Warfare, Climate & USA
It's not only greenhouse gas emissions:
Washington's new world order weapons
have
the ability to trigger climate change
By Michael Chossudovsky
Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa and TFF
associate, author of The Globalization of Poverty,
second
edition, Common Courage Press
The important debate on global warming under UN
auspices provides but a partial picture of climate
change;
in addition to the devastating impacts of greenhouse
gas
emissions on the ozone layer, the World's climate can
now be
modified as part of a new generation of sophisticated
"non-lethal weapons." Both the Americans
and the Russians
have developed capabilities to manipulate the World's
climate.
In the US, the technology is being perfected under
the
High-frequency Active Aural Research Program (HAARP)
as part
of the ("Star Wars") Strategic Defence
Initiative (SDI).
Recent scientific evidence suggests that HAARP is
fully
operational and has the ability of potentially
triggering
floods, droughts, hurricanes and earthquakes.
HAARP is a mass destructive weapons
- not part of any negotiations
From a military standpoint, HAARP is a weapon of mass
destruction. Potentially, it constitutes an
instrument of
conquest capable of selectively destabilising
agricultural
and ecological systems of entire regions.
While there is no evidence that this deadly
technology
has been used, surely the United Nations should be
addressing the issue of "environmental
warfare" alongside
the debate on the climatic impacts of greenhouse
gases.
Despite a vast body of scientific knowledge, the
issue of
deliberate climatic manipulations for military use
has never
been explicitly part of the UN agenda on climate
change.
Neither the official delegations nor the
environmental
action groups participating in the Hague Conference
on
Climate Change (CO6) (November 2000) have raised the
broad
issue of "weather warfare" or
"environmental modification
techniques (ENMOD)" as relevant to an
understanding of
climate change.
The clash between official negotiators,
environmentalists
and American business lobbies has centered on
Washington's
outright refusal to abide by commitments on carbon
dioxide
reduction targets under the 1997 Kyoto protocol.(1)
The
impacts of military technologies on the World's
climate are
not an object of discussion or concern. Narrowly
confined to
greenhouse gases, the ongoing debate on climate
change
serves Washington's strategic and defense objectives.
"Weather warfare"
World renowned scientist Dr. Rosalie Bertell
confirms that "US military scientists are
working on
weather systems as a potential weapon. The methods
include
the enhancing of storms and the diverting of vapor
rivers in
the Earth's atmosphere to produce targeted droughts
or
floods."(2)
Already in the 1970s, former National Security
advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski had foreseen in his book
"Between Two Ages" that:
"Technology will make available, to the leaders
of major
nations, techniques for conducting secret warfare, of
which
only a bare minimum of the security forces need be
appraised... Techniques of weather modification
could be employed to produce prolonged periods of
drought or
storm. "
Marc Filterman, a former French military officer,
outlines several types of "unconventional
weapons" using
radio frequencies. He refers to "weather
war," indicating
that the U.S. and the Soviet Union had already
"mastered the
know-how needed to unleash sudden climate changes
(hurricanes, drought) in the early 1980s." (3)
These
technologies make it "possible to trigger
atmospheric
disturbances by using Extremely Low Frequency (ELF)
radar
[waves]." (4)
A simulation study of future defense
"scenarios"
commissioned for the US Air Force calls for: "US
aerospace
forces to 'own the weather' by capitalizing on
emerging
technologies and focusing development of those
technologies
to war-fighting applications." From enhancing
friendly
operations or disrupting those of the enemy via
small-scale
tailoring of natural weather patterns to complete
dominance
of global communications and counterspace control,
weather-modification offers the war fighter a
wide-range of
possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary. In
the
United States, weather-modification will likely
become a
part of national security policy with both domestic
and
international applications. Our government will
pursue such
a policy, depending on its interests, at various
levels. (5)
The high-frequency active aural
research program -
HAARP
The High-Frequency Active Aural Research Program (HAARP)
based in Gokoma Alaska --jointly managed by the US
Air Force
and the US Navy-- is part of a new generation of
sophisticated weaponry under the US Strategic Defense
Initiative (SDI). Operated by the Air Force Research
Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate, HAARP
constitutes a
system of powerful antennas capable of creating
"controlled
local modifications of the ionosphere".
Scientist Dr. Nicholas Begich --actively involved
in the public campaign against HAARP-- describes
HAARP as:
"A super-powerful radiowave-beaming technology
that lifts
areas of the ionosphere (upper layer of the
atmosphere) by focusing a beam and heating those
areas.
