U.S. Chief Justice: "The purpose of the army is to cause harm to the environment"

An outmost outrageous example of the U.S. Administration's cynicism:

Court Weighs Concerns on Whales and Military
By ADAM LIPTAK in N.Y. Times (October 8, 200)

...

"Justice Breyer wondered whether the two interests involved — the environment and national security — could ever plausibly be reconciled.

'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?'”

By the way, the answer is: YES, they do, they'd have to. If the U.S. Army were as smart and as sophisticated as it pretends to be in their propaganda and if their purpose was to defend the U.S (as opposed to harming the environment) , they would prepare environmental impact assessments of their missions. And if they did and they proceeded with the same caution in every other aspect of their missions, they would be able to solve problems much more efficiently, saving U.S taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. They would be able to solve such problems as they have been struggling with in Iraq and Afganistan for many years now and which they seem to be unable to solve at all at any cost.