MEDIA ROOTS — Earlier this month, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta visited Manas Transit Center, located just outside of Bishkek.  Panetta’s coterie disclosed air-refueling operations, departing from Manas, had transferred 300 million pounds of jet fuel in 2011 alone.  This staggering figure provides a reflection point for any U.S. observer who follows the post-9/11 world closely. Above all, it begs the question: if one base in one year transferred that much fuel, then how much has U.S.A.’s military wasted since 2001?  In an era of great demand for increasingly scarce resources, the global citizenry must demand accountability for U.S.A.’s military waste and environmental damage.  Ultimately, a leadership failure and an apathetic U.S. citizenry contribute to the dismal status quo.

Locations
Recall our post-9/11 climate of fear, through which the Defense Department justified massive territorial and budgetary growth.  Since 2001, U.S.A.’s military expanded throughout Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, Australia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East in an unprecedented manner.

USAFRICOM blankets the African continent, using embassies, the Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP), and humanitarian pretexts to roam freely.  Thousands of U.S. troops are stationed at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti.  This number doesn’t include certain elements from the 3rd, 5th, and 10th, Special Forces Groups whose areas of responsibility cover Sub-Saharan Africa, the Horn of Africa, and Northern Africa, respectively.  Although CIA has been playing Cold War games throughout Africa for decades, an overt, sustained, U.S. military presence is a fairly new wrinkle.  

In contrast, U.S.A.’s military boasts a deep tradition of interference in the oil-rich Middle East.  Current imperial outposts include Camp Arifjan, Al-‘Udeid Air Base, Incirlik Air Base, and Juffairare.  Dozens of other bases are scattered across the region, altogether hosting thousands of U.S. personnel in and out of uniform.  

The so-called War on Terror has not spared Southeast Asia or Latin America, as U.S.A.’s military occupies these regions under various pretexts.  Far from clandestine, Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P) even has its own Twitter account.  Able to successfully imbricate ‘terror’ with the so-called War on Drugs, U.S.A.’s military has continued its tradition of interference throughout Central and South America.  Recent meddling, which is a drop in the bucket compared to U.S.A.’s overall military presence,  includes a Fused Response exercise with Guyana, increased DEA and CIA interference in Mexico, sustained Foreign Military Financing of Columbia, Honduras, and other nations across what many military officials refer to as America’s backyard.  And, of course, fuel is required to transfer U.S. citizens and materiel to, from, in, and around these locations.

Some statistics shed more light upon military waste.  The Air Force has flown over 663,000 sorties and counting in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.  Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), responsible for moving everything associated with U.S.A.’s military, “conducted more than 37,000 airlift missions, transported more than 2.3 million passengers by air and 29 million short tons of cargo” in 2010.  In the process, TRANSCOM supplied deployed units with “food, fuel and spare parts, moved troops into the combat zone, and evacuated the wounded.”  In 2011, the Air Force set a new annual record in Afghanistan, dropping 75,956,235 pounds of cargo.  One military public relations official remarked, “that is the equivalent of standing on a mountain top and watching… 11,868 Chevrolet Silverado trucks floating down from the sky with parachutes to a landing zone.”  The total amount of cargo delivered in Afghanistan by airdrop from 2006 to 2010 was over 121 million pounds.  U.S.A.’s military bombarded at least 1,314 tons of bombs (2,628,000 pounds) on Afghanistan in 2008 alone.  The Department of Defense, an institution fundamentally incapable of conducting a basic audit of its own financial records, probably doesn’t even know the total tonnage of bombs unleashed.

