Pentagon Back to Tried and True PR Tactic – Greenwashing

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The Pentagon public relations and propaganda machine is at it again. Working overtime to convince pundits and citizens of the benevolence of its โ€œdemocracy spreadingโ€ missions abroad, ย some notables have drank the kool-aid.ย 

In a recent article titled, โ€œThe militaryโ€™s historic embrace of smart energy,โ€ Grist‘s David Roberts wrote,ย 

The U.S. military’s embrace of energy efficiency and renewable energy is going to be one of the great stories of the coming decade. It will be a story about technology, the changing face of warfare, geopolitics in the 21st century, and the struggle to change one of the world’s largest bureaucraciesโ€ฆFor decades, the lines of warfare on climate change and clean energy have been drearily familiar and amazingly resistant to change. If it follows through on its promises, the Department of Defense โ€“ the largest consumer of oil and electricity in America โ€“ has the potential to change allย that.

Furthermore, in March 2010, the Center for American Progress penned a holistic report titled, โ€œItโ€™s Easy Being Green: The Pentagon Goes Green One Wedge at a Time.โ€

While a nice and hopeful sentiment, this flies in the face of both history, as well as present day reality of the Pentagon’s activities abroad. A review, then, is inย order.

โ€‹Hampshire College Professor Michael Klare: โ€œBlood forย Oilโ€

We wrote in a recentย DeSmogBlog article regarding former Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell’s recent hire as spokesman for BP America, a transition that will probably be quite smooth forย him.

Titled โ€œSeamless Transition: Pentagon Spokesman Geoff Morrell Moves to BP America,โ€ the article covered the crux of American foreign policy dating back to the Cold War Era โ€“ย what Hampshire College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies, Michaelย Klare, calls a foreign policy of โ€œBlood for Oil,โ€ which was outlined in full as suchย vis-a-visย the 1980 โ€œCarter Doctrine,โ€ presented as part of Presidentย Jimmy Carter‘s 1980 State of the Union Address. In that address, he statedย (emphasesย mine),

Let our position be absolutely clear: Anย attemptย by anyย outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf regionย will beย regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such anย assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.

The Carter Doctrine made it clear that domination over the procurement of the resources of the Persian Gulf (a.k.a. oil) was a national security issue for the United States, and thus, an issue largely in the hands of theย Pentagon.

The article is worth revisiting in light of the new Pentagon talks about โ€œgoingย green.โ€

The Fossil Fuel Industry’s Role in โ€œFuelingโ€ the Pentagon’s Adventuresย Abroad

โ€‹An important June 2010 article written by Alternet and Tom’s Dispatch‘s Nick Turse covered the intricate bond between the Pentagon and fossil fuel conglomerates as it pertains to fuelingย contracts.

The takeaway from the article? No fueling contracts, no โ€œfuelingโ€ of aggressive military adventures around the globe, no 1,180 military bases dotting nearly every crevice of theย planet.

In that June 2010 article, Turseย wrote (emphasesย mine),

โ€‹Inย 2009, according to the Pentagonโ€™sย Defense Energy Support Center (DESC),ย the military spent $3.8 billion for 31.3 million barrelsย โ€“ย around 1.3 billion gallons โ€“ of oil consumed at posts, camps, and bases overseas. Moreover,ย DESCโ€™sย bulk-fuels division,ย which purchases jet fuel and naval diesel fuel among other petroleum products, awarded $2.2 billion in contracts to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan last year. Another $974 million was reportedly spent by the ground-fuels division,ย which awards contracts for diesel fuel, gasoline, and heating oil for ground operations, just for the war in Afghanistan inย 2009.

(Snip)

In 2009, according to the Defense Energy Support Center, the military awarded $22.5 billion in energy contracts. More than $16 billion of that went to purchasing bulk fuel.ย Some 10 top petroleum suppliers got the lionโ€™s share, more than $11.5 billion, among them big names like Shell, Exxon Mobil and Valero.ย The largest contractor, however,ย was BP,ย which received more than $2.2 billion โ€“ almost 12% of all petroleum-contract dollars awarded by the Pentagon for theย year.

โ€œGoing greenโ€? More like greenwashing.

โ€‹The Pentagon Public Relations Machine andย Greenwashing

For the Pentagon, greenwashingย serves as a conquer-and-divide tactic for itsย public relations machine. It utilizes this tactic to prevent people from connecting the dots between foreign policy and environmentalย policy.ย 

Back in May, Salonโ€‹ contributor David Sirota wrote a sound critique of this new push in a piece titled, โ€œThe Pentagon’s attempt to greenwash the military.โ€ Heย wrote,ย 

The fastest, most immediate and most efficient way for the Pentagon to mitigate the environmental crises that come from energy consumption is to simply move America away from its energy-draining policy of permanentย war.

This revelation โ€“ and the fact that few military leaders are talking about it โ€“ shows why this really is greenwashing in the purest sense of that marketingย term.

In an interview, former Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy, John Stauber,ย said,

It is obscene for anyone to laud the military for being green. The US military possesses thousands of nuclear bombs and prides itself on obeying any order to use them. It is stupid to greenwash history’s most lethal and destructiveย organization.

Image from Jirsak / Shutterstock

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Steve Horn is the owner of the consultancy Horn Communications & Research Services, which provides public relations, content writing, and investigative research work products to a wide range of nonprofit and for-profit clients across the world. He is an investigative reporter on the climate beat for over a decade and former Research Fellow for DeSmog.

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