurgents" and claims they are "threatening" Peru, rather than defending their ancestral and communal lands.
/know/read.php?itemid=8428

Agent Orange Continues to Poison Vietnam
(Marjorie Cohn / t r u t h o u t | Perspective)

From 1961 to 1971, the US military sprayed Vietnam with Agent Orange, which contained large quantities of Dioxin, in order to defoliate the trees for military objectives. Between 2.5 and 4.8 million people were exposed to Agent Orange. Several treaties the United States has ratified require an effective remedy for violations of human rights. It is time to make good on Nixon's promise and remedy the terrible wrong the US government perpetrated on the people of Vietnam.
/know/read.php?itemid=8406

KBR, Halliburton Sued over War-zone’s Toxic Burn Pits
(Sue Sturgis / Grist & Facing South)

Confronted with the need to dispose of enormous quantities of war-related trash including batteries, pesticide containers, medical waste and even human body parts, but lacking proper incinerators, private contractors working for the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan came up with a simple solution. They burned the trash in big, open pits.
/know/read.php?itemid=8388

The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism
(Barry Sanders: Book Excerpt / AK Press )

When we declare war on a foreign nation, we now also declare war on the Earth, on the soil and plants and animals, the water and wind and people, in the most far-reaching and deeply infecting ways. A bomb dropped on Iraq explodes around the world. We have no way of containing the fallout. Technology fails miserably here. War insinuates itself, like an aberrant gene and, left unchecked, has the capacity for destroying the Earth’s complex and sometimes fragile system.
/know/read.php?itemid=8381

Anger over Palestinian Nakba Ban Proposal
(BBC World News)

Some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes in the 1948 war after Israel declared independence. This is known as the Nakba. About 20% of Israel's population are descended from Arab citizens who remained on the territory that became Israel. New Israeli demolitions threaten a "second Nakba" — the largest number of expulsions since 1948. At the same time, right-wing politicians have proposed a law that would jail anyone who tries to commemorate the Nakba.
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Environment Emerges as a Major Casualty in Gaza
(Erin Cunningham / Inter Press Service)

An already deepening environmental crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip has been further compounded by the recent war. hroughout the three-week Operation Cast Lead, Israel targeted almost every aspect of the coastal territory's infrastructure. Homes, businesses, factories, power grids, sewage systems and water treatment plants were reduced to piles of rubble across the Gaza Strip.
/know/read.php?itemid=8237

WWII 'Time' Bombs Still lLtter Japan Island
(Eric Talmadge / Associated Press)

Like former battlefields all over the world, the southern Japan island of Okinawa — home to more than 1 million people and the site of some of World War II's most savage fighting — is a tinderbox of unexploded bombs, thousands and thousands of tons of them, rusted and often half buried. The bombs are the bane of construction crews, divers and unsuspecting children.
/know/read.php?itemid=8228

Going Nuclear: Navy Tries to Skip Out on Radioactive Cleanup in San Francisco
(Sarah Phelan / San Francisco Bay Guardian)

From the 1940s to 1974, the Navy dumped industrial, domestic, and solid waste, including sandblast waste, on a portion of Hunters Point in San Francisco. Among the materials that may be underground: decontamination waste and debris from ships involved in atomic tests in the South Pacific that were showered with falloutl. Federal officials don't want to pay to haul 1.5 million tons of toxic and radioactive dirt off the site before it's used for parkland.
/know/read.php?itemid=8216

Africa: The Second Scramble for Africa Starts
(Julio Godoy / All Afica.com)

Sub-Saharan African countries have of late become the target of a new form of investment that is strongly reminiscent of colonialism: investors from both industrialised and emerging economies buy or lease large tracts of farm land across the continent, either to guarantee their own food provisions or simply as yet another business.In doing so, investors even deal with warlords who claim property rights, as in Sudan.
/know/read.php?itemid=8198

Housing the Homeless in Abandoned Military Bases
(Office of Housing and Urban Development & The Washington Post & The New York Times)

For more than four decades, the Department of Defense has closed military installations to reduce overhead, enhance readiness and modernization. In 1987, Congress enacted a law that made serving the homeless the first priority for use of all surplus Federal properties, including military installations. Despite the law and the backing of the Clinton and Bush administrations, this major housing resource remains untapped.
/know/read.php?itemid=8103

