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These are regular editorials
produced alongside the corresponding issues on Nonviolent
News. |
Also in this editorial:
As US authorities rebrand ‘the war on
terror’ as ‘the Long War’, our thoughts
go back to George Orwell’s 1984 and the attempt to control
thought through manipulating language and what words can be
used. In this case, it is to attempt to direct thought through
a concept which, they hope, will be seared into the consciousness
of US and world citizens. The concept of “the war on
terror” was a brilliant one from the US neoconservatives
because it labelled anyone you made war on as terrorists (though,
to quote Chris Patton, “you don’t make war on
improper nouns”) – so that even today the majority
of US soldiers fighting in Iraq believe that Iraq and Saddam
Hussein were central to 9/11. The concept of the ‘Long
War’ goes further in exhorting perpetual military vigilance
and action.
Make no mistake about it, if the USA says a
‘long war’ they mean a long, long war. The US
‘defense’ budget requested for 2007 is $513 billion
dollars, or, to give it the noughts the figure deserves, $513,000,000,000.
The document (of the Pentagon’s 4-yearly review which
has been presented to Congress) states that “The US
will work to ensure that all major and emerging powers are
integrated as constructive actors and stakeholders into the
international system. It will seek to ensure that no foreign
power can dictate the terms of regional or global security.”
Here, by “international system” it clearly does
not mean the international system of the United Nations, the
International Criminal Court and so, but its international
system of NATO and other alliances. And by denying any foreign
power to dictate the terms of regional or global security
it seeks to continue to dictate those terms itself.
The whole strategy is misplaced. The idea that
in the USA they “face a ruthless enemy intent on destroying
our way of life” is pure fantasy, 9/11 notwithstanding.
It is clear that if the USA was not involved militarily in
Muslim countries then Al Qaeda would not have attacked the
USA. It apparently does not occur to the US administration
that the reason some people wish to attack the USA is precisely
because of its international military role. Certainly many
in the world are not too gone on the US ‘way of life’
but it is a case of some people in the world discovering the
USA as a ruthless enemy intent on destroying their way of
life.
The implications for the peace movement, the
human rights movement, and so on, are profound. The US seems
to have learned little from its intervention in Iraq which
has not only made a bad situation many times worse but has
swelled the ranks of military Islamists enormously. Of course
it may seek to avoid the kind of situation it has currently
become bogged down in throughout much of Iraq but the fast
military reactions which its strategy envisages will not necessarily
have the outcomes desired by the US – and may lead to
more “Iraqs”. This may mean peace and human rights
movements have to work on such gross abuses that other important
work gets ignored or is unable to develop.
It is of course possible that when George Bush’s
term of office is up in a couple of years a less militant
US president may direct policy in a slightly different direction.
Bush’s policy on Iraq is now very unpopular in the US.
But it is most likely that it will be a cosmetic change where
the US will still try to exert global hegemony but without
the wilder and more blatant military excesses of the likes
of the Iraq war.
Integral to the USA’s strategy is cooperation
with its NATO and other allies. This, apart from any other
reason, is why the creeping NATO-isation of Europe should
be resisted, and why Irish involvement in any way with NATO
and its surrogates must also be resisted. Meanwhile, Bertie
Ahern and the Irish government can hang their heads in shame
that they have provided, and continue to provide, the one
facility in Ireland which has been of military use to the
USA in its ‘war of terror’ – Shannon airport.
If the USA was less belligerent globally, and
used just a fraction of its $513 billion military budget to
deal with global warming, lack of safe drinking water, and
fair trade, to name just a few major global concerns, they
might discover that their ‘enemies’ became real
friends and they could sleep safer in their beds in the knowledge
that they had done something constructive in and for the world.
The strategy of the ‘Long War’ will lead to yet
more misery and death.
To say controversy has been raging might be
an overstatement, but there has been a lively debate in the
Irish and international media about the effects of the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster, twenty years ago (26th April 1986). The
two takes on the effects of Chernobyl are simply poles apart
– in one case the estimates of the numbers killed differ
by a factor of 10,000 - the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) and World Health Organisation (WHO) say only 50 deaths
can be attributed directly to the Chernobyl accident while
new research states up to 500,000 may have died.
The research which came up with the much higher
figures is collated from a whole range of scientific studies
but there are problems in being definitive when some deaths
and illnesses could have other or multi-causal origins. Increased
poverty after the fall of the Soviet Union is one factor here.
