Bush declares Whales a threat to National Security!

babylon5

Golden Member
Dec 11, 2000
1,363
1
0
Aquaman has been sighted heading toward USA.




Bush sides with Navy in sonar battle

He cites national security in aiming to override a judge's injunction issued to protect marine mammals off California. An environmental group promises to fight his move.

By Kenneth R. Weiss
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer


Declaring them "essential to national security," President Bush exempted the Navy's upcoming training missions in Southern California waters from environmental laws that prompted court-ordered restrictions on using sonar linked to injuries of whales and dolphins.

The administrative maneuvers by the White House, released today while Bush was traveling in the Middle East, are designed to override a federal court order that restricts the Navy from using mid-frequency active sonar within 12 miles of the coast and shutting down the powerful submarine-detection device when marine mammals come within 2,200 yards.

"This exemption will enable the Navy to train effectively and to certify carrier and expeditionary strike groups for deployment in support of worldwide operational and combat activities, which are essential to national security," according to the memo signed by Bush.

Citing the memo and other documents, a Justice Department lawyer asked that the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeal repeal the restrictions set out in an injunction issued this month by U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper.

Her injunction compromises the Navy's ability to evaluate and certify the Pacific Fleet's strike groups as properly prepared to hunt for quiet diesel electric submarines in active military operations off the coast of Asia and in waters near Iraq and Afghanistan, the Justice Department lawyer, Allen M. Brabender, wrote.

"It therefore profoundly interferes with the Navy's global management of U.S. strategic forces, its ability to conduct warfare operations, and ultimately places the lives of American sailors and Marines at risk," Brabender wrote in an appeal.

"Each day that the injunction remains in force the Navy and national security suffer grievous harm," he wrote, asking that the three-judge appeals court panel lift the injunction by 2 p.m. Friday.

The administrative actions and court filings set up a classic struggle between the administrative and judicial branches of government, in a widely watched case that pits environmental protections against troop readiness and national security.

Peter Douglas, executive director of the California Coastal Commission, said the president had clear authority to exempt the Navy's exercises from the U.S. Coastal Zone Management Act. His action effectively knocks the commission out of the ongoing legal case, which also involves a consortium of conservation groups.

Although Douglas found it "troubling," he said the commission has no way to fight Bush's action -- the first presidential override of the law that since 1972 has given states the right to review federal activities that affect their coastal resources.

But it's less clear if the White House Council on Environmental Quality has the authority to override the requirements in another federal law -- the linchpin of the federal case. Conservation groups persuaded Cooper to issue her injunction based on the National Environmental Policy Act.

"We will vigorously oppose the president's illegal waiver of federal law," said Joel Reynolds, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "This is definitely an attempted end run around the National Environmental Policy Act, the grandfather of our environmental laws."

When asked if the White House has such authority, Reynolds responded, "This is unprecedented, so it is never clear."

The Pentagon tried to short-circuit the same lawsuit last year by exempting the Navy's training exercises from the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

But the lawsuit went forward under the two other laws, leading to Cooper's injunction, which set out the toughest restrictions ever imposed on use of sonar during training missions.

The Navy has conducted five of 14 planned evaluation and certification missions for strike groups in the Southern California Operating Area, a massive range that stretches from the Channel Islands into Baja California and far out to sea.

The Navy asserts that it has 29 separate measures to protect marine mammals from harmful effects of mid-frequency active sonar, which has been linked to panicked behavior of marine mammals in more than a dozen places and mass strandings of dead and dying whales and dolphins in the Bahamas and Canary Islands.

But Cooper, who in her rulings said she tried to balance environmental protections with national security, found that these protections were insufficient. Citing the Navy's own studies, she concluded that upcoming exercises off Southern California "will cause widespread harm to nearly 30 species of marine mammals, including five species of endangered whales and may cause permanent injury and death."

The powerful sonar is used to detect quiet diesel-electric submarines that are operated by about 40 countries, including some hostile ones. The device sends out bursts of sound, which bounce back, essentially lighting up submarines or other underwater structures in a sonic equivalent of a strobe light.


