National security threat

Take Time To Renew Your Spirit

September 11, 2011 by CPP

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, my sister-in-law Jen forwarded this thoughtful response to the terror attacks, written by Deepak Chopra. On this 10 year anniversary, these compassionate and prescient words are worth revisiting:

As fate would have it, I was leaving New York on a jet flight that took off 45 minutes before the unthinkable happened. By the time we landed in Detroit, chaos had broken out. When I grasped the fact that American security had broken down so tragically, I couldn’t respond at first.

My wife and son were also in the air on separate flights, one to Los Angeles, one to San Diego. My body went absolutely rigid with fear. All I could think about was their safety, and it took several hours before I found out that their flights had been diverted and both were safe.

Strangely, when the good news came, my body still felt that it had been hit by a truck. Of its own accord it seemed to feel a far greater trauma that reached out to the thousands who would not survive and the tens of thousands who would survive only to live through months and years of hell. And I asked myself, Why didn’t I
feel this way last week? Why didn’t my body go stiff during the bombing of Iraq or Bosnia? Around the world my horror and worry are experienced every day. Mothers weep over horrendous loss, civilians are bombed mercilessly, refugees are ripped from any sense of home or homeland. Why did I not feel their anguish enough to call a halt to it?

As we hear the calls for tightened American security and a fierce military response to terrorism, it is obvious that none of us has any answers. However, we feel compelled to ask some questions.

Everything has a cause, so we have to ask, What was the root cause of this evil?
We must find out not superficially but at the deepest level. There is no doubt that such evil is alive all around the world and is even celebrated.

Does this evil grow from the suffering and anguish felt by people we don’t know and therefore ignore? Have they lived in this condition for a long time?

One assumes that whoever did this attack feels implacable hatred for America. Why were we selected to be the focus of suffering around the world?

All this hatred and anguish seems to have religion at its basis. Isn’t something terribly wrong when jihads and wars develop in the name of God? Isn’t God invoked with hatred in Ireland, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Israel, Palestine, and even among the intolerant sects of America?

Can any military response make the slightest difference in the underlying cause?
Is there not a deep wound at the heart of humanity?
If there is a deep wound, doesn’t it affect everyone?

When generations of suffering respond with bombs, suicidal attacks, and biological warfare, who first developed these weapons? Who sells them? Who gave birth to the satanic technologies now being turned against us?

If all of us are wounded, will revenge work? Will punishment in any form toward anyone solve the wound or aggravate it? Will an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and limb for a limb, leave us all blind, toothless and crippled?

Tribal warfare has been going on for two thousand years and has now been magnified globally. Can tribal warfare be brought to an end? Is patriotism and nationalism even relevant anymore, or is this another form of tribalism?

What are you and I as persons going to do about what is happening? Can we afford to let the deeper wound fester any longer?

Everyone is calling this an attack on America, but is it not a rift in our collective soul? Isn’t this an attack on civilization from without that is also from within?

When we have secured our safety once more and cared for the wounded, after the period of shock and mourning is over, it will be time for soul searching. I only hope that these questions are confronted with the deepest spiritual intent. None of us will feel safe again behind the shield of military might and stockpiled arsenals. There can be no safety until the root cause is faced. In this moment of shock I don’t think anyone of us has the answers. It is imperative that we pray and offer solace and help to each other. But if you and I are having a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world.

Nature’s Might On Display in Japan: Humans Ignore It At Our Peril

March 14, 2011 by CPP

Much of the world’s attention, and thoughts and prayers, are focused on the people of Japan, who are suffering from the deadly effects of last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami, and are now facing a nuclear emergency. The devastation to one of the world’s most industrialized countries is unbelievable, yet it is undeniable. It is clear that the death toll will be much higher than the current official one of 2,800. The survivors are struggling to deal with lack of food and clean water, and the loss of their shelter.

