"OUR MILITARY...ASSET OR ALBATROSS?" PHILIP BERRIGAN

NOTE: Philip Berrigan (1923-2002) was a Catholic priest who became a peace activist and spent over 11 years in jail for 'civil disobedience.'

"The terrible number of those killed, maimed or diseased, an irreversibly damaged ecology, the obscene cost of nuclearism and interventionary war, all require harsh conclusions. Whatever their motivation, the bosses, warriors and arms hucksters are killing us, while simultaneously, they kill the environment. The attack on humans and the natural world is indistinguishable. They coincide in an attack on life itself. For the Earth is our matrix, our womb, our mother."

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Our+military+--+asset+or+albatross.+(Books).-a092913063

“Our military…asset or albatross?” Philip Berrigan

Review of Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War, Dr. Rosalie Bertell Philip

Berrigan wrote this review, first published in the Jonah House Newsletter, while in a US prison for probation violation on two Plowshares anti-nuclear peace witnesses -- the first against a new Aegis destroyer at the Bath Iron Works Bath Iron Works (BIW) is a shipyard located on the Kennebec River in Bath, Maine. Since its foundation in 1884 by Thomas W. Hyde, Bath Iron Works has built private, commercial and military vessels, Maine, February, 1996, and the second against two A-10 Warthog fighter/bombers - chief dispenser of Depleted Uranium in both Iraq and Yugoslavia.

Nuclear war is here, but not as we imagined it.

War is our number one business, war is the health of the State, war bonds and unites government, corporations, banks and people, war lends lustre.

In mineralogy, the appearance of a mineral surface in terms of its light-reflecting qualities. Lustre depends on a mineral's refractivity (see refraction), transparency, and structure. To the capitalist claim that it alone "works".

The military is threat, peril, quick and slow assassin of us and the earth. In our sad and bloody history, we could never afford it, least of all now, with its potential for global destruction, nuclear winter, the extinction of all life. We must dismantle it, transform it into a Conservation Corps, give it an unarmed peacekeeping role, assign it to environmental cleanup and public works.

What of Evidence?

It is overwhelming, most of it suppressed by government and media. Dr. Rosalie Bertell's grim report on the casualties of 56 years of nuclearism and interventionary war strips the military of its protective coloration. She finds that the military, especially the American military, is both mass killer and global polluter. The nuclear club - led by the US - has killed, maimed

(maim tr.v. maimed, maim·ing, maims 1. To disable or disfigure, usually by depriving of the use of a limb or other part of the body. See Synonyms at batter)

or diseased 1.3 billion people since July 1945, beginning with the first atmospheric test at Alamagordo, New Mexico)

Examples of Military Decimation

DECIMATION. The punishment of every tenth soldier by lot, was, among the Romans, called decimation, of People and the Rape of the Earth:

* 2.6 million American GI's reported sick on return from Vietnam, and one million Vietnamese were poisoned by Agent Orange.

* The American war in Vietnam

(ravaged rav·age , v. rav·aged, rav·ag·ing, rav·ages v. tran. 1. To bring heavy destruction on; devastate "A tornado ravaged the town")

54% of mangrove mangrove, large tropical evergreen tree, genus Rhizophora, that grows on muddy tidal flats and along protected ocean shorelines. Mangroves are most abundant in tropical Asia, Africa, and the islands of the SW Pacific and river delta wetlands. The word ecocide was coined from that destruction. (e·co·cide n. Heedless or deliberate destruction of the natural environment, as by pollutants or an act of war; destruction of the environment)

* The US military plans to use the Earth as a weapon, harnessing the power of its natural processes for war. (Bertell)

* The 300 megatons of nuclear explosions set off from 1945 to 1963 reduced the ozone layer by 4%.

* In 1958, the US Navy exploded three atomic bombs 300 miles above the South Atlantic. About the same time, the War Department exploded two hydrogen bombs 100 miles above Johnson Island in the Pacific. These tests caused a doubling of cancer rates. The explosions also disrupted (perhaps permanently) the Van Allen Belts, which protect the Earth from the sun's rays.

* In April 1964, a US rocket was aborted, scattering 17,000 curies of plutonium over a large area. At least two more attempts to put nuclear power in space scattered 34,000 curies of plutonium at the completion of the mission. NASA's history displays numerous disasters from its space programmes.

* The General Accounting Office revealed that the War Department generates 500,000 tons of toxins annually, more than the five leading chemical companies combined.

* The War Department reported to Congress that 17,484 military sites can't meet federal environmental standards.

* With Ulysses (another space probe) in 1990, plutonium in space became routine. When Cassini carried 72 lbs. of plutonium into space in 1997, scientists estimated 20 million lung cancer lung cancer, cancer that originates in the tissues of the lungs. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States in both men and women. Like other cancers, lung cancer occurs after repeated insults to the genetic material of the cell. victims if it exploded over populated areas.

