Environmentalists Lose Court Case in Hawaii

Environmentalists have lost their court case against the US Army:

A Stryker Brigade, the Army’s most modern fighting unit, had been ordered to halt training after a federal appeals court in October found that the Army had acted illegally when it decided to set up the brigade in the islands. The Army already has set up the brigades at bases in Alaska and Washington state.

The environmental group Earthjustice sued the Army on behalf of three Native Hawaiian groups who argued the Stryker vehicles and their training grounds would harm cultural sites and the environment.

U.S. District Judge David Ezra said in his ruling that his court has profound respect for Hawaii’s cultural history and its unique environment. But, he said, "In this court’s view, there are few things that are more important than the lives of those men and women who serve in the armed forces."

The ruling allows the Army to train with new equipment and exercise both individual Stryker soldiers and units. It must also take extra steps to protect the environment.

For those who don’t know what a Stryker is here is a picture of one:

This law suit is IMHO is completely ridiculous because the Stryker is basically an armored truck with a machine gun.  If this wheeled vehicle is a danger to the environment than all trucks in Hawaii should be considered a danger to the environment.  Yet you don’t see anyone trying to ban armored trucks used by banks or large delivery trucks in Hawaii. 

Why I bring this up is because it has been speculated before that there is a possibility of Stryker based units conducting regular rotations to Korea if the Second Infantry Division is completely pulled off the peninsula.  This would allow the US military to keep a force projection on the peninsula without keeping permanently stationed troops there.  The US military has already on multiple occasions deployed Strykers to Korea to test this concept. 

If Strykers do make regular rotations to Korea, than a court ruling against the Stryker Brigade in Hawaii could become significant because anti-US groups like Green Korea can use that court ruling as justification to remove Strykers from Korea because if they harm the environment in Hawaii they must also harm the environment in Korea.  Yes I know this is ridiculous but this is Korea where anti-US groups successfully started an anti-US hatefest in 2000 over the dumping of formaldehyde down the drain in Yongsan, which supposedly harmed the environment while Korean companies continue to dump incredible amounts of industrial waste into the country’s rivers polluting them and no one cares.

So fortunately the Hawaii court case was dismissed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the environmentalists come back with something else.  Environmentalists have long loved to go after the military.  If it wasn’t woodpeckers on Ft. Bragg it was turtles on Ft. Irwin they are suing the army over.  US environmentalists have much in common with Korean environmentalists in the regard that they don’t really care about the environment as much as using environmental issues to push their own political goals.  In the case of the environmentalists, they use the environmental issues to draw a wedge between the general public and the US military and shutting down training land in order to effect the readiness of the US military.  They do this because they are fundamentally opposed to the US military more so than protecting the environment.