From 2003-2011, hundreds of thousands of uniformed U.S. military, contractors, mercenaries, and third-country nationals (TCN) flew or rode into Iraq on the back of wasted fuel.  After U.S.A.’s invasion, the Pentagon constructed bases across Iraqi soil, establishing roughly 505 bases by 2008.  In 2011, much to the horror of my military peers stationed there, the Pentagon initiated orders to tear down some of its post-invasion construction, including but not limited to housing units, gazebos, dormitories, and recreational areas.  Considering that these facilities cost U.S. taxpayers astounding amounts of money to construct, one must inquire why Pentagon leadership decided to demolish so many structures before handing them over to the Iraqis.  When my peers inquired, their leadership absurdly rationalized U.S.A.’s military must return all property in the same condition in which it found it.  If it makes no sense, it’s probably courtesy of Pentagon leadership.  When not demolishing viable structures, U.S.A.’s military withdrew almost two million pieces of equipment from Iraq over eleven months.  Try to fathom the amount of fuel spent since 2003 on constructing U.S. military bases in Iraq, transporting troops, fuel, and goods throughout the country, only to demolish portions of these bases during troop withdrawal.  What a blatantly wasteful exercise in arrogance.

Pentagon officials brag that since September 2001, the Air Force has flown more than “15,750 personnel recovery sorties, recording 2,900 saves and 6,200 assists,” as if life and limb are now perverted into the same casual patois with which an ice hockey fan follows Roberto Luongo’s goaltending career.  Disgraceful accounting procedures aside, the Air Force has transported “more than 85,000 patients and more than 15,400 casualties” from USCENTCOM alone.  The aforementioned Manas Air Base has evacuated an additional 3,500 casualties and assisted in the travel of 580,000 passengers into and out of Afghanistan.  All told, at least 6,404 U.S. personnel have died from operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, not including military veterans who have died prematurely after returning home.  These examples highlight a portion of the time, fuel, resources, and lives wasted during U.S.A.’s global wars of imperialistic aggression.

We, U.S.A.’s citizenry, are to blame for not mobilizing swiftly against the military-industrial-media complex.  Considering the options available to the U.S. public outside of war in Iraq or a landlocked Asian nation, one must vomit at the funding, maintenance, individual opportunity cost, logistical support, fuel, death and pollution which were allocated to the elite’s wars.  Such profligate waste is profoundly frustrating.  Fossil fuels, as a finite resource, need to be preserved and exploited wisely for the betterment of society, with specific focus on producing the infrastructure necessary to convert U.S.A.’s economy towards renewable sources of energy.  Wasting fossil fuel needlessly during the prosecution of unnecessary wars is redundant lunacy.  Yet, lunacy is the norm set by Pentagon leadership.

Personal Touch
I witnessed waste every step of the way during my years in U.S.A.’s military.  During my deployment, a certain ISR platform regularly drew too much fuel during aerial refueling and routinely dumped excess fuel before landing.  The amount of tax-payer dollars wasted during this practice will never be known, nor will the amount of noxious jet fuel released into the environment unnecessarily.  After landing, our leadership then threw away much of the food we carried on board with us, even though the food products didn’t expire anytime soon.  I do not know if this practice also occurred on other airframes.  Waste pertains to all fossil fuel products.  Instead of refillable canteens or personal water bottles, leadership decided to purchase millions of 12-ounce plastic bottles from the local water company, Rayyan Water.  Leadership did not respond to calls from the enlisted corps to initiate a recycling program in coordination with the wealthy host nation, which would have led to proper disposal of these bottles.  Back in the States, attempts to recycle anything more than cardboard were consistently met with disdain from Air Force leadership.  Any comprehensive recycling programs had to be initiated and sustained entirely by low-ranking enlisted members with no support from higher leadership.  Excuses like ‘it’s too messy’ and ‘it’s too much work’ echoed throughout my military tenure.  Dr. Anne Marie Slaughter, former Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department, explained it best when she wrote about how struggles with military bureaucracy are where the vast majority of U.S.A.’s troops have done their best, given extraordinary challenges (2007: XIII).

After my deployment, I witnessed the 97th Intelligence Squadron’s ribbon-cutting ceremony for their new building, which received the base’s award for Silver Level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.  The 97IS spent roughly $24 million for this new facility, and couldn’t help but toot its own horn.  The Squadron Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Smith, spoke to the crowd at the ceremony: “Oh, by the way, we’re still carrying out our combat mission… on pace to fly some 20,000 combat missions this year.  If you can’t be proud of that on a day like today, then your proud meter is busted.”  Eloquence aside, no one at the ceremony cared to point out the building’s major flaws, which included lack of any comprehensive recycling program and massive vampire energy consumption from the building’s computers running unnecessarily twenty-four hours a day.  (The squadron’s IT department confirmed that the computers didn’t need to run continuously.)  The fact that a mediocre building set the green standard speaks volumes about our bleak situation.  Upon my honorable discharge, U.S.A.’s military accounted for over 80% of its government’s total energy use.

