Destroying the Garden of Eden

The following is a link to a video report on the environment in Iraq from the United Nations Environmental Programme:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UASfxGC7ZO0

The video explains how in 1991, after the United States withdrew forces from Iraq, the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq were forced to continue the fight against Saddam Hussein on their own. In order to demolish these forces and their resources, Hussein damned and drained the marshes in the South, which were once called “the Garden of Eden” and as a result, driving the Marsh Arabs into internal exile. After the second U.S. invasion in Iraq and once Sadddam Hussein’s regime fell, the southern Iraqis immediately destroyed the dams and returned the marshes to these areas. Unfortunately, the water has been greatly affected. For example, Stalinization levels have changed and now, the water is not safe to drink directly from its source. In response, six water treatment plants have been implemented to purify the water—the water is once again available and useable, but it took great pains and pricy reforms to bring the marshes back.

I found this video interesting because it specifically focuses on war tactics that actually exploit environmental degradation, as opposed to simply the negative impacts that the environment experiences due to warfare. This environmental warfare appears much more intentional and deliberate, but I am forced to question, if you can in fact compare the two, whether it is worse than the United State’s influence on the Iraqi environment. American forces are not actively destroying river systems to devastate Iraqi livelihoods, but they are, nevertheless, waging a war that still has its own environmental consequences. The United States is also extremely invested in the production of oil, which is a large factor in environmental degradation. Can exploitation of a land and its resources for the United State’s own interests be compared to deliberate environmental warfare?