“The whole point of the armed forces is to hurt the environment”

It’s looking very likely that the Supreme Court will rule against whales in the Navy sonar case. With the justices arguing that only the Navy knows what constitutes a national crisis in their justification for conducting sonar exercises, and suggesting environmental concerns are over hyped. Most disturbing is this statement from Justice Stephen Breyer, appointed by President Bill Clinton:

“The whole point of the armed forces is to hurt the environment,” he said. “You go on a bombing mission — do they have to prepare an environmental impact statement first?”

I’m surprised this fairly offensive statement didn’t get more press coverage. It’s an insult to everyone serving in the military, who are putting their lives on the line to try and stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan, who made a monumental effort to deliver aid to Indonesia following the tsunami:

U.S. servicemembers have delivered more than 610,000 pounds of relief supplies to the region. In the last 24 hours, U.S. helicopters delivered 5,560 pounds of water, 142,940 pounds of food and 2,100 pounds of supplies.

Understanding how working for stability and security are equivalent to destroying the environment requires a head-spinning abuse of rationality, which is probably the Court’s intention. If they can convince us the purpose of the military is to destroy the environment, then they can argue that the military can ignore any environmental protection, because they are contraindicated to military goals.