PART FIVE: THE MASSACRE OF THE ENVIRONMENT 

"It's so exciting to have a real crisis after dealing with dull things like the environment." (Margaret Thatcher on the outbreak of war in the Malvinas, Guardian 23.11.90 p.23). The "insane hag" (a quote from Saddam Hussein) must have been overjoyed at the opportunity for a war in the middle of some of the world's biggest oil fields. The environment as a weapon - now that's the sort of green politics she could really have enjoyed - if only her colleagues hadn't dumped her because of the terrifying carnage she would have caused.

xxii) AN ECOLOGICAL GRAVEYARD

Within a couple of months of the publication of a re­port by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which pointed out that global warm­ing could result in fundamental global, climatic cha­nges and that 60-80% reductions in carbon dioxide emissions would be needed if environmental disasters such as hurricanes and floods were to be avoided, the Allies decided to fight a war in the middle of one of the world's biggest oil field to guarantee their right to continue using a commodity which is the maj­or cause of these environmental threats. This is env­ironmental insanity. As if on cue, within days of the start of the Gulf war, the World Metereological Off­ice announced that 1990 had been the hottest year on record beating the record established the previous year, (Guardian Weather Watch 16.1.91 p.40). The six hottest years on record have all occurred during the last decade. 

In effect, there were two wars in the Gulf. The first was between the Allies and Iraq whilst the second was between, on the one side, the Allies and Iraq, and on the other, the Earth. The environment was one issue about which both Bush and Saddam were in total agree­ment. They embraced each other warmly as friends and comrades in arms - both agreed they had the right to destroy the Earth in the pursuit of freedom, justice and democracy or whatever other excuses they could pluck from their outdated Thesauruses. From the Earth's perspective, however, it was irrelevant who started the war or what human centred values were used to legitimize it. What mattered was that the war enabled humans, so environmentally destructive during peacetime, to increase the scale, pace, and ferocity of their destruction of the planet. As far as the Earth is concerned there were no winners in this war. The biggest victim of the Gulf war was the Earth.

It was all too symbolic that the war took place in a man-made desert, an ecological graveyard. Thousands of years ago the whole region, from Lebanon down to Saudi Arabia and across the entire length of the North African coast, was covered in forests and was teeming with wildlife of all description. Then along came the "locusts in human form" with their greed, petty egocentricities, political mismanagement, religious claptrap, species' arrogan­ce, bloodlust, sadism, ecological ignorance etc., and this incredible beauty and diversity of natural life was wiped out for good.

How apposite that today's world political leaders have returned to the scene of their first ecological disaster. These war-heads, with their high tech, car­pet bombing mentality, seem intent on making the planet fit for wars by reducing the Earth to a global desert because forests, like those in Vietnam, make it difficult for them to obtain the victories they desire. David Ehrenfield once described human beings as 'desert makers' but the real purpose of creating deserts is to enable men (and women) to fight wars.  

xxiii) ENVIRONMENTAL WARS

The Gulf war was not the first occasion the environ­ment was used as a weapon. By far the worst example occurred in 1938 when, "The Kuomintang deliberately breached a dyke to thwart a Japanese advance and drowned an estimated 900,000 Chinese peasants. The breach remains the single most devastating act ever perpetrated by humans on their fellows." (Fred Pearce 'Turning up the Heat. Our Perilous Future in the Global Greenhouse.' Bodley Head, London 1989. Jonathon Porritt, however, gives a different set of facts for the same incident, Guardian 8.2.91).

When the Allies put the 'restoration of despotism' on the agenda, Saddam Hussein clearly indicated his intention to use the environment as a weapon if Iraq was attacked, (Guardian 21.9.90 p.8. See also 24.9.90). And yet the Allies, when considering whether to dec­lare war, seemed to ignore these dangers. Therefore, they have to take as much responsibility for the en­vironmental damage caused by the war as Saddam Hussein must share responsibility for the damage inflicted on his own people by Allied bombing.

Saddam had a number of environmental weapons which could have helped him in the short term. The wonder is not that he tried to use the environment as a wea­pon as that he did not use it as much as he could. The huge clouds of smoke that were set off at the start of the war considerably hampered Allied bombing operations but the Iraqi' army didn't continue to blow up oil wells to maintain this cover. Most oil wells were not torched until the end of the war by which time the Allies had already inflicted a lethal level of damage on the Iraqi army.

