Soldiers on the Army training center's battlefield were instructed to call a commander if a desert tortoise crawled out of a hole. At that point, the entire training exercise would stop. This insanity has been repeated on every military base in the nation in one fashion or another.

The US Defense Department oversees and controls 17 million acres of US land, down from 30 million acres after World War II. It has been losing the fight for space to train a modern military for years. When asked about the need for national security, a spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management (the same one that shut off water to the farmers of Klamath Valley) was quoted in the article as saying, "It is not in our purview to make a determination related to national security. Ours is to make sure the Endangered Species Act is complied with."

There are hundreds of government employees throughout its many agencies who are little more than covert agents for the environmental movement. Their concern is not for national security, but for the security of an endangered species or some other environmental mandate that makes it impossible to train and equip our military to protect our nation at home or on foreign shores.

And then there's Rep. Bob Filner, Democrat from the 50th District of California, the San Diego area, now in his fifth term. This is a district in which you will find a large contingent of US Navy ships, part of our Pacific Fleet. You will also find the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center and Naval Air Force there.

In June, Rep. Filner introduced the "Military Environmental Responsibility Act" (H.R. 2154) that seeks to remove all military exemptions from existing environmental, worker, and public safety laws and regulations. Apparently, Rep. Filner is not aware that being in the US Marines, Air Force, Navy or Army is a very dangerous occupation and that part of the job description is being willing to die for the defense of the nation. Worse, his bill would put every element of our military under the thumb of the Environmental Protection Agency!

The California delegation in Congress is so shot through with Socialists and other enemies of this nation, it constitutes an invading army in its own right.

Our military is currently exempt from the millions of environmental and other laws to which everyone and every business in America must submit because of the doctrine of sovereign immunity. It means the government is not bound by the same laws as the rest of us unless Congress votes to waive that immunity. It doesn't do that because the business of the military is very different from doing research on the sex lives of catfish or manufacturing belt buckles.

The national and international environmental movement-the Greens-has been engaged in undermining the US military for years. Few have taken notice of it. The Greens represent an instrument of foreign and domestic Socialist agendas, all of which are aimed at undermining this nation's economic viability, its sovereignty, and, its military strength and readiness.

One of the most egregious examples has been the campaign to force the US military to switch from lead-based ammunition to that requiring tungsten. This "Green ammo" was said to be necessary because of the "environmental threat" of lead bullets and other shells. The bullets fired from standard issue M-16 rifles have always been made of lead, as was virtually every other bullet ever fired by our military going back to the days of the American Revolution.

The Green mandate for tungsten bullets ignored the fact that this metal costs vastly more than lead, easily twice as much. It also ignored the fact that the greatest source of this metal is Red China. For more information about this outrage, you can read "Army Green Takes On A Whole New Meaning" by Peyton Knight, an article posted on the Internet site of the American Policy Center.

For several years now, the United States Army has been testing and considering the overhaul of its ammunition under intense pressure from the Greens within the Clinton-Gore administration that did everything in its power to undermine our military. There is no reason to doubt that they remain in place under the new Bush administration.

In 1999, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) pointed out that "The Clinton-Gore team has bled the military so much that the Army is short $3.5 billion worth of basic ammunition alone." He reported that the combined shortages for Marines, Navy and Air Force had caused "critical shortages of spare parts, equipment and training." At the time he was saying this, some 11,000 military personnel were on food stamps! Mission capability rates, barely two years ago, had fallen below 70% across the boards for all services.

In May 2000, Insight magazine published an article, "The Greening of the Military" by Catherine Edwards that should have initiated hearings in Congress and calls for the total rejection of the way environmentalists have undermined the military. It noted that a report by the Cato Institute, issued on the eve of Earth Day, warned that there was "a high risk that efforts by the Clinton administration to turn environmental issues into a national-security concern will result in the militarization of environmental policy."

In 1993, under then-Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, an Office of Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Environmental Security was created. Its mission was to address issues such as "environmental degradation and the role of the military." The only thing the military is supposed to degrade is the enemy's ability to wage war.

The office has been run by a former environmental lawyer, Sherri Goodman. As recently as last year, the office was bragging about protecting the environment of military personnel and their families, despite the fact that many bases have long since fallen into disrepair. Her office pushed for "environmentally sound technology and management programs within the Department of Defense." It actually claimed that, behind the threat of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, were "environmental factors."

We all recall how concerned Saddam Hussein was for the environment when he ordered countless Kuwaiti oil rigs set ablaze. It created a cloud so black and so big it could be seen from outer space. To suggest that Saddam, Yassir Arafat, Osama bin Laden, or any other crazed Middle East despot has the slightest concern for the environment is typical of the irrational view Greens have of the real world.

What has occurred, in reality, is the diversion of US military personnel to undertake environmental projects that have nothing to do with the security of the United States or our fighting forces stationed overseas.

The Green attack on our military includes a propaganda campaign as does all environmentalism. One example is "America's Defense Monitor" a weekly television series broadcast on an estimated 65 Public Broadcasting System outlets and cable stations. If you visit their website (www.cdi.org) you can order videos of anti-nuclear programs such as "Radioactive America", "The Military-Industrial Squeeze", and "Dark Cloud: Our Strange Love Affair with the Bomb." As if our nuclear strength did not deter the Soviets for decades until their system finally imploded.

One ADM program is entitled "An Environmental Industrial Complex?" This program argues against ballistic missile systems, fighter planes, and new submarines, suggesting the spending the money on solving environmental problems would be better. All of their programs are intended to convince viewers to believe that way too much money is being spent on our military. Among the experts appearing on it are Penelope Hanson, director of the Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Technology Verification Program and Jim MacKenzie, a senior associate with the World Resources Institute. All in favor of planting pansies instead of maintaining a strong military please raise your right hand.

Another of their programs, "The Environmental Impact of War", takes a look at the defoliation of the forests in Vietnam, the oil fires of Kuwait, and other conflicts, concluding the war is bad for the environment. It is also bad for the lives of those in the war zone. Among the "featured experts" are Jay Austin, a senior attorney with the Environmental Law Institute; Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme; Paul Walker, legacy program directory of Global Green U.S.A. Sadly, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, former chief of US Naval Operations was sucked into participating. The Admiral lost a son in Vietnam, diagnosed to have contracted a fatal condition from the chemicals used to defoliate areas used to hide the Viet Cong. The other participants are all Green-to-the-bone environmentalists. Suffice it to say these kinds of programs have the sole purpose of undermining support for our military while casting it in the light of saving the planet.

In just the few ways enumerated here, we can see how, once again, the Greens have infiltrated our military establishment, just as they have done in our nation's schools, and throughout federal and state government agencies. In every case, they have instituted and supported programs that will continue to have serious consequences for our national security and sovereignty.

It is time to identify and root out these enemies of our military. A good first step would be to rescind the DoD Office of Environmental Security. This would help to begin restoring our nation's ability to wage war effectively against its enemies at home and abroad.

Next, this nation has to rid itself of the Endangered Species Act and, ultimately, the greatest enemy of our national security, the Environmental Protection Agency.

Alan Caruba is founder of The National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about scare campaigns to influence public opinion and policy. The Center maintains an Internet site at www.anxietycenter.com.

Copyright, Alan Caruba, 2001
Published by permission.