Many of us living in the industrialized world of the 21st century feel that we are we are separate from our environment. Many of us believe that “environmental” issues like water pollution, ocean acidification, and climate change are issues that we can choose to ignore without any consequence to ourselves or our families. We don’t realize that what we do to our surroundings, we also do to ourselves. We, in our hubris, have also come to feel that we are in control of nature, not the other way around. That is the only explanation for our unabated abuse of the gift of fossil fuels, and our ongoing pollution of our water and air. If we are going to have a future without ever-increasing pictures on our t.v. screens like what we saw from Japan this weekend, and Australia in January, and Bangladesh last August, we need to all agree that what we do to our environment, we do to ourselves, and to our children and their children. Because, of course, it will eventually be us and our communities who are featured in the news headlines.

Derrick Jensen offers a different way of approaching environmental accountability, in a recent article in Orion magazine entitled “Age of Ooops”, where he proposes that environmental risks should be considered through the lens of the precautionary principle:

The solution I dreamed up to this lack of accountability is a robustly enforced legislative version of the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle suggests that if an action, or policy, has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, the burden of proof that this action is not harmful falls on those proposing to take the action. They can’t act if they can’t prove no harm will come. So, for example, instead of presuming that deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is safe, and only suspending drilling when there is proof of harm, we should presume that this action is harmful until it has been proven otherwise. The same logic should apply to the emission of greenhouse gases. In fact, there are thousands of examples of harmful actions that would be stopped by any reasonable application of the precautionary principle.

Click here to read the full article. (thanks to Curtis for sending it my way).

More links:

Japanese Disaster Teams Search For Bodies

Nuclear Plants Threatened by Earthquake

Japan Nuclear Plant Rocked By Second Blast

Japan’s Chernobyl: Fukishama Marks the End of the Nuclear Era

Fire and Ice: Melting Glaciers Trigger Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Volcanoes

“We’re Not Doomed, We’re Just In Big Trouble” – Gwynne Dyer On Global Instability And Climate Change

July 5, 2010 by Christine

“Recent scientific evidence has…given us a picture of the physical impacts on our world that we can expect as our climate changes. And those impacts go far beyond the environmental. Their consequences reach to the very heart of the security agenda.”

Margaret Beckett, former British foreign secretary

This is the quote that opens Gwynne Dyer’s book, Climate Wars. Mr Dyer is a London-based independent Canadian journalist, syndicated columnist and military historian. In 2010 he received the Order of Canada. His website summarizes his career this way:

Born in Newfoundland, he received degrees from Canadian, American and British universities, finishing with a Ph.D. in Military and Middle Eastern History from the University of London. He served in three navies and held academic appointments at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Oxford University before launching his twice-weekly column on international affairs, which is published by over 175 papers in some 45 countries.
His first television series, the 7-part documentary ‘War’, was aired in 45 countries in the mid-80s. One episode, ‘The Profession of Arms’, was nominated for an Academy Award. His more recent television work includes the 1994 series ‘The Human Race’, and ‘Protection Force’, a three-part series on peacekeepers in Bosnia, both of which won Gemini awards. His award-winning radio documentaries include ‘The Gorbachev Revolution’, a seven-part series based on Dyer’s experiences in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in 1987-90, and ‘Millenium’, a six-hour series on the emerging global culture.

So, what does Climate Wars have to say about the challenges the world faces in the coming decades, thanks to the grossly inadequate response of most governments to the threat that it poses? Some of the expected consequences of runaway climate change in the decades ahead are dwindling resources, massive population shifts, natural disasters, spreading epidemics, drought, rising sea levels, plummeting agricultural yields, devastated economies, and political extremism. Any one of these could tip the world towards conflict. Mr. Dyer points out that the military forces of both the United States and Britain have taken this threat seriously for years, although under George W. Bush’s presidency, it was dangerous to one’s career to be seen treating climate change as a real and serious phenomenon. Despite that, the Pentagon hired the CNA Corporation to study the geopolitics of climate change. The resulting report, produced by the CNA Corporation in collaboration with eleven retired three- and four-star generals, was issued in April 2007 and is titled National Security and Climate. In that report, General Anthony C. Zinni, former commander-in-chief, U.S. Central Command, wrote:

You already have great tension over water [in the Middle East]. These are cultures often built around a single source of water. So any stresses on the rivers and aquifers can be a source of conflict. If you consider land loss, the Nile Delta region is the most fertile ground in Egypt. Any losses there [from a storm surge] could cause a real problem, again because the region is so fragile.