Electromagnetic waves then bounce back onto earth and
penetrate everything -- living and dead." (6)
Dr. Rosalie Bertell depicts HAARP as "a gigantic
heater that can cause major disruption in the
ionosphere,
creating not just holes, but long incisions in the
protective layer that keeps deadly radiation from
bombarding
the planet." (7)
Misleading public opinion
HAARP has been presented to public opinion as a
program
of scientific and academic research. US military
documents
seem to suggest, however, that HAARP's main objective
is to
"exploit the ionosphere for Department of
Defense purposes."
(8) Without explicitly referring to the HAARP
program, a US
Air Force study points to the use of "induced
ionospheric
modifications" as a means of altering weather
patterns as
well as disrupting enemy communications and radar.(9)
According to Dr. Rosalie Bertell, HAARP is part of
a integrated weapons' system, which has potentially
devastating environmental consequences: "It is
related to
fifty years of intensive and increasingly destructive
programs to understand and control the upper
atmosphere. It
would be rash not to associate HAARP with the space
laboratory construction which is separately being
planned by
the United States. HAARP is an integral part of a
long
history of space research and development of a
deliberate
military nature.
The military implications of combining these projects
is
alarming. The ability of the HAARP / Spacelab/ rocket
combination to deliver very large amount of energy,
comparable to a nuclear bomb, anywhere on earth via
laser
and particle beams, are frightening. The project is
likely
to be "sold" to the public as a space
shield against
incoming weapons, or, for the more gullible, a device
for
repairing the ozone layer. (10)
In addition to weather manipulation, HAARP has a
number
of related uses: "HAARP could contribute to
climate change
by intensively bombarding the atmosphere with
high-frequency
rays. Returning low-frequency waves at high intensity
could
also affect people's brains, and effects on tectonic
movements cannot be ruled out. (11).
More generally, HAARP has the ability of modifying
the
World's electro-magnetic field. It is part of an
arsenal of
"electronic weapons" which US military
researchers consider
a "gentler and kinder warfare". (12)
Weapons of the new world order
HAARP is part of the weapons arsenal of the New World
Order under the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).
From
military command points in the US, entire national
economies
could potentially be destabilized through climatic
manipulations. More importantly, the latter can be
implemented without the knowledge of the enemy, at
minimal
cost and without engaging military personnel and
equipment
as in a conventional war. The use of HAARP -- if it
were to
be applied-- could have potentially devastating
impacts on
the World's climate.
Responding to US economic and strategic interests, it
could be used to selectively modify climate in
different
parts of the World resulting in the destabilization
of
agricultural and ecological systems. It is also worth
noting
that the US Department of Defense has allocated
substantial
resources to the development of intelligence and
monitoring
systems on weather changes. NASA and the Department
of
Defense's National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)
are
working on "imagery for studies of flooding,
erosion,
land-slide hazards, earthquakes, ecological zones,
weather
forecasts, and climate change" with data relayed
from
satellites. (13) POLICY INERTIA OF THE UNITED NATIONS
According to the Framework Convention on Climate
Change
(UNFCCC) signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de
Janeiro:
"States have, in accordance with the Charter of
the
United Nations and the principles of international
law, the
responsibility to ensure that activities within their
jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the
environment of other States or of areas beyond the
limits of
national jurisdiction." (14). It is also worth
recalling
that an international Convention ratified by the UN
General
Assembly in 1997 bans "military or other hostile
use of
environmental modification techniques having
widespread,
long-lasting or severe effects." (15) Both the
US and the
Soviet Union were signatories to the Convention. The
Convention defines "environmental modification
techniques"
as referring to any technique for changing--through
the
deliberate manipulation of natural processes--the
dynamics,
composition or structure of the earth, including its
biota,
lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere or of outer
space."
(16) Why then did the UN --disregarding the 1977
ENMOD
Convention as well as its own charter-- decide to
exclude
from its agenda climatic changes resulting from
military
programs?
