Peter, the environment and national security.

Here’s what Rep. Roskam has to say this week:

“In a scary throwback to the Clinton Administration, the 2008 Intelligence Authorization bill passed last week in the House diverts US intelligence resources away from critical national security missions to study global climate change. While climate change is worthy of study, US intelligence services are supposed to be focused on threats to our national security, not threats to the environment…While global climate change is a serious concern we should be watching closely, this environmental phenomenon is being researched by more than a dozen other federal agencies. The subject of global warming is by no means getting the cold shoulder from the federal government.” (Italics mine)

First of all, it pretty much looks beyond hope that Peter will be able to see anything good from the Democrats, and that is frightening. Forget about the fact that finally there is a call to accountability that the Republican-controlled House and Senate basically just ignored to the peril of our nation. But to call global warming an “environmental” phenomenon with all that we now know is a joke; at least, Peter, admit that the evidence seems to indicate global warming is a consequence of human industrial waste. And if Peter can’t make the connection between global warming, carbon-emissions, energy resources, poverty and war, he really is dim.

The timing of his statement, however, is particularly interesting, given that the Director of National Intelligence himself declared that climate change is a national security issue. As written in the Boston Globe just this past Sunday:
“In a letter written last week to the House Intelligence Committee, Michael McConnell, director of national intelligence, said it was ‘entirely appropriate’ that the intelligence community prepare an assessment of the ‘geopolitical and security implications of global climate change’…But intelligence officials have already recognized the importance of studying how crises caused by climate change, such as famine and rising sea levels, could affect the security of the United States. Even as Congress was debating whether to order a national intelligence estimate, intelligence agencies had planned to include a discussion of global warming in a report next year on US security challenges through 2025…Last month, a report written by several retired generals and admirals concluded that climate changes posed a ‘serious threat to US national security,’ and could further weaken unstable governments in developing countries.” (see http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/05/13/intelligence_chief_oks_global_warming_study/ for full article).

Perhaps most disappointing for me is Peter’s shameless partisanship. Routinely he has been trying to invoke the names Pelosi and Clinton to scare people, when it is more than clear that “Bush and Cheney are in charge” are the words that are scaring most of the world and hurting almost all the good that America can stand for. Peter himself has quickly become a “scary throwback to the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Gonzalez policies run amok of 2002-2006”. He must be one of the only one’s left who doesn’t see that this is a dead regime, and even most Republicans are just waiting for them all to go away.