Washington State Environmentalists to Battle Navy Proposal
(Justin Burnett / Whidbey Examiner)

Whidbey Island environmental groups opposed to the Navy's plan to expand its Northwest training operations. The Navy is planning to expand operations in its Northwest Training Range Complex, an area encompassing about 122,400 nautical miles of air, surface and subsurface space stretching from Washington to northern California. The proposal ranges from increasing missile and sonar testing to dumping depleted uranium.
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Communities Seek Accountability for Military Pollution
(itizens for Safe Water Around Badger)

More than 80 US communities and organizations are calling for federal legislation to require the Pentagon and the Department of Energy to protect human health and the environment. The DOD is responsible for more than 31,000 cleanup sites on more than 4,600 active and former defense properties. About one in 10 Americans – nearly 29 million – live within 10 miles of a military site that is listed as a national priority for hazardous waste cleanup.
/know/read.php?itemid=8091

The US/Mexico Border’s “Agent Orange” Controversy
(Frontera NorteSur / Narco News)

In the Vietnam War, the US sprayed vast tracts of land with the defoliant Agent Orange. Although the dioxin released by Agent Orange was later blamed for illnesses that struck thousands of US soldiers and upwards of four million Vietnamese citizens, four decades later, the US Border Patrol intends to employ aerial spraying to spread Imazapyr herbicide along the US-Mexico border to remove ground cover that makes it easier for people to cross the border.
/know/read.php?itemid=8077

Envoy Damns US Afghan Drug Effort
(BBC News)

US efforts to eradicate opium poppy crops in Afghanistan have been "wasteful and ineffective", the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan says. Richard Holbrooke said the $800m (£550m) a year the US was spending on counter-narcotics would be better used in supporting Afghan farmers.
/know/read.php?itemid=8068

Israeli Military Shoots Gaza Farmer: European Union Calls for an End to Israel's Attacks on Farmers
(Via Campesina, the International Peasants Union)

Israeli forces shot an unarmed Palestinian farmer as he worked his land in the village of Al-Faraheen in the Gaza Strip. The unprovoked attack was videotaped by International Human Rights Activists accompanying a group of farmers as they worked approximately 500m from the Green Line. Meanwhile, the European Union has called on Israel to "Leave the Fields to the Farmers; End the Violence in Gaza!"
/know/read.php?itemid=8018

Congo Gorillas Thriving Despite War
(Agence France-Presse & Discovery Channel)

ountain gorillas living in a war-torn region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have increased in number despite the bloody conflict. The census — the first since specialized rangers were expelled by rebel forces from the Virunga National Park 16 months ago — showed a sub-population of gorillas used to humans had gone up from 72 to 81.
/know/read.php?itemid=7890

Bosnia Lacks Cash to Clear Away Killer Mines
(William J. Kole / Associated Press)

Thirteen years after Bosnia's 1992-95 war ended, mines are still claiming scores of victims. A closer look by the Associated Press shows the problem is not that officials don't know where most of the explosives are buried. It's that they just can't seem to scrape together enough cash to get them out of the ground.
/know/read.php?itemid=7728

Israeli Industrial Zones Using West Bank as Chemical Dump
(Window into Palestine.blogspot)

The Israeli administration has buried more than 50 percent, or three million tons, of its nuclear and chemical waste in the occupied West Bank. Most of the waste comes from the Israeli industrial zones and is buried secretly causing slow death and disease as it seeps from the soil, PNN partner station Radio Dream reports.
/know/read.php?itemid=7671

Pentagon's 7-Million-acre Land Grab Would Displace 17,000 Coloradans
(Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition)

Ever since the planned expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site became public knowledge in early 2006, the PCEOC has been warning Colorado that the Army's goal was to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS) by up to 5.5 million acres. As it turns out, this was incorrect; the actual acreage desired by the US Army is 7 million acres
/know/read.php?itemid=7667

Native Americans Challenge World's Largest Uranium Producer
(Alex White Plume / Native Unity)