Roll Call
The military’s highest ranking officers set the tone for irresponsibility, as exemplified by change of command and retirement ceremonies.  Dozens of so-called VIPs fly across the country for these events, wasting countless gallons of fuel and millions in taxpayer money.  If the Defense Secretary and his subordinates actually care about protecting U.S.A.’s taxpayers, they would stop such whimsical journeys.  Keep in mind dozens of these wasteful ceremonies have occurred during an economic recession.  Apparently ego and pomp provide an exemption for these so-called leaders.  Pick any change of command or retirement ceremony and witness taxpayer dollars ripped up in front of your eyes.  Among others, these extravagances occurred recently at ceremonies for General Petraeus, Transportation Command, and Pacific Command.  Waste and ceremony go hand-in-hand for a mere one hour of self-congratulatory conceit.

Ceremonies are indeed a valued military tradition.  Therefore, it’s time to start a new tradition in which ‘dignitaries’ compose a kind letter to be read at a small ceremony.  They can even embrace new technology, like Wistia professional video hosting, to convey their respects.  This method, saving gallons of fuel and millions of taxpayer dollars, is a solid step towards environmental stewardship, long absent from the military’s massive, polluting footprint.  If an egotistical general officer insists, despite all reason to the contrary, on personally attending a military ceremony, he or she can spend their own money to fly in coach with the rest of U.S.A.  After all, military officers work for the people as part of their public service.  Live among them and drop the ego.  With U.S.A.’s general officers using commercial air travel, the Pentagon can sell its Cessna, Gulfstream, and Boeing VIP transport planes.  The sale of these planes can set an important precedent, provide much-needed liquidity for the U.S. Treasury, and contribute greatly to a shift in consciousness within U.S.A.’s war-fighting community.  No one is exempt from responsibility, whether an E-3 or an O-10; and all should behave accordingly.

The military’s job is to protect U.S.A., yet it is the number one consumer of fossil fuels in the entire world, spending roughly $13 billion on fuel in 2010.  As of early 2011, the Air Force alone was burning through seven million gallons of oil per day.  Near their peak, forces in Iraq and Afghanistan burned through roughly 11 million barrels of fuel each month.  The Air Force alone uses “about 2.5 billion gallons of fuel every year” with an “energy bill [of] about $9 billion.”  The Navy, benefiting from the use of nuclear power in submarines and aircraft carriers, admits to an annual petroleum consumption of 1.26 billion gallons.  As the nation’s top polluter, the Pentagon cannot claim to look out for the welfare of the country when it pollutes so prolifically.  In both the long and short term, the Pentagon harms more than it helps.

U.S.A.’s military is in grave danger, since it’s almost entirely dependent on petroleum to shoot, move, and communicate.  Operational energy (OE), the energy required to train, move, and sustain U.S.A.’s military, accounts for 75% of Pentagon energy use.  Under the current paradigm, one airman pumped 422,271 gallons of petroleum fuel in one month alone and each battlefield soldier or Marine requires 22 gallons of fuel per day to sustain.  Supervising the most energy-inefficient fighting force in the history of the world, the Pentagon burdens the troops.  In Afghanistan, one U.S. service member is killed in every twenty-four fuel convoys, amounting to more than 3,000 U.S. lives lost thus far.  Furthermore, petroleum fuel can cost the taxpayer up to $400 per gallon, once all transportation expenses are factored in.  Generals and admirals have been remarkably slow to respond to these deaths, preferring the blissful ignorance of their air-conditioned conference rooms to the harsh reality facing U.S. fighters.  Even Senator Mark Udall (D – CO) acknowledges that the Pentagon’s annual fuel invoice of $20 billion is a strategic vulnerability.