"Transmission can raise internal body temperatures of people, ignite road flares in trunks of cars, detonate…

(det·o·nate intr. & tr.v. det·o·nat·ed, det·o·nat·ing, det·o·nates, “To explode or cause to explode” Latin d aerial munitions mu·ni·tion n. Often used in the plural, tr.v. mu·ni·tioned, mu·ni·tion·ing, mu·ni·tions To supply with munitions),

…war materiel, especially weapons and ammunition, scramble aircraft communications, navigation and flight control systems."

Slight increases in transmission can cause cataracts and leukemia, alter brain chemistry, blood sugar levels, blood pressure and heart rates."

* HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) - is a huge ionospheric heater, built in Alaska between Anchorage and Fairbanks, to be completed in 2002, with 180 transmission towers. Natural gas from nearby oil fields powers it. HAARP generates extremely low frequency waves (ELF). It is unabashedly…

(un·a·bashed adj. 1. Not disconcerted or embarrassed; poised. 2. Not concealed or disguised; obvious: unabashed disgust)

…military in nature - theoretically a space shield, a weather modifier (programming) modifier - An operation that alters the state of an object. Modifiers often have names that begin with "set" and corresponding selector functions whose names begin with "get"; a counter insurgency measure to curb dissent and resistance, a technology to explore the Earth's topography for oil and minerals.

A Federal Environmental Impact Statement, filed by the Air Force, says this:

* Earthquakes have increased in recent years, said Secretary of War William Cohen in April 1997: "Others are engaging in eco-terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes and volcanoes remotely through electro-magnetic waves." This is called "blaming the victim" -- accusing others of doing what we are doing.

* The US Air Force boasts that it will "own" the weather by 2005.

* The Guardian reported that the Depleted Uranium shells fired in Iraq and Kuwait have left at least 40 tons of radio-active dust.

* In Iraq, we gutted that society with our bombing: electrical power generators, water treatment plants, telephone and radio transmission, food processing, storage and distribution warehouses, animal vaccination stations, agricultural irrigation irrigation, in agriculture, artificial watering of the land. Although used chiefly in regions with annual rainfall of less than 20 in. (51 cm), it is also used in wetter areas to grow certain crops, e.g., rice. sites, railroads, bus depots, bridges, public transportation vehicles, oil wells, pipelines, oil storage depots, gasoline filling stations, sewage treatment and disposal systems, and factories producing cars and textiles for civilians.

* There were two aerial bombings of Yugoslavia in history.

* Bombing of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia during the April 1941

Invasion of Yugoslavia.

* Bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the 1999 Operation Allied Force.

The Guardian calls the bombing of Yugoslavia "in environmental terms, the dirtiest war the West has ever fought...a war which targets chemical factories and oil installations, which deploys radioactive weapons in towns and cities, is a war against everyone, civilians as well as combatants, the unborn as well as the living."

* A conservative estimate of oil consumption in the Iraqi war, a war to protect accessible and cheap oil - 900 million gallons. War causes vast death and crippling of the living, the unborn, the human gene pool. But after the killing stops and the diaspora of refugees, a blasted environment remains, sometimes for hundred and thousands of years. Added to war itself, moreover, research and development of weapons, war games, maneuvers and the general preparation for battle undermines our life support system.

The terrible number of those killed, maimed or diseased, an irreversibly damaged ecology, the obscene cost of nuclearism and interventionary war, all require harsh conclusions. Whatever their motivation, the bosses, warriors and arms hucksters are killing us, while simultaneously, they kill the environment. The attack on humans and the natural world is indistinguishable. They coincide in an attack on life itself. For the Earth is our matrix, our womb, our mother.

The military as an instrument of mass killing is a waste institution humans, energy, oil, metals, scientific and technical skills, money - it consumes all and restores nothing to the resources of the planet. Any faithful or sane scrutiny would conclude that it must be dismantled. It kills, threatens and wastes - it is the BIG LIE institutionalised.

(in·sti·tu·tion·al·ize , tr.v. in·sti·tu·tion·al·ized, in·sti·tu·tion·al·iz·ing, in·sti·tu·tion·al·iz·es 1.a. To make into, treat as, or give the character of an institution to b.)

Its veneer and untouchability gives new meaning to the demonic.

Is anybody out there listening?

PHIL BERRIGAN’S FINAL WARNING

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyHabFrICz4

EXCELLENT ARTICLES ON THE LATES IN ‘GEO-TERRORISM’

http://www.pbme-online.org/index.php/information/links/

Dr. Rosalie Bertell on the “Latest Weapons of War”

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3375160145737140472#