An Atomic Licensing Board judges’ panel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ruled in favor of petitioners who filed interventions in the 10-year license renewal of Cameco, Inc.’s uranium mine near Crawford, Nebraska. The petitioners include imembers of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation; the Oglala Sioux Tribe; the Oglala Delegation of the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council; the Lakota NGO Owe Aku (Bring Back the Way), and the Western Nebraska Resources Council.
/know/read.php?itemid=7668

The Environmentalist Who Fell in Love with the DMZ
(The Chosun Ilbo)

“When human beings disappear from the Earth one day, how long would it take for nature to be restored to its original state? The answer likes in the Demilitarized Zone in Korea,” says Alan Weisman, a professor and prominent environmentalist. Weisman recently traveled to Korea to address an international conference on DMZ conservation in Gyeonggi Province. He also attended the 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Convention on Wetlands.
/know/read.php?itemid=7555

US Army Disposes Desert Tortoises: Relocated Reptiles Eaten by Coyotes
(Las Vegas Sun / Associated Press & Gary Bogue / Contra Costa Times)

Fort Irwin has sought to expand its 643,000-acre training site into the Mojave Desert's tortoise territory for two decades. The Army said it needs an extra 131,000 acres to accommodate faster tanks and longer-range weapons. In March, the Army uprooted and relocated 770 endangered desert tortoises. Since then, about 90 relocated and resident tortoises have died, most killed and eaten by coyotes, according to federal biologists monitoring the project.
/know/read.php?itemid=7454

Earth's Ozone Would Be Largely Destroyed in Nuclear Conflict
(Adam Satariano / Bloomberg)

A nuclear war involving 100 Hiroshima-size bombs would open a massive hole in the earth's ozone layer, exposing life to dangerous levels of the sun's rays, a new study shows. Smoke caused by the atomic explosions would trap heat in the stratosphere and lead to the deterioration of more than 20 percent of ozone globally, according to a study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
/know/read.php?itemid=6759

Tortoises Airlifted to New Home to Make Room for Fort Irwin Expansion
(Jennifer Bowles / The Press-Enterprise)

The Pentagon is removing nearly 800 rare desert tortoises from their ancient home in the southern California desert to give troops and tanks more room to practice invasion tactics. The $8.5 million move came despite the fact that the reptiles are supposed to be protected under the Endangered Species Act. Environmentalists threats of lawsuits have not deterred the Army’s plans to evict the tortoises and occupy their homeland.
/know/read.php?itemid=6734

Global Warming or Conversion of the military-Industrial Complex?
(Bruce K. Gagnon / Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space)

As people like Al Gore and other environmentalists look for solutions, rarely is the Pentagon mentioned as a polluter and a place that we can look to for change if life is to survive on our mother Earth.
/know/read.php?itemid=6589

Pentagon Will Fight Wisconsin Water Standards
(Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger)

The Pentagon intends to challenge Wisconsin in regulating all forms of the explosive dinitrotoluene (DNT). The announcement came after Wisconsin became the first state to establish health-based guidelines for the pervasive military toxin that has contaminated groundwater and dozens of private wells near the Badger Army Ammunition Plant.
/know/read.php?itemid=5987

Toxic Acres: How the Navy Poisoned Treasure Island
(Ron Russell / SF Weekly)

When the US Navy abandoned Treasure Island, a man-made island in the middle of SF Bay, the City began plans to create a self-sustaining city of 15,000 or more residents on the site. But the first tenants are finding that, along with the incomparable views some a deadly legacy — the fill below Treasure Island is filled with dangerous toxins left by the Navy.
/know/read.php?itemid=4210

Many Species Are Targeted
(Tom Palmer / The Ledger)

The 30 or so endangered Florida grasshopper sparrows at the Avon Park Air Force Range face a new menace from the sky — Navy warplanes. The Navy wants to increase annual helicopter flights from 1,098 to 1,418 and hike flights by military fighter-bombers by 43 percent, from 6,974 to 9,998. Plans included dropping 13,731 practice bombs, up to 1,545 high-explosive bombs, and 27 Hellfire missiles. In addition to the bombs and missiles, military training exercises would involve firing thousands of mortar shells and other ordnance between 25 mm and 105 mm and strafing ground targets with 30,000 20 mm shells.
/know/read.php?itemid=2441

