As I read this article and seethed at the factual innacuracies and childish innuendo I suspected that it was the same old rubbish dredged up in the 1980s and lo and behold I was right. Shoalwater Bay is a magnificent example of untouchedand pristine ecosystem because the military has controlled that land for so long keeping meddling do-gooders, like the author, out of the area.

Huge buffer zones surround the minimal impact areas used for military ordnance and when the area is not being used for military exercises the only people allowed onsite are the botanists and archeologists recording flora, fauna and significant indigenous sites, aided of course by the locals. Significant indigenous sites are considered so important that they are not even marked on maps used by the military to avoid sticky-beaks going into areas that are best left untouched.

The same management by exclusion applies to other significant military training areas in the country's north and west. It is because of the military's management, their environmental officers (yes the defence organisation does employ environmental scientists) and the tenure that they hold over large and significant tracts of land that we are even able to have these arguments now. Many countries can't.

The author needs to concentrate on treating warts and swine flu and leave environmental management to the people who have looked after the environment since Federation.

Yes, the reality is that war does have a huge impact on the natural environment, if not globally, at least locally. And this impact tends to be ignored on reporting of war stories.
Our politicians also ignore the reality that 'economic stimulus packages' will also have an environmental impact.
www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog

It is a little hard to believe that this exercise will leave no footprint, and it is hoped that the Defence Department will be called upon to prove that no damage will be done, or any done will be repaired.

In the meantime, however, I will not be taking anything Sue Wareham says seriously. She is a serial green alarmist, as her previous articles prove, and she has a big problem with anything military, as her article before this one proves.

Wareham’s ‘carbon footprint of the exercises…’ is absurd. It is one thing to care about possible destruction of flora a fauna, but linking the carbon mania to military exercises which are vital for our defence capability is bordering on the lunatic. Dr. Wareham and her like will say anything in defence of their green pagan religion; even against the ADF and other organisations protecting their rights to make the ludicrous charges that they do.

These people would probably protest against any defence of Australia from an aggressor because of the ‘carbon footprint’!

This article has to be seen as the product of extremist and dangerous thinking. Fortunately, even our current government is unlikely to take any notice of such bizarre prattle

"I'm sorry, Mr. Churchill, and General Eisenhower, but do you realise the damage that this proposed "Operation Overlord" will do to the precious dune ecosystems of Normandy? I'm afraid we really can't allow it.

In fact gentlemen, you would do well to listen to what Mr. Hitler has to say about protecting the environment: he even sponsors organic farming! Isn't that nice for the planet?"

The Australian Defence Forces need to train for events such as East Timor, humanitarian aid such as given to Ache or any UN peace keeping work (Rwanda, Middle East etc)
Yes it uses fuel and it causes some damage but that is the cost of being prepared.
The argument could well be extend to all emergency services were real life training is so important.
Rural Fire Services practice their training by having large prescribed burns.
Dr Wareham would stop that as well I suppose.
In fact the ADF has invested considerable resources into providing simulator training to reduce fuel costs and wear and tear on ADF assets.
The world has many ugly people who are happy to hurt others.
We have defence forces to prevent those situations.
Dr Wareham would have us unprepared and vulnerable.
Can you imagine going under the knife of a surgeon who has never practiced procedures!

I’ve got to agree with the general trend of the comments so far.

The ADF is very good at conservation on their land, compared to how that land would have been degraded if it wasn’t defence land. Of course there are some areas of high impact…and large areas of no impact.

While I’m not sure just how well something like Talisman Sabre helps prepare our defence forces and strengthens relations with allies, it is clear that they need a great deal of training and that international relations are extremely important. Maybe they could do it more frugally, I don’t know.

Maybe some of the money would be much better spent on developing renewable energies and directing our society towards sustainability. The threat to social coherence from rapidly rising fuel prices and the continuation of our grossly unsustainable practices is in my opinion considerably greater than any military threat that might develop in the next decade.

But of course it is prudent to have a strong military preparedness, and deterrence factor and against aggression.

It’s a difficult balance.

Basically I think that Sue Wareham is missing the mark with this article and would do a lot better to put her energies into addressing the threat to our social fabric and hence the quality of life and health of the people of this county, that is being imposed upon us by grossly unsustainable rapid population growth and very high per-capita profligacy, and the worship of a continuous-expansion economic model.

The physical damage and oil consumption / CO2 production of our armed forces is extremely minor compared to this.

I didn't hold out much hope of an intelligent post or two popping up here, but this condescension-fest from the usual bunch of hawks have exceeded expectations.

Isn't it nice to have centuries of boys-own conditioning about the glories of war and the nobility of the military to fall back on, rather than actually attempt to change a mindset or two about whether all these hideously expensive and destructive paranoia games are really needed?