We will pay for this one way or another. We will pay to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions today, and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll. There is no way out of this that does not have real costs attached to it.

For more of Gwynne Dyer on climate change, check out these videos or go to CBC’s website to listen to Climate Wars.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaFphYKT_I0]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UvHfsdZQNE]

U.S. Military: Climate Change Is A Threat Multiplier

July 2, 2010 by Christine

Here is another video from the Climate Change And Global Security symposium held last week at the Museum of Natural History. A group of academic and military experts representing both the U.S. and Britain gathered to examine the reasons why any discussion about global warming should include a broader look at the implications for long-term global security.

In this clip, Dennis V. McGinn, retired Vice Admiral of the U.S. Navy and member of the Center for Naval Analyses Military Advisory Board, discusses how climate change is a global threat multiplier, and its destabilizing impact on societies around the world:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBPL45C7T7I&feature=player_embedded]

American Veterans Raise Alarm re: Oil Dependence and National Security

June 1, 2010 by Christine

From VoteVets.org, “The Voice of America’s 21st Century Patriots”, the message that it’s time to decrease America’s dependence on foreign oil, and switch to clean energy sources:

Over 11,000 Guardsmen have been sent to clean up an oil company’s mess, when they could be protecting America. Just another reason we need clean energy reform.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOWffhbEn60]

For more information, go to VoteVet.org.

U.S. Department of Defense Report: Climate Change Threatens U.S. National Security

March 23, 2010 by Christine

U.S. security agencies are starting to make it clear that their country’s dependence on foreign oil is a serious problem, and that America’s future is best secured by pursuing alternative energy strategies that will loosen the stranglehold oil has on the economy. Currently, the United States sends one billion dollars a day out of the country to pay for this oil addiction. Government organizations have taken a number of measures to address these security concerns. For example, the CIA has created a center on climate change, the U.S. Marines have committed to reducing their carbon pollution by 30 percent by 2025, the Navy is committed to reducing their carbon pollution by 50 percent by 2020. As well, many U.S. bases have implemented smart grid technology and renewable energy sources and the Pentagon building was weatherized and rehabbed to become LEED certified (consequently, their energy bill went down from 2.9 million to 2.2 million a month).

Last month, the Pentagon released the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). In the review, Pentagon officials conclude that climate change will act as an “accelerant of instability and conflict,” ultimately placing a burden on civilian institutions and militaries around the world. The report states that military services have already invested in non-carbon power sources, such as solar wind, geothermal, and biomass at domestic installations, as well as alternative vehicle fuels, including hybrid, electric, hydrogen and compressed national gas.

Operation Free is an coalition of U.S. veterans against using foreign oil. They have been traveling across the country, spreading the message that U. S. dependence on foreign oil is making America vulnerable and funding her enemies, and causing destabilizing climate change.

Operation Free has just produced a video. Here are some excerpts from the video, which can be viewed at the bottom of the page.

“Before I retired, I saw up close what our dependence on oil has cost our country. I think our country can do a lot better than we are currently doing. We’re wasting precious, precious resources that we should be investing in our own country.” Roger Koopman, Retired Air Force Officer, Raleigh, North Carolina

“We have slashed federal investments in renewable technologies by 86%, and we have doubled our imports of oil from the Middle East. I refuse, and you should refuse, to be part of the first generation Americans in history to say ‘it’s too hard’.” U.S. Congressman Steve Israel

“This is about our national security. This is about the future of our nation. So we cannot miss this opportunity to invest in alternative energies that are going to make our country stronger.” Iraq veteran and U.S. Congressman John Boccieri

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEvqRY_p4A8]