Careful Flooding May Restore Iraq Marshes
(Maggie Fox / AlertNet/Reuters)

The future of the 5,000-year-old Marsh Arab culture and the economic stability of large portions of Iraq's southern marshlands are dependent on the success of a major environmental restoration effort. With only 20 percent of the marshes restored, populations of fish, shrimp, pelicans, cormorants and wading species have started to rebound.
/know/read.php?itemid=2429

Storm Clouds over Planned US Base in Japan
(Julian Ryall / Al-Jazeera)

Okinawa houses 75% of all US servicemen stationed in Japan. When work began on a US air base on Mananu Rock off Henoko Bay, residents blocked the construction effort with canoes, small boats and a vigil that has lasted more than 2,600 days. Residents say they want to befend their traditional land and water. The fear the possibility of a military aircraft accident.
/know/read.php?itemid=2103

Wildlife Thrives on Military Range
(Associated Press / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Military reservations can sometimes become de facto wildlife reserves. Fort McCoy, in Wisconsin, is home to a 60,000-acre wilderness that has changed little in six decades it has been under Army control. Foresters and biologists are employed to oversee the impacts of military exercises and work to restore land damaged by weapons use and training.
/know/read.php?itemid=2094

FBI Agent Silenced on Rocky Flats Nuclear Site
(Jim Hughes / Denver Post)

FBI special agent Jon Lipsky tried to warn Colorado residents about turning the contaminated landscape at the former Rocky Flats nuclear arms facility into a public recreation area but FBI superiors in Washington have ordered him not to talk. The governent insists "There is no coverup."
/know/read.php?itemid=1785

Radiation in Iraq Equals 250,000 Nagasaki Bombs
(Bob Nichols / Online Journal)

In June, a US admiral released a study estimating the radioactive impacts of the US war on Iraq. The report, made available to the world at a global conference in India, was not reported by the US media. The US, with 70,000 tons of radioactive waste in storage inside the US, has managed to cover Iraq with 4 million pounds of radioactive dust from the use of depleted uranium weapons.
/know/read.php?itemid=1712

Letter from Israel: ‘Don't Call it a Wall’
(Ran HaCohen / AntiWar.com)

A correspondent from Israel explains why Ariel Sharon's "Separation Fence" is more than a "wall" -- it is designed to serve as a barrier that will place the Palestinian communities into a "cage" with access controlled by Israel. It is longer than the Berlin Wall and more restrictive that the Bantustands that existed under South African Apartheid.
/know/read.php?itemid=1708

ACTION ALERT: Stop the Aegis Destroyer
(Bruce K. Gagnon)

Helen Caldicott and activists from 10 countries and 20 states are appealing to the owners and workers of the Bath Iron Works to scrap plans to build the Aegis destroyer. This is not a defensive weapon. It is designed to "forward deploy" US military force to protect corporate power and investments around the world.
/know/read.php?itemid=1336

War or Not, Iraq's Environment a Casualty
(Environment News)

Farming in Kuwait is still struggling after Iraqi forces torched about 700 Kuwaiti oil wells at the end of the Gulf War. Fisheries collapsed and fresh water supplies were poisoned by oil fires and giant oil slicks, extending human suffering long after the end of a war in which more than 100,000 people died.
/know/read.php?itemid=292

UNEP: War 'Has Ruined the Afghan Environment'
(Alex Kirby / BBC Online)

The impact of the US attack on Afghanistan has caused lasting damage to the environment reports the United Nations Environment Programme. Snow leopards and other species suffer as well as people.
/know/read.php?itemid=293

Gulf War; oil well fires, heavy metals, toxins, soil erosion, more
Gulf War Veterans Resource Pages
http://www.gulfweb.org/doc_show.cfm?ID=180

The Gulf War Impact on Terrestrial Environment of Kuwait: An Overview.
The First International Conference Addressing Environmental Consequences of War.
http://www.cas.usf.edu/envir_sci_policy/esprogram/espcourse/Omar2.htm

The Animal Victims of the Gulf War
Physicians for Social Responsibility (1991)
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~puppydog/gulfwar.htm

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