I guess we have to have somewhere to try out all those lovely shiny toys our military buyers were seduced into purchasing at the latest arms fair with the multi-billion dollar budgets entrusted to them from the public purse. And I suppose we have to do something to justify their gun-metal shopaholism.

And I suppose that if there weren't any bad guys beyond the horizon wanting to annihilate us with their weapons of mass destruction, we'd just have to invent them.

Oh, wait a minute ... we already have.

SJF, do you place any value at all in us having at least a half-reasonable defence capability?

Could you possibly see that for all the war-like bravado being exhibited at Talisman Sabre, the main motivation is to prevent war from coming our way? That is, to show a strong deterrence factor to any would-be aggressors.

I don’t like the enormous expense involved with this military exercise and I can’t help wondering whether our defence capability couldn’t be maintained at its best state of preparedness without something like this or something of the scale of this operation. But ultimately, we’d be making a grave mistake if we were to allow our defence capability to dwindle.

The reason we practice our skills at how to make war, is so that in the event of needing them, we will have experienced people to train the rest of us.

Would you prefer the skills to be completely lost? Do you think running a defence force is a trivial skill that can be picked up overnight when needed?

If we are threatened and attacked at short notice, how should we build up those skills again, get a government tender put out - e.g. RFT: Build up a defence force and get it on a war footing within 6 weeks.

I can imagine if someone like Mosman Council made the lowest bid and was awarded it, or Fred's Video shop, we won't even have the skills to define what a military should look like or what it should do.

We have an all but ineffectual defence force now, it is probably at a bare minimum to retain the skills required for a military force, which can prosecute an activity without everyone being killed through mistakes and lack of procedures.

The world is strewn with the relics of war, but really it is such a tiny percentage of territory affected it is irrelevant. What are you doing about it all, beside pontificating and insisting someone else do something?

I have no problem letting a small piece of Australia be used so we can retain a proud and necessary skill. I am happy for it to be completely and irrevocably destroyed for all time, if that keeps our country safe.

It's an easy target to pick on a government funded defence force, lots of finger wagging and sneering available isn't there. We don't have nukes, though some think we should, if that's your problem. The last mob that needed to be nuked have not shown their heads above the parapet again, so effective is the deterrent.

There are lots of opinions on this, that's mine.

Women & pro-immigration, baby-bonusing, BIG marketplace, big-business interests make the ARMIES that degrade our land, rivers and biodiversity. All in the name of 'infinite economic growth' on a 'finite maternity-ward' planet.

While greed and media-incited-overpopulation stupidity rules, WAR and the newly bred & trained killers that fight them will be needed alright. It's POWER.

There's a reason POWER is the greatest aphrodisiac.

You see that's nature's way. The way of extermination of species that fail to ADAPT to the extant THERMODYNAMIC regime which supports a particular biological living-pyramid (organic chemistry) at any geological ERA.

Only adaptive INTELLIGENCE can circumvent that extermination,in the ultimate game, POWER, ownership-by-media, at the top of the planet's living-pyramid.

But where does the blame really lie, and it lies well:

It takes two to make a baby warrior BUT ONLY ONE to choose to have that future killer of environments and sub-standard, misunderstood or different people.

The prescribed formula for POWER right now, as its always been, is:

Equal rights + unrestricted reproductive rights for women = WAR.

Its no secret why women have only just been emancipated, again,for the n'th time, in a historical sense: new generations forget the lessons of the past.

The message is clear for anyone interested in pure truth and not their own personal prospects for pleasure through POWER:

You don't have to have children to make love & you don't have to make love to have an orgasm. But you do have to have children to DOMINATE, to make armies,WAR, environmental destruction & ultimately the extermination of our species.

In the end, continual economic growth, through a thinly-veiled executive order to BREED, is just THE idol, the GLODEN CALF, the Miley Cyrus, to be worshipped in the new Soddom & Gommorah.

And if you can escape the vicious cylcle of women's rights and growing armies ....

DON"T EVER LOOK BACK!

Ludwig

‘Could you possibly see that for all the war-like bravado being exhibited at Talisman Sabre, the main motivation is to prevent war from coming our way?’

Yes, but that motivation is misguided.

Look at Costa Rica – which has had no military since 1949, before which it suffered the conveyor belt of military coups common to Latin America. Since 1949, it has enjoyed a political stability that is rare in those parts and it hasn’t been invaded by any of its neighbours, despite its ‘vulnerability’.

And look at New Zealand. Over 20 years ago it was booted out of ANZUS for refusing to cooperate with US nuclear aims. Since then, it has saved hundreds of billions of dollars in unnecessary ANZUS-related military spending. Yet its political standing in the world has remained unchanged – and no one has invaded it yet.

