Saddam Hussein's decision to invade Kuwait in the summer of 1990 resulted not only in his own and his country's military humiliation, but also in the tragic devastation of the region's environmental health. The consequences of war are destructive by nature. These brutal endeavors are generally undertaken with the aim of reaching a greater good for the state involved. Hussein, the President of Iraq, ordered his military to cross the southern border of Iraq in August, 1990, in an effort to overtake the oil rich neighboring country of Kuwait. Hussein's primary goal in occupying the country was to annex it as a new province of Iraq and subsequently assume its wealth and income from oil production[1]. This violation of Kuwait's sovereignty, coupled with the potential impact of the action on the world's fossil fuel market, met with great disapproval from the international world.
After repeated diplomatic efforts exhorting Iraq to vacate the country, the United Nations issued a resolution condemning the invasion and declaring that Iraqi forces must immediately withdraw[2]. When Hussein refused, a coalition of forces led by the United States intervened and, through military operations (now known as the Gulf War), defeated the Iraqi Army and liberated Kuwait.
In an attempt to strategically crush Kuwait's future economic viability, while simultaneously slowing the enemy's pursuit of his retreating army, Hussein ordered a "scorched-earth" campaign in which his forces destroyed 751 active oil wells (igniting 650 of them, which burned continuously for over eight months), dumped an estimated 4 million barrels of crude oil directly into the Persian Gulf off Kuwaiti shores[3], and created subsequent land pools of over 60 million barrels of crude oil covering some 50 km2[4]. This blatant destruction of the natural environment, caused by the desire to retain regional power following a failed military offensive, indicates the deficiency of Hussein's decision making with regard to environmental ethics. No consideration was afforded the land and water, or the consequences of their ruination for humans and their habitat.
The Malicious Destruction of Land
The indiscriminate ruination of the earth on such a massive scale was unethical particularly in its intentionality. In taking such action, the Iraqi Army assumed that as human beings they had a right to inflict damage on the environment for perceived military and political gain. They relegated the nonhuman world to virtually absolute subordinate status. In this regard, their action parallels the form of discrimination observed in the days of chattel slavery and in the pre-Civil Rights era in the United States. The presumption that one sub-population of the world (whether white males or the human species as a whole) has an inherent right to treat other populations (whether human or nonhuman) in any manner they wish is both dangerous and immoral. The earth and all its inhabitants can be said to have intrinsic value, which should be respected and preserved. Simply because humans can exert their will and power over the environment – as in burning oil wells or polluting waterways – does not validate such behavior. The presumed intrinsic value of the earth and all its inhabitants invalidates such behavior, making it unethical.
The environmental ethicist Michael Nelson has indicated many of the rationales and perceptions humans have offered concerning their treatment of nature. He presents them in an orderly «general attempt to move from narrowly instrumental, egocentric, and anthropocentric values to broader social, biocentric, and even intrinsic values»[5]. Our attitudes and values, he observes, «profoundly affect the manner in which we treat something, including the places we call 'wilderness»[6]. We can assume, likewise, that Hussein's actions in 1990-91 were a reflection of his own attitudes and values. Clearly, his attempt to subordinate a sovereign nation to himself through military power demonstrates his belief that he had the right to possess a land mass, its natural resources, and its people to satisfy his own desires. His actions reflected his egocentric attitude, including a sense of entitlement to whatever he wanted regardless of the ramifications, which extended to incalculable environmental degradation. Completely disregarding the intrinsic value of either the extracted oil or the surrounding land impacted by the uncontrolled oil release he allowed, Hussein saw the oil merely as a tactical tool to exploit for his army's safety. While a simple preservationist argument such as the natural resources argument, which Nelson cites[7], could be used to demonstrate a moral public duty to preserve the Kuwaiti oil fields for future fuel requirements, a more nuanced argument could look beyond the extrinsic value to the intrinsic value of what is customarily viewed as a natural resource.
The intrinsic value of our natural world appears to have been of no concern to the Iraqi soldiers and leaders when they unleashed hundreds of millions of gallons of oil into the land and seas of Kuwait. Had they thought about the ramifications of their actions, they would have realized that by their method of economically weakening Kuwait and tactically slowing their enemy's pursuit, they were destroying an extensive component of the natural world. The beautiful sand dunes crossing the landscape to the north, the precious streams and rivers flowing to the Persian Gulf, the majestic underground reservoirs of oil lying beneath the surface can all be seen to possess intrinsic value, exclusive of what humans can gain instrumentally from them.
Explaining the concept of deep ecology in the context of Buddhism, Deane Curtin offers an ethical mindset for perceiving and appreciating intrinsic value. Deep ecology holds that the nonhuman world has the same right to live and flourish as humans have. In polluting the ground and water of Kuwait, the Iraqis caused great ecological damage to the inhabitants of the region--and to the region itself as a place of inhabitation. In the absence of ethical awakening, like that implicit in the self-realization of deep ecology, humans are susceptible to making unethical decisions with harmful consequences. As Curtin indicates, there can be "no release from human suffering until human beings experience themselves in the dimension of all beings," and contemplate that even a mountain has a way of "walking" (or "being"), as do they[8].