Yet, leadership still fails us.  The 2011 Pentagon Operational Energy Strategy is a “major disappointment” according to retired Brigadier General Steven Anderson.  It doesn’t contain any novel energy approaches and is not issued from the Secretary of Defense’s office, which would have given it greater weight in implementation.  In its current form, this “Strategy” simply follows the Pentagon’s anemic tradition of bureaucratic business-as-usual.  This approach is unsustainable and costly in terms of man-hours, fuel, public treasury, pollution, and U.S. lives.  If these trends persist, nobody would want to be Secretary of Defense on the day U.S.A. runs out of oil imports.

Pentagon leadership fails U.S.A. through sloth and resistance to change, perpetuated by over-reliance on pretexts which frame reform as an impediment to ‘mission effectiveness.’  Content sitting back and allowing our overseas military presence to be focused disproportionally around the oil producing nations of the Middle East, generalship avoids a greener military.  When examining why leadership is so disgustingly lethargic in implementing reform, one must consider how much the Pentagon benefits from our dependency on oil imports:

“Imagine the impact just on the Pentagon were this country actually to achieve anything approaching energy independence. U.S. Central Command would go out of business. Dozens of bases in and around the Middle East would close. The navy’s Fifth Fleet would stand down. Weapons contracts worth tens of billions would risk being cancelled” (Bacevich 2008: 173).  

Many officers who occupy positions of power have the ability to positively affect U.S.A.’s energy independence, both militarily and domestically.  We can only hope that the individuals who hold these critical positions will lead through innovation and dedication to a greener planet, incorporating environmentally responsible behavior into the fundamentals of U.S.A.’s military.

Some military planners have considered converting all military bases into ‘net zero’ installations, which requires on-site production of all energy needs.  Others have tentatively proposed incorporating movement of energy supplies into war game scenarios.  This step would benefit greatly from a partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, initiated in order to share and incorporate best practices into tactical and strategic military operations.  Other important first steps can emulate the Army’s contract with Clark Energy Group, which is constructing a solar farm at Fort Irwin, CA.  Removing some military installations from the polluting civilian electric grid and placing them on solar, wind, and geothermal power, has another added bonus: security.  Domestically, U.S.A.’s military is nearly completely dependent on a commercial electric grid that is highly vulnerable to disruption.  The more installations that are converted to ‘net zero’ status, the more secure U.S.A.’s military becomes.  Everybody wins, except for the victims of U.S. foreign policy.

With a focus on humility and technology, a coterie of green generals can use their clout to implement a range of novel concepts.  Cardiovascular exercise equipment can be modified to produce energy, not consume it.  Motion sensor lights can be installed in military barracks, offices, and facilities.  Recycling can be mandated in military communities.  Military families can use websites like Streetbank to reuse and share belongings.  Domestic military bases can explore the feasibility of on-site geothermal energy production.  U.S.A.’s overseas bases can coordinate recycling programs with the host country as another means of engaging the local public.  The Pentagon can follow Thule Air Base’s lead and recycle its inventory of scrap metal.  Plastic bags can be banned from all Base Exchanges.  Tax exemptions can be provided to individuals who purchase windmills, solar panels, join renewable energy cooperatives, or construct greenhouses.  The Navy can use tidal and wave power.  Biomass can be used for heating barracks, costing roughly half as much as conventional oil.  Green generals can implement shuttle systems to and from military housing communities, allowing military personnel to embrace the joy and asceticism of public transportation.  The associated reduction in traffic flow improves Force Protection measures, which military leadership must applaud.  Green generals can set up local dispensaries where cellulosic ethanol can be produced from families’ garden and lawn scraps.  Regenerative braking can be mandated in all new military vehicles.  Instead of running on JP-8 and other jet fuels, deployed forces can legally purchase electricity from native sources, supplemented by solar, wind, and geothermal power.  If Combatant Commanders are concerned about the reliability of local energy sources, perhaps a greater ‘nation-building’ focus on symbiosis is required to help the locals they occupy to refine their own energy capacities.  Crucially, a greater downrange reliance on HUMINT tradecraft, instead of computer-intensive SIGINT, will likewise reduce the military’s overseas energy demand.  These are examples of the military leadership that U.S.A. deserves.  Imagine if these ideas were pursued with the same vim with which the Defense Department pursues weapons development.