Even more surprising was that the Iraqis didn't attempt to cut Allied' water supplies by dumping as much oil as possible into the Persian Gulf. If the desalinization plants along the Gulf coast had been put out of action the Allies would have had great difficulty in supplying themselves with enough water. And, the longer the war went on the more vulnerable they would have become. So, why didn't Saddam dump more oil into the Persian Gulf? After all, he was a monster wasn't he? Thatcher would done so without any qualms. Even Churchill intended to fill trenches with oil to thwart a Nazi invasion. One of the reasons Saddam didn't use these weapons to their utmost was that the countries most at risk were his own, and then, depending on various winds and tides, neigh­bouring countries which were potential allies.

Saddam could also have used these eco-weapons as long range environmental weapons to damage the West. Alth­ough Iraq did not pose a direct military threat to Europe or America, except through terrorist acts (and these included potent environmental weapons in Allied countries), it did pose a threat to their environment by exacerbatinhg global warming, acid rain, and ozone depletion - but only in the very long term. By their very nature, however, these environmental weapons could not be used with precision. They would have to destroy the whole planet to have an affect on one particular country. It can be seen then that global environmental weapons are self defeating.

George Bush, the Texan oil millionaire, who'd been pressing to open up oil exploration in the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge and in other environmentally sensitive sites, (Iain Guest, Guardn 22.2.91. p.29), was flabberghasted by the news that the Iraqis were dumping oil into the Gulf. He couldn't imagine why Saddam 'The Monster' Hussein would do such a thing. And yet the reason soon became apparent. Saudi Arabia's desalinization plants were threatened. As a result, millions of pounds worth of equipment had to be flown in, as quickly as possible, from all over the world to prevent the contamination of the country's main water supply which would have posed a serious threat not only to the civilian population but even more so to the military.

The fact that none of Saudi Arabia's desalinization plants had been protected prior to the outbreak of war proves conclusively that the Allies did not und­erstand the environmental weapons which might be used against them and, even worse, that they could not have taken into account the damage the war might do to the environment. The pertinent issue here is not that there was an oil spill, because this was exactly what Saddam threatened to do, but that Bush was so oblivious of the environment he didn't even take it seriously when it threatened the security of his own military forces, let alone understand he damage the war would inflict on the Earth. 

xxiv) THE DAMAGE TO THE EARTH

Before the start of the war, some commentators and politicians feared a global ecol­ogical disaster. Most, however, seemed to believe this would be highly unlikely. Some were worried that burning oil would give off large clouds of smoke that would disturb the Asian monsoon, John Cox said, "A year long oil well conflagration within this sensitive microclimatic region could influence the onset, duration and character of the monsoons. Even a partial failure could cause more deaths than the total population of Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia combined. (Fred Pearce New Scientist 12.1.91. p.30-31). The consensus, however, was that the damage would be confi­ned to the Gulf region. It is still too soon to say definitely, however, that the Asian monsoon will not be affected.

When American secretary of state James Baker embarked on his global shuttle mission to win United Nat­ions' authorization for a war in the Gulf, he obtained the support of the Indian, Pakistani and the Bangladeshi governments. That these governments consented to the war, even though, if the worst came to the worst, it could affect them far more drastically than the countries engaged in the conflict, showed the extent of the ignorance about ecol­ogical issues even at the highest governmental levels.

There were, of course, those with interests to defend who denied that there would be any adverse affects. BP's managing director Basil Butler believed that even if the oil wells were set ablaze they would burn with a clear flame. Even when this turned out not to be the case he said, "The pall of smoke should not create any major effect on the climate locally and certainly not worldwide." (The Sun, 'You May Not See The Sun for a Year' 23.1.91. p.2). The potential damage, how­ever, seemed considerable given that Kuwait alone had 1000 oil installations. 

Soon after the start of the war there were a number of incidents that resulted in large quantities of smoke being emitted into the atmosphere, e.g. the Iraqi shelling of a Saudi Arabian oil refinery, the Allied bombing of Iraqi super­tankers, oil refineries and oil storage dumps.

