23 to 40% of returning soldiers, this within Army medical circles notorious for obscuring the effects of Pentagon and White House policies (i.e. Agent Orange, Gulf War syndrome, depleted uranium, etc.). Yet in thinking about this grief filled issue, it seems obvious that beyond political theater, all war is ultimately war against the Earth.

The tons of explosive that were launched in the bombardment of Afghanistan killed many humans, some supposedly our “enemies,” but all of the deadly poisonous material fell upon and punished the Earth.

The shock and awe of which the American presidency once prided itself destroyed many of the Baathist regime’s buildings, yet also despoiled vast tracks of the Iraqi landscape while depleted uranium weaponry poisoned the very ground of Iraq, to wreak havoc in the human DNA life stream for an unknown time forward.

The UN estimates that as many as a million unexploded cluster bomblets remain as land mines in Lebanon, turning that once fertile land into killing fields often for children and for farmers who must return to their land.

The wars that rage in Africa are the most horrible and humiliating for women and children who are pawns in the struggle for mineral wealth and political power, victims in the corporate funded competition to determine who will be in "best" position to rape the Earth for profit.

Outside of military war there is another great violence, the overwhelming human consumption which is poisoning the land, the seas and the very air we breathe. Consumerism has become a religion in the United States with celebrity status during the “holidays,” as people maul one another for a discount toy or trinket whose half life to the garbage dump can be overnight, whose manufacture depleted the earth and whose refuse is often poisonous.

The Earth has vast regenerative power and She has born the burden of our ignorance until this present point when Her life systems are breaking down world wide. Members of our government, proud of their retrograde thinking, still debate the merits of global warming as valid science, that which (Vice) President Al Gore termed an inconvenient truth, and scientist James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia movement, now terms the end of Eden.

This week I call your attention to these articles on what we euphemistically refer to as the “environment,” a.k.a. our Mother, the body and blood upon Whom we live and breathe and have our being. May She be healed as we are healed, and take our place as stewards of this precious Home. In the name of that healing and forgiveness, there are several following articles on those who suffer from the many wars now raging on Earth, wars which always have "two losers."

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Earth

The End of Eden: James Lovelock Says This Time We've Pushed the Earth Too Far

The Breathing Earth (Also, see:

http://www.fourwinds10.com/NewsServer/ArticleFunctions/ArticleDetails.php?ArticleID=11979

Climate costs: The global picture

Africans are already facing climate change

Voices from the Gas Fields

Cracking Up: Ice Turning to Water, Glaciers on the Move and a Planet in Peril

An Inconvenient Truth

The Post Carbon Institute

War

Iraq war vets struggle with hidden wounds

57 unarmed Palestinian minors killed by IDF since June

Lebanon mines continue to kill

US rides wave of weapons sales

Behind the Numbers: Untold Suffering in the Congo

In War-Riddled Congo, Militias Rape with Impunity

Amnesty International USA uman Rights Pledge

Save Darfur

Every War Has Two Losers: William Stafford on Peace and War