Extraordinary efforts across the military can achieve the change in culture necessary to reduce waste.  This requires implementing energy awareness curriculums in enlisted basic training, Officer Training Schools, Officer Candidate Schools, ROTC, every service academy, professional war colleges and senior NCO academies.  Greener curriculums can emphasize the value of individual initiative and emphasize teamwork.  Individual initiative inspires energy conservation’s inclusion among the military’s portfolio of PowerPoint presentations.  Teamwork inspires a posse of command pilots to promote alternative power sources for jet aircraft and insist that the next generation of aircraft will be oil-free.  Semper Fidelis, Integrity First, Non sibi sed patriae, and This We’ll Defend all apply to environmental responsibility.  Paramount among curriculum change is recognizing that a successful military fights in harmony with the environment, not against it.  As it stands, Sun Tzu laughs at U.S.A.’s military.

Given every dollar increase in the price of petroleum costs the military an additional $31 million, Mabus has U.S.A.’s best interests in mind when wanting to use the military’s fiscal weight to kick-start the alternative fuels market, ultimately benefiting all of humankind.  Yes, Mabus’ stance neglects the darker side of capitalistic greed and ignores moral imperatives, but the Pentagon’s exorbitant operational energy requirement can nonetheless create robust demand for green energy supplies.  Green companies can exploit the military’s obese coffers, at taxpayer expense, in order to produce viable alternative energy sources at competitive prices while boosting production of unconventional energy sources.  Nascent, proven technologies, like bacteria-fuelled, self-powered cells that produce an infinite supply of hydrogen, or a silicon strip capable of using sunlight to make power, need this type of financial support to get off the ground.  That, in a nut-shell, is the Pentagon’s green role.

Do not misunderstand.  The amount of financial sway that the Defense Department wields is a national tragedy.  U.S. citizens should not have to look towards the war machine to kick-start any domestic industry.  However, at this point we have little stomach for alternatives.  Citizens can still work hard, advocate strongly, and participate in non-violent direct action against the Pentagon.  Such mobilization is not mutually exclusive with orienting the military towards greener policies.

We have come full circle, after analyzing the fuel wasted transporting material and troops to, from, and around deployed locations, construction and destruction of warzone facilities, and leadership failure.  U.S.A. waits with bated breath for the Pentagon, ignominiously known as the world’s worst bureaucracy, to kick its efforts into high gear.  True change will only arise from an informed and engaged public dedicated to resisting the war industry’s unseen externalities and to giving new meaning to the motto This We’ll Defend.  All hope lies with U.S.A.’s citizenry.  

So, as Secretary Panetta travels throughout Central Asia imposing the Pentagon’s so-called War on Terror, we must remain mindful of the following:  Above all other methods, the easiest way to curb military pollution and stop the waste of fuel is to cease wars of aggression.  Instead of wasting finite resources in support of imperialistic wars, they need to be utilized prudently, focusing specifically on converting U.S.A.’s infrastructure into a capable, green economy.

Written by Christian Sorensen for Media Roots

Additional References:
Bacevich, Andrew. The Limits of Power, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008.
Slaughter, Anne Marie. The Idea That Is America, New York: Basic Books, 2007.
Turse, Nick. The Complex, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008.

***

Photos by Flickr user Afghanisan (feature) and Troops Iraq (synopsis)

MEDIA ROOTS — Abby and Robbie Martin grew up in Pleasanton, CA, a city located ten miles from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), a secret nuclear weapons production facility.  They initially set out to explore the psychological impacts of taking nuclear testing into virtual space.  But as their investigation unfolded, they found that the LLNL—in conjunction with Site 300—has built an impressive greenwashing PR campaign cloaking a sinister reality. 

