Red, Green, and Blue

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[UPDATE: After posting this, I was introduced to a wonderful piece on the same topic written by A Siegel for his blog Energy Smart. Please be sure to check out his post, too–it contains lots of great information.]

We’ve got five years, stuck on my eyes
Five years, what a surprise
We’ve got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, that’s all we’ve got

Okay, so maybe the above David Bowie lyric was about alien invasion and the impending end of humankind as we know it, but it’s been playing on a loop inside my head ever since Wednesday, when we “celebrated” the fifth anniversary of our war in Iraq.

Five years. My brain definitely hurts a lot.

While the current administration will have us believe that the surge is working and that stability has returned to once volatile regions, the truth is probably closer to a “whack-a-mole” strategy that shows no signs of leading to a peaceful resolution for this ongoing nightmare.

A majority of Americans now say this war was a mistake, and we continue to hear reports—be it from the peripheries—of civilian lives lost, soldiers’ lives lost, soldiers injured, vets suffering from PTSD, tax dollars spent, etc. Still, perhaps one of the greatest casualties of this war gets very little mention.

I’m speaking, of course, of the environment.

The war in Iraq has proven to be quite damaging on the fragile ecosystem of arbitrary borders known officially as Iraq—and therefore equally damaging to the fragile ecosystem of arbitrarily-drawn nations known as Planet Earth.

Or, in keeping with my Bowie theme: “Planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do…”
(Thanks for indulging, but I digress…)

Back in 2003, a handful of environmental activists, along with a few international media outlets, outlined the possible environmental destruction likely to occur as a result of this war. Of course, even they couldn’t predict how drawn out and chaotic the ensuing occupation would be, but they did provide us with some context nonetheless.

Peter Zahler of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned at the time that post-war environmental problems would be more dangerous than the initial shock-and-awe bombing:

“In a short-term war like this one,” said Zahler, “the major threats environmentally are mostly chemical.” With fewer than 10 oil wells ignited in Iraq and just a few of those still burning, Zahler speculates that the major remaining risks are “blown-up plants of any kind, transformers, and oil supply depots.” Among the possible dangers are carcinogenic PCBs leaking from the transformers or ammonia seeping out of damaged fertilizer plants.

Also threatening, Zahler and other experts said, is depleted uranium, a toxic and radioactive heavy metal used by U.S. and British forces as munitions to pierce tank armor and as part of the tanks themselves.

These environmental consequences go far beyond the toll they take on human lives. Take, for instance the way the previous Gulf War altered the behavior of wild life, most notably observed through bird migration patterns:

Iraq is one of the transit spots for migrant birds between African and European continents. Every spring and autumn see groups of migrant birds migrate over the land and sky here. The great expanse of marshland and wetland in the south of Iraq proves to be one of the natural sanctuaries for tens of thousands of water birds in west Asia. However, the merciless fire of war is now swallowing the paradise of birds. According to statistics, over 40 species of rare water birds, crustaceans and mammals extirpated on the land of Iraq ever since the Gulf War in 1991.

The real problem, as these stories point out, is that no proper, detailed assessment has been done to give us a current analysis of environmental damage caused by this war. Like much of the rest of the war planning, we have no idea what’s really going on, and yet we’re asked to stay the course.

Of course, underlying this entire discussion is the fact that, whether we care to admit it or not, one of the driving forces behind this war is the desire to secure access to Iraq’s tremendous oil reserves, which place it second only to Saudi Arabia. By the way, check out Rummy’s rationale at the time:

“We don’t take our forces and go around the world and try to take other people’s real estate or other people’s resources, their oil. That’s just not what the United States does,” he said. “We never have, and we never will. That’s not how democracies behave.”

Nothing to see here, kids, don’t pay attention to the little man behind the curtain…

Look, I know we’re stuck there for a while … probably a long while. But as Americans, we owe it to ourselves to understand what’s being done in our name—not just to the Iraqi people, to our soldiers, and to our wallets, but what’s being done to our global environment. Any war that not only causes such environmental damage but has an end goal of acquiring an energy source that quickly is running out is not only short-sighted and selfish, but downright self-destructive.

Meanwhile, I can only hope that I don’t have to revisit this theme in another five years. I’m ready for the Spiders from Mars to take me away…