LINK
 

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
62,681
11,026
136
Aayep...them wayles is terrerists! Our good friends in the military-industrial complex (rather than name one particular vendor) NEED this project to go on even if we don't! ANYONE who doesn't support this is un-'murikan and needs a long vacation at our newest luckshury hotel at Ganu...Gaunt...G.w.a.n.t.a.w.n.e.e.m.o <phew...Prezidunt'n is shore hard werk!)
 

palehorse

Lifer
Dec 21, 2005
11,521
0
76
You guys seriously wish to impede Naval war exercises because of possible effects on whales and dolphins?! seriously?!

OK, I love dolphins too, but that's just ridiculous. :roll:

/thread

 

IGBT

Lifer
Jul 16, 2001
17,945
122
106
Originally posted by: palehorse74
You guys seriously wish to impede Naval war exercises because of possible effects on whales and dolphins?! seriously?!

OK, I love dolphins too, but that's just ridiculous. :roll:

/thread


..shure they do. it's part of their green psychosis.
 

LumbergTech

Diamond Member
Sep 15, 2005
3,622
1
0
Originally posted by: IGBT
Originally posted by: palehorse74
You guys seriously wish to impede Naval war exercises because of possible effects on whales and dolphins?! seriously?!

OK, I love dolphins too, but that's just ridiculous. :roll:

/thread


..shure they do. it's part of their green psychosis.

yes, fuck all animals..just blast our way through those little(or big in this case) pieces of shit we have more pressing issues..
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,719
47,408
136
Originally posted by: palehorse74
You guys seriously wish to impede Naval war exercises because of possible effects on whales and dolphins?! seriously?!

OK, I love dolphins too, but that's just ridiculous. :roll:

/thread

I'm guessing nobody here outside of me has actually been in a sonar room on a ship during one of these exercises. Pretty much everything they are trying to do with active pinging is extremely easily simulated on the ship's computers, and what you're practicing in these exercises is almost all procedure anyway. The judge wasn't saying they could never have exercises or anything, just that the safeguards the navy is putting into place (which if you actually look at them are a joke and in practice never really followed anyway) are insufficient.

By the way IGBT, I'm glad to see you're trying to take up the anti-environmental poster mantle. You're obviously just trolling with your stupid whale steak posts, etc. (which I've seen you make almost the exact same post in at least 2 threads now... trust me it wasn't witty or funny in either one) Why not contribute something instead of just spewing out crap?
 

palehorse

Lifer
Dec 21, 2005
11,521
0
76
Originally posted by: LumbergTech
Originally posted by: IGBT
Originally posted by: palehorse74
You guys seriously wish to impede Naval war exercises because of possible effects on whales and dolphins?! seriously?!

OK, I love dolphins too, but that's just ridiculous. :roll:

/thread


..shure they do. it's part of their green psychosis.

yes, fuck all animals..just blast our way through those little(or big in this case) pieces of shit we have more pressing issues..
The Navy wont be "blasting" through any animals sparky -- the Environment whackos simply believe that the Naval sonar systems might have some effect on whales and dolphins -- so we're to halt US Naval operations in the Pacific ocean...?!

umm, ya. sure thing.

Don't you clowns have a tree to name and live in, or something?
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,719
47,408
136
Originally posted by: palehorse74

The Navy wont be "blasting" through any animals sparky -- the Environment whackos simply believe that the Naval sonar systems might have some effect on whales and dolphins -- so we're to halt US Naval operations in the Pacific ocean...?!

umm, ya. sure thing.

Don't you clowns have a tree to name and live in, or something?

Uhmm, you realize that the navy admits freely that sonar can injure and kill whales right? It's not in dispute.
 

Gigantopithecus

Diamond Member
Dec 14, 2004
7,665
0
71
Originally posted by: miketheidiot
i'm sure there is a large threat from that al-qaeda diesel-electric submarine force.

But the weapons needed to fight Al-Qaeda don't make the military industrial complex billions of dollars.
 