In over 220 years, we’ve had only one possibility of an invasion but 1000s of major natural disasters bringing major loss of life. Yet, what do we do? We throw billions of wasted dollars at the military, while forcing our emergency services to operate on volunteer labour and to beg cap-in-hand for funding. It should be the other way round.

Odo

‘The reason we practice our skills [is to learn] how to make war … Would you prefer the skills to be completely lost?’

The trouble with that theory is that all this ‘war training’ is not about war. It’s about keeping up to date with war technology that is being deliberately rendered obsolete by new war technology. By the time those ‘skills’ are learned, they’re already out of date.

KAEP

‘Equal rights + unrestricted reproductive rights for women = WAR.’

It’s the other way round. Militaristic societies glorify masculinity and reduce the role of women to mothers of future warriors. Thus they restrict women’s freedom and strive to bring women’s reproduction under state control. Abortion and birth control was once widely practiced in the West, but at the height of European miltarism in the late 19th century, abortion was criminalized and birth control heavily restricted.

During 2003, and the bombing of Lancelin in WA for target practice by the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and her battle group, visiting physicist, Dr Rokke, the former director of the Pentagon’s Depleted Uranium project said “it was laughable that the Australian Government and the Australian people allowed a foreign power to contaminate the West Australian coastline through bombardment and weapons testings..

“The US military is in total environmental violation of environmental law in the US and they don’t have to comply with any of your laws,” he said.

The Department of Defence announced that the US would carry out its bombardment of Lancelin July 6-8 and 15-16, 2003 and stated that “No depleted uranium would be used during the training.”

Dr Rokke said while he had no proof of the use of the DU munitions at the training facility it was “100 per cent likely” that the US had used the facility to test DU munitions.

“They said they weren’t using DU weapons in the US and then Congressman Jim McDermott in Seattle Washington found out they were.”

High levels of bombing residues, include toxic heavy metals such as arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, nickel, tin, and vanadium and have been found in soil samples taken from bombing ranges.

The very hazardous ammonium perchlorate is widely used throughout the aerospace, munitions, and pyrotechnics industries as a primary ingredient in solid rocket and missile propellants and explosive charges. It is a component of more than 350 types of munitions, according to the US Department of Defence.

Given America’s track record with overseas military bases, where these operations have caused environmental and human carnage in foreign lands, I would not be welcoming the US to use Australia as cannon fodder.

Thirty thousand military personnel on Shoalwater Bay, playing war games, is an environmental catastrophe in the making – albeit an insidious one for now.

As Dr Rokke advised: “What you have got to understand is that the US doesn’t care. Australia is so low on the totem pole that you people just don’t matter.”

Good points SJF.

Wouldn’t it be great to know just what the threat might be to our nation from aggressors? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have confidence that Australia should follow the Cost Rican example? But we just can’t.

I feel that Oz is a whole lot more vulnerable to attempted takeover than little Costa Rica or Kiwiland…or maybe they will all be highly vulnerable in the coming years of heightened population pressures, desperation and aggression.

So as much as I’d love to condone the dissolution or major windback of our military, so that the resultant enormous free-up of funds could be better spent, I just can’t.

We’ve got to retain a significant military presence, even if it would be ineffectual in the event of an Indonesian or Chinese full-frontal attack. And of course we’ve got to remain in the good books with the big ol’ US of A so that they’ll help us out if we really need it.

But surely we could make our military more civilly useful, so that rather than expending huge sums of money…and oil…on war games, they can gain experience and do some useful civil activity at the same time. Just how this might happen, I’m not sure at the moment. But it’s surely got to have potential.

Pollution from military bases is a world-wide phenomenon.

"The U.S. Department of Defense is the largest polluter in the world, producing more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined."

Even the most cursory check on the Internet will show the disturbing outcomes in the Phillipines, Panama, Iceland and Okinawa (just to name a few).

The cleanup budget is less than 1% of the total miltary budget and they usually just walk away and leave the mess for others to deal with.

Some of the results are somewhat disturbing.

Perchlorate for example - a rocket fuel component - shows up in womens breast milk, lettuce crops and groundwater, great distances from military bases. This stuff causes mental retardation, loss of hearing and speech and motor skill problems.

Now with the growing incidence of depleted uranium weapons (as tested in Northern Queenland recently) there are new horrors to be faced by future generations.

It seems that they may be killing us in order to protect us.

Depleted Uranium in Queensland? - A very interesting film.

http://www.bsharp.net.au/htm/the-film.htm

I live in Yeppoon, I have only one question. These so called protesters say that they are not anti American and yet when the Singaporians are here doing the exact same thing they are no where to be seen.

Nigel of jerrabombarra says

"The author needs to concentrate on treating warts and swine flu and leave environmental management to the people who have looked after the environment since Federation."

Nigel, can you be more precise?
Can you kindly name these people who have been doing environmental management and looking after the environment since Federation?