The value of land, whether construed intrinsically or extrinsically, is upheld by global governance provisions, such as the chemicals regime discussed by Henrik Selin. Although he focuses on the international regulation and use of hazardous chemicals, Selin offers considerations applicable to the damage done to Kuwaiti land by Hussein. In particular, the physical health of land is of critical concern to both nonhumans and humans. He provides examples of environmental degradation and the subsequent health impacts on local populations: «The average nine-year-old male beluga whale in the St. Lawrence estuary has high enough concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to be treated as a hazardous waste under Canadian legislation…Since a chemical park with twenty-five companies opened in Wuli Village in eastern China in 1992, it has become one of possibly several hundred Chinese 'cancer villages,' with a rapid surge in cancer-related illnesses and deaths»[9].
Similarly, the release of noxious oil particles into the air throughout Kuwait following the oil well burnings can be expected to induce human illness.
The difficulty, also indicated by Selin, of establishing effective policies and administrative structures for managing hazardous chemicals in an international context[10] is necessarily compounded in a situation of war. Tactical decision-making far outweighs environmental concerns, thereby ensuring that the land together with its ecosystems will become yet another casualty of war. The collateral damage stemming from pollution of the battlefield can be compared to the death of an innocent civilian caught in the crossfire of two opposing soldiers. The ecological life of the land is lost, and a human life in the other - while the loss of ecological life places more human life in jeopardy.
The Necessity of Environmental Restoration
Once the earth has been damaged by human action, the possibility of restoration may be considered. Some environmental ethicists regard restoration as an ethically problematic rendition of the ecosystem, and others regard it as an ethically appropriate measure to take. Robert Elliot challenges the "restoration thesis" of land developers, who claim that «the destruction of what has value is compensated for by the later creation (recreation) of something of equal value»[11]. In the case of Iraq's oil burning campaign, it could be said that Hussein made the calculated decision to destroy the land, water, and natural resources of Kuwait during his military's withdrawal, with the aim of restoring their value and profitability once he regained sufficient capacity to retake the country. This may stretch the restoration thesis far beyond its usual application, yet it presents a rationale for the unbridled destruction of Kuwait's natural assets. It is more likely, however, that in retreating, Iraq simply wished to weaken its adversaries.
Elliot's view that restoration does not truly restore nature serves to underscore the extent of the environmental damage caused by the oil burnings. He observes that in restoration work, «what the environmental engineers are proposing is that we accept a fake or a forgery instead of the real thing…they merely fake nature…[offering] us something less than was taken away»[12]. After being polluted with overwhelming amounts of crude oil, Kuwaiti land could never regain its former beauty and value. Any restoration efforts made in the region would inevitably fail to compensate for the environmental destruction caused, despite the fact that such efforts might maximize utility[13]. Nonetheless, restoration should be attempted, since even partial restoration is beneficial. The environmental ethicist Andrew Light observes that restorations are not necessarily bad but are simply "second best," providing us not with "authentic" nature but with "artifacts"[14]. Environmental restoration has social, economic and political importance, and consequently should be undertaken.
Any restoration of the oil swamped Kuwaiti land must inevitably lead to the question of what the future of the land is to be. Can the land be applied to urban or agrarian development purposes? Discussing the two land-use reform movements, Natural Systems Agriculture and New Urbanism, Ben Minteer argues that responsible human agency offers opportunities for sound environmental practices, in what is called the civic pragmatist tradition in American political and social thought[15]. New Urbanism is a "social architecture" that alleviates environmental injustice by achieving a sense of community through smart design and access to open, natural public spaces[16]. Natural Systems Agriculture «avoids the excess of a purely economical anthropocentrism»[17] by moving from mono-cropping to mixed-species planting. Whether such innovative urban and rural practices could be successfully implemented in Kuwait would depend upon extensive land restoration as a precondition.
The Malicious Destruction of Water
Hussein accomplished the release of an estimated 4 million barrels of crude oil into the Persian Gulf by way of spills from the oil loading terminals, mainly from the Mina Ahmadi Sea Island, and damaged tankers[18]. While the Gulf of Mexico oil spill by the British Petroleum Company in 2010 was far greater in volume and apparently a result of negligence, the 1991 Persian Gulf oil spill was wholly intentional. In addition to discounting the intrinsic value of water, the authorization of this spill discounted the pain and suffering caused to marine organisms making the Persian Gulf their home. Marc Bekoff argues that animals are "subjects" having their own lives, not "objects" to be treated as backpacks, couches, or bicycles[19]. Yet even objects may be treated beneficially: it is doubtful that if Hussein had viewed the Persian Gulf as an opulent home of his own, he would have chosen to coat it with toxic oil.
Economic and military gain does not excuse the decision to pollute the regional waters, for long-term loss far outweighs short-term gain in this case. Discussing the Nam Theun 2 Dam project in the Mekong Valley of Laos, Thayer Scudder indicates the limits of short-term gain in view of long-term loss. Construction of the dam offers major short- and medium-term benefits, including hydropower generation, irrigated food production, and urban water supplies; but it also entails significant long-term, besides short-term costs, including ecological degradation and human displacement[20]. Similarly, polluting the Persian Gulf may have served Iraq's short-term need to inflict strategic damage; yet it was devoid of long-term damage assessment.