European Parliament acknowledges
impact of HAARP
In February 1998, responding to a report of Mrs. Maj
Britt Theorin --Swedish MEP and longtime peace
advocate--,
the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign
Affairs,
Security and Defense Policy held public hearings in
Brussels
on the HAARP program.(17) The Committee's
"Motion for
Resolution" submitted to the European
Parliament: "Considers
HAARP by virtue of its far-reaching impact on the
environment to be a global concern and calls for its
legal,
ecological and ethical implications to be examined by
an
international independent body; [the Committee]
regrets the repeated refusal of the United States
Administration to give evidence to the public hearing
into
the environmental and public risks [of] the HAARP
program." (18.)
The Committee's request to draw up a "Green
Paper" on
"the environmental impacts of military
activities", however,
was casually dismissed on the grounds that the
European
Commission lacks the required jurisdiction to delve
into
"the links between environment and
defense". (19) Brussels
was anxious to avoid a showdown with Washington.
Fully operational
While there is no concrete evidence of HAARP having
been
used, scientific findings suggest that it is at
present
fully operational. What this means is that HAARP
could
potentially be applied by the US military to
selectively
modify the climate of an "unfriendly
nation" or "rogue
state" with a view to destabilizing its national
economy.
Agricultural systems in both developed and developing
countries are already in crisis as a result of New
World
Order policies including market deregulation,
commodity
dumping, etc. Amply documented, IMF and World Bank
"economic
medicine" imposed on the Third World and the
countries of
the former Soviet block has largely contributed to
the
destabilization of domestic agriculture. In turn, the
provisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have
supported the interests of a handful of Western agri-biotech
conglomerates in their quest to impose genetically
modified
(GMO) seeds on farmers throughout the World.
It is important to understand the linkage between the
economic, strategic and military processes of the New
World
Order. In the above context, climatic manipulations
under
the HAARP program (whether accidental or deliberate)
would
inevitably exacerbate these changes by weakening
national
economies, destroying infrastructure and potentially
triggering the bankruptcy of farmers over vast areas.
Surely
national governments and the United Nations should
address
the possible consequences of HAARP and other
"non-lethal
weapons" on climate change.
NOTES
1. The latter calls for nations to reduce greenhouse
gas
emissions by an average of 5.2 percent to become
effective
between 2008 and 2012. See Background of Kyoto
Protocol at
http://www.globalwarming.net/gw11.html.
2. The Times, London, 23 November 2000.
3. Intelligence Newsletter, December 16, 1999.
4. Ibid.
5. Air University of the US Air Force, AF 2025 Final
Report, http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/
(emphasis added).
6. Nicholas Begich and Jeane Manning, The Military's
Pandora's Box, Earthpulse Press,
http://www.xyz.net/~nohaarp/earthlight.html.
See also the
HAARP home page at http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/).
7. See Briarpatch, January, 2000. (emphasis added).
8. Quoted in Begich and Manning, op cit.
9. Air University, op cit.
10. Rosalie Bertell, Background of the HAARP Program,
5
November, 1996,
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/envronmt/weapons.htm
11. Begich and Manning, op cit.
12. Don Herskovitz, Killing Them Softly, Journal of
Electronic Defense, August 1993. (emphasis added).
According
to Herskovitz, "electronic warfare" is
defined by the US
Department of Defense as "military action
involving the use
of electromagnetic energy." The Journal of
Electronic
Defense at http://www.jedefense.com/
has published a range
of articles on the application of electronic and
electromagnetic military technologies.
13. Military Space, 6 December, 1999.
14. UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, New
York,
1992. See complete text at
http://www.unfccc.de/resource/conv/conv_002.html,
(emphasis
added).
15. See Associated Press, 18 May 1977.
16. Environmental Modification Ban Faithfully
Observed,
States Parties Declare, UN Chronicle, July, 1984,
Vol. 21,
p. 27.
17. European Report, 7 February 1998.
18. European Parliament, Committee on Foreign
Affairs,
Security and Defense Policy, Brussels, doc. no.
A4-0005/99,
14 January 1999.
19. EU Lacks Jurisdiction to Trace Links Between
Environment and Defense, European Report, 3 February
1999.
Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, Ottawa, November,
2000. All
rights reserved.
Permission is granted to post this text on
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intact
and the copyright note is displayed. To publish this
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chossudovsky@videotron.ca,
fax: 1-514-4256224.
Michel Chossudovsky
Department of Economics, University of Ottawa,
Ottawa,
K1N6N5
Voice box: 1-613-562-5800, ext. 1415,
Fax: 1-514-425-6224
E-Mail: chossudovsky@videotron.ca;
(altern. E-mail:
chossudovsky@sprint.ca)