"Green" Warfare
May 19th 2011 16:43
I recently read an article, “Army Testing New ‘Green’ Bullets,” on Fox News.com (May 4, 2011), and it piqued my interest. I’ve always had a lot of respect for the United States Army (my father served in the Army during WWII), and soldiers, but it seemed strange to me that the Army would be concerned with killing the enemy in an environmentally friendly manner.
I know our Army does its best to arm our soldiers so they can protect themselves in the best possible way while carrying out their mission. Doesn’t it? That’s the reason the Army gave when it switched to 7.62x45 mm cartridges from 7.62x51 mm cartridges during the Vietnam War; soldiers could carry more ammunition on missions and outgun the enemy. Now, the Army is passing out a “non-toxic, frangible bullet” (“U.S. Military “Green” Bullet,” Don Mikko, FIREARMSID.COM) to the troops in Afghanistan.
The bullet contains no lead to contaminate the environment if it doesn’t hit a Taliban or al Qaeda fighter, and if it does, they won’t have to worry about dying from lead poisoning. Instead, the bullets are manufactured from “mixtures of powdered metals, and/or coated metal powders or particulates that are consolidated to form dense metallic materials.” (“U.S. Military “Green” Bullet,” Don Mikko, FIREARMSID.COM).
One of the prime advantages of this type of bullet is that it is completely recyclable; the Army can round them up from the firing ranges, battlefields, and bodies of enemy combatants, grind them up into the composite metal powders, and mold new bullets. How’s that for green. I see a new form of summer employment for kids here; collecting bullets at night when the firing ranges aren’t being used and selling them back to the Army for, let’s say, $0.10 each. Of course, the Army would have to forbid the kids from digging around in corpses to recover their booty (kids can get pretty aggressive when promised a bounty).
But, on a more serious note, if the U.S. military was really serious about “greening,” it would do something about recovering land mines and unexploded cluster bomblets. “A basic cluster bomb consists of a hollow shell and then two to more than 2,000 submunitions or bomblets contained within it.” (“Cluster Bomb, Wikipedia). Often, all of the bomblets don’t explode, leaving them to be found by children who play with them until they do explode, killing. Land mines are usually planted just below the surface of the ground to help protect conquered territory, protect territory from being conquered, and as a cheap way to make up for a lack of manpower and armament. Most of the time, no map is made of land mine placement, and after the resolution of the conflict, the mines remain in place, waiting to kill and maim people and animals who step on them.
If the retail industry can use RFID tags to track items through the purchase cycle and prevent theft, why can’t the military attach an RFID tag to every land mine and cluster bomblet? RFID tags are tiny tags that send out information in the form of radio waves. This information can be picked up by a scanner. So, at the end of a conflict, or after a cluster bomb has been dropped, or after whomever planted land mines no longer controls the territory, demolition teams could go in with scanners, locate the mines or bomblets before the local civilians do, and collect the munitions before they do any unintended damage.
But, couldn’t both parties in a conflict just go in with scanners and remove the land mines of the other party before the end of the conflict? Of course, and maybe that might just obsolete the use of land mines. And, making the conflict less bloody red might make it a little more “green.”
I know our Army does its best to arm our soldiers so they can protect themselves in the best possible way while carrying out their mission. Doesn’t it? That’s the reason the Army gave when it switched to 7.62x45 mm cartridges from 7.62x51 mm cartridges during the Vietnam War; soldiers could carry more ammunition on missions and outgun the enemy. Now, the Army is passing out a “non-toxic, frangible bullet” (“U.S. Military “Green” Bullet,” Don Mikko, FIREARMSID.COM) to the troops in Afghanistan.
The bullet contains no lead to contaminate the environment if it doesn’t hit a Taliban or al Qaeda fighter, and if it does, they won’t have to worry about dying from lead poisoning. Instead, the bullets are manufactured from “mixtures of powdered metals, and/or coated metal powders or particulates that are consolidated to form dense metallic materials.” (“U.S. Military “Green” Bullet,” Don Mikko, FIREARMSID.COM).
One of the prime advantages of this type of bullet is that it is completely recyclable; the Army can round them up from the firing ranges, battlefields, and bodies of enemy combatants, grind them up into the composite metal powders, and mold new bullets. How’s that for green. I see a new form of summer employment for kids here; collecting bullets at night when the firing ranges aren’t being used and selling them back to the Army for, let’s say, $0.10 each. Of course, the Army would have to forbid the kids from digging around in corpses to recover their booty (kids can get pretty aggressive when promised a bounty).
But, on a more serious note, if the U.S. military was really serious about “greening,” it would do something about recovering land mines and unexploded cluster bomblets. “A basic cluster bomb consists of a hollow shell and then two to more than 2,000 submunitions or bomblets contained within it.” (“Cluster Bomb, Wikipedia). Often, all of the bomblets don’t explode, leaving them to be found by children who play with them until they do explode, killing. Land mines are usually planted just below the surface of the ground to help protect conquered territory, protect territory from being conquered, and as a cheap way to make up for a lack of manpower and armament. Most of the time, no map is made of land mine placement, and after the resolution of the conflict, the mines remain in place, waiting to kill and maim people and animals who step on them.
If the retail industry can use RFID tags to track items through the purchase cycle and prevent theft, why can’t the military attach an RFID tag to every land mine and cluster bomblet? RFID tags are tiny tags that send out information in the form of radio waves. This information can be picked up by a scanner. So, at the end of a conflict, or after a cluster bomb has been dropped, or after whomever planted land mines no longer controls the territory, demolition teams could go in with scanners, locate the mines or bomblets before the local civilians do, and collect the munitions before they do any unintended damage.
But, couldn’t both parties in a conflict just go in with scanners and remove the land mines of the other party before the end of the conflict? Of course, and maybe that might just obsolete the use of land mines. And, making the conflict less bloody red might make it a little more “green.”
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