“War – what is it good for?” the old song asks. “Absolutely nothing,” comes the reply. That song was not written by a defense contractor, because war is the best live-action research and development program a weapons maker could ask for. The current conflict in Afghanistan has been a boon for the arms industry, particularly for makers of drone aircraft, used for reconnaissance and search-and-destroy missions.
Developing bigger, better weapons, however, in the larger philosophic sense, is probably not a good thing – or is it? As it turns out, not all weapon improvements are directed toward an increase in slaughter efficiency. Some of the billions of dollars spent each year by the Pentagon are used to make American armaments among the most environmentally-sound on earth.
For example, there’s the “Green Gun Barrel” program, which strives to eliminate chromium coatings from gun barrels. Now if one of our tanks gets blown up by the bad guys – I’m not actually saying one would, Mr. Ashcroft – it won’t leave any hexavalent chromium behind to cause liver and kidney damage in whichever third world nation we happen to be waging war. Before the tank is blown up, it might be firing rounds encased in depleted uranium, a substance not known for being earth-friendly, but the “Green Gun Barrel” program seems to pertain only to the gun barrels themselves and not with what comes out of them.
Better still is the “Green Missile” program. At first I thought this might have something to do with blasting the planet back to environmental health, the way they did in “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,” but I guess that project is still on the drawing board.
Diane Hagler, coordinator of environmental research for the Aviation and Missile Command said she hopes the program will eliminate solvents used in the manufacture of missile components, eliminate hydrochloric acid as a byproduct of missile combustion and eliminate lead in missile propellants. I think of all those generations of drill instructors, screaming at recruits to “get the lead out” and wonder if perhaps there were a few closet tree-huggers among them.
Ms. Hagler said, “When most people think of rocket or missile pollution, they think of the big cloud of smoke when the missile takes off.” I can’t speak for most people, but no, it’s not the big cloud of smoke when the missile takes off that comes first to my mind.
I suppose all this got started some 20-odd years ago with the neutron bomb, which produced a relatively small shock wave, but emitted inordinate amounts of radiation. The purpose was to kill people and leave buildings intact. The Soviets countered a few years later with a civilian version called Chernobyl and now they’ve got plenty of intact buildings they still can’t use.
I know we’re all just following orders, but it seems to be asinine to be trying to get chromium out of gun barrels when all our recent wars have been connected, one way or another, with ensuring a steady supply of oil, which we use to make the planet uninhabitable.
If the Pentagon is serious about mitigating the environmental effects of warfare, it can begin by squarely addressing the Agent Orange veterans of Vietnam, as well as the Vietnamese non-combatants who still suffer and the residents of the contaminated American communities where Agent Orange was made. Then give the same attention to the Desert Storm veterans sickened by Gulf War syndrome. The people who live on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques would be interested, I’m sure, in discussing environmental remediation, after decades of living in an undeclared war zone.
Environmentalism, in the Defense Department or elsewhere, is really an ethical issue. It’s about taking responsibility for your actions.
A Nice, Clean Fight
“War – what is it good for?” the old song asks. “Absolutely nothing,” comes the reply. That song was not written by a defense contractor, because war is the best live-action research and development program a weapons maker could ask for. The current conflict in Afghanistan has been a boon for the arms industry, particularly for makers of drone aircraft, used for reconnaissance and search-and-destroy missions.
Developing bigger, better weapons, however, in the larger philosophic sense, is probably not a good thing – or is it? As it turns out, not all weapon improvements are directed toward an increase in slaughter efficiency. Some of the billions of dollars spent each year by the Pentagon are used to make American armaments among the most environmentally-sound on earth.
For example, there’s the “Green Gun Barrel” program, which strives to eliminate chromium coatings from gun barrels. Now if one of our tanks gets blown up by the bad guys – I’m not actually saying one would, Mr. Ashcroft – it won’t leave any hexavalent chromium behind to cause liver and kidney damage in whichever third world nation we happen to be waging war. Before the tank is blown up, it might be firing rounds encased in depleted uranium, a substance not known for being earth-friendly, but the “Green Gun Barrel” program seems to pertain only to the gun barrels themselves and not with what comes out of them.
Better still is the “Green Missile” program. At first I thought this might have something to do with blasting the planet back to environmental health, the way they did in “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,” but I guess that project is still on the drawing board.
Diane Hagler, coordinator of environmental research for the Aviation and Missile Command said she hopes the program will eliminate solvents used in the manufacture of missile components, eliminate hydrochloric acid as a byproduct of missile combustion and eliminate lead in missile propellants. I think of all those generations of drill instructors, screaming at recruits to “get the lead out” and wonder if perhaps there were a few closet tree-huggers among them.
Ms. Hagler said, “When most people think of rocket or missile pollution, they think of the big cloud of smoke when the missile takes off.” I can’t speak for most people, but no, it’s not the big cloud of smoke when the missile takes off that comes first to my mind.
I suppose all this got started some 20-odd years ago with the neutron bomb, which produced a relatively small shock wave, but emitted inordinate amounts of radiation. The purpose was to kill people and leave buildings intact. The Soviets countered a few years later with a civilian version called Chernobyl and now they’ve got plenty of intact buildings they still can’t use.
I know we’re all just following orders, but it seems to be asinine to be trying to get chromium out of gun barrels when all our recent wars have been connected, one way or another, with ensuring a steady supply of oil, which we use to make the planet uninhabitable.
If the Pentagon is serious about mitigating the environmental effects of warfare, it can begin by squarely addressing the Agent Orange veterans of Vietnam, as well as the Vietnamese non-combatants who still suffer and the residents of the contaminated American communities where Agent Orange was made. Then give the same attention to the Desert Storm veterans sickened by Gulf War syndrome. The people who live on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques would be interested, I’m sure, in discussing environmental remediation, after decades of living in an undeclared war zone.
Environmentalism, in the Defense Department or elsewhere, is really an ethical issue. It’s about taking responsibility for your actions.