The next major incident was the deliberate release of huge quantities of oil into the Persian Gulf by Iraqi troops in Kuwait. This created a monstrously large oil slick.

The major environmental calamity, however, occurred just before the start of the ground war, when Iraqi troops set on fire hundreds of oil wells. The number varied according to the sources but the common esti­mate was that nearly 600 oil wells on fire, "590 burning oil wells - the largest oil fire the world has seen." (Guardian 27.2.91. p.4). Many believe that it will be years before they are all extinguished.

It has been estimated that, "Kuwaiti oil fires are burning between 3 and 6 million barrels a day. (John Vidal Gdian 11.3.91. p.24). And that, "By the time the fires are put out, roughly 1% of Kuwait's oil (worth about $20 billion) may have gone up in smoke." (Frank Barnaby Guardian 8.3.91. p.29).

The main environmental damage caused by the Gulf was as follows:-

Nuclear Winter.

The smoke from the burning oil wells originally covered nearly two thirds of Kuwait but as the fires continued to burn the clouds of smoke began to disperse, "Up to 8,000 square kilometres are now under smoke." (John Vidal Guardian 11.3.91. p.24). A few days later it was reported that, "Kuwait's burn­ing oil wells show smoke now cov­ering up to 50,000 square kilometres." (Guardian 15.3.91)

The burning oil produced clouds so thick and so widespread that it blotted out the midday sun and pro­duced a mini nuclear winter, "Temperatures in Kuwait are reported to be 8C below normal." (Gdn 15.3.91).

As has just been noted, before the start of the war it was speculated that smoke from the burning oil wells could disturb the Asiatic monsoons and cause massive crop failure. The good news about this nuclear winter, however, was that, "The smoke is not reaching the very high altitudes predicted by some scientists so the major ecological effects are likely to be confined to the Gulf." (Frank Barnaby, Guar­dian 8.3.91. p.29). "The smoke from the oil fires has reached an altit­ude of about 18,000 feet where it is currently trapped by warm air above it. To have a global impact the smoke would have to reach the stratosphere at 40,000 feet or so. Damage to the ozone layer and global climatic effects are, there­fore, extremely unlikely." (Frank Barnaby, Guardian 5.4.91. p.27).

But, there is no conclusive proof that the clouds will remain trapped and be washed away. Three weeks earlier it had been reported, "With a relatively low ceiling height of 10,000 - 15,000 feet the smoke presents no danger to monsoon patterns. (Guardian 15.3.91). It is poss­ible that the smoke could gradually diffuse into the stratosphere over a long period of time. The damage to the planet's atmosphere would be insipid rather than dramatic.  

These clouds of smoke are poisonous and will have a detrimental impact on human and animal life. It will cause a great many respiratory problems. It is also possible that it will retard plant growth.  

Depletion of the Ozone Layer.

It has just been pointed out that the latest estimate is that the smoke clouds will not get into the stratosphere and thus will not dam­age the ozone layer. But, if they do created a regional ozone hole and allow more ultra violet light to reach the planet's surface - assuming that is that the light can penetrate the clouds - this could lead to an increase in the number of melanomas (malignant cancers) and eye cataracts amongst people and animals and could also damage crops. Exactly which countries will be affected and how many people will be affected depends on where the smoke disperses. 

Oil Lakes. 

Some of the oil wells that were bombed did not ignite. As a result they spewed oil into the air and created increasingly large oil slicks on land.

"The oil lakes have become Kuwait's most urgent problem. Kuwaiti Oil company officials say that they do not know how many gushers there may be, because not all areas have been surveyed." (Kathy Evans Guardian 5.4.91. p.27). 

Poisonous Gases.

The gushing oil also released poisonous gases, "Up to 40 oil wells, blown up by the Iraqis but which had not caught fire, have been set alight to burn off lethal gases such as hydrogen sulphide." (Guardian 26.3.91. p.22).

Unfortunately, drilling officials say that the sulphur dioxide from the well after it is lit is only slightly less toxic than the hydro­gen sulphide it produced before­hand. (Kathy Evans, Guardian 5.4.91. p.27).    

Global Warming.

The first contribution of the Gulf war to global warming began a long time before the United Nations' sanctioned war. Each step in the production of arms and munitions that were used in the war contribu­ted to the release of carbon emiss­ions into the atmosphere; mining for raw materials, the transportat­ion of these materials to be refin­ed and processed, and then the man­ufacture process itself, etc..