Despite a moratorium on nuclear testing, the nuclear arms race continues unabated at very high costs.  In addition to the startling cases of LLNL’s mismanagement of dangerous materials and ‘accidental‘ releases, the facilities are still testing every radioactive component of a nuclear bomb in open air, according to sources. 

Malignant melanoma (skin cancer) rates are six times higher among children born in Livermore; melanoma has been linked to radiation exposure.  And the amount of radiation which has been expelled from the lab since its inception is equivalent to that released from the bombing of Hiroshima.  Most disturbingly, the Livermore community is largely unaware of what the lab is actually doing and what its potential impacts are on its health and the environment.

Written by Abby Martin

***

The Continuing Nuclear Arms Race & The Lawrence Livermore National Lab:

Mismanagement, Dangers & Effects

Produced/Filmed/Directed/Edited by Abby & Robbie Martin

***

Abby Martin:  “The United States has the biggest weapons arsenal in the world and is the only country who has ever used nuclear bombs during war.  All of the nuclear weapons stockpile management and nuclear weapon technology come from two locations in the United States:  Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, which is surrounded by a giant plot of desert, and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, a square-mile facility located right next to a city of 90,000 people.  If a large-scale disaster or nuclear accident happened here, it would affect the entire Bay Area—comprised of San Francisco/Oakland—with seven million people living in it.  This blue well behind me is used to measure radioactive runoff from the Lawrence Livermore Lab.”

Abby Martin Narration (c. 0:36):  “The United States used to blow up full-scale nuclear weapons in open air until the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, which permitted the continuation of nuclear testing underground.  In 1992, Congress passed the Nuclear Testing Moratorium Act, which banned all nuclear testing.  However, the treaty is not yet ratified.  And the U.S. still has over 5,000 nuclear weapons, 2,000 of which are on readiness alert at all times.  To compensate for the loss of full-scale underground nuclear testing, the Department of Energy created the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which built new facilities that test different components of a nuclear weapons explosion, using super computers to put them all together.

“Most of the PR surrounding the Lawrence Livermore Lab gives the impression that it’s a technology innovator, working to harvest the energy of the sun to create clean energy for the world.  As it turns out, out of the Lawrence Livermore Lab’s $1.5 billion dollar annual budget, less than 1% is alternative energy; the rest is defence and nuclear weapons development.

“Another, more elusive, site buried in the hills behind the Lawrence Livermore Lab is called Site 300, a live-fire explosives test range where they blow up highly radioactive compounds used to simulate many of the nuclear systems designed at the lab.  Site 300 is mountainous with many watersheds and canyons making contamination easy to spread and clean-up extremely difficult.  At Site 300, we found that they are testing depleted uranium and tritium, the radioactive hydrogen in the hydrogen bomb, in open air tests.  Site 300 happens to be located in a very high-velocity wind area.

“We took a closer look at Lawrence Livermore Lab and Site 300 and found out if the Livermore community is aware of its impact on their health and the environment and the potential danger it poses to the entire San Francisco Bay Area.”

Abby Martin (c. 2:25):  “Do you know about the Lawrence Livermore Lab?”

Livermore Man:  “Yes.”

Livermore Woman:  “I mean it’s common knowledge to grow up in Livermore—”

Livermore Man B:  “Oh, here we go.”

Abby Martin:  “What?”

Livermore Woman B:  “I’m aware of it, yeah.”

Abby Martin:  “What is it that you think they do there?”

Livermore Woman C:  “At the Lab?  Oh, it’s a government [Shrugs], testing on all kinds of different things?”

Livermore Man B:  “I’m not really educated to what exactly, what they do.  You gonna tell me?”

Livermore Woman C:  “I know they do a lot of research and they have, like, the top scientists from all over the world that work there.”

Livermore Woman B:  “They used to do, like, nuclear devices.  But to my knowledge they don’t really do that anymore.”

Livermore Man C:  “Well, what I think they do there is research and development.”

Abby Martin:  “What do you think it is they do there?”

Livermore Man:  “I worked there for nearly 30 years.”

Abby Martin:  “So, what did you do there?