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
62,681
11,026
136
Originally posted by: Gigantopithecus
Originally posted by: miketheidiot
i'm sure there is a large threat from that al-qaeda diesel-electric submarine force.

But the weapons needed to fight Al-Qaeda don't make the military industrial complex billions of dollars.

I dunno about that...I'd hazard to guess they've done pretty well with the current clusterfuck in Iraq...
 

Pabster

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
16,987
1
0
Another intellectually dishonest left-wing nut. :roll:

Bush didn't declare whales a threat to national security.

Oh, PrinceofWands, you're a fucking nut. Just saying.
 
Oct 25, 2006
11,036
11
91
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: palehorse74
You guys seriously wish to impede Naval war exercises because of possible effects on whales and dolphins?! seriously?!

OK, I love dolphins too, but that's just ridiculous. :roll:

/thread

I'm guessing nobody here outside of me has actually been in a sonar room on a ship during one of these exercises. Pretty much everything they are trying to do with active pinging is extremely easily simulated on the ship's computers, and what you're practicing in these exercises is almost all procedure anyway. The judge wasn't saying they could never have exercises or anything, just that the safeguards the navy is putting into place (which if you actually look at them are a joke and in practice never really followed anyway) are insufficient.

By the way IGBT, I'm glad to see you're trying to take up the anti-environmental poster mantle. You're obviously just trolling with your stupid whale steak posts, etc. (which I've seen you make almost the exact same post in at least 2 threads now... trust me it wasn't witty or funny in either one) Why not contribute something instead of just spewing out crap?

Simulated Active Pinging != Actual Active Pinging

 

Rainsford

Lifer
Apr 25, 2001
17,515
0
0
Originally posted by: tenshodo13
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: palehorse74
You guys seriously wish to impede Naval war exercises because of possible effects on whales and dolphins?! seriously?!

OK, I love dolphins too, but that's just ridiculous. :roll:

/thread

I'm guessing nobody here outside of me has actually been in a sonar room on a ship during one of these exercises. Pretty much everything they are trying to do with active pinging is extremely easily simulated on the ship's computers, and what you're practicing in these exercises is almost all procedure anyway. The judge wasn't saying they could never have exercises or anything, just that the safeguards the navy is putting into place (which if you actually look at them are a joke and in practice never really followed anyway) are insufficient.

By the way IGBT, I'm glad to see you're trying to take up the anti-environmental poster mantle. You're obviously just trolling with your stupid whale steak posts, etc. (which I've seen you make almost the exact same post in at least 2 threads now... trust me it wasn't witty or funny in either one) Why not contribute something instead of just spewing out crap?

Simulated Active Pinging != Actual Active Pinging

So what? Naval exercises don't involve firing ACTUAL missiles into other ships, but that doesn't seem to be a problem. There is a reason it's called an "exercise", because it's practice...not the real thing. Can you honestly make the argument that real active pinging is in some way a vital and required part of proper Naval exercises.
 

Rainsford

Lifer
Apr 25, 2001
17,515
0
0
Originally posted by: palehorse74
Originally posted by: LumbergTech
Originally posted by: IGBT
Originally posted by: palehorse74
You guys seriously wish to impede Naval war exercises because of possible effects on whales and dolphins?! seriously?!

OK, I love dolphins too, but that's just ridiculous. :roll:

/thread


..shure they do. it's part of their green psychosis.

yes, fuck all animals..just blast our way through those little(or big in this case) pieces of shit we have more pressing issues..
The Navy wont be "blasting" through any animals sparky -- the Environment whackos simply believe that the Naval sonar systems might have some effect on whales and dolphins -- so we're to halt US Naval operations in the Pacific ocean...?!

umm, ya. sure thing.

Don't you clowns have a tree to name and live in, or something?

Yeah, they aren't the only ones acting like "clowns". If the argument against active sonar in exercises is shaky, so is the argument in favor of it. You just state flat out that preventing the use of real active sonar would impede Naval war exercises, but I have yet to see an argument that that's the case.
 

jonks

Lifer
Feb 7, 2005
13,918
20
81
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: palehorse74

The Navy wont be "blasting" through any animals sparky -- the Environment whackos simply believe that the Naval sonar systems might have some effect on whales and dolphins -- so we're to halt US Naval operations in the Pacific ocean...?!

umm, ya. sure thing.