The impact of overwhelming oil spillage on port cities such as Kuwait City, Basra, and Doha, Qatar, can be compared with Hurricane Katrina's impact on the city of New Orleans. Both natural and built environments were devastated by surging waters carrying industrial residue and waste into residential neighborhoods; and poorer residents were disproportionately harmed. As indicated by Amy Liu and Bruce Katz, regional disparities, including concentrated poverty in urban core areas[21], reflect and augment vulnerability to environmental injustice. In the Persian Gulf case, the majority of the citizens of port cities exposed to the oil release in consequence of their proximity to it were people of lower income, who worked within the shipping or oil industry and had little to no ability to flee the man-made catastrophe unleashed upon them. By contrast, wealthier citizens were able to flee inland or escape the country.
The Relevance of Environmental Justice
Environmental justice is characteristically concerned with harms done to vulnerable populations through environmental degradation, including pollution, erosion, extinction, and exploitation, and environmental exclusion, including expropriation of land and water and displacement of communities. Insofar as consent is given by those who are vulnerable (particularly the poor), the question of whether people should be paternalistically protected arises, in which case their consent, if not free and informed, would be invalid. Kristin Shrader-Frechette discusses whether such paternalism is unethical or can be a praiseworthy means of helping people fight environmental injustice[22]. She provides the example of the Royal Dutch Shell Company, which has produced oil in the Ogoni region of Nigeria for the past fifty years and, in doing so, has caused the death of approximately one thousand Ogoni people, while making at least thirty thousand of them homeless as a consequence of explosions, oil pollution, and flaring natural gas[23]. In this case, as in that of Kuwait, an outside entity inflicted tremendous damage upon those native to the area involved. Concerning Kuwait, if the international community had anticipated the impending environmental impact of his withdrawal, there may have been a concerted effort to prevent Hussein from implementing his decision to despoil the region. Such outside help could be viewed as paternalistic toward the native population. Yet, as Shrader-Frechette indicates, paternalism is justified in cases of exploitation that can cause harm without the free informed consent of potential victims[24]. The support of external powers fighting to halt damage to Kuwait could be justified, accordingly.
The inhabitance by Kuwaitis of areas replete with oil wells and pipelines can itself be seen as an example of environmental injustice. Throughout the world, industrialized areas are typically owned by the wealthy but populated by the poor, who consequently suffer the environmental burdens of society disproportionately. Discussing the location of many solid waste transfer stations in lower class neighborhoods of New York City, Julie Sze writes that the residents «commonly complain about home invasions by large and aggressive rats fat from eating endless supplies of garbage and about children and elderly who could not breathe because of the truck and garbage fumes»[25]. In Kuwait, the wealthy royals did not reside in proximity to the polluting oil wells, which provided wealth to the country – and particularly to the rich themselves.
Even before these wells were torched by Hussein's troops, the Kuwaiti poor shouldered an unfair proportion of the health burdens caused by oil production. Simply to move from an industrial area does not resolve its environmental problems, however. In the United States, the invention of the automobile allowed residents to move from the urban industrial core to the world of nature (suburban nature), where the ample benefits of outdoor recreation could be enjoyed. This is chronicled by Robert Gottlieb, who indicates in the case of Los Angeles that appreciation for nature actually led to its unfortunate destruction. Metropolitan developers were not content to leave the land as it was, but altered it to fit their unnatural aesthetic concepts of nature[26]. While the affluent could purchase homes in the suburbs and cars for transportation to and from the city, lower class citizens were typically left behind, with industrial plants, diesel truck traffic, and noise and air pollution from the industrial corridors throughout the inner city[27].
Environmental justice requires that any regional human displacement, whether that of "urban flight," daily commuting, or land-use plans, be equitable in relation to vulnerable human populations. Governmental inattention to the environmental impoverishment of lower income workers prior to Hussein's invasion facilitated his infliction of greater damage on them subsequently.
It can be added that besides human physical health, human emotional health was subject to this damage. Evidently, wealth itself does not produce true happiness. Instead, this arises from other factors, including seven identified by James Speth: family, finances, work, community and friends, health, personal freedom and personal values[28]. It is undeniable that war places all these at high risk of depreciation and loss. Purposeful territorial destruction beyond that of combat can only increase such risk, thereby causing emotional together with environmental degradation.
Conclusion
By unleashing millions of gallons of crude oil into Kuwait's land and water – and air, into which smoke plumes rose containing high levels of toxic particulate matter – Hussein demonstrated in war the disregard for environmental ethics that is generally associated with economic development. His personal anthropocentrism, commonly called egoism, admitted essentially no regard for other humans, or for nonhuman entities. Hussein's behavior indicates the extent to which humans may choose to destroy their environment—not only for the sake of profit but dismally as a "parting shot" at their own kind.
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