UN Agenda 21 and the Military

Welcome to UN Agenda 21 “sustainability” in the last bastion of capitalism – the U.S. military. According to the May 19, 2012 issue of Army Times, “The Defense Department, like other federal agencies, is already under orders from the White House to curb energy use throughout its operations and emphasize Sustainable Development. “Planners must make bases more walkable.”(Sean Reilly)

The euphemisms concocted by the environmentalists with the Club of Rome, the original developers of the scare tactic idea of fabricated global warming/climate change catastrophes, have made their way into the military lingo.

The federal government guidelines demand “compact development,” “mass transit,” “energy conservation,” “sustainable development,” and high-rise mixed housing five-minute walk from shops and work.  Land preservation must be included in military missions, a monumental challenge, costing a huge amount of taxpayer dollars since the Defense Department has 300,000 buildings and 2.2 billion square feet.

Dorothy Robyn, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Installations and Environment, described U.S. military bases as “very sprawling, very auto-centric; you have to have a car to get around.” She bemoaned the fact that one base has 70,000 parking spots and the daily population never exceeds 40,000. “Urban sprawl” destroys Mother Nature and must be eventually eradicated by the environmentalist lobby.  All confiscated land will be rededicated to wilderness.

Mark Gillen, professor of architecture at the University of Oregon, describes how soldiers have to drive up to an hour from the housing area to the commissary at Aviano Air Base in Italy. That is a huge stretch - I was there and it only took me five minutes. The supposed environmental problem could be solved quite simply by closing the base in Aviano. Italy can defend itself. They can take the generous welfare expenditures from their budget and allocate the funds for their own defense.

Military forced compliance with UN Agenda 21 has been in planning and development for 18 months. “The guidance applies to all installation master planning and represents the first rewrite of DoD’s policy in a quarter century.” (Sean Reilly, Army Times)

The military leadership explains that transit-oriented development reduces traffic congestion and accident rates while encouraging walking, bicycling, and overall healthy communities. This is a ridiculous excuse since a soldier, by definition, has to be healthy and fit in order to serve in the military. Walking and biking actually increase accident rates of hit and run. There are retirees, even young ones, who are handicapped, and biking and walking is not an option for them. We have thousands of soldiers who have returned from Iraq and Iran with severe, life altering disabilities.

David A. Deptula, a retired three star general, paints a very sad picture of America’s aging Air Force fleet with its F-15s and the Cold War era B-52 bombers. After one F-15 fighter disintegrated in mid-air in 2007, the entire fleet was grounded. “Stretching the life of military aircraft puts our fighting men and women in mortal danger.” (Mike Brownfield, Heritage Foundation)

Because of drastic cutbacks in the military for cost-saving reasons, at a time when the world threat to our country is at an all time high, we do not have money to refurbish and modernize the military capability. We let soldiers fight in Afghanistan and Iraq with scarce resources and protection, having to duct-tape their body armor to non-armored vehicles in order to provide some level of safety.

The military is more concerned with rules and regulations, like a soldier being licensed properly to drive an un-armored SUV through a war zone. Those who make ill-conceived rules from the safety of their offices in Washington, D. C. do not worry that this soldier might be blown off by a roadside bomb because his vehicle is not armored.

Trying to shape the military in lock step with United Nations Agenda 21 of “greening” and saving the planet from the destructive activities of humans, the federal government spent nearly $70 billion on “climate change” since 2008. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) criticized the current administration for its “drastic cuts in personnel, brigade combat teams, tactical fighters, and airlift aircraft in the last four years, along with the cancellation or postponement of specialized ship and aircraft construction.” (Caroline May, Daily Caller, May 17, 2012)

“Which would you rather have? Would you rather spend $4 billion on Air Force Base solar panels, or would you rather have 28 new F-22s or 30 F-25s or modernized C-130s? Would you rather have $64.8 billion spent on pointless global warming efforts or would you rather have more funds put towards modernizing our fleet of ships, aircraft and ground vehicles to improve the safety of our troops and help defend our nation against the legitimate threats that we face?” (Sen. James Inhofe as quoted by Caroline May)

Yet we spend billions to needlessly restructure military bases into global environmentalism compliance. It is more important for our executive branch to “sustain” the so-called endangered environment, and please the environmentalist wackos, than to defend our country.