Livermore Woman B:  “I don’t know.  My dad works in a machine shop there. [Laughs]  I don’t know what he does, though. [Laughs]”

Marylia Kelley (Tri-Valley CAREs):  “In many ways, Livermore is a community that’s in denial.  It is also a community that I would call disempowered because you have a super-secret nuclear weapons laboratory and a community around it that’s supposed to not ask questions.”

Abby Martin Narration (c. 3:39):  “We went to the lab in Site 300 to try to find out more.”

Site 300 Armed Military Gatekeeper:  “Can you just turn that off please? [Leaving Gate Booth]”

Abby Martin:  “Isn’t this publicly-funded property?”

Site 300 Armed Military Gatekeeper:  “The Federal, um, could you turn it off just to make?  I gotta make, I gotta call my captain.”

Site 300 Armed Military Captain:  “Um, could you go ahead and turn the camera off?”  [Camera Cuts Out]”

Abby Martin:  “I don’t know; I’ve read somewhere that they were testing depleted uranium.  I was, like, that can’t be true. [Inside a Reception Area]”

Receptionist Woman:  “No, nothing nuclear.”

Scott Yundt (Tri-Valley CAREs):  “What we’ve been able to place together from FOIA requests and from public documents is that they’ve released over a million curies of radiation from the lab since 1953 when they opened.  That’s about the same amount of radiation that was released in the bombing of Hiroshima.”

Marylia Kelley (Tri-Valley CAREs):  “The state health department did a study of childhood cancers and this was a record study covering 30 years.  And they found that children born in Livermore have six times the expected rate of malignant melanoma.

“The study also found that, for one decade, there was a threefold increase in brain cancer in Livermore children.”  

Abby Martin (c. 4:47):  “Do you think that there’s any sort of impacts on the environment or to the health of the community with the testing that they’re doing there? [Outside in Downtown Livermore]”

Livermore Man:  “Probably very little over what most all of us do everyday. [Shrugs]”

Livermore Woman B:  “None that haven’t been around since I was a kid. [Shrugs]  So, I don’t know. [Laughs]  I mean I survived. [Young Woman Laughs and Shrugs]”

Livermore Woman C:  “Yeah, ‘cos they’ve had some problems with the, you know, ground w-, releases of some of the poisons and—”

Livermore Man D:  “I know that there was plutonium in a park near my house when I was growing up.”

Abby Martin Narration (c. 5:16):  “During the ‘70s and ‘80s, the Lawrence Livermore Lab was flushing radioactive materials, including plutonium down the drain.  And it was recycled by the City of Livermore’s sanitation department as compost.  The City then gave away the toxic compost as landscaping. 

“Local residents around the lab have even coined a neighbourhood park, plutonium park, which is located adjacent to a school.

Marylia Kelley (Tri-Valley CAREs):  “They kept a log book, you know, a guest register.  So, people signed it, but one day the lab showed up and took it with them.  And it’s never been seen again.  So, there’s no way to track who has this plutonium-contaminated sludge or if the particular bit of sludge they took home has plutonium contamination in it or not.

“And, in the midst of all this, Livermore Lab went and got some of this sludge because they were interested in looking at the uptake of plants after a nuclear war.”

Livermore Man D:  “Obviously, most cities don’t dump plutonium into their sewage treatment plants.  So, that’s a unique experience to our area.”

Abby Martin Narration (c. 6:26):  “One of the most impressive PR campaigns coming from the lab is the National Ignition Facility (or the NIF).”

Scott Yundt (Tri-Valley CAREs):  “It’s a mega-laser that they love to talk about how it’s gonna save the world through creating nuclear fusion energy.  Most of what the National Ignition Facility is for is ‘stockpile management.’  And it’s really a way for them to test nuclear weapon components because it creates an environment—in that chamber—that is similar to the environment created by a nuclear weapons explosion.”

Abby Martin Narration (c. 7:01):  “Just like many war technologies that the U.S. government rebrands as peace through force, the ‘Stockpile Stewardship’ program is nothing more than a cloak on the continued and unabated nuclear arms race.”