The Allies' war machine, its per­sonnel, weapons and supplies, was transported to Saudi Arabia from all parts of the world. This proc­ess involved the release of large quantities of aircraft exhaust emissions. These, too will contrib­ute to global warming. The evacuat­ion of the war machine will again add to global warming.

The exhaust emissions from the tens of thousands of sorties that were flown during the war also caused a similarly substantial release of greenhouse gases.

The contribution to global warming made by aircraft emisions could be much greater than vehicle emissions because some aircraft will have flown so high they would have dump­ed their pollutants straight into the stratosphere.

The destruction of the coral reefs in the Persian Gulf will also contribute to global warming.

The major source of greenhouse gases was burning oil wells. Altho­ugh smoke may not diffuse much further into the stratosphere it is possible that the greenhouse gases might do so and this will contrib­ute, over the long term, to global warming. Thus, after the smoke has cleared from the Gulf there may be a rebound in temperatures as reg­ional cooling is followed, over the very long term, by a marginal increase in global warming.

All of these various sources of greenhouse gases will make some contribution to global warming which, if left unchecked, will eventually cause the collapse of the planet's ecology. The Allies will 'regret this war, perhaps not today, nor tomorrow but one day and for the rest of their lives'. Nature's aerial bombardment of the planet will make the damage done by B52s in both Vietnam and Iraq seem insignificant.

It should be pointed out that if there is an increase in global warming this will make water shortages in the region even more acute which will increase the pressure for another Middle East war.

Acid Rain.

The oil fires will dramatically increase levels of acid rain which will damage human health, crops, lakes, and buildings. Again, where and who will be affect will depend on which way the wind blows.

Black Rain 

Another phenomenon that will affect the region is black rain, "Black rain has already fallen deep into Turkey, and in Afghanistan and Iran and skiers discovered an area of oily black snow, two inches thick, in the snowfields of Kashmir - 3,000 kilometres from Kuwait." (Frank Barnaby, Guardian 5.4.91. p.27).

Gulf Oil Spills.

The first major act of environment­al terrorism in the Gulf war that angered public opinion was Iraq's deliberate discharge of oil into the Persian Gulf. This has been called the world's biggest oil spill, "Saudi sources estimate that between 10 - 15 million barrels were dumped into the Gulf." (Guardian 28.1.91. p.1). Later estimates gave a much smaller estimate, "3 - 7 million barrels (135-315 million Imperial gallons) discharged into the Gulf. (John Vidal Guardian 11.3.91. p.24).

It might be remembered that the Exxon Valdez spilled 1,200,000 barrels of oil. The biggest oil spill to date remains the Amoco Cadiz which, in 1978, upped its guts of 6.5 million gallons of oil. 

The oil spillage in the Gulf could blanket the surface of the sea and thus affect the production of phot­oplankton, the start of the marine food chain. Many of the creatures and birds not poisoned by the oil will starve because of the contrac­tion of the food chain in the Persian Gulf.

The damage done by the oil spill will be particularly acute because of the Persian Gulf's geography. Whilst most oil spills in the oceans will be dispersed by tides this will not happen in the Gulf, "The Persian Gulf has a flush out cycle in the vicinity of 200 years." (Cabeza de Vaca Earth First Vol XI, no. III Feb 1991, p.1). 

Destruction of Wildlife.

Although deserts may be ecological graveyards they are far from being bereft of life, "The deserts of north and north eastern Saudi Arab­ia - already much abused and degra­ded, according to one Saudi wild­life specialist - sustain a popul­ation of small mammals, including jackals, hares and sand cats, insects, reptiles and birds. (Large mammals such as oryx and gazelles were hunted out years ago). (Cabeza de Vaca Earth First Vol XI, noIII Feb 1991, p.1).

Considerable damage will have been caused to these remnants of wild­life by any one of a large number of factors from bombing, the rubbish dumped by half a million troops, the movement of heavy vehicles, oil spills, acid rain, and ozone depletion.