Don't you clowns have a tree to name and live in, or something?

Uhmm, you realize that the navy admits freely that sonar can injure and kill whales right? It's not in dispute.

I've also read our sonar interrups whale song, so that when whales try to find each other around the globe through calls, they can't hear each other. Thus they have a much harder time finding each other, and therefore mate more infrequently, and eventually go extinct.

But I'm more concerned with the president exempting some branch of the military when a federal court has already ruled. I missed where it said the president, any president, had appellate review of federal court decisions.
 

thraashman

Lifer
Apr 10, 2000
11,063
1,464
126
Originally posted by: sirjonk
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: palehorse74

The Navy wont be "blasting" through any animals sparky -- the Environment whackos simply believe that the Naval sonar systems might have some effect on whales and dolphins -- so we're to halt US Naval operations in the Pacific ocean...?!

umm, ya. sure thing.

Don't you clowns have a tree to name and live in, or something?

Uhmm, you realize that the navy admits freely that sonar can injure and kill whales right? It's not in dispute.

I've also read our sonar interrups whale song, so that when whales try to find each other around the globe through calls, they can't hear each other. Thus they have a much harder time finding each other, and therefore mate more infrequently, and eventually go extinct.

But I'm more concerned with the president exempting some branch of the military when a federal court has already ruled. I missed where it said the president, any president, had appellate review of federal court decisions.

You realize this is the same president that ignored a court order to stop illegally wiretapping phones right up until it looked like he was gonna lose again in appeal. I would like it if our current president did not think that the 3 branches of government were Bush, Cheney, and Rice.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
72,333
6,040
126
I remember many years ago hearing an argument that we had to keep nuclear weapons because of all the jobs.

We have to destroy the world because of we don't we can't save it.

I care only about me. Fuck the whales! I must be secure.

Sadly those who don't respect the life on earth aren't worth saving.
 

Fox5

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
5,957
7
81
This reminds me of the morale choices you have to make whenever you colonize a planet in Galactic Civilizations. Considering that the evil choice would probably involved hunting down the whales and either strapping bombs to them to use them as weapons or eating them, I guess this choice ranks as neutral. (which is typically the "Too bad, we're bigger" choice)
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,719
47,408
136
Originally posted by: tenshodo13

Simulated Active Pinging != Actual Active Pinging

I'm going to ask again if you are a sonar tech, know sonar techs, or have been in sonar control during one of these exercises. I have many sonar tech friends, and I have been in there many times during drills and wargame exercises. What I'm trying to say is that people here who are crying about this affecting national security likely have no idea what actually goes on, and what this actually affects. The answer is, not that much... and our ships don't even try to protect the whales, no matter what the navy tries to say. I've been there and I know we don't do shit.
 

Harvey

Administrator<br>Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
35,052
30
86
Originally posted by: palehorse74
You guys seriously wish to impede Naval war exercises because of possible effects on whales and dolphins?! seriously?!

OK, I love dolphins too, but that's just ridiculous. :roll:

A very disappointing post. I'd expect better than a vague and highly inaccurate reference to "possible effects" from you. Here's some more informative and specific info from the National Resources Defense Council:

Protecting Whales from Dangerous Sonar

Following a historic victory, NRDC steps up the campaign at home and abroad to regulate active sonar systems that harm marine mammals.

According to a report by the scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission, one of the world's leading bodies of whale biologists, the evidence linking sonar to a series of whale strandings in recent years is "very convincing and appears overwhelming."
Despite the broad scientific consensus that military active sonar kills whales, the use of this deadly sonar in the world's oceans is spreading.
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Active Sonar: How It Harms Marine Life

Military active sonar works like a floodlight, emitting sound waves that sweep across tens or even hundreds of miles of ocean, revealing objects in their path. But that kind of power requires the use of extremely loud sound. Each loudspeaker in the LFA system's wide array, for example, can generate 215 decibels' worth -- sound as intense as that produced by a twin-engine fighter jet at takeoff. Some mid-frequency sonar systems can put out over 235 decibels, as loud as a Saturn V rocket at launch. Even 100 miles from the LFA system, sound levels can approach 160 decibels, well beyond the Navy's own safety limits for humans.

