RE: [CPEO-MEF] Friendly Fire Ain't

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

The following response was posted by Charles Douglas
<caseyjones9@hotmail.com>
________________________________________________________________

This posting is in response to Mr. Boyd’s 23 Apr 02 posting which was in
response to a prior
posting I made about a third, anonymous posting whether military
training suffers due to
environmental concerns. (whew!)

Mr. Boyd’s rebuttal to my posting makes the statement that “[T]he
realism should come from
what happened in the real world.”  That’s my whole point; that's why the
military should use real
ammunition/bombs in a realistic environment when training.  Real world
realism.  Otherwise, Mr.
Boyd’s statement could be interpreted as saying that the only way to get
real world realism is
to fight a war.  I sincerely doubt he means we should go to war just for
training.

If I read Mr. Boyd correctly, he’s saying war sucks.  I agree, war
REALLY sucks.  And I don’t
know anyone, military or civilian, who doesn’t agree with that.  But the
idea that war can be
forever banned in the world, although is a wonderful ideal, is simply
not realistic.  Wars will
occur.  Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines won’t be the ones who
make the decision to
go to war, but they are the ones that will have to do the fighting.
Therefore, it is my opinion and
desire to give our military forces every possible advantage in their
readiness to fight a war.

Now, I am not a lawyer, but I did read the RRPI legislative language
(not an easy task) and did
not find where it can be read to say that DoD will run roughshod over
the environment should
RRPI be passed.  It appears to be requesting fairly narrow
clarifications to the various
environmental laws regarding operational ranges and training
activities.  Nowhere does it say
that DoD won’t continue to be responsible for contamination it causes
off its facilities.  No
where does it even try to modify the CWA or the SDWA which means it will
always be
responsible to address violations it causes under those acts, including
on active ranges and
training areas.

Now, bringing the debate back to my original posting regarding realistic
training for our military
forces, I’m simply saying that it is important that the military train
the way it fights.  I didn’t
intend to start a debate about traffic, or the technology of GPS, or
France’s trade, or the
vulnerability of petroleum or electrical distribution systems to
terrorism, or spotted owls, or even
the morality of war.

With full respect for everyone’s opinions, and our right to openly
disagree

Charles “Jeff” Douglas

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~