The damage to wildlife in the sea and in the air will be just as bad, "There's a large network of marshes and wetlands at the rivermouth which are "absolutely crucial" to the international migration of birds between Africa and Europe. One to two million birds, representing 125 species pass through it. Not to mention green turtles who nest primarily on the gulf's islands, dugongs (manatee-like mammals) who use the Gulf as their extreme western range." (Cabeza de Vaca Earth First Vol XI, no. III Feb 1991, p.1). 

Unusual Weather Conditions.

It can be suggested that the un­ usual weather conditions in the Gulf, especially during the first two weeks of the war when oil inst­allations were set ablaze and then again at the end of the war after hundreds of oil wells were blown up, could have been triggered by the war itself. If this is true this will lend credence to the prediction that the monsoons over India and Bangladesh will be detri­mentally affected, "It also seems that the smoke cloud itself is aff­ecting the region's climate, drama­tically increasing the amount of rain falling in the region." (Frank Barnaby, Guardian 8.3.91. p.29).    

Crops.

"The most serious effect of the fires will be on food production. The drop in temperatures will cause crop failures and millions of tonn­es of acid rain will adversely aff­ect agriculture and contaminate water supplies throughout the reg­ion." (Frank Barnaby, Guardian 5.4.91. p.27).  

xxv) THE REAL ECOLOGICAL CRIMINALS

It has to be said that the damage inflicted on the Gulf's environment by the Iraqis was insignificant in comparison to the environmental devastation caused by the Americans during their persecution of the Vietnam war, "Saddam Hussein's eco-terrorism should be put into persp­ective. The United States dropped 72 million litres of herbicide and ravaged billions of cubic yards of soil with 13 million tons of bombs in the Vietnam War. 5 million acres of forest were lost or affected through intensive bombing, napalm­ing and massive land clearance." (John Vidal Guardian 1.2.91. p.27). The forests have still not recover­ed. The land is still as bare and as lifeless as it was when it was murdered twenty years ago. 

The vast quantities of Agent Orange dumped on Vietnam not only destroy­ed huge tracts of forest but infli­cted what can be described only as diabolical genetic damage on the offspring of thousands of Vietnam­ese women. The Vietnamese govern­ment has erected a shrine as a per­manent testimony to the evil of the American way of life, "In the museum were hundreds of jars of malformed foetuses." (John Vidal, Guardian 1.2.91. p.27). A trip to this museum might be a revelatory experience for all those vile, in­human, ignorant bigots who support­ed that war. But such is the moral depravity of patriotic American consumers that most of them would find some way of excusing the barbarity.

More than this, the biocide commit­ted against Vietnam and the despic­able response to it by those around the world who supported the war, form another small piece of eviden­ce which goes to show that human beings have become so destructive and so degenerate that the human race is not going to survive on this planet for much longer.

It has been estimated that, as a result of the Allied and Iraqi fir­ing of oil wells and oil instal­lations, nearly 2.5 million tonnes of sulphur and nitrogen oxides could be released. However, to put this in perspective, this compares, "with over 6 million tonnes produced in the United Kingdom alone during 1988 while going about our nor­mal business." (Guardian 1.2.91. See Letters page).

(However, an alternative, and much later, estimate suggests that, "Oil fires are injecting sul­phur into the atmosphere at 4 times the rate of all UK sources combin­ed." (Frank Barnaby, Guardian 5.4.91. p.27).

Iraq has been condemned for causing the world's biggest oil spill, some 3 - 7 million barrels (135-315 million Imperial gallons) dumped into the Gulf. Yet again, however, it is important to put this into persp­ective. Just as more people will be killed this year in car accidents than died in the war (500,000 killed in car accidents throughout the world in 1985) so the oil spills in the Gulf were far less than that caused during the normal, peace­time, operations of the banal sat­anism of capitalism, "In 1979, the amount of oil lost worldwide on land and sea through spillage, fire, and sinkings reached a peak of 328 million gallons; since then it has dropped between 24 and 55 million a year. Most of the oil in the oceans comes not from accidents but from municipal and industrial run off, the cleaning of ships bilges and other routine activit­ies." (George Bradbury, The Fifth Estate vol 24 no.3 Winter 1990). 