But how can you possibly explain the fact that one third of
newborn children in the Rivne region of Ukraine, 310 miles
west of Chernobyl, have deformities, mostly internal (‘Guardian’,
25th March 2006). That cannot be put down to poverty. And
a University of Hiroshima study has concluded that birth defects
in Belarus have nearly doubled since 1986. Many cancers from
radiation exposure do not develop for a couple of decades
so we may only now be approaching the peak of cancers caused
by the Chernobyl disaster.
The Chernobyl explosion is a lasting testimony
to the danger of nuclear power. We are fortunate that, among
the many accidents at Windscale/Sellafield, nothing as catastrophic
developed or Ireland (and of course Britain) would be in the
same position as Belarus and Ukraine. At a time when nuclear
power is being touted as an answer to global warming (see
the Billy King column in Nonviolent News 137 – which
also showed nuclear power as unsustainable) it is important
to stress that while modern nuclear plants may be ‘safer’
than older ones, the technology has enormous inherent risks
and ‘human error’ or action can be an important
contributory factor. Every stage of nuclear energy from mining
through to storage of waste is dangerous. The IAEA in its
assessment of Chernobyl is acting less as a watchdog on the
nuclear industry and more of a lapdog of it.
The answer to global warming, of course, is
not to do nothing or do it so slowly that it makes virtually
no difference (an approach most countries including Ireland
and the UK seem to have adopted) but a massive and sustained
renewable energy drive harnessing every possible means and
level of society.
The numbers behind the Chernobyl tragedy are
uncertain but logically, anecdotally, and from other research,
the number of deaths would seem to be much much greater than
the IAEA/WHO figures. However the massive human tragedy and
suffering involved, continuing unabated today, is not uncertain.
If we want to remember all those who have suffered through
the Chernobyl disaster we should be working for a nuclear-power
free world. We should also be supporting Chernobyl children’s
projects in their work to assist the people, and particularly
the children, whose misfortune has been to live in the dark,
dark shadow of Chernobyl.
Larry Speight brings us his monthly column:
Enlightened Legislation
With government departments north and south
of the border intent on pursuing what is euphuistically called
development, at the expense of the quality of life and the
health of nonhuman nature, eco-minded citizens welcome the
announcement on the 16 March by N.I. Minister of the Environment,
Dick Roche, of ‘Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines’.
The guidelines ban new housing in the countryside with a few
exceptions. There is a 12-week public consultation period
before the policy becomes law. In the meantime the policy
is being applied in order to prevent the Planning Department
from becoming over-whelmed by applications.
The statistics with regard to the building of
new housing in the countryside are depressing. According to
Jeff Rooker, the North’s Minister for Rural Development,
the number of rural planning approvals has soared from 1,790
in 1991 to 9,520 in 2004, with indications that the latest
annual figure will be well over 12,000. This, Rooker stated,
is equivalent to a town the size as Ballymena, and three times
the combined total of England, Scotland and Wales. In the
Republic the number of one-off houses in the countryside is
approximately 32,000 a year, which is equivalent to roughly
10 times that of the whole of Britain. As Friends of the Earth,
and other environmental organisations point out, new houses
in the countryside cause a number of environmental problems.
These include car dependency, water pollution from septic
tanks, degradation of the landscape through hedge removal
and tree-felling, and light pollution with many dwellings
lit up like Christmas trees at night disturbing the habits
of wildlife. In addition to these eco-costs, new houses impose
financial costs on the wider community through the provision
of school transport, drainage infrastructure, and an increase
in the number and scale of road repairs. The policy, known
as PPS 14, does allow for new houses to be built in villages
and towns, provided they are within village and town boundaries.
Except for the Green Party, politicians
across the political spectrum oppose PSS 14. They argue that
it will have a detrimental affect on the rural economy. This
is not likely to be the case as new residents don’t
create employment, and most do their shopping in town rather
than village shops. Another point made by those who object
to the policy is that there were twice as many houses in the
countryside a hundred years ago than there are today, and
therefore PPS 14 is against a long-standing tradition of rural
living. The point this misses is that a hundred years ago
few rural dwellers owned cars, polluted the night sky with
lights, or rivers with chemical waste. As Frank McDonald in
The Irish Times, 25 March, points out, the absence of a similar
rural housing policy in the Republic means that people from
the North will build rural houses in the south, as many have
done in scenic parts of Donegal. Hopefully PPS 44 will prompt
the authorities in the Republic to take similar action to
protect their rural environment.
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