America’s military jumps ship…

If there’s one thing that Republicans love it’s the issue of National Security, they go nuts for it. Guns, guns and more guns! Or was that drill, baby drill? It’s ironic that Bush one of the most conservative Republican presidents in history oversaw one of the largest expansion of the federal government ever. The Patriot Act was all in the name of national security and vastly increased the powers of the federal government, allowing them to poke their noses into anyone’s business despite infringing upon certain civil liberties guaranteed by the constitution. It’s funny how both sides are willing to dismiss parts of the constitution while trying to rigorously uphold other sections of it. Of course the constitution was written in a different era and certain sections *cough, gun control, cough* are ridiculously out of date.

Converse to this, the Democrats have always been firmly within the environmental camp. Roosevelt, America’s greatest president and also a Democrat I hasten to add was a prolific and passionate conservationist. During his presidency he created the majority of America’s national parks. It now appears that a large section of the military, who are usually firmly within the GOP camp, have jumped ship and placed themselves with the environmental lobby. In a recent report, a group of highly respected retired generals and admirals have stated that global climate change is rapidly becoming one of the biggest threats to the stability of American national security.

The report states that climate change is becoming an increasingly detrimental factor to stability of nations across the globe. Instability often leads to military conflicts and environmental factors such as drought, changing weather patterns and food shortages increase the unstableness of poorer and less developed nations. Even larger richer nations can suffer from natural disasters caused by climate change, hurricane Katrina is a clear example of how quickly the mighty can fall.

The generals summarise their position and assert that it is vital for the DoD and for national security that America expand their greener domestic energy policy in an effort to reduce their dependency on foreign countries who may fall victim to climate change and instability. The generals assert that by reducing their dependency on foreign energy they can effectively kill two birds with one stone. By cutting carbon emissions they will halt the tide of global warming and therefore increase stability across the world whilst increasing their own nation security by becoming less dependent on others.

If any American institution has the ability to make sweeping changes regarding domestic policy then it’s definitely the military. Go Uncle Sam, go greens and dag’ nammit go Democrats.