Despite Iraq's setting fire to oil wells and dumping millions of gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf, the Allies' domestic contribution to global environmental destruction far exceeds anything caused by Iraq. America is by far and away the worst polluter on Earth and is the biggest contributor to global warming which threatens the survival of all life on Earth. It is, "the world's largest consumer and importer of oil, the world's largest producer of coal, and the wor­ld's largest emitter of carbon dioxide and total greenhouse gases (nearly a quarter of all world emissions)." (Jeremy Leggett, Guardian 1.2.91 p.29).

Leggett goes on to ask, "The question is just who are the carbon criminals, George?" There is no doubt that George Bush is an eco-criminal who should be clapped in irons and put on trial for eco-genocide. The only problem is that the lethal consequences of the damage he is causing to the environ­ment will take their toll of human lives only in the decades to come. George Bush has launched an ecolog­ical missile that will explode only when he is long out of office.

Animal Rights' activists who have taken direct action against animal abusers have been vilified as immoral or as law breakers or as terr­orists, etc., and have been told repeatedly that people must abide by the law if we are to live in a civilized society. The war in the Gulf shows categorically that our political leaders are neither civ­ilized nor moral. Those who have condemned animal rightists are the same degenerates who were vehement­ly in favour of the war in which tens of thousands of unarmed Iraqis were mercilessly and cowardly shot in the back. Slaughtered like an animal cull. They have lost all claim to a moral stance against those taking direct action. The people who were most enthusiastic about this war were carnivores, blood sports' enthusiasts, animal sadists, vivisectors, rapists, wife/husband beaters and motorists. The links between those who enjoy war, those who enjoy attacking women and those who enjoy torturing animals are overwhelming.  

It was suggested in the previous section that the Allies' failure to protect their water supplies from being sabotaged by deliberate oil spills in the Persian Gulf, was indicative of their ignorance about the environment. The horrifying facts that have to be confronted are that the political leaders of the Allied world do not understand that they live on a planet; they don't understand environmental iss­ues. They have only recently start­ed to carry out measurements of the planet's ecology and of the effect that pollution is having on the en­vironment; they have not adopted general ecological principles to guide the formulation of their soc­ial and economic policies and what environmental policies they have are not co-ordinated on a global level to prevent the Earth from being overburdened by what is re­garded from a national perspective as legitimate pollution. So, if they don't understand the workings of the planet's life support syst­ems, on which all life depends, how can they care about the environment other than on the most superficial, green-con, level? No voters would vote for a political party that didn't understand economics; that hadn't carried out the slightest measurements of economic indicat­ors; that didn't abide by economic principles and that, consequently, couldn't manage the economy. So why are they voting for people who can't manage the environment? If politicians can't manage the envir­onment then they cannot manage the economy.

What voters in the Northern indust­rialized nations are doing is elec­ting eco-cretins into office who believe in the materialist illusion that the best way to protect the planet's ecology is to increase economic growth but who then ignore all the evidence to the contrary. It is not possible to trust the vile, despicable politicians who carried out the massacre in Iraq, to protect the planet and prevent a collapse of the global ecology. It is environmentally insane to put such eco-criminals in charge of guarding the environment. It's like putting the mafia in charge of the Bank of England. The sooner these eco war criminals are brought to justice the better the chances of human survival.

xxvi) WARS ARE ECOCIDAL

The main loser in war, as in peace, is the planet. No matter who 'won' the Gulf war, the Earth's life sus­taining processes have been damaged even further and this will push humuskind that bit closer to an ecological calamity. The armies that confronted each other in the Gulf are like two high wire trapese artistes trying to fight their way past each other to safety when there isn't even a safety net to protect them from their folly. The United Nations should have refused to authorize this war on environ­mental grounds alone, irrespective of the destructive impact it would have on humans.

Within the next decade the world's climate scientists will complete a range of experiments to measure the precise amounts of pollutants being released into the environment; the ways in which these pollutants aff­ect the environment; the extent to which these pollutants will contri­bute to a rise in global temperat­ures; the effect that rising temperatures will have on the climate; and, the damage that is likely to result from these climatic changes. This will enable them to determine, with a good deal of accuracy, just how significant a threat global warming is likely to pose to human survival.