Evidence of the harm such a barrage of sound can do began to surface in March 2000, when whales of four different species stranded themselves on beaches in the Bahamas after a U.S. Navy battle group used active sonar in the area. Investigators found that the whales were bleeding internally around their brains and ears. Although the Navy initially denied responsibility, the government's investigation established with virtual certainty that the strandings were caused by its use of active sonar. Since the incident, the area's population of Cuvier's beaked whales has all but disappeared, leading researchers to conclude that they either abandoned their habitat or died at sea.

The Bahamas, it turned out, was only the tip of an iceberg. Additional mass strandings and deaths associated with military activities and active sonar have occurred in Madeira (2000), Greece (1996), the U.S. Virgin Islands (1998, 1999), the Canary Islands (1985, 1988, 1989, 2002, 2004), the northwest coast of the United States (2003) and coastal waters off North Carolina (2005). And in July 2004 researchers uncovered an extraordinary concentration of whale strandings near Yokosuka, a major U.S. Navy base off the Pacific coast of Japan. The Navy's active sonar program appears to be responsible for many more whale strandings than had previously been imagined.

How does active sonar harm whales? According to a report in the scientific journal Nature, animals that came ashore during one mass stranding had developed large emboli, or bubbles, in their organ tissue. The report suggested that the animals had suffered from something akin to a severe case of "the bends" -- the illness that can kill scuba divers who surface too quickly from deep water. The study supports what many scientists have long suspected: that the whales stranded on shore are only the most visible symptom of a problem affecting much larger numbers of marine life.

Other impacts, though more subtle, are no less serious. Marine mammals and many species of fish use sound to follow migratory routes, locate each other over great distances, find food and care for their young. Noise that undermines their ability to hear can threaten their ability to function and, over the long term, to survive. Naval sonar has been shown to alter the singing of humpback whales, an activity essential to the reproduction of this endangered species; to disrupt the feeding of orcas; and to cause porpoises and other species to leap from the water, or panic and flee. Over time, these effects could undermine the fitness of populations of animals, contributing to what prominent biologist Sylvia Earle has called "a death of a thousand cuts."

Reining in LFA Sonar

Since 1994, when NRDC began investigating rumors that sound experiments were taking place off the California coast, LFA (Low-frequency Active) sonar has been of particular concern because of the enormous distances traveled by its intense blasts of sound. During testing off the California coast, noise from a single LFA system was detected across the breadth of the North Pacific. By the Navy's own estimates, even 300 miles from the source these sonic waves can retain an intensity of 140 decibels -- still a hundred times more intense than the noise aversion threshold for gray whales. Many scientists believe that blanketing the oceans with such deafening sound could harm entire populations of whales, dolphins and fish.

NRDC's decade-long campaign to expose the dangers of active sonar won a major victory in August 2003, when a federal court ruled illegal the Navy's plan to deploy LFA sonar through 75 percent of the world's oceans. On the heels of this ruling, the Navy agreed to limit use of the system to a fraction of the area originally proposed, and that use of LFA sonar will be guided by negotiated geographical limits and seasonal exclusions. Conservationists believe this will protect critical habitat and whale migrations, and the Navy also retains the flexibility it needs for training exercises. None of the limits apply during war or heightened threat conditions. The pact demonstrates that current law can safeguard both the environment and national security.
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(continues)

You're welcome to check the portions of the article not quoted, above, and other sources for more, but the evidence they've presented, including info from the U.S. Navy, shows that high intensity SONAR is causing exteme harm to marine life that is far greater than "possible."

Aside from his usual duties as Traitor, Murderer and War Criminal In Chief, George W. Bush is a walking, talking ecological disaster area.