Scott Yundt (Tri-Valley CAREs):  “We have a nuclear-weapons-complex that is still stuck in the Cold War era.”

Marylia Kelley (Tri-Valley CAREs):  “80% of the American population tell pollsters that they would feel safer if no county, including the United States, had nuclear weapons.” 

Abby Martin Narration:  “Despite the moratorium, we continue to find a way to test nuclear weapons.  But by testing each component of a nuclear bomb separately with Site 300, the NIF, and super computers, they’re able to pacify the public.  However, in the back of our minds, we all know that at any moment—by mistake, by miscalculation, or by madness—life, as we know it, could end on this planet.

“How is the looming threat of nuclear annihalation affecting our daily lives?”

For more information about Tri-Valley CARES go to http://www.trivalleycares.org/

Transcript by Felipe Messina for Media Roots

*** 

MEDIA ROOTS — Organic farmers, seed growers, and seed businesses took another step at reclaiming their land last month, as 83 plaintiffs representing over 300,000 farmers described Big Agribusiness Monsanto’s harrassment in court.  Monsanto threatens lawsuits against organic farmers for “patent infringement” if farmlands have any trace amounts of Monsanto’s genetically-modified seeds.  Additionally, many organic seeds have not even been planted for fear of any unwanted frankenplants which Monsanto might sue them over.

Willie Nelson successfully rallied many in the Occupy Movement to ‘Occupy the Food System,‘ as hundreds supporting the organic industry assembled outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan for a motion hearing on January 31, 2012.

MR

***

NATION OF CHANGE – Judge Naomi Buckwald heard the oral arguments on Monsanto’s Motion to Dismiss, and the legal team from Public Patent Foundation represented the rights of American organic farmers against Monsanto, maker of GM seeds, [and additionally, Agent Orange, dioxin, etc.]

After hearing the arguments, Judge Buckwald stated that on March 31^st she will hand down her decision on whether the lawsuit will move forward to trial.

Jim Gerritsen, President of the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, has pointed out that there are 5th and 6th generation family farmers being pushed off their farms today, and because of a “climate of fear” (from possible lawsuits from Monsanto), they can’t grow some of the food they want to grow.

Even organic dairy farmers have had to suffer lawsuits (from Monsanto) when they labeled their organic milk “non-BGH” referring to Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone used by conventional dairies.

Read more about the 300,000 organic farmers suing Monsanto in federal court.

© 2012 Nation of Change

***

Photo by Flickr user Martin Pettitt

MEDIA ROOTS — Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman are the directors of the limited theatrical release documentary film, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, which earned a 2011 Sundance Award and a 2012 Academy Award nomination.

The film tells the story of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and touches upon the question of whether the ELF were ‘terrorists’ or not. Yet, one person’s ‘terrorist’ is another person’s freedom fighter.  Fight for freedom, yes.  Fight crime, yes.  But fighting terrorism is something few disagree with, like preventing lunatics from attacking and endangering innocents.  But the ELF were not terrorising the general public.  The general public had never even heard about the ELF and their desperate efforts to mitigate or prevent the clear-cutting destruction of the natural world until police got caught pepper spraying and targeting those radical environmentalists.

Andrew O’Hehir reviewed the film for Salon:

“Radicals perform a social function that they themselves often view with contempt, and one that is similarly misunderstood by people in the political mainstream who almost always see radicalism as crazy and counterproductive. People who chain themselves to old-growth redwoods — or, for that matter, to the doors of abortion clinics — hardly ever get what they want in the short or medium term, since what they want is generally unrealistic, and often amounts to a revolutionary change in the social order. But in posing an unrelenting and quixotic challenge to the consciences of their fellow citizens, radical activists often nudge us along toward more modest, incremental changes. Does anyone dispute that facts on the ground with regard to environmental policies and abortion rights have changed, thanks in part to the actions of activists many people view as deranged?”

Read more and find out how to view the film here.

Messina

***

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front

***

Watch Protest in Downtown Eugene on PBS. See more from POV.

Police pepper spraying radical environmentalists in Downtown Eugene

***