This information will also enable scientists to tell politicians just how much a prospective war would contribute to global warming; how much damage this increase in global warming would do to people's live­lihoods; how much it would damage property; and, how many lives are likely to be lost. In other words, in the near future, it will be possible for ecologists to tell politicians and the military whether a particular war is eco­logically feasible or not i.e. whether the damage to the envir­onment would outweigh the expected military and political gains. The Gulf war is likely to be the last major conflict that will take place without a full scale assessment of its environmental impact. If politicians ignore this scientific ad­vice, then the next major war could well cause the collapse of signif­icant parts of the planet's ecology and with it the deaths of billions of people around the world.

Humans are rapidly reaching the point in history where war is going to have to be outlawed because of the threat it poses to the planet's ecology. If humans wage war on Earth they wage war against the Earth and the Earth will eventually retaliate with more power than all the world's armies put together. Increasingly, it is beginning to seem as if it is not going to be possible for humans to wage war without digging humanvile's grave.

"That's why I don't feel any more upset than usual about the Persian Gulf - it's just another front in a much larger war against life on this planet. People are already dying for oil. Millions of bird people and thousands of otter people, clam people, salmon people, kelp people, people whose names and attributes I don't even know, died for oil in Prince William Sound two years ago. Grizzly bear people in Montana are dying for oil as roads invade their homeland." (Michael Robinson, Earth First Vol XI, noIII Feb 1991, p.1).

xxvii) THE ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS OF THE WAR

Most people in the industrialized nations of the world, who care little about green politics, know nothing about ecology, and spend their daily lives blindly contributing to the degradation of the Earth either by working for environmentally destructive industries or by driving around in their "padded cells" (John Papworth), were outraged by Saddam Hussein's destruc­tion of Kuwait's oil wells and the dumping of oil into the Persian Gulf. They were angry about the waste of a valuable resource which could have been used to fuel power stations, keep cars running and make a vast array of commodities - all of which would have helped to increase their standard of living.

To an extent, they were also sentimentally upset by pictures of wild birds drowning in oil and were vag­uely aware that the burning oil and oil slicks were causing damage to the environment. But, if asked, they would have had great difficulty explaining in what ways it was being damaged. This ignorance, however, was partly due to the media which used the spectacular environmental destruction in the Gulf merely as another opportunity to condemn Saddam Hussein but otherwise ignored the ecological effects of this destruction in case it undermined the war effort. The Green party and green pressure groups were virtually banned from explaining the ecological consequences of what was happening.

Even worse, was that Saddam Hussein's eco-vandalism enabled rapacious Northern consumers to feel self righteous about how good they must be, because they never caused such environmental havoc, and to feel convinced that their way of life couldn't be bad, because they never harm the environment to the same extent as this monstrous eco-terrorist.

Popular protests about Saddam Hussein's destruction of the environment are sheer hypocrisy resulting from gross ecological ignorance. Even if he had not used oil as an environmental weapon but sold it as a comm­odity to multinational oil companies and thus to Northern consumers, the same degree of environmental pollution would have been caused. If he hadn't sent the oil flaring into the atmosphere, it would still have ended up in the atmosphere through car exhausts; and, if he hadn't dumped it into the Persian Gulf it would still have ended up in the oceans when ships and oil tankers cleaned their bilges and when motorists disposed of their used oil by pouring it into the sewage system. Most oil in the oceans comes from motorists not oil tanker spillages.

It has already been pointed out that the environmental damage caused by the sabotage of Kuwait's oil wells pales into insignificance in comparison to the damage being caused by the normal, peacetime activities of the northern industrialized nations many of whom were represented in the Allied coalition. As a Texan oil millionaire George Bush is personally responsible for just as much pollution as Saddam Hussein caused during the Gulf war. As president of the United States he is responsible for far greater levels of environmental devastation than Saddam Hussein could ever have hoped to have achieved. 

What Saddam Hussein was guilty of, then, was not the amount of pollution he dumped into the environment, because the Allies dump far more than Iraq, but that he turned a banal, normal, commonplace, routine, everyday event, i.e. flaring off oil and dumping oil in the oceans, into a spectacular media event. The northern industrialized nations believe it is perfectly acceptable to continually pollute the planet; what is unforgiveable is being seen doing it on television.

The worst accusation that can be levelled at Saddam Hussein was merely that he concentrated the pollution in one region of the planet, instead of spreading it more evenly around the world by selling the oil on the global market. (It is possible that by doing this he will trigger a terrible knock-on effect by distur­bing the Asiatic monsoon but at least this would be only a regional environmental disaster and not the global one being caused by northern industrialized nations. But why, oh why, does such a disaster have to befall the millions of poor in Asia - why couldn't the pollution disturb the warm winds driving across the Atlantic, ironically called the Gulf Stream, that keep western Europe from months of freezing temperat­ures? That would really have woken up the human locusts then. That would really have brought them down to Earth with a crash - although, even then, it seems too much to expect that it would have forced them to respect the Earth).

Conversely, Saddam Hussein's eco-vandalism had a num­ber of important environmental benefits. Firstly, it might wake up some people to the damage that human-doings are causing to the planet rather than allowing them to "sleepwalk" not merely into war (Hugo Young) but into a planet-wide ecological collapse.

Perhaps the most important environmental benefit, however, is that if Saddam Hussein had sold the oil in the normal way rather than using it as an environ­mental weapon, then the ecological damage would have been far greater because of what is known as the economic multiplier effect. For example, if a grant of £1,000,000 is given to a community, it will gener­ate at least 5 times that amount of business and, therefore, make the community better off to the tune of £5,000,000. The grant will employ workers, who will spend their wages on commodities made by a sec­ond group of workers, which will keep them in work, and will enable them to buy goods off yet another group of workers thereby keeping them employed, etc., etc.. The money goes around and around and what was £1,000,000 becomes, as if by magic, £5,000,000. Wealth is determined not by the quantity of money in a system but the velocity with which it travels around that system.

It has been alleged that, "By the time the fires are put out, roughly one percent of Kuwait's oil (worth about $20 billion) may have gone up in smoke." (Frank Barnaby, Guardian 8.3.91. p.29). Thus, in the same way, if this oil had been sold on the market, it would have generated approximately $100 billion worth of business. For example, the profits that Kuwait would have earnt from the sale of the oil would prob­ably have been invested in overseas' businesses (who knows, perhaps even in Amazonian logging companies); the multinational oil corporations who would have bought the crude oil may have invested the profits, from the sale of the refined oil, in businesses around the world (perhaps to open up new oil wells in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or in the Antar­ctic); the power utilities who would have bought the refined oil from the multinational oil corporations may have used the profits generated from the sale of electricity to invest in new businesses (such as a nuclear power plant); the petrol retailers who would also have bought some of the refined petrol and made huge profits retailing it to motorists, may have in­vested the profits in yet more businesses (perhaps in a construction company building a trans Amazonian road); and, near the end of the cycle of these highly profitable, but ecologically devastating, transact­ions the motorists who would have bought the petrol and then used their cars to earn their living by working for either Rio Tinto Zinc or Union Carbide or ICI or BP etc.. 

If Saddam Hussein had been able to sell Kuwaiti oil, the economic multiplier effect would have produced 5 times more business than the original sale of the oil, and would, correspondingly, have produced 5 times more ecological devastation than simply burning it off into the atmosphere.

Whilst Saddam Hussein's actions have to be deplored, and also condemned as typical of the mentality of the planetless, denatured thugs who are currently in control of this planet, and given the fact that there was not the remotest prospect that a green minded world community would have denied itself the use of this oil to prevent further damage to the Earth, then it has to be accepted that torching Kuwait's oil wells was a positive ecological act. The Earth is a safer place because Saddam Hussein blew up the oil wells. He was doing the Earth a favour by polluting the environment. It was extremely pleasing to see these oil wells on fire and environmentalists should wish him their heartiest congratulations. Its a great pity though that he didn't know what he was doing; that he was an ecological hero. If he had done, he should have torched Iraq's oil wells as well.

Many consumers in the Northern nations may find this rather revolting. And yet, any analysis of the comparative ecological costs between destroying oil and selling it for profit will inevitably conclude that less ecological damage is caused by the former than by the latter. As horrible as this may seem it is a fact. What this reveals is that humandoings are in an economic system which is heading towards a wholesale ecological disaster. When, ecologically speaking, it is better to destroy parts of the Earth than allow it to be exploited for profit, then it is clear that the survival of the human race is very much at risk. It is northern consumers who are revolting not Saddam Hussein.